Is goodness an illusion?
In fiction involving demons it seems like a common trope that the demon will ask the protagonist about the flaws in their behaviors and perhaps tell them about their impure thoughts and berate them about how pious they behave outwardly. Like the demon is more concerned with what seems like hypocrisy and not on the belief of the demon that being good isn't even possible because goodness doesn't exist in its view. This is of course for literary effect. But how can we know if goodness is a real thing?
Comments (4)
The demon represents the bad, so of course it's going to exploit the weakness in humans. We know goodness is a real thing if we could tell the difference in our actions that one choice causes harm and another causes good. It means, we know there's a difference in those actions, unlike the demon who could only see the bad in people -- everybody is corruptible.
What makes an action good? Lets say there was a hod that created us all and only created us to causes us to suffer and die? If this god defines what good and best is than clearly our definition would conflict with that god's ends.
Or perhaps saving a life in the short run allows a chain of outcomes that brings a tyrant into power. There are limits to how far we can see into the future, but ultimately our action wasn't good?
In the abstract, it seems to me that a "good action" prevents or reduces net harm and reinforces itself as a habit in the actor as well as providing an example to others of "doing good".
Quoting TiredThinker
@TiredThinker, if this god defines everything as suffering and death, then our conception of the "good" would be different. 180 Proof alluded to the "actor" which, to us, means a moral actor equipped with the capacity to tell the difference between the good and the bad, despite the belief in god. This is the "humans" that we are right now.