Philosophical Questions 6 Good and Evil? 1

I am only giving my opinion, and please feel free to disagree. Please don't hate/bully/dislike the "novel" just because of my opinions. The purpose of the Q/A is to prompt YOUR thinking. Thank for reading this. (I'm, by all means, just an amateur. I don't study psychology nor philosophy. I'm just giving my point of views on these broad, undefined questions.)

How can one distinguish between what's good and what's evil? Well, there are many ways to tackle this problem. This question will span over a few chapters as it's too broad. Today, let's start with a hypothetical/real-life situation about doing a good (or evil?) deed.

Imagine a random stranger is handing you a leaflet about a furniture shop. Will you take it? Assume that this leaflet is going to be completely useless for you.

I believe lots of the people will not take it, simply because they are not interested. But many WILL take it as they think they have done a good deed. Taking a leaflet is a simple job, and it's very easy to disregard. Just by one simple action, you have indirectly helped the staff who is handing you out the leaflets. To my knowledge, people who hand out leaflets can only receive their money after giving out all the leaflets. Is taking in a leaflet really a good deed though? On the superficial level, yes. You have helped a person who is in need, and you did something which seems to be morally good. Is this really the case?

Have you ever thought about the company who hired the staff then? Well, probably not for the majority of the people. You have perhaps helped the worker, but you just wasted the business's money. The furniture company hired the person to work for them, to advertise. If you are just going to disregard the leaflet, the advertisement is nothing but a failure. Now, you just did something "evil" as you caused a "morally negative event". Regardless of your intentions, you still made the business lose some money.

Well, you may ask - how is that an evil deed? If you treat helping the worker as a "good deed", then this certainly counts as an "evil deed". Now, this is for you to decide whether you should take the advertisement leaflet. By this point, you should probably understand that taking in/ignoring can both result in "evil deeds". I am assuming that your perspective on this has somewhat changed, or at least influenced.

But now: what if we change the situation slightly?

Imagine an elderly giving you an advertisement leaflet. You still have no use for it whatsoever. Majority of us will NOW take the leaflet because we empathise with the elderly. Working at such an old age surely is difficult. Majority of us will also think that they have done a "good deed" because they helped an elderly. But, nothing has changed. You are still wasting the business's money, and that's still an "evil deed". So morals change with age, and age is now a privilege? Helping out an old person is a better deed than helping out a youngster? That's, again, for you to decide.

Situation 3:

WitheringLeaf is shamelessly advertising YOU about his other book - Cultivator From the Modern World. What excuses do YOU have to not read the book? Not reading it means that you are not doing me a favour, and surely it's the same concept as the two situations above. If you ignore my advertisement, you are doing an "evil deed" as you are not helping others out. Morally, that's wrong. One should always help those in need. Is WitheringLeaf in need? Yes, he wants more viewers. But if you read it, there is no harm to anyone. So why not give it a try? This situation is not hypothetical, and I'm ASKING YOU directly why you are ignoring my advertisement. If you already did try out CMW, thank you. I appreciate it :)

Jokes aside, this topic of "Good and Evil" will be continued in the next chapter. This is just a "taster" for you to think about. Leave me a comment!

Chapter end