Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !uspolitics@lemmy.world
7) No Hit-and-Run questions.
Please don't delete your post for no apparent reason. If you plan on deleting a question later, say so in the post, or if you feel that you have a good reason to remove it, message a mod beforehand. It's not fair to the ones who took their time to answer, and it's not in the spirit of the community.
8) No Bots.
Posts or comments from bots, LLM's, AIs, Neural Networks, Transformers, or Marvin the Paranoid Android are not welcome in AskLemmy. Real humans only please.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
A good person to me, well, the simplest definition I can come up with is someone who does good according to their own ethics and moral law. And yes, provided the bystander effect doesn't claim me, I'd call emergency services if I see someone bleeding out on the street, or at least ask if someone has already called them.
Everyone does bad things from time to time but that doesn't necessarily make you a bad person. Are you claiming to only or mostly do bad deeds? I'm trying to understand. A guilty conscience can trap you.
It's more of a failure to live up to ideas of what is good, IMO. Like, doing what I know is bad, continuing to do it despite knowing it's bad.
For a more concrete example, I know that I have poor sleeping habits, and yet I still persist in letting my sleep schedule wander around. Or when I have poor dietary habits despite knowing that it's bad for me. I also note that I do give advice that I don't take for myself.
I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about ethics? I also eat like shit and have a poor sleep schedule but that doesn't make me a bad person. Am I misunderstanding?
Well, that's the difference, I suppose. As far as I am concerned, doing bad things that I know are bad is a moral and ethical failure. It might not be the same for everyone, and I am only speaking of how I see myself, not how others see me.
My feelings with respect to people calling me good despite my own self-image is just that, feeling. I don't really tell other people that they're wrong when they call me a 'good person,' but I do tell them that no, I have my shortcomings too.
I don't know you but if people are telling you that you're a good person than you very well may be a good person. No one is without sin and we've all done things we regret. Most people who are bad people (if you wanna call it that) really don't see themselves as such. They convince themselves that they're in the right. Self awareness counts for something.
TBH, I don't readily call others bad people just because they don't believe in what I believe in. It's between them and their conscience.
But yeah, I do take others' opinion into account, but only in so far as what's common in my perception of their words and my own perception of reality. If they think I'm a good person for picking up after my trash, then yeah, it's all fine by me--but even then, I qualify it. Under that specific lens, then yes, I am a good person.