Going to throw out some fodder into the morality forum, feel free to reply / disregard / whatever.
I've been thinking about the etymology of the words 'good' and 'bad' as synonyms for ethical and unethical. It raises the question good at what? I think the implication is that the person who is 'good' is good at following implicit and explicit moral rules. Ok fair enough, but what's interesting to me about it is that it implies that morality is a domain of execution, that one can't really be intrinsically good or bad, but rather one performs in the moral domain. Our character is determined by how successfully we understand and follow moral norms.
So it frames morality as a kind of biological adjunct, those with a better ability to follow and adhere to norms should be more successful, more often. And we should expect the brunt of most populations to be generally good at adhering to the customs of their social group.
I've been thinking about the etymology of the words 'good' and 'bad' as synonyms for ethical and unethical. It raises the question good at what? I think the implication is that the person who is 'good' is good at following implicit and explicit moral rules. Ok fair enough, but what's interesting to me about it is that it implies that morality is a domain of execution, that one can't really be intrinsically good or bad, but rather one performs in the moral domain. Our character is determined by how successfully we understand and follow moral norms.
So it frames morality as a kind of biological adjunct, those with a better ability to follow and adhere to norms should be more successful, more often. And we should expect the brunt of most populations to be generally good at adhering to the customs of their social group.