Doing Good is Good

"Morality - a system of conduct based on right and wrong." That's from a dictionary. Yesterday I waded into a discussion of Post Modernism and morality, and I kind of think I muddied the waters a little, even in my own head. Going back to basics I'm thinking this "system of conduct" evolved, (I'm going with the Scientific/Evolutionary view) in countless ways over our history. If you take the evolutionary tack, having a system of conduct based on right and wrong, must have given some people, societies, civilizations advantages over others. At the same time, this "morality" was used as a tool against others, as a tool of justification for both good acts and bad acts carried out under the cover of goodness. Ever since the Enlightenment, ever since Darwin and the Scientific paradigm, I do think we are stuck in a kind of Post Modern Morass, where its clear no one has a monopoly on truth. We can try to come to some kind of consensus, but when people start wielding "absolutes" look out! If there's no "god" handing down absolutes, then we are left to our own devices; each of us seeing partially, incompletely, maybe ineptly. We can venture some simple "rules to live by," - don't kill, lie, cheat, covet your neighbor's wife, etc. they've been handed down through the years probably because they make life a little simpler, neater, etc., but even these aren't hard and fast absolutes. If we are "the authorities" there are no absolutes. Doing good is good is relative too! It ain't in the human makeup. We can make rules up as we go along, (I'm a big fan of the golden rule), but we are "making them up." I'm thinking, like the Scientist, we ultimately try to go with "what works" (what does the evidence seem to support?), what tends to increase pleasure, quality of life, "goodness" for society as a whole? We might have some big ideals, but then we need to test them in the world. I'm thinking what's considered "good" is what has given us some kind of evolutionary advantage. Maybe part of that advantage has been our "flexibility" in maneuvering around the hard and fast rules. What was strictly forbidden in the past, what could get you stoned or flogged, what could get you a first class ticket to hell, is now just "a day in the life!"