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Does doing bad things automatically make you a bad person?

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Sounds counter-intuitive but think about it. Some people have good intentions but do bad things. Bernie Sanders for example, wants to steal from the rich and give to the poor, which is a bad thing but he doesn't realize it's a bad thing, he has good intentions, so you can say he's a good person. Some psychotic people are killers, but are they bad? Sometimes they have no comprehension of what they did. Bad people exist, like Hitler and Stalin, but they are clearly bad. So, what is the line that determines if someone is good or bad?



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  • EmeryPearsonEmeryPearson 151 Pts   -   edited June 2018
    Morality is subjective. What is bad for one, is good for another. Or what is bad can be made good with a change of context. 

    So doing bad things can easily make you bad for some, but good for others. The line is dependent on who is making judgement of you.

    But this is a debate that's been going on for more than a millennia. You're not likely to find more answers than those who have asked before you.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_relativism
  • VaulkVaulk 813 Pts   -   edited June 2018
    The short answer is: Yes, it identifies you as a bad person.

    In order to determine this, we apply logical deduction.

    1.  Can you determine someone's intent without evaluating their actions?  
    The answer is no.  One must speak, act, behave, choose or otherwise take action in some way, shape or form in order for intent to be identified.  Simply put, intent is a mental construct that exists in the meta-physical realm of the human mind.

    2. If you cannot determine intent without action then what else but action can you judge in the process of determining intent?
    Simply put, we judge people by their actions.  We not only judge the act itself for its merits or lack thereof but we also evaluate the act and use common identifiers in order to pass judgement on what the intent truly was.

    We have always judged people on their actions and likely always will.  The criteria for determining whether actions are good or bad can and likely will fluctuate with time but regardless of standards...actions are the standard upon which we determine whether people are good or bad.

    In regards to your example of Bernie Sanders, you'd be hard pressed to convince anyone that someone of his professional mastery and accomplishments could simply be "Ignorant" of the agenda he's actually pushing.  As far as people who are mentally ill, we're more equipped today to determine whether or not individuals have the capacity to be conscious of their actions than ever before...I leave such determinations to professionals and subscribe that it's possible but hardly the norm.
    EmeryPearson
    "If there's no such thing as a question then what kind of questions do people ask"?

    "There's going to be a special place in Hell for people who spread lies through the veil of logical fallacies disguised as rational argument".

    "Oh, you don't like my sarcasm?  Well I don't much appreciate your stup!d".


  • MayCaesarMayCaesar 5971 Pts   -  
    I do not think intentions matter when deciding whether a given person is good or bad. Che Guevara may have wanted to create a society of equality and prosperity - but he did end up executing countless war prisoners and murdering countless more civilian prisoners, so how can he be considered a good person by societal standards, which consider murder to be one of the vilest crimes? Who benefits the society more: the person who has bad intentions, but ends up doing good deeds - or the person who has good intentions, but ends up doing good deeds?

    In general, the vast majority of people who have committed the worst crimes in history had "good" intentions. Take Lenin, or Hitler, or Mao - they all wanted their nations to be successful and happy. The means they were willing to employ in order to attempt to bring their nations to those points, however, were hardly productive, hence their evaluation is not very ambiguous.

    Same with Sanders: in my eyes, he is the same sort of populist as Trump, who does not understand the repercussions of the simple straightforward solutions he advocates for. If he became the US president and acquired enough power due to the Democratic dominance in the Congress, then he could bring the US economy to a disaster. Does it really matter how much he believes he is doing the right thing, when dozens millions Americans lose their savings due to the demolition of banks Sanders suggests, and we are back to the great Depression, with bank runs, poverty and unemployment?

    Let us judge people by their actions and the consequences of them, not by what they want to do and believe in.
    Vaulk
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