notes-philosophy-ethics-abstractGood

Perhaps even more difficult than finding a definition of abstract evil. Some ideas:

Also, at some point the term 'entity' needs to be defined. Not sure how to do that yet. Something that has interests (in the 'this is in my interest' sense, not the 'this book is interesting' sense); perhaps also an entity must have the capability of making contracts with other entities.

I am not sure about the inclusion of 'life'. If there were a bunch of un-alive yet conscious machines who were happy, altruistic, competent, and experienced meaningfulness, that may be enough; do we really need growth, too?

I am not sure about the inclusion of 'lack of evil'. Perhaps evil is only evil because it prevents the other things on this list from occuring, rather than being axiomatic. If there were a universe of happy, altruistic, competent warring parasites who experienced a meaningful life, wouldn't that be good?

I stand by the inclusion of 'love', but it may be controversial. If everyone was happy, altruistic, competent, and lived a meaningful life, would this be good even if there were no love?

Note that the golden rule and many of Haidt's spheres could be thought of as implications of this axiomatically defined notion of good or strategies to achieve it in a community. E.g. 'purity' is needed to prevent parasitism as well as infectious bad habits that threaten altruism and competence; 'community' is an outgrowth of 'altruism'; 'authority' is to encourage a strategy of banding together which allows the group to fight parasitism. A 'good person' may be one who acts in such a way so as to further the achievement of the good (this may at times be construed as equivalent with altruism, or it may at times be construed as someone who follows these implied 'should's).