Why be good?

Be Good,

if you canrt be Good,

BE CAREFUL!

Ethics are needed till you experience yourself in isolation...

To be good, or to become good, you need others to be bad (for comparison), because, alone on an island even to know that you are a human being you need another sample !

Now, in a society, ethics are needed to make life more safe and comfortable, like the traffic rules, and consequently, ethics are situation based, and so need to be constantly updated, reviewed on an ongoing basis, or else we have the present type of confusion, and the only benefit of such confusion is that it provides scope for professors in a philosophy class to add it as a topic !

Nobody can instill into your mind anything that you would not have there, already, albeit on the subconscious plane.

Not to say, that what is "good" differs according to the subject qualifying it.

Going to war, or collect unfair taxes is "good" from the government's point of view. But it is wrong according to people with a strong conscience, understanding and compassion towards others.

We all have "good" and "bad" defined in our hearts, and we all are different. And we all have different levels of susceptibility to being manipulated. Some people cannot be manipulated at all.

We have all experienced good and bad at some point in our lives. We enjoy when people treat us good and hate when people treat us bad. If you choose to be bad, then you must accept the same treatment from others. I know people who have said " I like to hurt feelings, steal, rape, cause property damage, and insult. But I have never heard of a person who has said that they enjoy to have those things happen to them. Ask yourself this, if you were trapped in a house with someone, how would you want them to treat you? Good or bad? The choice should be clear now.

If you want reasons to be moral, I think the only appropriate reasons are reasons that are internal to morality. Why be good? Because it's important to be a good person, and the life of a bad person is not an admirable life. Why not mistreat others? Because other people matter too. (And so on)

Of course, you can find other reasons: you might get in trouble, you might lose your reputation, God won't like it, etc. But those reasons are pretty lame.

I'd say there is a strong utilitarian argument in favor of ethical living. A society in which there were no ethical behavior at all would be extremely wasteful of human energy: everyone would always have to be looking over their shoulder and trying to defend themselves against the constant misdeeds of others. Also, without enforceable and effective property rights (and law of contract) economies simply don't work. To the extent members of a given society behave ethically, they spare their fellow citizens of this "burden of eternal vigilance and anxiety".

Such a society is also able to focus more of its human energy on cultural and scientific achievements that, in time, would give it advantages over less ethical societies. Eventually this innovative and creative "edge" would make them strong in both military and economic terms. Also, one could imagine that those in the more ethically advanced society would have a higher standard of living and would therefore be 'happier'.

good is a term for being correct ethically in whatever society u r in.

therefore the if u choose not to hurt anyone, u have automatically fallen into the classification of good in the opinions of people who think that hurting no one is a good thing. for that matter the definition of hurt itself varies. good is a variable based on other variables. its a a relative term.

ethics are a social factor, with different meanings. its society's values of good and bad in a person. a fine line divides good from ethical.

in the end fear and conformity is the only reason u have for being good. if u have no concern for the consequences, u have no reason to be good.

We need to be good to others because we want them to be good to us. This is what ethics or morals is all about.

Ethical codes have evolved to create greater degree of security and mutual comfort among people in a society, without which every individual would suffer greater discomfort and lack of security.

Proof of this lies in today's world where we care two hoots for ethics or morals and end up in considerably heightened strife and stress for everyone.

This gets very complicated.The first problem you must deal with is what you mean by "good".

Whose good? Under which value system? What is the guiding principle of your "good"?

Let's go Western. Let's say love of man is your guiding principle. Now develop your ethic. Take the trip.

Well, in my opinion, doing good in the real world, doesn't really benefit, well, it does to others, but not ourselves. From what i see, people will always take advantage of "good" people, like doing some charity. When you give them some, they'll want more. Also, most of the people(most, not all) won't appreciate what we do, they just don't care, so why do we even bother being "good"?

How can you be bad and not offend or hurt someone?

Too, just because you are here on earth, should you be subjected to the BAD of others!

If humans are bad to nature, nature makes everyone pay!

Cut down all the trees. the atmosphere is affected, everyone pays!