Hmmm… contrary to what most people would say about themselves, I am nihilistic and generally do not care about the well being of people who I am not in regular contact with. I do have ideals which may work for the benefit of humankind, but this is mostly social conditioning and coincidence, there are just as many things I am attached to which have a net negative impact. Given that I have spent more time and money on video games than I have on saving lives, I would have a hard time classifying myself as a remotely good person.
However, I suspect that my interpretation of good is different than most humans. I don’t really care if someone WANTS nobody to suffer, if you decide to go on a two thousand dollar vacation when you could easily have spent a day looking for efficient charities and made a donation, you have just demonstrated that your personal desires trump the continued existence of several human lives, or minimizing an existential risk. When I do things which are generally beneficial to humankind, I don’t have to think very hard to discover a selfish motive for it, and when I see anyone else doing something good I generally follow the same thought process.
Haphazardly getting back on topic, Harries perception of Hermione seems extremely optimistic to me, and I don’t think Quirrel would have a very hard time turning me to the dark side if it that meant actually fixing the flaws in the world at the expense of peoples trust and approval.
I don’t that “good” exists outside of something that is important to humans. And for Goodness to be something that actually matters to humans, it needs to have a definition that is actually useful.
Sure, you can find a selfish motive for every “good” thing you do, even if that motive is “to make yourself feel better.” But I think if the only reason you do something Good is to feel like a Good person… honestly, that’s good enough for me.(As far as motivation goes anyway. To be an EFFECTIVE good person (i.e. “good at being good”) you need to apply some intelligence to make sure you’re actually helping people.
Every living person has the potential to do a lot more than they actually do. If you’re judging goodness on an absolute scale, of course everyone fails to save thousands of lives. And yeah, you can think of that as “you are responsible for killing thousands of people.” But that’s not an actually healthy way to live. The reason most people aren’t Gandhi is because being Gandhi is hard, and rewarding people for whatever good they DO accomplish is more effective at creating a wholesome world than punishing people who failed to save an additional 10 lives on any given day. I don’t have solid evidence to back this up, but I’m pretty confident that if everyone measured goodness on an absolute scale, LESS good would get accomplished, not more. (Though if someone could cite studies regarding that assertion, I’d be appreciative).
Hmmm… contrary to what most people would say about themselves, I am nihilistic and generally do not care about the well being of people who I am not in regular contact with. I do have ideals which may work for the benefit of humankind, but this is mostly social conditioning and coincidence, there are just as many things I am attached to which have a net negative impact. Given that I have spent more time and money on video games than I have on saving lives, I would have a hard time classifying myself as a remotely good person.
However, I suspect that my interpretation of good is different than most humans. I don’t really care if someone WANTS nobody to suffer, if you decide to go on a two thousand dollar vacation when you could easily have spent a day looking for efficient charities and made a donation, you have just demonstrated that your personal desires trump the continued existence of several human lives, or minimizing an existential risk. When I do things which are generally beneficial to humankind, I don’t have to think very hard to discover a selfish motive for it, and when I see anyone else doing something good I generally follow the same thought process.
Haphazardly getting back on topic, Harries perception of Hermione seems extremely optimistic to me, and I don’t think Quirrel would have a very hard time turning me to the dark side if it that meant actually fixing the flaws in the world at the expense of peoples trust and approval.
I don’t that “good” exists outside of something that is important to humans. And for Goodness to be something that actually matters to humans, it needs to have a definition that is actually useful.
Sure, you can find a selfish motive for every “good” thing you do, even if that motive is “to make yourself feel better.” But I think if the only reason you do something Good is to feel like a Good person… honestly, that’s good enough for me.(As far as motivation goes anyway. To be an EFFECTIVE good person (i.e. “good at being good”) you need to apply some intelligence to make sure you’re actually helping people.
Every living person has the potential to do a lot more than they actually do. If you’re judging goodness on an absolute scale, of course everyone fails to save thousands of lives. And yeah, you can think of that as “you are responsible for killing thousands of people.” But that’s not an actually healthy way to live. The reason most people aren’t Gandhi is because being Gandhi is hard, and rewarding people for whatever good they DO accomplish is more effective at creating a wholesome world than punishing people who failed to save an additional 10 lives on any given day. I don’t have solid evidence to back this up, but I’m pretty confident that if everyone measured goodness on an absolute scale, LESS good would get accomplished, not more. (Though if someone could cite studies regarding that assertion, I’d be appreciative).