| Illusion said: If good and evil is strictly a human invention I find it odd then that even a young child feels guilt after hurting his sister. Furthermore, if you look at history and even remote cultures that have been highly isolated from the rest of the world, these societies still almost always view as wrong common activities such as stealing, killing, rape, etc... Yes, each culture may enforce correct behavior differently, but there are certain behaviors that are prohibited or are at least viewed as a legitimate injustice in society and that should not be embraced. If there is no such thing as good or evil, then were the allied forces truly justified in opposing Hitler? If there is no right and wrong then under what basis should the death-camps be condemned by society? If good and evil is just an invented concept then why can't somebody else come in and change morality to make the death camps a morally virtuous activity? Even the Nazi's themselves knew that the death camps were wrong and for this reason they kept the vast majority of their heinous atrocities sheilded from the German public. All the propaganda in the world can't re-write good an evil because somethings are just wrong and every human being (no matter the age) has a tug in their conscience telling them thus. Our nature calls us to do what is easy and what furthers our own interests while morality invariably is difficult and requires our self-sacrifice for others. Morality runs contrary to our nature but when morality is disregarded all of nature (and society) invariably suffers. There is even a conflict inside our ourselves between our desire to do what is easy and profitable versus doing what we know to be right. This is a small microcosm of the spiritual battle that exists between good and evil. |
I think the key word is "almost". There are societies, times in our history where slavery, rape, even cannibalism has been accepted in one form or another.
The allied forces were not justified according to most germans I would assume, and had they (the nazis) won we would have seen a different society today where other things would have been acceptable. Does that mean we should ignore what we find right or wrong? Of course not. It is part of our development as a species and has been the recipe for our success in our evolutionary path.
And i often here the argument that if there is no fundamental "right" or "wrong", then why should we care? That would be like if I came in contact with a group of people who claim some earth spirit is the one that gives our lungs air and when I explain that it is actually a biochemical process and nothing spiritual, they decide to stop breathing because "what´s the point if it is only biology". They can still believe in a spirit even though it is a biological explanation behind it.
Just because this concept of morality, as complex as it is, is a human invention, doesn´t mean we should stop using it. It has proven to be an enormous asset to our development so the only logical answer is to continue with the constant discussion of what we find right or wrong for the better of society.
