Is the distinction between good and evil any different than the distinction between hot and cold?

Let’s see. My husband has to use tongues to pick up the piece of toast I can hold in my hand. I’m freezing cold if the house is set at 70 degrees, other people still want it colder. However, if I was just dancing for an hour, 70 might feel great.

I guess everything is relative, and most lines are grey fuzzy lines rather than a simple decision of black and white.

Good and evil leaders. It reminds me of Soledad O’brien (Cuban-American black journalist) talking about Castro. She loves America, and the American way, but she remembers her mom saying Castro was better than Batista, because when Castro came in Afro-Cubans were treated more fairly. They had work, were educated, and more equal.

Apples and oranges, but as with everything, there are degrees to malevolence as assuredly as there are to temperature. Which is why the penalties for shoplifting differ from those for murder. Believe me, you don’t have to think too hard to come up with an extensive list of petty to moderate evils you must negotiate as matters of routine.

Hot warms you, cold freeses you to death.

It depends on how much is something hot/cold, what are the circumstances, how is the source of heat used, what is your tolerance to heat/cold, etc.
The same goes for good and evil.
There is moderate evil too, we just call it necessary evil.

I think you’re sort of reaching for a metaphor that just isn’t… quite… there. But try this on for size.

The difference between good and evil, in most human experience, anyway, is the difference between any extreme position and a livable, workable middle ground.

For example, extremes of heat and cold will kill any human. But most humans can make do with temperatures in a middle range: not too hot or too cold, and we can find a way to survive. The same with ideas: extreme avarice and extreme altruism will kill its practitioners. Those who never spend a cent can die covered in “riches” and their accumulated wealth, yet have no friends, no family, no loved ones who will remember them fondly. And those who give, give, give and give more never have lives of their own. Both extremes are evil. There’s a comfortable middle ground where people can either “live well” or “just scrape by”, but they can seem to make do, for the most part. (Alternatively, people who “live for money” and those who can’t rub two nickles together also demonstrate the extremes that make for “evil” – a bad life.)

One can objectively measure temperature, and assign descriptors to different temperatures. One cannot objectively measure evil or good.

And while one person’s cold is another’s comfortable, one can still assign a value. But one person’s good is another’s evil, and one cannot objectively compare them.

No, or rather, maybe. It depends upon how you feel.

Perhaps yes because, as with cold or hot, how you perceive the actual temperature of the water depends upon your temperament.

We might be able to agree on the extremes but it is those degrees in between freezing and boiling that are the cause of our consternation. What is tepid to me might be hot to you or cold to @zenvelo.

And so it is with good and evil. What is acceptable to you, perhaps even worthy might be beneath contempt to me and vice-versa. Good and evil, as concepts, are both dependent upon your particular frame of reference. Is life good? Is it bad? What is good for me might be bad for you and it might even depend upon where we are at that particular time in our lives. What is good today might not be so good next week.

Life just is. It is neither good nor bad. It is our perception of that life that labels or categorizes it.

Yes they are different. They are not the same.

Good is good. Evil is bad. There is no debate.

We can spend all day debating the good and bad things about heat and cold.

Good and evil is essentially subjective, even if often many people can agree on certain extreme cases.
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Heat is objective. If there’s ambiguity, it’s about perception, relative perspectives, or measurement issues, but it essentially is a one-dimensional measurement. Good and evil are not that sort of thing at all.

Many people and morality systems try to assert good and evil apply to their own cosmology and value system, which is also relative.

There may be no such thing as moderate evil in your moral system, but I don’t even know what that moral system is.

For example, my moral system considers the destruction of non-human species and their habitats for human economic & population expansion to be one of the greatest “evils”. I know many don’t agree.

Black, and white = hot, and cold in this context. Whilst temperatures could indeed be subjective, as far as what one considers hot or cold, it’s not as “up for debate” as “right or wrong.”

People must understand that if you are born into a certain culture you may ,by default, align morally with your peers. Like myself, in the US. I find certain things deplorable, and others commendable. There are stark contrasts between my beliefs and those of others in other places.

If a foreign country invaded the US, and tried to instil it’s beliefs on me, I’d be pretty mad. In fact, I don’t even like my own government trying to get in my business…

What my government and I may agree/disagree on as hot, or cold, would certainly be different from what I would think was right, or wrong.

So. Yes. It’s different, to me…

For instance. The government and I, may agree that 30°f is cold.

We wouldn’t agree that war would be the good/right answer, in almost any situation….

Heat is energy. The heat and light from the sun make life possible. There are sun gods, but no cold gods.

Scientists will tell you that there is really no such thing as “cold”, only the absence of heat.

The absence of good does not necessarily result in evil.

So this analogy does not fly…..and I vote no….

@ lost in paradise there are winter deities. They are connected with death, though.

I think that the distinction between good and evil is similar to the distinction between hot and cold. They are both relative to how one perceives them. As pointed out, some will feel that it is warm outside while other experience it as cold. Put one hand in a container of cool water and the other in warm water, then switch. The warm water feels hot and the cool water feels cold. Expectation influences the judgement of whether temperature or events are desirable or undesirable, good or evil. Hot and cold, good and evil are not absolutes.

Temperature follows the physical laws of thermodynamics and we can explain it precisely. Good and evil are human constructions that we cannot readily explian.

@djbabybokchoy I must disagree with you. There are many people who some consider good and holy, but that I consider evil incarnate. There are acts and behaviors that many consider evil that I consider benign and even expressive of good.

Good and evil are very clear in my mind. I think what you are talking about is the in-between. Not really good but not evil either.
Like feeding a wild animal. It’s nice to feed it if it’s hungry but if you can’t keep it up, then you are doing it no favors. It may lose the desire to hunt for it’s food, or the food you give it may make it sick. It is bad but not evil. Then there is the possibility you managed to help it get strong enough to survive winter and it doesn’t lose it’s desire to hunt for fresh meals in the wild. So that’s good and not bad and again not evil.
Consequences and intention is what determines whether something is good or evil.
Someone hates hearing crying baby because it keeps them up. They call the cops and say the child is being abused. The baby is taken away. (Evil)
Someone hears a baby crying all the time and yelling and slapping. They call the cops because they are concern about the baby. The baby is taken away. (Good)
In the second one the intention was to save the baby from abuse. The first one was to punish the family with the crying baby for selfish reasons and out of vindictiveness.

Now the third option. Some hears a baby always crying and they are worried that the baby is being abused. They call the cops and the baby is taken away.
It is neither good nor evil. If they had taken the time to know their neighbor and see how they interact with the baby and maybe find out if it has a condition, (like colic) then they may have found the baby is in no danger. Their intention was good but the consequences may be bad if indeed the baby was just colic. But it wasn’t evil.

I remember this because my son was colic. I had to make sure my neighbors understood this. I did not want them to call the cops because he was colicky. He would scream sometimes like he was dying.

Hot and cold I believe follow the same rules of consequence. Does the temperature cause any reaction. To cold, then things freeze and get damaged. To hot, the same , applies. But it has it’s in-between. In the sweet spot, it does minimal damage or no damage. May just cause some discomfort to some and to others relief.