Metaphysics

Someone mentioned to me recently, in discussion about some of these writings, to define some of the terms I'd used. Justice, honour, etc. they averred, mean different things to different people in different places, at different times.

There has been a trend in modern times for philosophy to degenerate into a sort of mass dictionary, as various people try to define more and more precisely the ideas about which they are speaking, rather than dealing with the ideas themselves.

The problem with that is that the ideas you can clarify into writing are the ones that science and language can already give you precise definitions for. Abstracts such as good, evil, honour, rights... these are things that, but definition, are beyond the scope of definition in 'real' terms. They have no logical basis, they have no foundation in the real world, so we can only define them in terms of each other.

We all know good and evil, we feel them, we understand them, but we can't necessarily define them, save in relation to our own society, our own upbringing. The trick, therefore, is to unify society, to make it a single system, so that everyone is brought up with the same, communal set of ideas about what constitutes good and evil.

It follows, therefore, that finding the society that operates best, and can cope with the strain of catering for the most people, is the one that will best serve these abstracts, because it is in harmony of understanding those ideas that people will be able to live together.