# Is there still good and bad?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-still-good-and-bad/990513>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [September 22, 2023, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-still-good-and-bad/990513 "2023-09-22T00:31:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 41

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**Author:** ![raspberry\_hunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@raspberry\_hunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raspberry_hunter)\
**Post date:** [October 2, 2023, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-still-good-and-bad/990513/41 "2023-10-02T19:03:18Z")

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> [@Babale](#):
>
> Haidt is arguing that because most people would be offput by a man having sex with a chicken despite nobody being harmed and no unfairness being created, this is evidence that there is a real and valuable thing called “sanctity” or “purity” that should not be ignored.

Huh, again take this with a grain of salt because it’s been so long since I read it, but my reading was not that there is a “real” thing called purity (whatever that means) but that human beings will tend to construct something called “purity” or “sanctity” that is important to us, and that this is a part of psychology that we can’t discount even if rationally there’s no reason for it. Basically, I agree very much with your #2 and I think Haidt would too, but I think he would say that people DO tend to make “sanctity” constructs out of societally preconceived notions and so therefore this is going to be a societal thing that governs people’s reactions whether it makes rational sense or not.

(I also agree with your #1, but I would also agree with Haidt that it’s not generally speaking the underlying reason why a person might react with visceral disgust to the idea. For someone like me, I might react with visceral disgust, then think through that and decide okay, maybe my societal preconceptions aren’t a good reason after all, and then think of #1 as a reason why it makes sense to object to it.)

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