RETURN TO THOUGHTS

Compass of the Goodness of the World

I think the title might suggest something more interesting than what I have here. When I call this a compass, I mean “compass” in the same way as is meant in the “political compass”.

The Goodness-Badness axis: is the overall state of the world currently good or bad?

The Necessity-Contingency axis: To what extent is the moral standing of the world an inevitability (necessary) or can we change it (contingent)?

Here is who I think might populate each quadrant:

Marxists populate the Contingently Bad quadrant. They would say the world is rife with worker exploitation and imperialism. But things can be changed via a proletarian revolution whereby the workers control industry. Once this is achieved, the world will become good.

Anti-natalists also fall under this quadrant. They must think that the badness of the world is great enough to warrant a duty not to reproduce, and further that not reproducing would have a significant impact on the moral standing of the world.

Christian Gnostics are likely also in this quadrant, because the material world is created by the Demiurge to keep us from true spirituality, from immaterial perfection.

Neoliberals likely populate the Contingently Good quadrant. They would say more people are living comfortable lives than ever before. The history of the world is a history of increasing political liberties. Now that Capitalism has emerged victorious from the Cold War, slowly global governance institutions can help the world develop its moral standing, increase literacy, reduce poverty. This was not always the case, and people have had to fight to get where we are now, and so we should introduce checks and balances to make sure the world does not regress.

Those who are philosophical pessimists would populate the Necessarily Bad quadrant. They are committed to saying that there is inevitably great suffering, perhaps some internal contradiction in humans means we cannot help but experience this.

Finally, a view like Leibniz’s might fall under Necessarily Good. Suppose that an omnipotent benevolent God exists, then He would create the best possible world, therefore our world has the best moral standing, and God guarantees this as a necessity.

I am probably somewhere in the Contingently Bad quadrant.