Goodness and Identity Questions

[magpie]

When you call someone a "good person" (if you do) what is your metric for making that judgement? What makes someone good? Would you consider yourself a good person? Why?

And since this sort of follows, what gives you a sense of identity? Is your identity inherent? Do you think about who you are as a person or is it not a topic of thought for you?

What informs being good? What informs an identity?

 

[Frosty]

I guess easy answer/go to answer is that no one is inherently good or bad- aka shades of gray.

That goodness and badness is a choice and a person consistently falls within multiple-or singular I suppose- areas within moral(a moral?) sprectrums.

But I don't know. That seems like- it might be the CORRECT answer- but isn't necessarily the right one.

A good person is someone who is true to what they say and do- even when the consequences for being so potentially outweigh the benefits. A good person is someone who is 'good' even when they don't need to be. A person is good- imo- when they are able to put something-anything-pride, ego, safety, anything- before themselves- but also is someone who tries their hardest not to forget themselves at the end of the day.

*******************************************************************************

Someone who can stop and- think. Oh there are so many components to being good in my opinion- but they all boil down to Harry Potter.

“Dark times lie ahead of us and there will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right.
-Albus Dumbledore”

Imo, if you can honestly say that you do this consistently- you are a good person. Or you are a better person than I am at least.

 

[Yama]

I think "good people" are people who generally have good intentions and don't mean any harm. It's a subjective measurement for sure. Though I am a hypocrite because despite fitting in to my own "good person" standard I don't consider myself to be a good person.

I don't know where I get my sense of identity from. It comes from somewhere inside I think but I have the bad habit of letting other people define me and tell me who I am and letting it affect me. I don't really know who I am as a person. I'm very obsessed with understanding myself and yet I don't know who I am.

 

[magpie]

I'm interested in people's moral spectrums in regard to this. What spectrum of your moral good does someone have to fall in? What is your moral code? Why?

If a good person has good intentions, what if bad consequences come from good intentions? Are they still good? What is the defenition of a good intention? Does the intention matter?

 

[prplchknz]

what makes people good for me is

they don't lie and over all are honest
don't manipulate emotionally
and are on time

though the last one can be forgiven if you call
and everyone lies that's just how it is, but why are you lying? if someone realizes your lying do you continue to do so to save face or do you own up, i'd respect you more if you owned up, but after owning up don't keep lying because that's like there's no point.

 

[Frosty]

I'm interested in people's moral spectrums in regard to this. What spectrum of your moral good does someone have to fall in? What is your moral code? Why?

If a good person has good intentions, what if bad consequences come from good intentions? Are they still good? What is the defenition of a good intention? Does the intention matter?

To me, intention is a huge deal. Maybe objectively it doesn't matter- I mean doing something because you potentially felt justified to do it doesn't negate the outcomes of the actual act- nor does it necessarily reflect the qualities behind the action at large. AKA- just because you feel like its good- doesn't make it so.

So there is that.

But there also is imo, something to be said for following those feelings of personal morality.

Lost my train of thought but--- Milgram just jumped out at me.

It is about balance. The important thing, in my opinion- is openness and acknowledgement. If you are going to do- believe- say- be- one thing, then you- in my opinion, need to stop and consider- at least in equal measure- reasoning for opposite values.

It is very hard to say. Really. But you need to understand what you are doing. You need to understand the consequences. Morally- you need to be able to say you really tried to understand all that you could. And then you need to acknowledge that you can't understand everything. And you need to be able to live with what you don't understand- and what you thought you did.

So hard to say.

 

[magpie]

I feel like being a good person is something that happens, to an extent, externally. It's about other people. And having an identity is something that happens internally. It's about you.

I do think you can't think yourself into being a good person, especially not by understanding yourself. It's about actions. But what those actions are... If you act in a way that hurts people, what then makes you good? Nothing. No amount of understanding yourself will change the consequences of your actions. It is, essentially, too late.

I wonder if this is cynical or if it's just true. Or both.

 

[á´…eparted]

I'll do my best to answer, but it's kind of challenging. My "web" of how I determine these things is kind of complex, and there's a lot of caveots and exceptions to the rule that applies them to other rules. Nevertheless:

When you call someone a "good person" (if you do) what is your metric for making that judgement?

The biggest metric is are the honest, authentic, and genuine in the help and support they give to others, or their work. A good person is someone who tries to aid others, or a cause, genuinely cares, and doesn't put their own ideals first. Their ideals can come first though if they are in congruent with the other.

The best example I can give to split this, is activist workers. An activist who is striving for a cause and aids others along the ways and wants to make an open, inclusive, strives for good and doesn't want to burn everything to ground to achieve an end, and doesn't get condeming in the process. Someone can be working for a passionate just cause (the environment, gay rights, etc.), but expects everyone to radically change their lives, potentially by manipulation of force. That does not make for a good person despite having good intentions.

What makes someone good? Would you consider yourself a good person? Why?

Basically the above. Do I consider myself a good person? Mostly, but not fully. I strive to be a good person, and striving doesn't make. In some areas I am good, in others not at all. There's a reason I call myself lawful neutral. I also sort of leave this judgement to others. I don't believe it is fully right of me to determine myself as a good person, and I think others are a more objective judge of this. Of course not everyone matters. Only people who are of sound mind and have the proper information about me to make a proper call (and ones who are not bias).

And since this sort of follows, what gives you a sense of identity? Is your identity inherent? Do you think about who you are as a person or is it not a topic of thought for you?

My identity is very inherent for me. I don't need to think about it. It just sort of is. I know what parts of myself are "true" and I just go from there. Granted, I do cultivate my identity extensively. We all do, but I tend to do it a lot more than the norm I am starting to realize. Basically, there are part of myself that are very core to how I feel and am, and I want others to see it. Thus, I put effort into displaying this. I don't really consciously think about it, I just sort of do it. I basically press a button in my mind, and the machine for it turns on and does its thing. It does take a lot of fuel though, but I have a lot of fuel to begin with.

I think about who I am a lot, and I also don't think about it at all. I think about myself insofar as who I am so I can better present myself, be more liked, be virtuous/good, and improve myself and be better skilled and useful. I don't really fret over what exactly that is though. It's more that the goal is what is declared, as so long as my identity goals are met, it doesn't really matter what the identity is. In others words: I choose what the box is, but what fills the box can be whatever so long as it's filled to the right weight. I mean, it does matter insofar as there are certain identities I don't want to be. If those actually are part of me, they are MASSIVELY suppressed. Those things are things I regard as universally bad and uncondonable in a tangible way, not just garden variety dislike.

What informs being good? What informs an identity?

I'm not quite sure how to answer this. I think the above covers this. Essentially, it's external information that tells me what it is and should be. I am simply not comfortable developing or generating things purely in a vacuum- that feels really wrong. Fine for others, but not for me.

 

[Chrysanthe]

Good is not really in my vocabulary... calling someone a good person is not something I would do. I don't like evaluating people's goodness based on their morality and actions... maybe people's healthiness rather. Which would be based off how they are treating themselves and society overall.

 

[Mustafa]

Goodness is like light (nur), it is energy that exists in motion. And spreads like water ripples from a center, it is not static. Evil fears light, or escapes it. There is more darkness than light now. Angels are created from light in Islam.

 

[Andy]

I consider myself to be essentially a neutral person. I do little to cause suffering in the world around me, but then again a do little about the suffering that already exists.

 

[Mustafa]

In Buddhism there are like 3 main branches or something. You belong to hinayana. I belong to mahayana. [MENTION=8554]Andy[/MENTION]

 

[Z Buck McFate]

If a good person has good intentions, what if bad consequences come from good intentions? Are they still good? What is the defenition of a good intention? Does the intention matter?

I feel like being a good person is something that happens, to an extent, externally. It's about other people. And having an identity is something that happens internally. It's about you.

I find "good person" to be problematic as a valuation because it has such convoluted ties to identity. The more someone needs to see themselves as a "good person", the more likely they are to lie to themselves about it when it's not actually the case. I don't believe anyone is exempt from this: if it's not acceptable to not be a "good person", we're probably lying to ourselves about it when our needs aren't being met.

I personally value kindness and compassion and the like, the things generally associated with being a "good person"- I don't always succeed at manifesting these values. I do my best to be honest with myself about when I'm not manifesting these qualities, and being okay with not manifesting them is a huge part of being able to honestly see when it's true.

eta: In other words, I strive to be a good person but I don't identify as a good person, basically for the reasons you describe in the quote: if the external doesn't match the internal, then I'm not actually being the thing I strive towards. And I'm definitely not always being the thing I strive towards.

 

[LovecraftianMonstrosity]

A combination of 1) measureable objective ways in which they are providing something of value to the world combined with 2) that their intentions, means, and goals are reasonably well-intentioned. We often can't know in an exact way what will be of value to the world because our knowledge is limited. For example the people who invented farming probably did so with a good intention, namely to feed more people, but they couldn't be aware of the long term changes this would make that would be negative, but it is hard to blame them because they were doing the best that they knew at the time with the tools, knowledge, and methods that were available to them.

 

[Mustafa]

A combination of 1) measureable objective ways in which they are providing something of value to the world combined with 2) that their intentions, means, and goals are reasonably well-intentioned. We often can't know in an exact way what will be of value to the world because our knowledge is limited. For example the people who invented farming probably did so with a good intention, namely to feed more people, but they couldn't be aware of the long term changes this would make that would be negative, but it is hard to blame them because they were doing the best that they knew at the time with the tools, knowledge, and methods that were available to them.

You are 'centralizing' between light's (nur) two aspects. Intelligence and compassion. Light or angels, can be humans in the moment of their brilliance (dynamic). Usually these aspect are distributed between human kind. Noone is petfect all the time. I think you know that, i am just being engaged.

 

[five sounds]

Goodness: Empathy is a huge one. Strong moral code is definitely another one. People whose actions seem to come from a place of love and also are congruous with those motivations across settings. Self-reflection and a sense of personal growth.

Identity: that one is a little trickier. I feel my identity is something I like to have rooted in those ideals I just expressed, but I try to keep it fluid from there. To allow room for growth and change. I avoid defining myself too concretely because in my mind I'm on a journey and I'm always less informed about who I am than I will be later. I try to acknowledge how I've grown, where I still need work, and where I want to go from there at any given point.

 

[magpie]

I've been thinking I need to drop the good/bad dichotomy. But without it, how do you acknowledge when something bad happens? You'll be stuck having to deny that there are any bad things in the world.

 

[Mustafa]

You don't have to take care of the world globally and locally. Consentrate on your close relations and don't invest to much energy in others. That's what i would've done. If you feel you need to do something, just do it!

 

[magpie]

You don't have to take care of the world globally and locally. Consentrate on your close relations and don't invest to much energy in others. That's what i would've done. If you feel you need to do something, just do it!

By in the world, I mean things that are directly related to me as well.

 

[five sounds]

I've been thinking I need to drop the good/bad dichotomy. But without it, how do you acknowledge when something bad happens? You'll be stuck having to deny that there are any bad things in the world.

Nothing and nobody are all good. It's more of a spectrum or range of possibilities at any given point, I think. Seems like a more logical way to think about those concepts imo.