Goodness: the good person does good things?

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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The deontologists and the utilitarians each focus a lot on acts. These are good acts, these are bad acts, the latter group making things more context dependent. But it seems to me there are bad people out there - whatever one’s morality, even a transvalued nobility - who do good things, and as far as we know, do not do bad things. Nevertheless they feel creepy. They suck energy. Their vibe is judgmental (maybe?). (combinations of these or as single main traits).

And on the other side there are people who may not do anything particularly special, but feel good to be around, are inspiring, add life or depth. They make life better.

Isn’t this focus on acts missing being?

Sure, it is possible that somewhere in the presence, vibe, air, aura of people some minute good and bad (noble, ignoble) acts are taking place. But we don’t know that really.

EDIT: Another way to try to get at what I mean would be to see if there are any people who you can compare: both are good people, as determined by your morality, whatever it is, and judged via their acts. But one of them seems so much better as a person. They reek whatever it is you think of as good. It pours off them. They seem not to end up doing more good things or less bad things - again, determined by whatever your criteria are - than the other one, nevertheless, you would find yourself thinking of them as a good (noble, whatever your value is) person more immediately and more strongly.

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I agree with You Moreno. The idea of empathy, whatever idea that word may conjure up in different people, does come into play in social interaction. Even before one gets to know a person, one develops a feeling about them.sometimes these predicts prove wrong, but on the whole the batting average is right. The deontologist does not necessarily shy away from words like intuition, compassion, but since these types of ideas are impossible to prove, most people do not trust them.

 The idea of first impressions, at first sight, have meant more reliable a gauge of human quality then it does today, for many reasons, and people doing good things may not necessarily mean they are good, however most people would use that guide to judge character, then from impressions based on intuiting their singular character through displays of virtue, goodness etc.

 Maybe the sheer complexity of changing society has made skeptics of most members.
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Many religious deontologists do have a sense of Goodness as Being. Saints can even make objects waft with goodness. But once we get into discussions, the focus/arguments are often about doing. And it seems to me something is getting missed here. Apart from that I think the focus on Doing has bad side effects, such as guilt, but also a disconnection in the self, where one focuses on acts instead of ____________. I don’t really want to fill in a word yet, but there is a begs the question aspect to action analysis of someone’s goodness.

Note: I am not saying that actions are unimportant. A person with a great vibe who does terrible things is not excused by their charisma.

I like where you took this (and seeing your post reminded me I haven’t responded to your post in my other thread). I think because it is hard to quantify being the modern sensibility, even the religious one, tends to not focus on in, and not in discussion of morality/ethics/goodness. There is a grave distrust of intuition. If we can’t measure it it doesn’t exist. Though, it can perhaps be measured. A sum of subjective reactions.

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good ? bad? really?

the question would be for who? and what is good?

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I am leaving that open. I am even trying to include those who do not believe in good and evil, but nevertheless have criteria for deciding someone has value. I would raise this issue with people of any set of moral rules or even of conceiving of morality - hence my mentioning deontologists and utilitarians, which should be a strong clue that I am aiming at all different kinds of ideas of good or bad/evil, since deontologists, for example, can easily consider other ones evil.

I am trying to see if people can connect with the idea that even without doing something, people can seem bad or good, regardless of what ‘your’ particular criteria are for those categories. Being instead of doing.

Can you relate? Are their people who, as far as you know, are good citizens, but it would make you quesy if they were near your kids? Are their people who do, actually, quite a lot of good things, but you would not want to be around them and react to them as you do to people you consider immoral?

Another way to try to get at what I mean would be to see if there are any people who you can compare: both are good people, as determined by your morality, whatever it is, and judged via their acts. But one of them seems so much better as a person. They reek whatever it is you think of as good. It pours off them. They seem not to end up doing more good things or less bad things - again, determined by whatever your criteria are - than the other one, nevertheless, you would find yourself thinking of them as a good (noble, whatever your value is) person more immediately and more strongly.

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well as a philospher good and bad are out of the picture but as a human i have a set of values. so i guess you wana speak to that one.

morality is a tool that is used to successfully live in community which is needed to survive as well as make use of our pool of knowledge and abilities, 2we are better together"

now which set of rules is best for the community? umm that is very difficult to answer.

but turning to people, good - that which wants to cooroporate, bad that which seeks discord. i cant think of anything better.

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You use the term ‘morality’. Do you ever consider people ‘immoral’? If you do, then you can replace the thesis in the OP and title with one using immoral and moral persons.

So your focus, here at least, is on intentions, which in some way is in between actions and Being. One could conceivably want to cooperate but not cooperate. One could be very bad at it.

But can you imagine someone who cooperates, who does things in tandem with other people so that thinks work just fine. They deliver the bread, they do not hit people, they are polite, they seek compromises, whatever you consider actions that that fit cooperation and do not generate discord.

Can you imagine such a person also being someone people do not want to be around. Their actions are fine, but their presence is unpleasant. They are polite. They say nice things, even, but their vibe is bad. People feel bored, energy sucked, down when they are around this person.

That is what I am getting at. That morality rarely focuses on being. And that even if the actions are good or positive or in your case, cooperative, the person may be seen as a problem - immoral, bad, even discordent, but not on the actions level.

(I am guessing some people will not be able to connect to this. I do have this experience. Some people seem anti-life and yet they do not do things particularly differently from other people I do not feel this way about. Their being, their presence, their energy, their vibe, their negative charisma, their [black boxed something] detracts. To look at someone’s doing is not enough. Whatever one values - whether one’s values are moral or pragmatic - yours seem on the pragmatic end, for example.)

Some especially good people are terrible to be around.

Some especially cooperative people are terrible to be around.

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first morality is defined as- conformity to the rules of right conduct; moral or virtuous conduct.

now what is right is determined by society itself, i am thus a partially immoral person yet i have my own set of morals. now i hate morality because it is not logical, in the sense that nothing is absolute and it is filled with exceptions and circumstances that change the way one must behave. and it is my take that pretty much like beliefs morality is different to everyone since it is subtly changes from person to person.

so back to the question, immoral? no thats not even logically impossible, degrees of immorality yes certainly some people are more immoral than others.

you asked what it is for me… intentions are worth more than anything else.

ofcourse people prefer results but this is the reason im discontent with society we are valued upon convinience and yet we are expected to value others on their humanity, morality doesnt follow logic nor does it have any balance apart from who can take advantage of others. but anyway that is the way things are, intentions have no value because its impossible to know what the intentions of others are with 100% accuracy. the only thing that matters is results.

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This thread seems to be about the difference between small scale interpersonal actions versus broad social actions. Doing good one-on-one versus doing good for a group. A single individual may be able to be ‘good’ in both situations but it is possible that he/she is only good in one or the other.

For example, a person may be working hard to feed starving orphans in Africa but during personal interactions she may be giving verbal and non-verbal cues which make other people feel guilty about their lack of participation.

Whether such a person is judged good will depend on the benefit/damage derived from the actions.

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who is bad the one that wants others to follow what shes doing or the ones not participating?

both pleasure and pain are needed to learn.

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There are several people judging and using different criteria.

A person who cares about starving kids may say she is good.
A racist/nationalist may say she is bad for saving Africans rather than Americans.

A person feeling guilty may be undecided and confused.

The subjective evaluation of good, bad and evil and the heterogeneous nature of individual behavior make it impossible to stick a label on people.

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boring… should there be no morality then? due to globalization cultures are becoming more homogeneous thus these differences will become less prevalent. what should morality be thus?

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Where does this come from? There can be a morality which states that this or that is right/wrong while at the same time it’s not possible to stick a label on someone which says : “This person is 100% good.”

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OP is good evidence of why philosophy are so outdated in many aspects, it doesn’t take account for basic psychology nor unpopular leader decisitions, where one must choose between 2 evils, it’s damned if you do, damed if you don’t.

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That’s what the OP was about? Ah nuts, I’m way off again. #-o

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I’ll have to address my comments to the broader audience, since Moreno has blocked me.

Here’s what you should find odd about the OP, ladies and gentlemen. You should find the suggestion odd that making someone feel creeped out, and sucking their energy, is not also an act. Moreno wants you to think that it is possible for two people to do all of the same things----that have the same amount of goodness----and yet for one of them to make you feel creeped out drained of energy, and the other to make you feel good.

Do you honestly think that a Utilitarian is going to ignore the fact that one person makes everyone feel good, and the other makes everyone feel bad? Isn’t that just what the Utilitarian was judging everything by?

There’s something extremely odd underlying the OP. I think it might have to do with a suggestion that something apart from everything a person does can make others feel a certain way about that person. As Moreno says, it’s not their acts—it can’t be. Therefore, it can’t be that one person is polite, and the other rude, or something along those lines----because those are acts.

Does Moreno mean something like their physical appearance? One person is pretty and the other isn’t? No, it couldn’t be that----Moreno is not so superficial.

Perhaps Moreno means that some person has a bad soul, regardless of how good his acts are. Or that someone has a good soul, regardless of how bad his acts are. What else is going to make you feel creeeped out, other than what the person says and does—i.e., his acts? Someone should ask Moreno if he has been divining things about people’s souls(!!), and by what secret powers he has been doing so!!!

(…Duhn duhhhn duhhhhhh!!..)

I protect what grows…

I am a river.

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Victor: It is excellent you focused on intentions. Intentions, it seems to me, are much closer to what I am calling being, than actions. They could even be considered a part of Being.

Great. So can you imagine two people. Both, like a lot of us, are a mix of what you consider moral and immoral when it comes to acts. In fact if you focus on their actions both you would consider quite moral people or the set of their actions are generally moral ones.

However one feels very bad and you don’t like being near them and it would make you queasy if your kids were around them.
Or one seems to ruin a dinner, bring down a meeting, etc. not through actions - which are generally polite and cooperative like the other one - but via what seems like presence, the feel of the person.

Is this something you have ever experienced? Some who when one looks at acts is acting morally, perhaps even quite morally, but still feels extremely problematic in a vibe sense?

Let me try to introduce intentions in my scenario above.
You value intentions.
Let’s say that we have one person who generally does what is moral. Their actions fit your sense of moral. And you enjoy their company. Feel their good intentions.
Another person also does generally what is moral, but they feel bad to be around. They must have the intention to perform these actions. So their intentions are moral…or, are they?
Could it be that one person is doing things and does like other people and the other person performs the actions out of guilt or a need to conform or for some other reason and the result, despite the good actions, is they feel bad or creepy or whatever negative words one might feel in such situations.

If you can imagine this being the case, then we are closer to common ground.

One could argue that the two people I mention here are ‘doing’ different things, even though these differences are in self-relation, rather than in discrete acts in the world. Because one can argue that, it makes the example outside the exact area I am trying to get at, since in this hypothetical we hypothesize this internal difference in doing.

But we are getting closer to Being.

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Edit: Phyllo, I realized as I read further you were much more on my topic than I first understood. !

That’s not my intention for the thread. I think a person can be ‘good’ by whatever criteria in both categories and still feel like a terrible person.

Don’t you know anyone like this? I mean, they do good things, by whatever you criteria are. As far as you know they don’t do anything particularly bad, but still you hate being around them. It feels bad, wrong, evil, creepy, judgmental, whatever. The vibe is very much like people who do terrible things, but they do not do them.

Familiar at all?

Ever had a teacher like this?

OH, good, now we are talking. Though it may be that we have to black box this notion of subtle cues. Maybe we cannot find anything in the tone of voice, facial expression, etc. But still we come away from the interaction feelling guilty. Maybe not even judged. But we notice after every interaction we are judging ourselves.

Generally yes. We are supposed to ignore what I am calling being and focus on actions.

I would say some do gooders are really rather reprehensible souls, leaving a wake of ugliness wherever they go.
This is not my primary point. I actually think the issue is important for all of us including in self relation, but it is one outgrowth of what I am talking about.

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Well, the first thing you could do is bring in the relevent basic psychology.

As far as unpopular leadership decisions and the issue of being damned if you do and damned if you don’t, this really has nothing to do with the issue I am focusing on, which is the difference between how people are often judged by their actions rather than on their presence, their Being.

But here’s what you can do if you think it is relevent. You could, as a philosopher, write a full paragraph including what you think my argument is and then showing how your example of the leader who must make an unpopular decision, either way, relates to what you think I believe and contradicts an idea I am putting forward.

That would be a useful post. I am pretty familiar with basic psychology, heck, even advanced psychology in many areas, so I should be able to follow you.

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On the small chance this was not ironic…I am pretty sure you understood my OP much better than he did.