About good and bad.

[yzb25]

Regardless of whether you believe in a greater good or evil, you probably have at the very least a subjective notion about what actions are positive and what actions are negative.

Furthermore, even if you can't easily associate a precise number with one action or another action, you can still have this sense of "oh this action was more positive than that action", or "meh that action was relatively neutral / close to 0".

My question is - can you place every single possible action on a spectrum of good and bad? e.g.

"
Action A < Action B < Action C exc.
"

If not, can we divide "goodness" into several "types"? Like: (1) How truthful / rational your action was (2) How much happiness / fulfillment your action gave yourself / others exc. and then grade the action according to each type like:

"
under (1):

Action A < Action B < Action C < action D exc.

under (2):

Action B < action A < action D < action C exc.
"

Or is it simply impossible to truly grade the positivity / negativity of actions like that, even with the use of multiple spectrums?

[XDarkDragonDX]

This gave me a headache

[Apocist]

No, everything is a situational change. Something that provides a positive result will likely provide a negative result to at least something else in some way or form. But not always, just like not always doing something 'bad' will be 'bad' for everyone.

Perspectives, alignments, morality levels, beliefs. This will all play a factor. Our species is a culturally organized society, so nothing will be constant.

[secondpassing]

1) somewhat
2) yes
3) yes, because you probably worded that question wrong.

Let me tell you why.

One
We can place every action on a spectrum of good and bad. In fact, we do it all the time (or at least, I hope you all do.) Whether or not it actually is is another question.
There are two caveats to using an absolute spectrum of good and bad though a. once a "good" action is good enough to pass the threshold for satisfaction, it is unfair to grade it against other good actions b. humans are imperfect judges.

For instance, I drive my sisters to school and I think this is a good deed.
Driving sisters to school < Driving sisters to school safely < Driving sisters to school perfectly

I believe most people, myself included— believe that I need only drive my sisters to school safely. As while driving perfectly is clearly a better action, it is unreasonable to think that I could do it.
Likewise, it is unreasonable to expect people to save the world. If this were the case, just about ever other "good" action would be reclassified as "bad" as it could not compete with saving the world.
I would also be hesitant to classify every other peoples' actions as good or bad.

Two
You can categorize goodness however you want. Not going to stop you there.

Three
It's truly impossible to grade actions taken into an absolute spectrum of good and bad, because as humans, we are imperfect and limited. We have no way of knowing all the possible outcomes. We cannot calculate all the variables to bring about the best decisions. All we can do is to do our best, think the best our minds can think, and protect the good intentions of the heart.

I think a good guide to make good decisions is to do things:
1. that fufills your responsibilities/duties
2. with pure intentions
3. that produce good outcomes

________________

I believe in a being that sets the standards of good and bad.

________________

Apocist mentioned something interesting. What I interpret it as is that: since everything is subjective and hard to read, a bad action could actually be good.
But this is not true. Every action that produces good results made with bad intentions is bad.

[Apocist]

Apocist mentioned something interesting. What I interpret it as is that: since everything is subjective and hard to read, a bad action could actually be good.
But this is not true. Every action that produces good results made with bad intentions is bad.

Close. A bad action may not be bad at all. It could have bad intentions for someone else, but is good for the action taker. Or vice versa. Good and bad is a 'bad term' to use.

People talk about 'standards' and 'common sense', but that actually isn't universal. Just commonly known in your own society.