Jane's Thotful Spot

It depends, doesn't it? How good? How bad? And bad how? I mean, if you're essentially a good person doing a lot of useful medical research, but use jews to test what your working on so that they die painful, horrible deaths (well, they did during WW2 - not sure I think the people who did were "otherwise good", though) then, well, no, you're obviously not a good person.

So. Details. That's what the blog's for, isn't it?

Try hypothetical situations, if you like.

Well, I was just trying to answer a question posed in How To Be Good. You know, Katie is a mother and a doctor, and likes to think of herself as a good person. Only, she's had an affair. And that is something bad, but is it bad enough to make her not a good person anymore?

The thing with the book is, it's written in the 1st person, from Katie's point of view, so you want to like her, and you like to think she's a good person.

Totally different perspective: Katie is a doctor, because she wants to be a good person. Does that make her a good person (ignore the other stuff for the moment)?

Something like: there's a difference between wanting to walk the path, and actually walking the path, or, there's a difference between walking the path because of how you feel other people view the path and walking the path because it's the path you want to walk. Have I lost you yet? 'Cause I'm getting pretty lost here. Baaaahhhh, coffee!

If that's what you're trying to figure out I guess it comes down to the old philosophical problem of whether purely altruistic act actually exist. If doing good makes you feel good, then doing good is tinged with egoism. And if that's what you're trying to figure out, good luck ;) Philosophers galore have discussed it for centuries (or even millenia, I'm not entirely sure).