‘Anything that people approve of is good.’
What is good? Good is good and that is final is what G.E Moore said. How can we approve of something that we, ourselves cannot define? There is no list in the world, which is split in two, telling us what is ‘good’ and what is ‘bad’. We can only associate 'good' with something that we have experienced and been taught from a very young age, so that we can weigh out good and bad. For example, if a young boy pushes over another little child, the mother would tell her son off, saying to him that he was naughty and he wasn’t being a good boy. Now this boy will learn that hurting some one else is not good and learn to compare his actions with a foundation that his mother built for him. As he grows up he would be able to understand any actions that may cause others pain, not just physical but emotional and mental pain, i.e., to hit, to steal, to kill etc. is wrong.
However, one can argue that if a child was brought up believing that hurting someone would be beneficial for them or for his or her people, than in their eyes that is also good. An example of this is the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine. Every day there is a new generation of suicide bombers being born in both Palestine and Israel because these babies are being born in a world where both sides are the enemies. The Palestinian children will grow up believing that the Israelis did them wrong and that bombing them is the ‘good’ thing to do as they are fighting for their cause. This also applies to the Israeli children, they will grow up believing that the Palestinians are the enemies and responsible for the grief and struggle in their country. We can criticise their actions as we have been taught that the actions that they are taking is wrong, however if the people who say that the actions of the Israeli and Palestinians are wrong, were brought up in the same culture, would they think that the actions of the two countries were wrong?
