Discussion What makes someone a 'good person'?

[camusfan_ig]

Something I've been thinking abt lately. I feel like ppl kinda don't put much thought into it. Is it their actions? Thoughts? Words? Maybe a combination of all of them? Idk, lemme know what you guys think

 

[Maravillosa]

I think a good person can be determined primarily by their actions. Good words and thoughts are of secondary importance.

 

[Forever Sleep]

Their actions- absolutely. Some people make themselves sound so righteous when, they're not at all.

I suppose I think having good thoughts is maybe similar to having bad thoughts. So long as we don't act on them, we're just more neutral really. People would never even know either way.

I suppose it's possible to argue that a person who has bad thoughts but who doesn't act on them is maybe better than a person who has good thoughts but doesn't act on them. They are putting in the greater amount of effort to control their actions.

But, actions can take many forms. Not just what we do- what we say too. Soneone can surely be considered good if they say kind things. Genuinely that is. But, just talking and listening to someone can be kind/ good. That's still a form of action though. As is demeaning everyone around.

 

[Dejected 55]

It's tricky. Bad people can do good things... so just judging people on what they do doesn't reveal the whole picture. Why are they doing those things?

What if a person gives lots of money to charity and helps in soup kitchens... but talks himself up as being such a good person because he helps the "little" people? Is that a good person, because he does good things? But he does them so people will think he is good and he wants credit for the good he is doing.

What about people who actually cause problems that they then fix BUT you only see them fixing the problem and not causing it?

Lots of people are abusive in private relationships but appear personable and are liked in public... and you find out years later they were horrible people in private abusing their family and it was just kept out of the spotlight... but all along you thought they were good because you always saw them doing good things.

People are complex and tricky. And good vs evil is really more subjective than it is objective. Some people you think of as good will support doing bad things in the name of the supposed greater good. Some people you think of as bad are better people than you know because they keep their good works private and don't try and sell themselves as good.

 

[Sewing]

The intersection of intent and outcome. You take it all in totality.

 

[Pluto]

 

[gunmetalblue]

Altruism amongst many things

 

[Abort!]

I'd say it's primarily about a person's capacity for empathy rather than their actions or their past behavior. That distinction matters because most other answers implicitly assume a greater range of free will than what I believe actually exists. From where I stand, I believe that free will is largely illusory, and that actions are not necessarily the most reliable determinant of "goodness" precisely because they are largely influenced by factors contingent on being outside of one's control.

This is the classic thought experiment: if we took someone awful like Hitler, and we were to have raised him in a radically different environment, would the person we know still emerge?

With that said, I believe whether an individual feels personal revulsion at the prospect of causing harm to other thinking beings speaks volumes about that individual's "goodness." Especially when they could get away with it, or when they're tempted to try to justify the harm they caused others afterward to avoid the guilt and harm their actions produce. Of course, exceptions exist. I'm inferring a basic sense of commonality here.

 

[sheeplit]

What is action?

A man has an impulse he finds wrong. He fights it in his mind. Is this action? Is he thus a good person for fighting it, even if only in his mind? He loses this battle in his mind, and impulse turns to physical action. He does what he thinks is wrong. Should we consider him a bad person?

Does recognition of something wrong and intent to avoid it have any weight? What about effort? What about failure as opposed to deliberate malice? How do we measure any of this? How do we decide whether a person is good or bad? Is it a binary or a gradient? If we say that these internal machinations have merit but have no way to properly measure it, who gets to make the judgment? Who gets to decide whether someone is good or bad or how much on either side?

Should we dispense of this then? And judge solely on what we can see, what we can measure? Shall we then condemn this man solely based on his measurable effects on the world?

What if, in our attempt to make a judgement of others, we get it wrong? Are we then bad people? How would we even know we got it wrong if we cannot properly measure the man? Let's say our intention was in the name of good, despite having then caused harm. Should this matter? Or should we, too, be condemned based solely on our effects on the world?

What is good? Who gets to decide? If a majority of people agree something is good, is it then good? Should good be a vote of popularity? If a majority of the population considers slavery good, is it then good? If not, how do we settle disagreements on what is good, bad, harmful, right and wrong?

 

[Dan-Star-HI]

I think it's all the judgments we make. In my opinion, there are no good or bad people.

 

[goldenwitch]

Morality isn't measureable by mere people, because we don't have a way to judge a person's life, beginning to end.
We can judge actions and interactions. That is why we believe that ultimately, actions define our morality, but we're so unwilling to judge ourselves based on that same criteria. We hesitate to truly believe we aren't good people or that are actions aren't justified, even if we say otherwise. That is because we have a complete look at our life, our thoughts, how we felt and what we couldn't have done in certain situations. If we had the ability to see other people as we do ourselves, we would have the right to make moral judgements. Right now, we simply don't.

Besides, what would constitute someone as good, even if we did have total knowledge of all people's lives and struggles (internal and external)? Would it be a total lack of bad qualities, or just good qualities outweighing the bad ones?

If I had to define 'a good person' in a way that's socially quantifiable, I'd just say it's someone who benefits society and contributes to society without looking to actively benefit from it, doing it purely because they understand the gravity of their help to those in need of it.

But if I had to do it purely spiritually, it would be someone that is able to genuinely atone for their wrongdoings. Someone who can understand the pain they inflicted and deal with that by acknowleding and learning from it. All humans hurt others. Some in smaller ways, some in bigger. But if they can find it in themselves to do something to alleviate the pain they caused, not in themselves, but in those affected, I'd consider them good. You can come up with hypotheticals to dispute this. But people without goodness in their heart aren't able to do this.