Consider a hypothetical. You are listening to a conversation with Sally. Sally is a Nazi. Here is your conversation.

Bob: I don’t understand how you can be a Nazi. You are a great mother, give to charity, help anyone that needs you.

Sally: Nazism is just about the good of the German people. Just like any pro black organization.

Bob: But Nazism lead to the slaughter of millions of Jews.

Sally: That was just Hitler and his followers. It was not true Nazism. That’s not how the movement started and that's not what it's about now. I don’t support anything they did. I don't want any violence, I just want equality for the german people.

Bob: But how can you hate the Jews? What did they ever do to you?

Sally: I don’t hate the jews. Nazism is about the German people. It’s about the greater good. The Jews were not contributing their fair share and were preying on the german people and exploiting them.

Is Sally a good person? If not, why?

"There is none righteous, no, not one" - Romans 3:10

Having said that, much of Sally's behavior is laudable from a biblical perspective, since she is a good mother and gives to those in need.

If she kept her Nazi beliefs to herself, society would probably view her as a good person based on her actions.

What makes anyone a "good" person?

Replace Nazism with historical southern racism (Errr.... "southern pride"), and you've got the same basic conversation.

Well, that's kinda the point. What makes a good person? We all say this of people "oh you'll love Hans, he's a really good person." I would say most people like to believe they are a good person. But what tips someone from a good to a bad person? Does believing in an ideology that killed millions of people disqualify her? What if she agrees in taking all the wealth from the Jews because they "stole it from exploitation"?

At some point we would have to agree someone is no longer a good person.

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And I'm thinking of another group of people that most don't define as bad people, but have equally abhorrent views as the average Nazi

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I think the qualities of "good person" are not effective.

If someone is susceptible to trickery -- towards doing bad things -- it seems this person is unquestionably "not good", with the main factor being intelligence and learning. Since not everyone is afforded good genes, or environment, the term "good" is naturally inflammatory?

Are you going to tell us what this "other group " is, or are we supposed to guess?

I might say. It's not really that important to the question. There is no gotcha here. And I have no answer. I struggling to answer this question myself, so I'm curious what others think.

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"Good" is a subjective, relative concept, depending on values and beliefs, so it's simply impossible to say whether she's good or not, because nothing is objectively, inherently good, not even pro-humanity dispositions. You need values to make judgements, and values are not objectively defined.

It's like asking if 9 is a lot. 9 is a lot in many contexts, very little in many others, the question cannot be answered without knowing the context.

The first time I watched the sequel to the movie Wall Street, "Money Never Sleeps", I was disappointed. The good guys were unlikable and the bad guys were neither villains nor antiheros. And I thought the ending was a disappointing resolution. However, the last time I watched the movie I saw it differently, with the ending a nice resolution of the theme as I saw it.

In the final scene as the three main characters reconcile, Gordon Gekko says, "We're all a mixed bag." It's a clarifying observation for the movie and especially the main characters. They all acted both with merit and flaws.

I would be less interested in making an impossible judgment of a tipping point for people than in how I want to relate to them. I first want to enter into a loving bond with them over those values we have in common, celebrate where we agree, and empathize with the drama of their life. If we can establish that mutual bond between us then we can engage in respectful mutual constructive criticism on those issues where we disagree, confident in my faith that Choosing Love will be the stronger and more convincing argument. And who knows, through the dialectic I may discover it informs some of their positions better than some of mine.


PairTheBoard

Do you believe that the following statement is true for all human beings capable of moral discernment: "Torturing, molesting and then murdering a 5-year-old girl for fun is morally wrong"

EDit: I'm not asking if all human beings *know* that the statement is true; I'm asking if it does in fact APPLY to all human beings.

e.g. It's true for all human beings that Sacramento is the capitol of California, even though it's not true that all human beings know that Sacramento is the capitol of California.

I have an evangelist friend who has a great printed t-shirt that reads:"'It's true for you, but not for me' is an oxymoron. "

Sounds like someone who would eagerly turn Anne Frank over to the German authorities. So, No.

Nvm me, completely missed the bit about jews in the end...

It is subjective insofar as we all have different moral foundations. But theoretically it is object, if you believe objective morals exist. And if you don't believe objective morals exist, but do still have a moral "code", then you could still apply that objectively. It would just not translate to another person with another moral code.

And for those that say you cannot every say someone is "good", would you also say that you could never say for example someone is a "good" baseball player?

So your threshold for a good person would be someone who will/will not turn someone over to a group that might do something bad to them?

I like this is concept, but at some point we need to draw a line. We cannot hang around people that are actively trying to kill us. But would we hang out with someone that is actively trying to get someone else to kill us? What about if that person was just voting for someone that wanted to kill us? What about voting for someone that wants to pass a law that makes it illegal for you to pray? And the consequences of getting caught praying is jail? Where do you draw the line?

I do find is super interesting that on this forum everyone is very careful in their words and only 1 person will flat out say she is a bad person. What do you think the results of this post would be in say Politics? What if you asked this to the general public?

In today's discourse it seems everyone is very quick, often with no actual information, to call someone a bad person. Anyone want to wager a guess why that is?

Much like the similar "is it always wrong to rape.... etc" this is not a difficult question. It's true BY DEFINITION. Rape is always wrong because it means forced sex. Torture is always wrong because it means intentional harm and distress. Murder is always wrong because it means unlawful killing.

Remove the wrong-by-definition aspect and you're left with (using my example) "is it wrong for one person to have sex with another person". The answer, rather obviously is "it depends on the context".


Edit for jn: Sally is probably not a good person

It is not a contradiction in my moral views that someone can accept Nazi ideology and still be a good person. The moral import of someone's political beliefs are generally overrated imo.

That's interesting. I would say they are underrated. If your ideology supports, and even advocates, violence against peaceful people, isn't that important?

I'd say apply some common sense on a case by case basis. I'm going to actually get a chance to form such a relationship with relatively few people. However, the approach I described informs the attitude I want to have toward judging people. If there is a great place called Heaven in an afterlife I believe everyone goes there. You never know the drama and traumas of a person's life which have carried them to where they are. Empathy is not always easy.

Of course, this is all easier said than done.


PairTheBoard

Not really. It probably makes very little difference to the world what Sally believes about politics. It makes a lot of difference what politicians and government leaders believe, but Sally is probably close to irrelevant. It's also plausibly true that Sally didn't make a significant cognitive or moral error in reasoning in coming to accept Nazi ideology, since most people rationally reason very little about political ideology and instead accept the views of the people they know.

I generally view a person's actions as most important in analyzing whether they are a good person, not their beliefs. Beliefs are morally relevant primarily in what actions they cause, and political beliefs are generally not thick enough to affect more than a narrow segment of people's actions (this is also why I don't think politics usually functions like a religion, since most religions have a much greater impact on beliefs on people's lives than their political beliefs).

So you are saying she is irrelevant in the same way one's vote is irrelevant? If so, I would be inclined to agree. But would you extend this to those that supported slavery? While it is true that no one person had any real impact, it is because there was societal support for slavery that it was able to persist.

At what point do you consider it willful ignorance though?

What about the action of voting?

I can agree with a lot of what you are saying. But I would say what makes a good person definitely involves their beliefs. But one could say that whether or not they are a good person based on their beliefs is inconsequential. I would rather live in a world with a bunch of racists than a bunch of ideologues working "for the greater good" using violent force to control so many aspects of my life.