What is Goodness?

How do we define what is morally good? What is morally bad or evil? There is a long history of trying to determine this.

Existence of the Universe is Good

I just don't buy that the universe can be absolutely good by itself. How do we know this?

It is, because it is logically necessary that it be good. Without a universe there can be no meaning at all. Without a universe there can be no possibilities. Everything is relative, so by "good" we mean it is better that something else. Without a universe there can be no differences.

What can we possibly mean by good, if there is no universe? There is no right action if there is no universe. This should be self-evident. There are no possibilities of action if there is no universe. No possibilities at all is certainly bad. Oblivion, to not have existed and for nothing to have existed must be bad. Whatever we mean by "good" can not obtain if there is no universe. The possibility of good is always better than no possibility of good.

Consider the universe as a ruler with good possibilities on one end, and bad possibilities on the other end. Goodness is differentiated from badness. If the universe does not exist, then the ruler has zero length, and there is no difference between good and bad.

Oblivion (the state of no universe) can not in any circumstances be better than an existing universe, because an existing universe gives you possibilities. And differences.

There is absolutely no opinion in here. This is a straight logical necessity. And it is self-evident, not needing a lot of logical analysis.

This is probably the strongest part of my thesis.

Good relative to Bad

We use the terms good and bad. We point to some action, and say "that is good." What we mean is that that action is relatively better than the other actions. One action is better than another, the other being worse than the first.

Every action is relative to other actions. There is no zero point, above which actions are good, and below which actions are bad. It depends on the situation.

You may find yourself in a bad situation where all choices are disagreeable. There may be one actions that is slightly better than the other choices. It would be morally right to perform that action, and we would call it the good action, even if it is just the best of a bunch of bad choices.

We are still talking about objective measures. When I say action A is relatively better than action B, that does not mean that someone else will find it differently. The moral scale is an objective scale that is the same for every person and every viewpoint.

If there is some actions that is good, then there must be some action it is being compared to that is bad. There is no maximum goodness, and no maximum badness, but we can compare two things and say what there difference is. if there was only one action possible in the universe, we can say whether that action is good or bad, because we have nothing to compare it to.

There could be any number of gradations. for example you find yourself faced with five possible actions, all of differing amounts of goodness. One might be much better than the rest, or there might be a bunch of them all about middle value. The only thing that matters is the differences between instances.

Creation of anything is good

I keep saying that the existence of the universe is good, but what I mean to be saying is that the existence of the universe is better than the non-existence of the universe. Thus the act of creation is good action, because the result of the action is the existence of something that was not there before.

The creation of the universe is nothing more than the creation of all the things in the universe. There is no distinction between the sum of all things in the universe, and the universe itself. Any goodness that comes from the creation of the universe, is derived from the goodness that comes from the sum of creation of all the things in the universe.

This is not a fallacy of composition or fallacy of division. These fallacies occur when there is no justification. It is a principle of materialism that there is nothing more to the universe than the material in the universe. Even emergent properties are nothing more than the material that they are based on.

I am generalizing that the creation of ANYTHING is a good thing. At point in time A a thing X does not exist. Then at point in time B, thing X exists and the rest of the universe is exactly the same. Thing X has been created. The fact that X now exists makes it such that state B is better (more good) than state A. The creation of thing X accounts for more possibilities in the universe.

Consequentialism

An action can be judged only by the outcome or results of the action.