Nothing Can Be Good or Evil in Itself Essay -- Philosophy essays

Nothing Can Be skilful or Evil in Itself Truth, beauty, and wide-cutness are not eternal, objective realities which man discovers, but are the creative products of the human mind as it exercises its go away-to-power. In other words, man is a creator of values. (Nietzsche) So what is steady-going and vicious, but that defined by man and therefore a stringently subjective concept. Could we, society, have one without the other? By determining what is good, we in turn determine what is evil. How do we know what they are that is if they really live on? One must first try to define what good and evil are before attempting to question their existence. What is good? Is it the selfless act of a volunteer at a homeless shelter or an proficient and truthful taxpaying citizen? Websters dictionary defines good as being of affirmative character, wholesome, and virtuous. (Merriam-Webster) A good will is not good because of what it effects or accomplishes--because of its fitness for atta ining some proposed end it is good through its willing alone-that is, good in itself. (Kant) In essence, the traditional sense of good is an act make only with the benefit of others in mind rather than for ones own individualized interests. However, for society to view this as good, an act must be intend to benefit society as a whole as well. Dr. Martin Luther Kings speech, I Have A Dream, is an excellent example of a good will affecting the society as a whole. King believed that the struggle for civilized rights was a part of a larger struggle in which the forces of emancipation and individuality, the forces of righteousness, would triumph over the forces of oppression and prejudice, the forces of ignorance. (King) He stressed freedom as a right, as an overall good... .... I Have A Dream. The 20th Century Mirrors of Mind. Second Edition, Revised. Winston-Salem, North Carolina Hunter Books, Incorporated, 1991.pp 138-140. Merriam-Webster of America. The Merriam-Webster Dictio nary. Springfield, Massachusetts Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, 1997. pp 325-326. Mill, John Stuart. Utilitarianism. philosophy A Literary and Conceptual Approach. Third Edition. New York Harcourt perk up Jovanovich, Incorporated, 1995. pp 306-319. Nietzsche, Friedrich. beyond Good and Evil. The Twentieth Century Mirrors of Mind. Second Edition, Revised. Winston-Salem, North Carolina Hunter Books, Incorporated, 1991. pp 16-20. Sartre, Jean-Paul. The humanism of Existentialism. Philosophy A Literary and Conceptual Approach. Third Edition. New York Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Incorporated, 1995. pp 434-443.