What makes a person bad?

[Losty]

No no no, Alice, having a strong believe in your religious faith doesn't necessarily mean you have a weak mind. Taking joy in someone else's suffering does though. (In my humble opinion of course).

I take joy in other people's suffering, depending on the mood. I also take joy in lessening other people's suffering... people enjoy things, sometimes conflicting things, sometimes unhealthy, or even 'disgusting' things...

Does my mind become 'weak' just because I enjoy something that you don't agree with?

I don't really know. That's a good question. I guess things probably aren't really that black and white.

[The Valkyrie]

Can't resist this. Sorry Losty, I'm in a weird mood.

[Exian]

I don't think anyone is bad. Maybe fucked in the head or misguided, but I don't think anyone goes out of their way to do evil. They just do what they think is best for the situation they face.

That is exactly how I feel. Even people who do horrible evil things must either think it's right or not be able to stop themselves.

We ourselves make the person bad or good, there is no such thing as good or bad, its what works for the society, and ourselves that we measure good and bad.

I feel the same way you do, Losty. There is always an uncontrollable circumstance at hand, and those circumstances prevent me from truly hating anyone. Nevertheless, I still have gut reactions that I can't seem to help at first. And I feel punishment of some kind is in order.

Even though you believe people are good and only do bad things, do you think they should be punished in some way?

You're over thinking this, people. It's the hat color. White makes you the Lone Ranger, black makes you Darth Vader.

Or KKK and Zoro....

---

I'm not on the fence as far as Christianity goes, but I am on the fence for most things in my life. I don't like to hold on so tightly to anything. I like to keep an open mind.

My grandma calls me a mugwump, which, I guess, loosely means fence-sitter. I find, in my life, that fence-sitters are not common. I'm usually the only one in an informal debate listening to both sides, and not just listening, but understanding how a person might arrive at a particular conviction.

I've had too many strongly held ideas in my past, that were overturned by a single addition of information, to hold too strongly to anything anymore. Can't see the forest for the trees.

One reason I joined this forum was to better inform myself, and maybe to learn to have stronger convictions in conversation, as I've always been a smidge ashamed of my fence-sitting, so seeing your post was nice.

I feel that fence-sitting goes hand in hand with listening, peacekeeping, and open-mindedness.

[Jackalope]

My grandma calls me a mugwump, which, I guess, loosely means fence-sitter. I find, in my life, that fence-sitters are not common. I'm usually the only one in an informal debate listening to both sides, and not just listening, but understanding how a person might arrive at a particular conviction.

I've had too many strongly held ideas in my past, that were overturned by a single addition of information, to hold too strongly to anything anymore. Can't see the forest for the trees.

One reason I joined this forum was to better inform myself, and maybe to learn to have stronger convictions in conversation, as I've always been a smidge ashamed of my fence-sitting, so seeing your post was nice.

I feel that fence-sitting goes hand in hand with listening, peacekeeping, and open-mindedness.

There is no shame in being a fence-sitter who listens to both sides, IMHO. Rather than rushing to decision, the fence-sitter has the opportunity to come to a reasoned decision. You aren't doomed to stay in the fence. I find listening more than speaking is illuminating.

"It is better to be silent and thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."

[psychoslice]

If these people really, truly believe in hell, taking joy out of anyone going there is inherently bad.

I suppose feeling an overwhelming and *thrilling* desire to return fun had at your expense upon those what may or may not have had fun at your expense.... would make you a bad person?

I'd take a lot of joy out of it. I don't feel bad about it, neither.

Well she's bad, bad, Alice cat. Baddest mrurf on the 'hole darn net. Badder than a kick in the dong... meaner than a scratched up wrist! Or... something. Constructive stuff? No way, that is like... work. I'm all worked out. Got dese muscles, ese! Easy. Ooh baby ooh baby look at her go. Where she going nobody knows.

---

Compassion is also dealt out to those who we believe deserves it, which isn't compassion at all, it all comes back to what we believe deserves compassion, and again society controls that, it all exist because we are here to make it exist, if we weren't here, all this good and bad wouldn't exist at all.

In the end, it's all a subjective value judgement.

So basically... do bad people exist? Well, do you think they do? If yes, then they do. If no, then they don't to you.

Yep, that just what I believe also, but to the cosmos, it all means nothing.

[Jenny A]

I've been reading this thread with interest and not commenting because I wasn't really sure what I thought.

But having read and thought, I think a bad person who does bad things without remorse on a regular basis. It's a practical rather than a deep definition.

[Exian]

Wouldn't that suggest some mental disability or imbalance?

I see that you clarified this as a practical definition; a way to use a person's actions as an indicator that they should be locked up or treated (I agree), but does this mean they are bad?

I mean, what else would describe a bad person? Maybe somebody who acknowledges the ability to feel remorse, guilt, and empathy, but admits to practicing the suppression of these feelings in order to commit more appalling crimes? This seems absurd. Too many stars would need to align, but what else would make a safe categorization? A bot fly? That's a bad person.

[TheRealJoeFish]

I tend towards the view that people aren't good or bad. I guess I don't even buy that actions can be intrinsically good or bad in any way. Maybe that removes me from the pool of people that can comment on your original question.

Effectively, I like Jenny A's characterization of it as a practical, rather than deep, definition. It's useful to us to describe as bad someone who has a history of doing a lot of things that negatively impacted others, because it simultaneously 1) allows us to convey a prediction that any future behavior by that person is likely to negatively impact people as well, and 2) express our own judgments about what constitutes a good or bad action, thus suggesting to others a course of action that we desire them to take, so as to positively benefit ourselves.

Ugh that was a (probably nonsensical) mouthful, but what I'm trying to say is that "good" and "bad" are descriptions, I think, of what we think other people should do. Thus, whether a person is "good" or "bad" can only be defined subjectively.

[Jackalope]

Wouldn't that suggest some mental disability or imbalance?

I see that you clarified this as a practical definition; a way to use a person's actions as an indicator that they should be locked up or treated (I agree), but does this mean they are bad?

I mean, what else would describe a bad person? Maybe somebody who acknowledges the ability to feel remorse, guilt, and empathy, but admits to practicing the suppression of these feelings in order to commit more appalling crimes? This seems absurd. Too many stars would need to align, but what else would make a safe categorization? A bot fly? That's a bad person.

It very well could. From a personal perspective, when I was symptomatic (I have type 1 bipolar disorder, asymptomatic for about 3.5 years now), I did some dreadful things. A great many dreadful things, things I am not proud of, things I would not care to recount.

Was I a bad person? I suppose so, depending on how you measure it. Am I a different person now? Yes and no. I'm fundamentally the same person, with the same values - when I was ill, I didn't act consistently according to my values (and when I was sick, I acted without remorse, though I had periods of lucidity where I certainly did feel remorse greatly).

I'm the same person, but I'm not - the person who did those things no longer exists in one sense.

I suppose you could say I was a bad person with a good person inside screaming to be free.

---

To add to the above - one of the ways my mental illness manifested itself was a dulled sense of empathy. That was a result of past trauma, and it took a lot of therapy to overcome - but that capacity for empathy was always there, just suppressed, and not intentionally.

Would that have made me bad? I don't know. My actions were, and I take full responsibility for them. Psychology is a slippery fucker.

[Rob216]

I think a person would be considered "bad" if they keep repeating the same action. For example, I wouldn't call a person that did cocaine once or twice a drug addict, but if they used it every day I would. Although I will admit that some actions, to me, are unforgivable even if they were only committed one time. Pedophilia comes to mind.