One of the biggest, if most basic, issues of philosophy is the relationship between goodness and truth. Both are generally desirable things (if in fact they can be called “things”; they\u2019re not touchable, they\u2019re both abstractions). Truth<\/b> is supposed to be objective \u2013 if some proposition is true, it should be true for everyone, everywhere \u2013 whereby goodness<\/b> is often subjective, judged by the needs of a particular person. What\u2019s good for you may not be good for me. However, what\u2019s true for you should be true for me too. Of course, the question then comes up as to what truth is. The statement that \u201cJohn is everyone\u2019s friend\u201d may not be able to be classified as a \u201ctrue statement\u201d, because it could not practically be verified. The idea of \u201ceveryone\u201d is too broad. How could you ever know if John is considered to be a friend by everyone currently living on the planet? You could limit the statement to \u201cJohn is everyone\u2019s friend on the football team\u201d. Then you could test the statement, and if the whole team agrees that John is a friend, the statement enters the rank of \u201ctruth\u201d. Otherwise it remains but an opinion, like \u201cGod is everyone\u2019s friend\u201d.<\/p>\n
And as to goodness \u2013 can there be an absolute form of goodness, something that is good for every sentient observer? Or does all good depend on the characteristics of the observer, and thus generally varies based on that observer\u2019s needs? Are there any objective goods, or is good inherently subjective?<\/p>\n
I miss the days of college, when questions like these actually meant something. They got some interesting discussions going.Too bad that this kind of stuff just doesn\u2019t matter too much in most everything you do after college. It would be a better world if it somehow did.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the biggest, if most basic, issues of philosophy is the relationship between goodness and truth. Both are generally desirable things (if in fact they can be called “things”; they\u2019re not touchable, they\u2019re both abstractions). Truth is supposed to be objective \u2013 if some proposition is true, it should be true for everyone, everywhere […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}