Perspective

Literally, one's standing point, or point of view.

What you can see from where you are.

The picture above is a literal demonstration. Artists must create perspective illusions for themselves- they might be able to see the entire bottle straight-on, but must draw it like they have only seen it, and can only see it, from one angle at a set distance away. Sometimes an objective perspective is forgetting what you have seen before and adjusting- or restricting- your views to that of those around you.

Just as perspective is affective visually, it is ethically, and affects judgment. The tendency is, the closer one is with another, the more good and bad qualities that can be identified in that relationship. With a narrow perspective, judgments will be assumed without full knowledge of a situation, which is naive, as well as the easy thing to do.

Notes on Ethics

These notes are derived from "Being Good: A Short Introduction to Ethics" by Simon Blackburn.
They are brief concepts from studies of ethics.

Freedom from Bad (Makes you "good")

• "Almost any positive good can be described in terms of freedom from something."
• For example, a "good" person might be free of sin, or free of greed, selfish nature, anger, or jealousy.
• "...What to be avoided... what can be achieved..."
• So to be good, you just have to avoid the bad.

Reasonreason
Is it possible to classify an action as "good or bad" without knowing and fully understanding the reasoning or significant reason behind it?
Can motive justify misaction or character flaws? (She wants to kill an educator- that is secretly a dictator forcing souls out of a society.) Can it taint a good deed? (She saved the lives of the innocent- to improve her reputation, she couldn't give a crap about those innocents.)

//
Is the motive for goodness 'seeking happiness?' Because happiness is equivalent with pleasure, and self-satisfaction.
Pleasure in its most basic, simplistic form is sex.
Sex, we find, is equivalent to death of a person.
Sex is the obligation or dependence upon another human being for pleasure, and if a person has not found satisfaction in life before finding sex, then they have a dead soul- they sort of "cheated" with the whole "seeking true happiness" concept.
AN ETHICS EQUATION: Good//happiness//pleasure=sex=death (of ethics in a soul)


The Bible is a reference for ethics. However, many statements that were to be taken literally when The Bible was written are NOT to be taken literally today- in fact, not only would some of these be illegal, but well-educated Christians would not be able to approve or condone many actions that The Bible suggests. It is merely context and is relative to the perspective of the reader. But if it was morally just to do something at one time, why should it be less moral now? I believe that, as many Christians do, many suggestions of The Bible relevant to its time period are wrong. Slavery, treatment of women, sacrifices- were these ever morally just, or did society just mature?


And three words that sum up all of ethics, and put a focus on perspective and good and bad and all that...



It's all relative.

Good

adj-morally excellent; virtuous; righteous; pious
adj-satisfactory in quality, quantity, or degree
adj-of high quality; excellent
adj-well-behaved

Synonyms:

• pure
• moral
• worthy
• obedient
  
• kindly
• humane
• gracious
• conscientious

Etymology? Origin: before 900; Middle English (adj., adv., and noun); Old English gōd

Questions I have:
Is good just an opinion? Or is good a matter of perspective?
Does the absence of good make someone wicked, or evil by default?
She is well-educated, refined, and has a high moral standing, in regards to Animals, especially. All of these are generally accepted as good qualities- what good does she lack that makes her so Wicked?

Answers I am seeking:
The definition of Wicked proved to be the absence of all that is good. However, the definition of good is a series of opinions that are all formed under different perspectives. Not every person will agree on the nature of a person, and whether they are a good person. I also think that if we were discussing the nature of someone we knew personally, while we might say that they lack anything good, I am not sure that we would go so far as to condemn them of being evil. If one has many unselfish desires, how can they be classified as Wicked? Was the society of Oz just being ignorant? (I'm thinking yes.)

Wicked

Dictionary

adj- intensely or extremely bad or unpleasant in degree or quality
adj- highly offensive
adj- having committed unrighteous acts
adj- morally bad in principle or practice

Thesaurus
Synonyms:

• severe
• distasteful
• loathsome
• repelling
• revolting
• unholy
• arch
• mischevious

Wiktionary says:

Etymology? Wikked is derivation of the word wicke- which meant "wizard, sorcerer"
in Old English!



SLANG: excellent; awesome; masterful; deeply satisfying

More synonyms:
evil
immoral
malevolent
malicious
nefarious
twisted
villainous

Questions I have:

Was even "the Wicked Witch of the West" born 'wicked?'
Was she born 'good?'
Was she ever 'wicked' at all, or was she just different from the rest of her community.
Did she simply understand more about her society?

Answers I am seeking:
The absence of all that is good. The presence of something evil. Using the definition of Wicked provided here, along with other words listed in the reference device (such as good, since Wicked seems to be the absence of that) form your own opinion on whether good and bad are determined by a person or their society. More so, are you born "good or bad," do you decide your moral status, or does your society make that decision for you? The highlighted words are the ones that I find most relevant to direct the focus towards this answer.