How Do We Recognize Good?

I've long tried to get answers from my conservative friends and family about their theories of the corrupt nature (totally depraved) of humanity and how "there is NO ONE who is good." There are holes in their arguments that they just leave unaddressed. We've covered that on this blog before.

But this week, Stan and his colleagues over at the conservative "Winging It" blog have been addressing their theory (again, without dealing with the holes in their arguments or even acknowledging them) and that has caused one of them (Lorna) to ask some questions. I'll answer her questions here as a back door way of pointing out the very holes that they are ignoring. 

The statement was made...

"Of course there are good people," we all want to counter. "Just open your eyes. Even bad people do good things.” We even contend that humans are “basically good” ….

Lorna replied:

I can’t offer any rebuttals not already said by others, but I am always struck by the illogical nature of such a contention. For humans to distinguish “basically good people” from “particularly wicked individuals” among us is a completely relative exercise, requiring a subjective, sliding scale. On such a spectrum, when does “good” become “wicked” and how much of one behavior causes a person to fall solidly into one category rather than the other?

When does good become wicked? When it starts to cause deliberate, awful harm. Is that a precise measure? NO. Is it a reasonable measure, generally understood in the real world?

IF, in the attempt to do some good action - say, protecting a baby from falling over and hurting themselves - someone accidentally slips and, instead of stopping the baby from falling over, actually causes that baby to fall... that is not a wicked act. Of course. We all recognize that good intention and just an accident that happens.

IF, in the attempt to stop the baby from falling out of a window, the do-gooder rushes over and startles the baby who THEN actually falls out the window, resulting in terrible harm, that still isn't wicked. Of course. It's an accident in the process of trying to do good.

IF, in the attempt to keep baby from hurting themselves, someone kidnaps the baby and locks them in a padded cell for the rest of their lives, THAT has crossed over into catastrophic harm and an obvious human rights abuse, EVEN IF the intentions were good.

Truly, I don't think this is as hard as some may think. I'd love for these conservative types to think it through with me and answer such questions, but they don't/won't.

When does someone fall into the category of wicked rather than good? Again, not as hard as they seem to think: WHEN they take deliberate actions that are abuses of human rights and cause harm. EVEN IF their intent was good (hint: It often isn't).

I'd love for some of them to explain why they think it's difficult?

Which is not to say there may not be hard to call exceptions. What IF someone is concerned about an active shooter and they have a gun and open fire at the shooter and, as a result, they hit innocent bystanders? Probably still not wicked, just perhaps ill-advised and poorly executed. Still, the point stands: It's just not that difficult as a rule to recognize the significant difference between actively wicked and good.

Lorna continued:

Who sets these standards and what causes them to change--i.e. which humans qualify to judge “good” and “wicked” and in-between? 

Common sense. Moral reasoning. I'd suggest that perhaps the best standards are ideals like the Golden Rule, which are universally recognized across cultures and religions, even if not universally agreed upon in practice. Another standard would be basic human rights. Does an action actively cause harm to someone/some group? Does an action deny someone's humanity? Does an action imprison or sicken someone? These are the building block standards for recognizing good from evil.

Do you disagree? (Another question to go unanswered).


For those who'd disagree with these common sense guidelines, I always ask what they would propose instead? Someone's interpretation of holy texts? Which holy texts? WHOSE interpretations? On what basis would we choose one person's/group's interpretation of a given holy text over someone else's? Their say-so?

That's just not good enough. It's a whimsical human opinion not based in anything more than their opinions and interpretations and, perhaps, their particular human traditions.

We can see that it’s impossible to even judge people’s natures by their behavior, since “even bad people do good things” (wouldn’t’ that make them “good people”?) 

I would disagree. Or rather, I'd clarify. It's not possibly to PERFECTLY assess someone's nature by their behavior, but their behaviors and motivations ARE reasonable tools for understanding their character. By their fruit/actions, you will know them. Again, this is just common sense. What would you propose to gauge their character by if NOT their observation of their words, attitudes and actions?

There are some rational, common sense answers to her type of questions. But will they ever deal with the obvious questions that arise from their human theories?

I've not met conservatives yet who can/will/do. I'm sure they are out there, but I've not found them.