Are you a good person?
Please, if you will, pardon my impertinence. And rest assured I don’t expect an answer; the question is for you – and me – to privately suss out while gazing into a mirror, darkly. But still: are you a good person?
It seems like an easy answer. We know someone is good or bad because we observe them doing good or bad things. Alice Walton is a good person because she gives us millions of dollars of fine pictures to look at. But is Alice as good as the boy who gives his meager allowance to the hungry bum on the corner? The analogy clearly suggests that effort (personal cost) is linked to how good “good” is – but is it?
Take the case of two people handing out grub at the local food shelf. Both smile and are externally gracious and polite while doing the work, but one worker internally feels compassion and love for the client, while the other feels resentful and put upon: if only “they” would get off their butts they wouldn’t need free food. Here, the (quite real) analogy suggests that the loving worker is a better person (possessing more goodness) than the judgmental worker, yet the effort (personal cost) required of the Judge is greater since the work is harder if it is motivated by duty rather than that greatest good, love.
Defining what constitutes a “good” person could be parsed forever – and has been – but work is the common evidence of who is good and who is bad; gracefulness – love vs. duty, smiles vs. frowns – is certainly qualitative, but also certainly secondary to the work (a quantitative outcome) itself.
What we can say about goodness is that it is not passive. Goodness is active, goodness requires effort, and good people are good because they take action and produce quantitative outcomes that may be as varied as a reduction of hunger, smiles among the unhappy, pictures for the masses, or lunch for a bum.
So, as you – and I – gaze into the mirror, darkly, who do we see, and what evidence is there for who we think we see?
Are you a good person?
Good job, good Dan. Good to know you!