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.