Why Good and Bad

There’s a conversation I’ve been having with a longtime friend of mine who’s been living in Japan for the last few years.

We’re considering Good and Bad. And whether or not they exist.

I say they do.

He says they don’t.

Neither of us is too attached to our side of the argument which has led to some good progress. We’ve come to some conclusions. And asked more questions than we maybe expected to.

I’m going to share our discourse up until this point and take the next step in the conversation because it’s too interesting not to share:

I said Good and Bad exist.

He asked where.

I said everywhere.

He said, can’t be.

I had to agree because stars certainly don’t care about Good and Bad.

He was winning.

I gained some ground by asking why I feel them if they don’t exist.

He admitted he feels them too.

We agreed that Good and Bad exist, but probably only socially.

They exist because we agree they exist. They’re abstract. Conceptual.

We each know what Good and Bad Is, but none of us completely agree on the nature of Them. Even when They’re prescribed by a religion, each of us picks and chooses what Good and Bad we accept for ourselves.

Right now, if I understand correctly, we are at the question of why.

Why do we feel a need for Good and Bad?

We’ve been using the example of systemic racial injustice.

I say it must be Bad.

He doesn’t disagree, but he asks why I feel that way.

Systemic racial injustice must benefit me. So why do I label it “Bad”?

I say it does me material benefit, but emotional detriment.

And again back to why. Why the emotional detriment?

Now I’m proving the emotional detriment of systemic racial injustice to white men in order to answer the “why” of Good and Bad.

There are stakes on the table.

So we come to the question of discussion “Why would I have moral interest which is adverse to my material interest?”

This is the truest test of Good and Bad we can think of.

The answer I am prepared to offer today appeals to science.

My DNA is 99.9 percent the same as almost any other human being's. This is to say that the only worthwhile difference between myself and any other person is context.

I exist in the context of a white man having been born and raised in Oakland, NJ.

Had I been born in the context of a black woman in the Bronx I would still be almost the same as myself, except for my features of blackness and Bronx-ness.

I would be practically no different except for everything that had ever or would ever happen to me. The circumstances of my existence are the real difference. And circumstances are constructed.

The construction of adverse circumstances against one almost identical being to benefit another strikes me as unfair. And fairness is biological. In biology they call it “Inequity Aversion.”

It is defined on Wikipedia as “willingness to sacrifice material pay-offs for the sake of greater equality.” Advantageous inequity aversion is the sort which we describe in our example of systemic racial injustice.

We protest because it is in our nature to despise inequity. Awareness of and despise for inequity is what qualifies knowledge of Good and Bad.

This awareness, the scientists say, springs from a need for cooperation.

It is the cooperative spirit which defines Good and Bad. Willingness to cooperate toward equitable ends is Good. Unwillingness to cooperate toward equitable ends is Bad.

The next question which seems to need answering is what are the conditions which give rise to cooperative tendencies?

The advantage of cooperation is being able to accomplish tasks which are beyond what I alone am able to accomplish. This ambition, to accomplish greater tasks than an individual can, requires understanding of value.

Value is in resources.

Resources include time, space, material, and effort. These are just the ones I can think of at the moment, but I’m sure that any subject or object which is limited could be included under the heading, “resources.”

In order to understand “value” we must understand that all resources are limited. The limit of resources is what necessitates cooperation. We cooperate to ensure that limits to our own resources will not affect us.

Cooperation is social insurance.

When I provide value to my fellow, I presume that my fellow will provide value, in turn, to me.

To use resources without in some way exchanging an equal resource is Bad.

To use resources in exchange for other equal resources is Good.

Likewise, Systemic Racial Injustice is Bad because when I remove value from my fellow, my fellow ought to be allowed, equitably, to remove value from me.

Inequity is a threat to my safety. It is a threat to the safety of all humans. It is a threat because the way we treat the least secure of us is the way we invite ourselves to be treated in the absence of security.

We could extend this argument from fellow humans to fellow life if we were inclined; that by consuming animals we invite consumption by animals due to our sameness under the laws of nature. But other animals generally don’t pose sufficient ability to provide equitable value to us as we could to them, or ability to remove similar value from us as we do them, so we don’t concern ourselves with providing equal value to them.

Fear for my safety is not a line of argument which I find satisfying to my moral bones, because it precludes Good for the sake of Good, which makes me wonder what the point of Good is, but it’s an argument that makes sense to me.

I’ll have to give a more satisfying answer more thought, but for now, to me; Good exists in terms of cooperation toward equitable exchange of value, and value exists in terms of finite resources.

I am prepared for a rebuttal.