Personal Perspective and Society

¶ … Emotive Meaning of Ethical Terms" -- Part II Part II of Charles Leslie Stevenson's "The Emotive Meaning of Ethical Terms" is meant to be a continuation of the first part of the text -- an account in which he presents a general understanding of the idea of "good" as seen from and ethical and a philosophical point-of-view. The writer proceeds with providing his personal perspective on the matter in the second part of the text.

Even with the fact that Stevenson wants readers to gain a complex understanding of what "good" is as seen from a general point-of-view, he seems unhesitant about opening people's eyes with regard to the subjectivity behind this concept. I feel that Stevenson uses the text as a means to both emphasize the idea of good as being something that can be universal and as being something that is too subjective to be defined.

To a certain degree the writer intends to have readers acknowledge that the very concept of good is a paradox. It contradicts the idea of good and supports it at the same time -- a person can define good as being associated with something that he or she enjoys or can argue that something else is not good because he or she does not enjoy it.

In many cases society is the reason why certain things are considered bad and Stevenson wants people to observe how the idea of good is built upon the premise that things that are generally accepted are ok while things that aren't should be disproved. Even in cases when particular things are considered socially acceptable, they can actually be disproved by a smaller number of individuals. There is nothing to say that these respective people are not right in considering that that is not good.

Stevenson's example of an ammunition maker claiming that war is good is especially self-explanatory: some people believe some things to be good solely because of the effect that they have on them or on those close to them. As long as the munition maker thrives as a consequence of selling ammunition, he tends to focus on personal interests rather than on the fact that his products are used to kill people.

The idea of good is often based on the way that people perceive the environment that is closest to them. As a consequence, people in a community might feel that what they consider to be good is enough for them to compile a series of legislations likely to guarantee that respective good. This is why in many cases individuals end up promoting values that others disprove of, taking into account that they might have trouble acknowledging that these respective values harm others.

The fact that some people support an idea of "good" can make it possible for them to promote this value as being the best that society can get. As they attempt to make this good seem general, they are likely to influence others to either join their community or to simply accept that the respective good is part of a larger agenda that people are supposed to promote without actually enabling these people to understand why or in what way the action benefits them.

Society as a whole is inclined to accept a series of values that most people accept as being good. Even with the fact that ideas like democracy and feelings associated with helping others are promoted as also being good, it would be difficult and almost impossible to define good as a concept that all people can identify with.

By accepting the idea that there is a general form of good, one basically harms a limited number of individuals by contradicting them and by emphasizing that their understanding of the world is wrong. The fact that goodness is a subjective concept means that there will never be a universal form of good. It is possible to have a good that the majority of people agree to, but it is impossible to have a good that all people agree to. Depending on their background, individuals are more or.