You point out that there are acts easily agreed to be evil and acts easily agreed to be good, but that doesn’t imply a definable boundary between good and evil. First postulate a boundary between good and evil. Now, what is necessary to refute that boundary? A clearly defined boundary would require actions that fall near the boundary to always fall to on side or the other without fail. Easily, that is not the case. Stealing food is clearly evil if you have no need but the victim has need for the food. If the needs are opposite, then it is not clearly evil. So there is no clear boundary, but what would a vague boundary require? A think a vague boundary requires that actions can be ranked in a vague progression from “certainly good” through “overall good, slightly evil” and descend through progressively less good zones as they approach from one side, then crossing a “evil=~good” area, into a progressively more evil side. I do not see that is necessarily the case.
Stealing food is clearly evil if you have no need but the victim has need for the food. If the needs are opposite, then it is not clearly evil. So there is no clear boundary, but what would a vague boundary require?
You are pointing to different actions labeled stealing and saying “one is good and the other is evil.” Yeah, obviously, but that is no contradiction—they are different actions! One is the action of stealing in dire need, the other is the action of stealing without need.
This is a very common confusion. Good and evil (and ethics) are situation-dependent, even according to the sternest, most thundering of moralists. That does not tell us anything one way or the other about objectivity. The same action in the same situation with the same motives is ethically the same.
You point out that there are acts easily agreed to be evil and acts easily agreed to be good, but that doesn’t imply a definable boundary between good and evil. First postulate a boundary between good and evil. Now, what is necessary to refute that boundary? A clearly defined boundary would require actions that fall near the boundary to always fall to on side or the other without fail. Easily, that is not the case. Stealing food is clearly evil if you have no need but the victim has need for the food. If the needs are opposite, then it is not clearly evil. So there is no clear boundary, but what would a vague boundary require? A think a vague boundary requires that actions can be ranked in a vague progression from “certainly good” through “overall good, slightly evil” and descend through progressively less good zones as they approach from one side, then crossing a “evil=~good” area, into a progressively more evil side. I do not see that is necessarily the case.
You are pointing to different actions labeled stealing and saying “one is good and the other is evil.” Yeah, obviously, but that is no contradiction—they are different actions! One is the action of stealing in dire need, the other is the action of stealing without need.
This is a very common confusion. Good and evil (and ethics) are situation-dependent, even according to the sternest, most thundering of moralists. That does not tell us anything one way or the other about objectivity. The same action in the same situation with the same motives is ethically the same.
Thank you for pointing out my confusion. I’ve lost confidence that I have any idea what I’m talking about on this issue.