"You're a really good person inside"

[Sela]

I've heard this said so many times to so many people that its lost all meaning. I've literally heard this said of everyone from little kids up to satan worshippers, communists, Hitler, Mao, and Diocletian! Granted that last one was something of a special case.

So I guess my question is this: What makes someone a "good person" if not their actions? What does it mean to say "you're a good person inside"? It's ultimately a totally subjective answer, I admit, as different people perceive and define 'good' differently and 'inside' differently. That, and we have different moral compasses that would help us make judgments on other people. This topic only exists to satisfy my own curiosity as to how you would define the phrase (if, indeed, you'd ever use it).

My feeling is that the definition is too broad. Virtually everyone "has some good inside". . . you could even make the argument that psycopaths and killers do "deeper than their diathesis".

Thoughts?

[That NOS Guy]

Why are Communists loped in with Satan Worshipers anyway?

[ArmorPierce]

It's the belief that all people are inherently good. I don't agree with it, I think people are inherently selfish, whether it to be themselves or their groups.

[Junghalli]

So I guess my question is this: What makes someone a "good person" if not their actions?

The idea that intent/motivation matters too is pretty common.

E.g. if you have two men, one man commits a crime to get money for luxuries himself vs. another man who commits the exact same crime to get money for an operation his son needs, there'd probably be a lot of general feeling that the second man's actions are more excusable or understandable. Similarly for somebody fighting for an evil government because he agrees with all their evil policies vs. if he thinks he's protecting his family or trying to pay his way through college etc.

I think it's basically just a simple function of human empathy. The more people can empathize with somebody doing something bad, the easier it is for them to imagine doing the same thing in his place, the less harshly they'll tend to judge them.

It's arguably not completely without rational basis, since motivation matters when trying to predict somebody's future actions.

[Coyote]

It means they want to excuse bad actions on the outside by giving credit for the good intentions inside: "he didn't hate the people in the Concentration Camps, he just wanted to do his job and get his paycheck to feed his family. He was basically a good person inside!" I think intentions matter, but they still have to be taken in account with the resultant actions.

And WTF why pick on Communists?

A good person inside? Like... with paprika?

[Tolya]

Also, why pick on satanists? They are usually categorized as "worshipperz of ev1l!" but the mainstream forms of satanism (especially in the philosophical sense) are a tad more complicated. And not "inherently evil" as some people are led to believe, at least that is what I heard and read about some forms of satanism.

[Spoonist]

Also, why pick on satanists? They are usually categorized as "worshipperz of ev1l!" but the mainstream forms of satanism (especially in the philosophical sense) are a tad more complicated. And not "inherently evil" as some people are led to believe, at least that is what I heard and read about some forms of satanism.

Why not?
They are the worst kind of lolbertarians, they are religious lolbertarians. The whole schtick is selfism packaged as individualism... Its just like anarchists, mooching of society while advocating against it.

So while the portrayal of them as evil might be wrong (unless they are into the shadier parts of death culture) they are still mock-worthy.

[Faqa]

Batman Begins summed this up rather well, loathe as I am to quote the philosophy of a comic book movie - "It's not who you are inside that defines you - it's what you do".

What you've done is who you are. Period. I have a lot of good intentions for the world - till I act on any of them, I've done shit. Is the class valedictorian the guy who "intended" to get good grades? No, it's the guy who got them. We name a man a monster for what he does, not why he did it.

Intentions matter insofar as determining the future worth/danger of a person, yes, possibly, although their track record is arguably more important. But in terms of moral judgement? No. Yes, even the father killing to save his son - what he does is mitigated by the good he did for an innocent(his son), not by the fact that he killed SO he could save his son.

[Havok]

Think about this in a different situation, one that most people can actually relate to, and not genocide or the ilk.

You have a friend that is a girl. She has a boy friend that is a complete asshole. Inevitably, she will defend him by saying, 'he is really sweet sometimes', or 'he is such teddy bear when we are alone'. Well look chick, if he is an asshole 75% of the time and a nice guy 25%, then guess what? He is an asshole.

Like Faqa said, via Batman Begins, it is what you do, not what you think or what you only do occasionally.

[Jim Raynor]

[quote="Faqa"]Batman Begins summed this up rather well, loathe as I am to quote the philosophy of a comic book movie - "It's not who you are inside that defines you - it's what you do".[quote]

I was thinking about this as well, but I was too embarrassed to post a quote from a superhero movie.

But really, this line was excellent, and something that everyone should keep in mind.

[CaptHawkeye]

It's the belief that all people are inherently good. I don't agree with it, I think people are inherently selfish, whether it to be themselves or their groups.

This notion bases itself on the belief that all humans are sociopathic at heart. Their is really no greater evidence to the contrary than that of the fact that our race has not wiped itself out. Even when it had more than one chance to do so.

But hey, i'm a cynic.

[Havok]

I disagree. Being selfish, which we indeed all are, doesn't remotely equate to being sociopaths, which is a combination of things.

The reason we do anything is always for selfish reasons. YOU want to feel good about yourself so you give to charity. YOU want to be a good father, so you go out of the way to take care of your kids. You give presents because YOU feel great seeing how happy YOU made someone.

This isn't inherently a bad thing, but there is no denying this is how we are. There is no argument to be made against this, because any attempt invariably leads back to Me, I, Mine, etc.

There is just no getting around it because we are all individually compartmentalized as people and despite thinking to the contrary, we will never truly understand what other people are thinking or feeling. We really are the centers of our universe because from our perspectives the universe begins when we are born and ends when we die.

[Todeswind]

The assumption that everyone does something for selfish reasons is absurd. When I stay after school to help my students prepare for the cultural festival it isn't because I feel I get anything out of it, it isn't even because it's a social expectation that I would be there helping, it's because helping my students get ready for the festival makes them happy. If making other people happy is a product of my own intrinsic selfishness then selfishness is a pointless concept as it becomes morally neutral.

Being a good person on the inside is sort of a logical fallacy I agree but I feel there is more to it than simple self interest. Everyone in the entire world is motivated by two things, what they feel is best for themselves and what they believe to be morally "right." I suspect that every mass murdering sociopath on the planet believes that he is doing the right thing while he is doing it. Even if one has the best of intentions one often commits "evils" of a greater or lesser nature. Doing the "right" thing is in ones self interest in the sense that without a well defined sense of morality society is intolerable but that's so abstract of a definition it's hardly useful.

I have no doubt in my mind that the soldiers at Konzentrationslager Auschwitz seriously believed that there was no irony in the phrase Arbeit macht frei at the gates and that they were making the world a better place. They were genocidal morons but they were doing it for "good reasons," the road to hell being paved with good intentions after all.

[Shroom Man 777]

Havokeff's point is not that selfishness is moral or immoral, but that it's just a natural part of humanity. Unless we are communal hive mind alienoids, we will always be selfish because we will never feel or see or sense anything other people feel or see or sense, and our thoughts, feelings and senses are all contained within our self - so all these things end up revolving around ourselves, for better or worse.

[Coyote]

Everyone has to be somewhat selfish, at least to an extent, or we die.

[Raw Shark]

I've heard this said so many times to so many people that its lost all meaning. I've literally heard this said of everyone from little kids up to satan worshippers [snip]

different people perceive and define 'good' differently and 'inside' differently. [snip]

This topic only exists to satisfy my own curiosity as to how you would define the phrase (if, indeed, you'd ever use it) [snip]

Thoughts?

As I have been inside a satan worshiper and survived to tell the tale, I can accurately report that it was, indeed, quite good in there.

[Havok]

The assumption that everyone does something for selfish reasons is absurd. When I stay after school to help my students prepare for the cultural festival it isn't because I feel I get anything out of it, it isn't even because it's a social expectation that I would be there helping, it's because helping my students get ready for the festival makes them happy. If making other people happy is a product of my own intrinsic selfishness then selfishness is a pointless concept as it becomes morally neutral.

You just made my point. Making your students happy makes YOU happy, YOU feel good about it, although you tried really hard not to just come out and say it.

And what Shroomy said.

[AMT]

It's the belief that all people are inherently good. I don't agree with it, I think people are inherently selfish, whether it to be themselves or their groups.

I'd have to agree with this. While we're social, we do seem to be inherently a selfish people. Our "goodness", for the most part (there are always outliers) seems to be a learned trait, likely due to societal needs. There's a reason why selflessness is higher on the hierarchy of needs. It's rarer, and generally harder to pull off.

[CaptHawkeye]

A "learned" trait? That's insane. Humans are social animals. Our ability to work with others and interact on a mutually beneficial scale is not something that has to be taught. It's a requirement for community building. If it wasn't natural we would have evolved into our own extinction.

[Singular Intellect]

It's funny how some people resist the notion that all humans are selfish. If someone pulls over and gives me a hand with a flat tire because that good gamaritan act makes them feel good, should I therefore not appreciate their help? If someone babysits a child because they love children and love doing it, does this mean the parents shouldn't be grateful?

Humans being irrefuteably selfish in all behavior is just who we are and how we operate. It's merely how their selfish behavior affects others that can determine 'positive' from 'negative'.

[Alyrium Denryle]

In general, I think one needs to separate out the moral praise-or-blame-worthiness of a person's actions from the persons character. For example, if I am trying to cure cancer, and the treatment I develop accidentally kills a lot of people due to an epically strange interaction with some environmental pollutant, I have killed a shit load of people. On the other hand, my character as a human being is unblemished.

On the opposite token, Mengele actually ended up contributing to medical science to a degree that I think might actually outweigh the harm he caused in the broad scheme of things... but god damn was he Evil.

[Zed]

self·ish
adj \ˈsel-fish\
Definition of SELFISH
1
: concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself : seeking or concentrating on one's own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others
2
: arising from concern with one's own welfare or advantage in disregard of others <a selfish act>

It seems to me that plenty people in this discussion have established that people are all concerned with themselves, their well-being, their reputation, their feeling of self-worth etc. Unfortunately, in order to establish that all humans are selfish, you need the second part of the definition: you need to demonstrate that people are concerned exclusively with oneself, without regard for others and in disregard of others. If you conveniently forget that part of the definition, you hollow out the meaning of the word.

[Simon_Jester]

The assumption that everyone does something for selfish reasons is absurd. When I stay after school to help my students prepare for the cultural festival it isn't because I feel I get anything out of it, it isn't even because it's a social expectation that I would be there helping, it's because helping my students get ready for the festival makes them happy. If making other people happy is a product of my own intrinsic selfishness then selfishness is a pointless concept as it becomes morally neutral.

You just made my point. Making your students happy makes YOU happy, YOU feel good about it, although you tried really hard not to just come out and say it.

And what Shroomy said.

The question is, at what point does this become semantics? Is there really a difference between "you help X because it makes you feel good to help X" and "you help X because you believe X needs help?" If so, surely someone does it for the latter reason, which is nonselfish even by your definition. If not, on what grounds do you call my helping X a "selfish" act?

Todeswind has a point: selfishness becomes a pointless concept if we define all actions as selfish, and reject any counterexample by saying "oh, well, it makes you feel good to do what you think you should be doing, therefore you're really just doing it for the rush of feeling like the good guy and you're really just selfish at heart."

[Dooey Jo]

Todeswind has a point: selfishness becomes a pointless concept if we define all actions as selfish, and reject any counterexample by saying "oh, well, it makes you feel good to do what you think you should be doing, therefore you're really just doing it for the rush of feeling like the good guy and you're really just selfish at heart."

Yes, the "lol selfish" position can be summed up as "it is selfish because it is your self that does it", rendering all actions selfish per definition. I'll bet someone would even like to defend the position by saying that it's possible for this "feeling good" to occur unconsciously, so even if you say you didn't feel either way about doing something, your brain did but hid it from you.

What that all amounts to is making "selfishness" a worthless and unfalsifiable concept.

[Akhlut]

Todeswind has a point: selfishness becomes a pointless concept if we define all actions as selfish, and reject any counterexample by saying "oh, well, it makes you feel good to do what you think you should be doing, therefore you're really just doing it for the rush of feeling like the good guy and you're really just selfish at heart."

Yes, the "lol selfish" position can be summed up as "it is selfish because it is your self that does it", rendering all actions selfish per definition. I'll bet someone would even like to defend the position by saying that it's possible for this "feeling good" to occur unconsciously, so even if you say you didn't feel either way about doing something, your brain did but hid it from you.

What that all amounts to is making "selfishness" a worthless and unfalsifiable concept.

Indeed. There's a vast difference between "I'm going to cuckold this dude, have his wife have my kids, and then steal his credit card and go on a wild spending spree" sort of selfishness versus the "I like giving 99.9% of my $100,000,000 fortune to orphans because it makes me feel good to know I've helped someone else to live a better life" sort of 'selfishness' that, in being called selfish, renders the word to be functionally meaningless. Seriously, it does not make a behavior selfish if it merely makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside. Words have meanings, damn it.

On a similar note: would it be selfish of me to hop in front of a bullet that was going to hit my son and I die of my injuries?