Assignment 3: Cassie Adams

The terms good and evil are entirely subjective and can be defined differently by different people. In general, there are some moral guidelines that are followed by most everyone. For example, most people would agree that giving up your time or money to help others is a good thing while being selfish or stealing from others is evil. But it isn't as clean cut as the difference between black in white. If it were, then there would be no reason for war or conflict to exist. However there is often a gray area involved. For example, if someone were to let a classmate cheat off of them on a test, they might justify they're actions by saying that they were only trying to be a "good" friend. Others would say this is the wrong thing to do because cheating is clearly against the rules. 

Another reason that good and evil aren't so clearly divided is because some actions have unintended consequences. In some cases, we do things that do not have entirely good consequences simply because they are better than the alternative.  A good example would be animal testing. Some argue that animal testing is good because it allows us to conduct medical research that we can later apply to humans. Others say that it is unethical because you are harming the animals in the process. In this case we must decide if the benefits we receive as humans are worth the suffering of animal. Clearly it isn't as easy as black versus white.