What counts as "bad"?

[skeptikus]

Some things, like killing another human being for pleasure, is obviously an extreme form of bad, which we usually call evil. But some things are more subtle.

If I post a comment on socmed where I bash a person, did I do something bad? The obvious answer is yes. Because I did something than can potentially affect a person negatively.

But when I get backlash from supporters of the person I bashed, they feel good about themselves for defending who I bashed. They feel like they belong because they are fighting for the same cause. The person I intended to hurt might feel better about themselves than before my bashing because of all the support they got.

So did I really do something bad? (This is just one concrete example. You may discuss other scenarios.)

 

[Last_sunset]

I don't think things can easily be defined as good or bad because there are so many different perspectives and many things you might not know. For example is the person you bashed does horrible things to others what you did might be considered good from those perspective. While bad from just a bystanders. But I suppose if you had a set of criteria including things such as hurts someone else, has any kind of lasting negative impact. Ect. You could then define things as bad or not.

 

[JobuLio111m]

Objective morality is a tricky subject. Usually things that perpetuate survival are deemed good acts, but the water gets muddied when things start to layer up. But essentially everything after a certain point becomes the beliefs of the past, where it isn't statistically inevitable to have an emotional response to said action via evolution.

Killing animals is usually seen as "bad" when done for pleasure but socially acceptable to eat even if you've already reached the required amount of enzymes. If you don't care about intent and only care about action, then each individual can be even more condemnable. Each of us pushing more and more demand into the economy and as an inevitable outcome in our current system straining the earth further and further. So now instead of killing that animal, youre buying its meat at a grocery store. Is that "bad"? On one hand, sure. Youre a human being who needs some complex proteins only found in meat and some animal products. But you specifically picked out a meat from a conscious living organism instead of just ones product like eggs.
This makes it seem like a part of a bad action is that you cant feel separated from it. If you feel separated, if it's out of your consciousness, doesn't that make it better? This is entirely your choice to decide.

I'm not going to talk about how the universe without any conscious mind would never feel any sense of wrong for how its assortment of mass space and time interact, because I don't think any human is physically capable of seeing the world how it truly is outside of the human brain. You can still live by a morality if you want, since you have essentially no option.
But going by your example, it seems one way you could define morality would be as a set of commendable and reprehensible actions dictated by what will cause rejection from the group.

 

[Forever Sleep]

I suppose anything that hurts another person- especially knowingly, is bad. How to then react to that is complicated.

But take bullying- maybe it's not good to retaliate but then, if we don't stand up for ourselves, the bully may perceive weakness and bully even more. I suppose that's where law comes in. It's not necessarily malicious or aggressive- or shouldn't be. It simply states that if you do this, you'll be punished like this. Cause and effect.

I kind of admire passive people. I get angry with people who hurt others. I try to respond in a measured way but deep down, I'm feeling angry with them. I'm not sure it's good though. Retaliation on top of retaliation doesn't really get us anywhere.