Who is a bad person? What makes someone bad?

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by cdrazic93

only by the consensus of others have we come to assume that sometimes we aren't normal or we may deem ourselves bad or praise ourselves for being good at some point. Without anyone else to confirm our beliefs if we are doing right or wrong, than we always think we're right.

What he said!
From the point of view of the people (well, many not all) of Germany from 1922 to 1945 Hitler was not a bad person even though much (again not all) the rest of the world would have strongly disagreed.
Also, societies' view of what is "good" or "bad" is evolving all the time. What may have been "good" or at least neutral at one point may very well become "bad" within a lifetime. For almost 400 years slavery was OK, or at least not thought of as "bad" by most of the people in North America. Within a relatively brief time it became a "bad" thing to do and for many you would be a "bad" person for supporting it.
Wow, pretty philosophical question for a car forum!

[wbradley]

Few people are inherently bad. Sociopathic behaviour or encouraging other's sociopathic behaviour is what defines human "badness".

By that definition Hitler was bad. Just because most Germans were not aware what he was doing doesn't mean he wasn't doing it.

Not all "bad" people are condemned to be that way forever.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by wbradley

Few people are inherently bad. Sociopathic behaviour or encouraging other's sociopathic behaviour is what defines human "badness".

By that definition Hitler was bad. Just because most Germans were not aware what he was doing doesn't mean he wasn't doing it.

Not all "bad" people are condemned to be that way forever.

Agreed!
Not saying the actions were not bad, just that their perception of him was not as a "bad" person. Even those that did know what was happening did not consider it bad as they did not consider themselves bad either.
Point being that good or bad can rather ambiguous terms dependent on the cultural norm and opinion of any certain group. I smoke and many people will tell you I am a "bad" person for doing so in this age but as little as 30 years ago it was almost the norm.
Nothing is really good or bad until the majority of people in any given group decide it is.

[wbradley]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

Agreed!
Not saying the actions were not bad, just that their perception of him was not as a "bad" person. Even those that did know what was happening did not consider it bad as they did not consider themselves bad either.
Point being that good or bad can rather ambiguous terms dependent on the cultural norm and opinion of any certain group. I smoke and many people will tell you I am a "bad" person for doing so in this age but as little as 30 years ago it was almost the norm.
Nothing is really good or bad until the majority of people in any given group decide it is.

Smoking is not sociopathic behaviour. Deliberately acting to the detriment of others for no reason other than to cause harm is sociopathic. Killing people because of ethnicity or religion is sociopathic. Hutus killing Tutsis is sociopathic. Hitler ordering killing of Gypsies is sociopathic. Paul Bernardo killing innocent girls is sociopathic, etc etc.

Smoking is an indulgence that happens to have undesirable or harmful side effects. Hardly the same. You need only feel guilty that your loved ones want you to be alive and well for as long as possible and you might be acting against that.

[Ammonia]

Its all about circumstance and perspective.


If I kill someone who is shooting at me, I'm probably okay. To that person's family, I may be a "bad" person.


If I shoplift I'm a bad person. If a hungry homeless person swipes an apple from a farmers market are they "bad"?

Depends on your definition of bad. Everyone has some bad in them. Everyone has good in them.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by wbradley

Smoking is not sociopathic behaviour. Deliberately acting to the detriment of others for no reason other than to cause harm is sociopathic. Killing people because of ethnicity or religion is sociopathic. Hutus killing Tutsis is sociopathic. Hitler ordering killing of Gypsies is sociopathic. Paul Bernardo killing innocent girls is sociopathic, etc etc.

Smoking is an indulgence that happens to have undesirable or harmful side effects. Hardly the same. You need only feel guilty that your loved ones want you to be alive and well for as long as possible and you might be acting against that.

It is funny how we agree but by the phrasing sound like we do not.
There are many people that will tell you that smoking is indeed a sociopathic trait in current culture. Whereas killing people because of ethnicity or religion is still not considered bad by some current cultures (again not saying I agree that is OK). We consider it bad of course but not all do.
What happens is that all people tend to apply their own cultural standards across the board and think that anything that goes against them must be "bad" and anything that agrees with them is "good".
This is of course not the fact when viewed from the other cultures viewpoint.
If your culture worships aardvarks and feels that those that worship armadillos should all be exterminated then killing the armadillo lovers is not considered bad by your standard. It is of course viewed as bad by just about everybody else but not by you or others that share that viewpoint.
Good and bad are defined by each individual's concept of cultural norm but when viewed from outside that norm can be perceived very, very differently.

[Atticus808]

- People who abuse animals
- People who are racist
- ISIS
- Pedophiles
- Those annoying ass wannabe pranksters on youtube who try to be Vitaly, but fail at it. For example, stepping on peoples shoes then say "it's a prank it's a prank!" when they're getting attacked.
- BMW owners

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Ammonia

Its all about circumstance and perspective.


If I kill someone who is shooting at me, I'm probably okay. To that person's family, I may be a "bad" person.


If I shoplift I'm a bad person. If a hungry homeless person swipes an apple from a farmers market are they "bad"?

Depends on your definition of bad. Everyone has some bad in them. Everyone has good in them.

This is the Reader's Digest version of what I am trying to say.
Maybe I just tried to say too much and my point got muddied!

[MokSpeed]

Ask Michael Jackson who's bad?

[wbradley]

I believe we here are all fundamentally of the same culture. That is, western culture as defined by developed societies that deem killing humans as immoral. We have a bunch of rules about what is and is not socially acceptable behaviour. It goes back the Judeo-Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, and a whole bunch of other religions that set the rules for social norms long before governments and police existed as they do today. They are a basic set of rules to live by that are for the betterment or at least livability of society. This is how civilization as we now know it came to be. Fortunately, governments and laws in the developed world are now secular, that is they are separate from religion so we are all free to believe and practice as we wish. However the tenets of those fundamental rules are upheld. The ten commandments are a good example of the basic guidelines. I am not religious but I believe to this day these rules and the "mythology" that surrounds them were passed on for millenia with a good reason.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by wbradley

I believe we here are all fundamentally of the same culture. That is, western culture as defined by developed societies that deem killing humans as immoral. We have a bunch of rules about what is and is not socially acceptable behaviour. It goes back the Judeo-Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, and a whole bunch of other religions that set the rules for social norms long before governments and police existed as they do today. They are a basic set of rules to live by that are for the betterment or at least livability of society. This is how civilization as we now know it came to be. Fortunately, governments and laws in the developed world are now secular, that is they are separate from religion so we are all free to believe and practice as we wish. However the tenets of those fundamental rules are upheld. The ten commandments are a good example of the basic guidelines. I am not religious but I believe to this day these rules and the "mythology" that surrounds them were passed on for millenia with a good reason.

Again I agree.
I have only thrown those examples out as a method to illustrate that good and bad are seen by the perspective of each person and there really is no such thing.
You just took those examples and ran with them which was not what I intended.
Like I said, Ammonia probably summed it up much better in a couple of sentences that I did with my overly elaborate examples that left me open to further analysis!

[gt8613]

Here is how I define bad (more or less). I think I used to have a better and more concise definition for it but right now I can't remember it:
1) Acting out of vices such as greed, jealousy, lust etc is bad.
2) Any action that purposely harms (beyond repair) another individual who had done nothing of an equal measure to you or others is bad.
3) Lying to yourself to escape blame, not taking responsibility for your actions, blaming others, blind-following (being sheeple-minded) , self-obsession is bad.
4) Being a hypocrite (for the less trivial cases)... for example you say you are against racism or bullying when it applies to you but don't bother to get involved when it applies to other people is bad.
5) Claiming or pretending to have virtues yet in reality living solely for yourself and yourself only is bad.
6) If you harm someone for prosperity or success and they were not going to do the same to you if given the opportunity then that is bad.

Theses are just general ideas I guess. Sub-clauses would apply for particular situations lol.



What do you guys think?

[Ultramaroon]

Originally Posted by cdrazic93

By definition, your intentions are what define you as morally right or wrong.

but the road to hell is paved with good intentions, not bad ones.

[Ultramaroon]

Originally Posted by Atticus808

- BMW owners

nailed it