Being vs. Believing

[henryp]

There are plenty of discussions on morality, and it goes 'round and 'round as folks all claim what is moral or immoral, and what humans naturally feel about such things.  And of course, being a bunch of different people, everybody comes up with their own rules and beliefs/lack of beliefs.

What if we're looking at it slightly skewed:

The general rule of thumb is that people inherently want(know) to be good.  What if instead what society/evolution has ingrained in us, is that we want to believe we are good.

It seems to me like human behavior makes a ton more sense based on the 2nd idea?  

The difference is subtle.  The goal of being good as we generically understand it would be partaking in good actions/behaviors, I'd think.  The goal of believing you are good would be to rationalize your behavior in a way that you conclude you are a good person.   There will definitely be crossover, but when we see discrepancies, it would be explained by where we set the bar and how well we can rationalize.  I may believe posting Twitter hashtags makes me a good person even though a good person would probably do more than post hashtags on twitter.  

[Aoi Magi]

good/evil are just in our minds, nature and the universe couldn't care less about those. We basically define "good" as what helps us sustain ourselves and our species, morality is the thought process that helps us stay "good".

[polar bear]

This is a great question for sociologist's.

Every society has it's own set of values and norms.  USA says you have to be 21 to drink alcohol, the death penalty is accepted in some states, we have set speed limits, we believe rape is a punishable act, we believe (some of us) that women are equal to men...and so it goes.

Their are places in the world that are polar opposites to what we "believe" in.  It doesn't make one society more right, it is just what that society has set up as "rules"

That is why when a christian says we get our moral compass from gawd it's a load of shit.  NO, we get it from the society were we live... stupid

[professor]

Hi Wally,
I think both examples of thought you express are correct.

You will not find a place on earth where disloyalty to family and friends is thought good, or lying to the same, or being mean to the same,
or any of a long list of bad behavior to ONE'S associates is acceptable.

People want to be good and we want to believe we are good.
We need approval from ourselves and others.
In fact, all of the world's religions are based on good behavior in some way.
The rub comes in when dealing with so called enemies.

In order to treat enemies badly, one has to paint them as being different/ sub-human or/ and refusing to submit to some authority.
This is the method that has always been used.
The Muslims today us it, or the Nazis of yesterday used it. The list goes on and on.

[Angrboda]

Why can't both be goals, and the order of priority dependent on the person.

I see a problem with this if morality is subjective. We evaluate whether we are good on rules we make ourselves, so both the bar and whether we've met it are set internally. It's circular.

[henryp]

Why can't both be goals, and the order of priority dependent on the person.

I see a problem with this if morality is subjective.  We evaluate whether we are good on rules we make ourselves, so both the bar and whether we've met it are set internally.  It's circular.

What you see as the problem, is why I'm thinking what I'm thinking.

The goal is to believe you are a good person, so you define your morality (subjectively) with that goal in mind.  So it's not actually circular.  The desire to believe we are good is dictating in large part where we set the bar.  And we do so with all our other desires in mind.  

An always hilarious one is people who only go to church 2 or 3 times a year.  They want to believe they are good, but they don't want to spend every sunday at church, so they move the bar Christmas and Easter, and pretend that qualifies them for 'being good'

In fact, I imagine if you ask most religious people if they are going to hell, VERY few would say yes.  Just like if you ask most atheists if they consider themselves a good person, they'd also say yes.  And if you asked one of these 'good people' to make a big sacrifice for a stranger, they'd probably say no, and would probably add a rationalization why they are still a good person despite not doing it.  

The idea, of believing yourself to be good, and to some degree, to be thought of as good by others > actions.  Which I think fits in very well with how humans tend to behave.

---

Hi Wally,
I think both examples of thought you express are correct.

You will not find a place on earth where disloyalty to family and friends is thought good, or lying to the same, or being mean to the same,
or any of a long list of bad behavior to ONE'S associates is acceptable.

People want to be good and we want to believe we are good.
We need approval from ourselves and others.
In fact, all of the world's religions are based on good behavior in some way.
The rub comes in when dealing with so called enemies.

In order to treat enemies badly, one has to paint them as being different/ sub-human or/ and refusing to submit to some authority.
This is the method that has always been used.
The Muslims today us it, or the Nazis of yesterday used it. The list goes on and on.

I disagree with the idea that individuals require behaving with loyalty, honesty, and kindness to believe they are a good person.  You made a simple example of dehumanizing enemies.  But really, people can rationalize just about anything to themselves.   

I was asking in another thread about why humans are so sure of their critical thinking even in the face of evidence that they have terrible critical thinking skills.  Maybe it is related a bit to this.  

---

If anyone was following the Illegal downloading thread, I think that makes the case for this. People want free stuff. They also want to believe they are good. So they need to come to a conclusion that downloading things illegally doesn't make them a bad person.

For others, I think society has outlined theft enough that they can't rationalize their way out of that one, so they don't download, because doing so would invariably lead to them believing they are bad.

The third strategy, is to believe it is bad, but do it anyways, and then feel bad about it. Or that it's not that bad. So the guilt means you can still believe you are a good person or that it's not so bad, so you can still sum total up your behaviors and come out believing you are a good person.

[Cephus]

I don't buy that people inherently want to be good. We are a social species, we require other people to make our own lives worthwhile and simplify our survival, especially in the modern world. People act to fit into society, not to be "good". There were plenty of Germans who went along with Nazism because it made their lives better by making the socialization process simpler. Good and bad are entirely subjective concepts.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I like Jeff Goldberg's line from the Big Chill, "Rationalizing is more important than sex. Have you ever gone a week without rationalizing something?" The OP is spot on.

[henryp]

I don't buy that people inherently want to be good.  We are a social species, we require other people to make our own lives worthwhile and simplify our survival, especially in the modern world.  People act to fit into society, not to be "good".  There were plenty of Germans who went along with Nazism because it made their lives better by making the socialization process simpler.  Good and bad are entirely subjective concepts.

They are entirely subjective concepts.  That's the point.  That people forge the subjective concepts on the desire to see themselves (which sometimes relies on being perceived by others) as good.

That's a more complicated example, of course, because you have a lot of very strong basic human instincts in play.  

It appears this has (or is related to something) with a name.  Illusory Superiority.  I'm going to go read about that now!

Sounds like Illusory Superiority mildly related to how people can believe they are good without actually being good. Not exactly related to why they want to believe they are good.

[The Inquisition]

There are plenty of discussions on morality, and it goes 'round and 'round as folks all claim what is moral or immoral, and what humans naturally feel about such things.  And of course, being a bunch of different people, everybody comes up with their own rules and beliefs/lack of beliefs.

What if we're looking at it slightly skewed:

The general rule of thumb is that people inherently want(know) to be good.  What if instead what society/evolution has ingrained in us, is that we want to believe we are good.

It seems to me like human behavior makes a ton more sense based on the 2nd idea?  

The difference is subtle.  The goal of being good as we generically understand it would be partaking in good actions/behaviors, I'd think.  The goal of believing you are good would be to rationalize your behavior in a way that you conclude you are a good person.   There will definitely be crossover, but when we see discrepancies, it would be explained by where we set the bar and how well we can rationalize.  I may believe posting Twitter hashtags makes me a good person even though a good person would probably do more than post hashtags on twitter.  

Don't know if you could tell the difference between the two if your rationalization about your own goodness is predicated on some form of action.

It's also amusing to think about the implications for religion, if an omniscient god knows that you're not doing something for the sake of others, but for the sake of placating one's own ego, then that's not going to impress that god concept.
Same goes for your decision to believe, if it's only to save your own skin from eternal punishment, then this god concept would be angered, not mollified by your decision.

Everyone fries in hell, the greatest cosmic joke ever.