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Meta-ethics is the study of the fundamental questions concerning the nature and origins of the good and the evil, including inquiry into the nature of good and evil, as well as the meaning of evaluative language. In this respect, meta-ethics is not necessarily tied to investigations into how others see the good, or of asserting what is good.
One standard of sufficient reason for allowing evil is by asserting that God allows an evil in order to prevent a greater evil or cause a greater good. [144] Pointless evil, then, is an evil that does not meet this standard; it is an evil God permitted where there is no outweighing good or greater evil. The existence of such pointless evils ...
[116] [117] As he clarified, "When we say that good is what all desire, it is not to be understood that every kind of good thing is desired by all, but that whatever is desired has the nature of good." [118] In other words, even those who desire evil desire it "only under the aspect of good," i.e., of what is desirable. [119]
The word "ethics" is "commonly used interchangeably with 'morality' ... and sometimes it is used more narrowly to mean the moral principles of a particular tradition, group, or individual." [ 8 ] Likewise, certain types of ethical theories, especially deontological ethics , sometimes distinguish between ethics and morality.
The theodicy argues that humans have an evil nature in as much as it is deprived of its original goodness, form, order, and measure due to the inherited original sin of Adam and Eve, but still ultimately remains good due to existence coming from God, for if a nature was completely evil (deprived of the good), it would cease to exist. [50]
The absence of good (Latin: privatio boni), also known as the privation theory of evil, [1] is a theological and philosophical doctrine that evil, unlike good, is insubstantial, so that thinking of it as an entity is misleading. Instead, evil is rather the absence, or lack ("privation"), of good.
In many Abrahamic religions, demons are considered to be evil beings and are contrasted with angels, who are their good contemporaries.. Evil, by one definition, is being bad and acting out morally incorrect behavior; or it is the condition of causing unnecessary pain and suffering, thus containing a net negative on the world.
In moral philosophy, instrumental and intrinsic value are the distinction between what is a means to an end and what is as an end in itself. [1] Things are deemed to have instrumental value (or extrinsic value [2]) if they help one achieve a particular end; intrinsic values, by contrast, are understood to be desirable in and of themselves.