The Etymology of Good and Bad

"To say of something which is that it is not, or to say of something which is not that it is, is false. However, to say of something which is that it is, or of something which is not that it is not, is true." -Aristotle

This is Aristotle's definition of truth. I think the same does not apply to the definition of good or bad. In fact, I once read that even philosophers could not define good. And yes, i do not mean wares. According to the Oxford Dictionary1996 edition, good was defined as "having the right or desired qualities; adequate".

The "right" or "desired" qualities. So what is the right qualities?

I think i would merely define good as "a type of value". But i would then fail to further define on the characteristics of this type of value. Because it would entail me to tautologically beg the definition of good to be "a type of characteristic" as well.

So what is bad? Not good?

I am referring to the value of good and bad itself as forms of judgements. Do they both possess epistemologically objective origins? Consider this philosophical question once read: Is the number 17 an existent entity? It may be similar to the concepts of both good and bad because, are good and bad by themselves really existent "out there"? Which would universally dictate morality, right and wrong? Or a more common view: like any other values, they are socially constructed concepts which are relative in nature. Then again, what is socially constructed would seem to be the portrayal of an action which would be catergorised as good. Not the controversially objective, existent concept of good itself.

Which would all seriously challenge the connotation of righteousness from an act deemed good itself; or wrongness from bad. Does this argument follow in the objective sense, or is it an invalid one?

I think now that good and bad have no definition "on its own". Rather, it seems that good and bad are merely meaningless concepts that categorise seperate sets of tangible behaviour in a manner defined by collective conscience and that they draw their definitions from the attributes of these sets of tangible behaviour they categorise.

Maybe that's the true definition.

The Sociology of Law

According to Anthony Giddens, society is an “institutionalized mode of conduct…”. It is a social system which organizes human beings as there is yet to be a better way to deal with the population (I suppose). The notion of society as being a social construct, however, is still debatable. At the opposing end, there exists a sociological camp which studies the science of society as an existence beyond subjective knowledge. That scientific methodologies prevail in validity became its evidence of objective knowledge. But even objective knowledge to its core is to a large extent presumed, thereby being tautological. The fact that individual experiences and phenomena in society are socially constructed forms the basis of the micro-level, phenomenological canon. The law therefore could not be rightly placed in between perspectives but rather, if one fails to see it in relation to either school of thought, the law appears to be drifting in a state of anomaly. This then seems to propose the notion that the law is a self-existent, uncaused entity that operates on the basis of its own workings. This is rather ridiculous to me like an octopus lashing out its tentacle!

Does the law complement society or is it a largely constructed concept? The former would intend to postulate that the law is part of an institutionalized limb; serving an intended function which are interdependent with other structures of society, inclining towards organic solidarity from a functionalist view. Durkheim advocates that society is greater than the sum of all individuals in that social relationships exist. This seems to suggest to me that the law could very well be a byproduct of society rather than a functional institution on its own. However, this would be impossible since Durkheim is a positivist. Could it be then, that the legal institution is a somewhat latent consequence of increasing structural complexity which took on its own form of functional autonomy? After all, there is hardly any formal legal system as opposed to minor traces of social rules during the ice age. Therefore, something that is successive might not necessarily be a social construct; it could merely be an evolution at a structural level.

On the other hand, is there relevance in resting on the idea that the law is nothing more than a valid conceptual definition imposed by any other person? Since we construct our everyday experiences owing to the doctrine of free will, it isn’t less valid to argue that the legal institution is not an impact of the external forces just because it is the collective consensus of a large population, is it? The law is merely an evolutionary concept of civilization which legitimizes social conventions.

I would be more incline to believe that the law is a social construct because it is a concrete expression of social rules, rules by which its origins lie in human interactions in the first place. It is a legal paradigm created to restrict and quantify human behaviours by seeking to cover every permutation of behaviours in society. The law tries to achieve certainty in behavioural patterns in order to classify appropriate social sanctions. But it is at this point where criticisms seem to be leveled at it. As Mead would suggest, human beings are not “cultural dopes” acting upon unseen social structures. They are conscious, active beings who do not passively submit to any form of determinism. Hence, it would almost be impossible for the law to predict human behaviours and intentions (because it is too mechanical and dehumanizing to do so) by which case the application of law seems to occasionally lead to absurdities.

Being an imperfect mechanism in itself, the law however, rightly justifies its existence. As legal realists would advocate, the law is man-made and therefore subjects itself to human imperfections. Thomas Hobbes would seem to justify its existence because it is the only legitimized way of bringing about social order. The law gives society a reason to abstain from anarchy in addition to the rational consequence of the demise of all self-interested human beings would lead to. Of course, a consensual creation of the law would seem to be far from reality for the Marxists. The law is just yet another ideological state apparatus to assert control over society. It would be hilarious if embourgeoisement became rife to a point where there would almost be no one to assert control over, save law creators themselves.

I was just pondering at the thought of social order being preserved and guided by a different “institution”: morality. Could morality itself be self-regulatory to the effect that the legal institution is redundant? After all, the law is often criticized for its lack of recognition for social conscience.

I once read a philosophical question on law and morality. It goes by the sound of “can there be immoral laws or illegal morality?” The answer was given to the affirmative. If so, then it follows that the law wasn’t created on the basis of morality. It may just be customary since social rules are cross-culturally diverse. This leads back to the argument that social norms are relative. Hence, a syllogistic illustration would prove that the law is not necessarily, objectively “right”:

Social rules are relative.
The law is based on social rules.
Therefore, the law is relative.

Stupid discovery, really.

At the end of the day, the law is a form of hegemonial social control that only a certain class dominates. As Marxist as this may sound, i think this stance proves to be the closest to the reality of law.

A year ago, i was introduced to a 'socially-perplexing' subject called "Sociology" and i have definitely been 'socially-influenced' into an eternal and cyclic world of sociological thinkers. I do not know whether i have completed the 'socially-internalizing' phase but I am now in another territory. One that would empirically challenge my socially-interpretative ways.

Broken Window Theory

Was half a bad day actually. Like they say, it gets worse till the end.

Not wanting to tarnish my blog with this irreversibly disturbing memory, I’ll cut the crap short. While waiting for the bus at 6something in the evening with a pal, we came across an elderly man who was seemingly going to collapse under his legs. Long story short, we were 'assisting' him halfway when it turned out he was a drunkard and we decided to ignorantly leave the atrocious scene. A lady was so naively kind enough to pay for him a cab. Stumbled upon him again when we reached; him walking at a swift pace, all the dramatic vertigo almost non-existent in him.

I used to despise taking the bus for several reasons obvious to many. This is one nuisance which I would not hope to encounter again especially after a tiring day as it adds substantial amount of crap to an already educationally-disoriented day. Apart from the fact that there was ‘drama’ to not only behold but naively drawn into which, at the very least, relieved our boredom of awaiting the bus, this was really a foul experience to run into.

However, stumbling upon such situations would almost be inevitable when the bus is a regular mode of transport. I had always disliked the bus station environment for its dilapidated landscape. As such, I often feel a certain unsettling ‘aura’ which seems to repel me from using the bus whenever possible.

It seems that such a condition has reinforced a certain perception. Minor distasteful ‘occurrences’ such as this appear to have served a latent function to somehow being functional to the organic whole of society. It perpetuates a certain extent of disorders in society to naturally cause a change in the structures governing the organic whole. This subsequently moves society to a new social equilibrium to restore social order and as such, social change is able to occur.

But I prefer to apply Merton’s concept of dysfunction here. The disruption of order and stability in the functionalist sense here clearly wasn’t necessarily anticipated nor intended in the theoretical ‘function’ a bus station would perform as an integrating role which contributes to the natural workings of the social system.

Hence, it is these unintended effects which seem to be the “broken windows” by which a spiraling effect of deviancy amplification originates. It signals a message to bypassers or even users that such “practices” ought to be the norm there. Left unresolved, the condition perpetuates itself, almost in an exponential manner, creating and attracting stronger a degree of such conditions. It acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy as this theory works on the basis of false apathy it radiates.

The solution is therefore seen to be the initial eradication of such a condition rather than allowing it to intensify. Realistically, I wouldn’t think that such a solution would succeed anyway. Because it seems inevitable, functional or otherwise.

So I guess no social change that is going to benefit society is going to happen anytime soon. I should probably just accept the culture as being relative then. Or, a less post-modernistic view that there are still inherent inequalities of power and wealth in any society and that therefore such a condition is inevitably prevalent, in our society at least.

Unless there are agents who deliberately break windows for conspiring reasons. Well indoctrinated individuals.

Let’s leave it there.

Justifying Justice - An objective law?

“The law isn’t justice. It’s a very imperfect mechanism. If you press exactly the right buttons and are also lucky, justice may show up in the answer. A mechanism is all the law was ever intended to be” –Raymond Chandler


“The Criminal Justice System Should Institute Rehabilitation Rather Than Retribution”. Proposing this statement was suicide to many. Indeed, it was. We left.
The law was always meant to be a “mechanism”, in many ways, similar to that of David Ricardo’s concept of the “invisible hands”. In this sense, I think the law is the best objective expression and a concrete version of social sanctions in society. From a constructionist perspective, it follows that societal rules must have paved the way to the creation of a legal paradigm, - one that ought to be seen as a “mechanism” which dictates normality and illegality- the Law.

I have always (and most people) tried to scale the opposing nature of objectivity and subjectivity to explain what I would consider an ideal framework. Contrary to many criticisms of such a belief, I stand by your side that the world and society isn’t realistically such. It is tainted with imperfections and prejudices that would make an ideal society an ideal itself. However, similar to Weber’s idealism, it was merely an ideal version of which the standards of society are to be contested, and that therefore, I use to trace back to the beginning of how things were objectively created to have been.

To the Marxists, the law has been always biased from the moment it existed. In fact, it was a concretely biased expression of the oppression in society! I think it is therefore the root by which it is seen as an imperfect mechanism; because it is the creation of the powerful, more dominant class in society to legitimize their ideologies at the expense of those who fail to “press exactly the right button”.

The law (objectively) is not an adversarial trial of luck. Those who weren’t advantaged in the law-making process would not be protected by the law and subsequently appear unlucky. The law does not uphold justice because it is a carefully crafted justification by which a certain class would be able to maneuver to rationalize inequalities. It is a perfect mechanism which was always intended to secure positions.

An objective law however, claims to promote justice. That in every wrong, they will be acknowledged to balance the equation. But it is this acknowledgement which seems to be the point where justice appears to be a subjective endeavour to pursue. “Acknowledgement” of a particular act is in itself interpretative. Two years ago, we have been rebutted that once a wrongdoer had committed a wrongful act, it follows that his rights should have been forfeited in the light of “lawfully” receiving punishment of a corporal nature. It was argued that the retributive laws recognize parallel justice in that corporal punishments are proportionate to the severity of crimes committed. We had responded then, that should a rape victim rapes back the offender to equalize the other’s act in the name of true justice? After all, it seems to be the most proportionate way to claim justice no matter how unethical it may be. Can justice therefore be partly unethical? Vengeance seems to have lost its character under the law.

As the law does not retaliate in an equal manner, it opts for the closest possible way. Freedom of movement withdrawn, lives taken away, and boiling down actions to monetary arbitraries. Realistically, there would definitely be actions that are not restorable to its utmost entirety in the most proportionate possible manner. Compensatory laws are one such. However, for this purpose of thought, being such would mean that justice can never truly be achieved. The law is like a vendor; a process by which an action is translated into another action that is collectively claimed to be on proportionate terms for penalizing purposes. In this sense, could we not say that retribution is equally less valid in upholding justice than rehabilitative laws already do?

My version of justice is not one upheld by the law. I would think that justice is a brutal concept of one hit one equals zero. That objectively, it is equal in every proportion. Not one which substitutes proportionality with “reduced” means that claims to be parallel to an act. Justice may be a neutral concept after all as ethics may not be an issue.

It remains that the closest possible route to justice whilst balancing ethics is the modified version of justice itself- the law. It is indeed an imperfect mechanism but not one that the law ever intended to be, because justice can never be justified.