Are all good actions good? Are all bad actions bad?

[Wizzy]

Something I've been asking myself for some time is the following:
If a person commits a good action with bad motive, is that action good or bad?
Or the opposit, is a bad action with a good motive bad?
Ofcourse I'm talking about morally good/bad, right/wrong etc.

I'll throw out some scenarios for you so you might see a little better what I'm talking about.

Scenario A
Person A owns a small grandma/granpa style bakery, when his business one day lack some cash he borrows it from the local gangster Person B. Person B helps the loan shop out and lend him the money for a normal fee, the same he would have been given at any bank for lending their money. The bakery is soon up and running once again, going great. When Person A dies, he have yet to give the money back to Person B who knew that if he didn't collect the debt, it would grow to the point that he could take the bakery from the now dead Person A, so that his children gets nothing.

Was the action of lending the money good or bad?

Scenario B
Person A is a crime boss, on the orders of him his crew robs and beat up the locals in an area of the city. A person from this area Person B, tries to talk some sence into him but without results, the cops are helpless and won't do anything. When Person A orders the hit of a local shop owner Person B takes action. He gets a gun and shoots Person A.

Was the action of killing the ruthless crime boss good or bad?


Try to see it as a whole, nothing like "well the action is good but the motive is bad", because what interestes me is what it is as a whole.. And please don't get to locked into the scenarios because they're just exampels, not really the question I want you all to answer.

My point of view:
I think the whole good/bad thing is blurry.. According to the law it's close to only the action who decides the punishment, the motive is not as importat..
I can't honestly say if i think a good action with bad motive is good or bad, while at the same time I can't really say if a bad action with a good motive is good or bad.. But of the two, I think the later is better then the first..

[Didymos Thomas]

Something I've been asking myself for some time is the following:
If a person commits a good action with bad motive, is that action good or bad?
Or the opposit, is a bad action with a good motive bad?
Ofcourse I'm talking about morally good/bad, right/wrong etc.

I think you have to ask 'good for who'? If a person does something good for someone else, but the agent's motivation was for ill, then the action was good for the other person and harmful to the agent.

Scenario A
Person A owns a small grandma/granpa style bakery, when his business one day lack some cash he borrows it from the local gangster Person B. Person B helps the loan shop out and lend him the money for a normal fee, the same he would have been given at any bank for lending their money. The bakery is soon up and running once again, going great. When Person A dies, he have yet to give the money back to Person B who knew that if he didn't collect the debt, it would grow to the point that he could take the bakery from the now dead Person A, so that his children gets nothing.

Was the action of lending the money good or bad?

The gangster was lending with interest. What the gangster did was not entirely morally acceptable. Though, we might say that it is good the owners of the bakery keep their shop, assuming, of course, the gangster does not take it from them.

Scenario B
Person A is a crime boss, on the orders of him his crew robs and beat up the locals in an area of the city. A person from this area Person B, tries to talk some sence into him but without results, the cops are helpless and won't do anything. When Person A orders the hit of a local shop owner Person B takes action. He gets a gun and shoots Person A.

Was the action of killing the ruthless crime boss good or bad?

I get the feeling you can answer these as well as I can. That Person A no longer terrorizes the city is good, but taking a life is not good.

My point of view:
I think the whole good/bad thing is blurry.. According to the law it's close to only the action who decides the punishment, the motive is not as importat..
I can't honestly say if i think a good action with bad motive is good or bad, while at the same time I can't really say if a bad action with a good motive is good or bad.. But of the two, I think the later is better then the first..

Good and bad are defined in terms of each other - without "bad" there is no "good". And good and bad in any given situation is different. We might highlight certain things which are usually harmful - bad intent, killing, that sort of thing. But good and bad is circumstantial.

[Wizzy]

Originally Posted by Didymos Thomas

I think you have to ask 'good for who'? If a person does something good for someone else, but the agent's motivation was for ill, then the action was good for the other person and harmful to the agent.

- - - - - - - -

Good and bad are defined in terms of each other - without "bad" there is no "good". And good and bad in any given situation is different. We might highlight certain things which are usually harmful - bad intent, killing, that sort of thing. But good and bad is circumstantial.

Yeah sure but can't a good motive make a bad action good? If you get what I'm saying..
And 'good for who' shouldn't mather should it? It's allways morally good to give money to the needy, although it might hurt your personal finances, because the action to give to the more needy is good and the intention of helping the more needy is also good...
Good Action + good motive = Good Deed...

Also a robbery where you steal money for your own gain is allways bad..
Bad action + bad motive = bad deed..

But:
Bad action + good motive = what?
Good action + bad motive = what?

Thus I said that good and bad is blurry, because this is hard to answer isn't it? I belive it is anyways although I will give you that my examples wheren't that good...

[Didymos Thomas]

Yeah sure but can't a good motive make a bad action good? If you get what I'm saying..

A good motive makes a bad action good in that the motivation for the bad action was good.

And 'good for who' shouldn't mather should it? It's allways morally good to give money to the needy, although it might hurt your personal finances, because the action to give to the more needy is good and the intention of helping the more needy is also good...
Good Action + good motive = Good Deed...

I think the 'good for who?' and 'good in what respect?' do matter a great deal. I disagree with the notion that ethical judgments are black and white. Ethics depend upon circumstance.

But:
Bad action + good motive = what?
Good action + bad motive = what?

Thus I said that good and bad is blurry, because this is hard to answer isn't it? I belive it is anyways although I will give you that my examples wheren't that good...

I think the answer to your equations are good and bad. If the act was bad, but your motive was good, then you shouldn't have acted as you did, but your heart was in the right place. If the act was good, then you acted properly, but the bad motivation causes you harm.

Am I making any sense?

[Vasska]

Good is what you think is good, bad is what you think is bad. It's all there is. Of course it's influenced by society, culture and religion. But deep down you know what is right and what is wrong for you and you alone.

Good things can have bad outcomes. Bad things can have good outcomes. it's just one of the many unwritten laws that somewhere deep down we all know to be true. No matter how much examples, how many brain teasers and how many discussions it will always come down to that.

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by Wizzy

Something I've been asking myself for some time is the following:
If a person commits a good action with bad motive, is that action good or bad?
Or the opposit, is a bad action with a good motive bad?
Ofcourse I'm talking about morally good/bad, right/wrong etc.

I'll throw out some scenarios for you so you might see a little better what I'm talking about.

Scenario A
Person A owns a small grandma/granpa style bakery, when his business one day lack some cash he borrows it from the local gangster Person B. Person B helps the loan shop out and lend him the money for a normal fee, the same he would have been given at any bank for lending their money. The bakery is soon up and running once again, going great. When Person A dies, he have yet to give the money back to Person B who knew that if he didn't collect the debt, it would grow to the point that he could take the bakery from the now dead Person A, so that his children gets nothing.

Was the action of lending the money good or bad?

Scenario B
Person A is a crime boss, on the orders of him his crew robs and beat up the locals in an area of the city. A person from this area Person B, tries to talk some sence into him but without results, the cops are helpless and won't do anything. When Person A orders the hit of a local shop owner Person B takes action. He gets a gun and shoots Person A.

Was the action of killing the ruthless crime boss good or bad?


Try to see it as a whole, nothing like "well the action is good but the motive is bad", because what interestes me is what it is as a whole.. And please don't get to locked into the scenarios because they're just exampels, not really the question I want you all to answer.

My point of view:
I think the whole good/bad thing is blurry.. According to the law it's close to only the action who decides the punishment, the motive is not as importat..
I can't honestly say if i think a good action with bad motive is good or bad, while at the same time I can't really say if a bad action with a good motive is good or bad.. But of the two, I think the later is better then the first..

Philosophers have tended to call actions "right" or "wrong". Philosophers, who are sometimes called, "consequentialists" have graded actions in terms of their consequences for those affected by the consequences, and actions whose consequences are good have been said to be actions which are right, and actions with bad consequences, wrong. So, it seems to me that an action may have a good motive, say love for a child, but it is easy to think of an action motivated by love, which may have bad consequences (smothering love for the child, for example) And it is just as easy to think of an action which has a bad motive, but which has good consequences. Whether we should judge an action by its motive, or by its consequences, is an old and vexed question in moral philosophy. Immanuel Kant held that since no one could be sure of what the consequences of his action would be, since chance often takes a hand, all a person can do is make sure that his motive was a good one. On the other hand, the philosopher, John Stuart Mill, thought that Kant's view was unthinking, and that a moral person had to take the probable consequences of his action into account before deciding whether to do that action. Mill thought that Kant was really confusing the moral worth of the action with the moral worth of the person who was performing the action. The moral worth of the action was a function of the probable consequences of the action. But the moral worth of the person had to be judged in terms of the persons motive. And a good person might (as we saw) perform wrong actions from good motives; and, of course, a bad person may perform a right action for bad motives.

In his play, Murder in the Cathedral, T.S. Eliot has Thomas Becket says, "The greatest treason is to do the right thing for the wrong reason". But, of course, Mill would not agree.

[Wizzy]

Originally Posted by Vasska

Good is what you think is good, bad is what you think is bad. It's all there is. Of course it's influenced by society, culture and religion. But deep down you know what is right and what is wrong for you and you alone.

Good things can have bad outcomes. Bad things can have good outcomes. it's just one of the many unwritten laws that somewhere deep down we all know to be true. No matter how much examples, how many brain teasers and how many discussions it will always come down to that.

I don't fully agree with that statement that good or bad is personal views, ofcourse it is true to some point but as you said this is usually based on culture (mostly I would say atleast). So it's not totaly up to the induvidual..

And if you're talking about the social view on moral right and wrong it normally breakes down to if you hurt somebody but your self or not, but drug using is usually seen as morally wrong but you only hurt yourself don't you?

But I'm asking what YOU think, not what's what but what YOU think makes an action good or bad, is it mostly based on the acctuall action or the reason you do the action you do?

Do you honestly think that a career criminal think of himself as evil? But never the less, he is still viewed as evil by society isn't he?

[Wizzy]

Originally Posted by kennethamy

Philosophers have tended to call actions "right" or "wrong". Philosophers, who are sometimes called, "consequentialists" have graded actions in terms of their consequences for those affected by the consequences, and actions whose consequences are good have been said to be actions which are right, and actions with bad consequences, wrong. So, it seems to me that an action may have a good motive, say love for a child, but it is easy to think of an action motivated by love, which may have bad consequences (smothering love for the child, for example) And it is just as easy to think of an action which has a bad motive, but which has good consequences. Whether we should judge an action by its motive, or by its consequences, is an old and vexed question in moral philosophy. Immanuel Kant held that since no one could be sure of what the consequences of his action would be, since chance often takes a hand, all a person can do is make sure that his motive was a good one. On the other hand, the philosopher, John Stuart Mill, thought that Kant's view was unthinking, and that a moral person had to take the probable consequences of his action into account before deciding whether to do that action. Mill thought that Kant was really confusing the moral worth of the action with the moral worth of the person who was performing the action. The moral worth of the action was a function of the probable consequences of the action. But the moral worth of the person had to be judged in terms of the persons motive. And a good person might (as we saw) perform wrong actions from good motives; and, of course, a bad person may perform a right action for bad motives.

In his play, Murder in the Cathedral, T.S. Eliot has Thomas Becket says, "The greatest treason is to do the right thing for the wrong reason". But, of course, Mill would not agree.

Well said, and I know about the consequence view on the moral of an action.

I just didn't mention it because I wanted the good/bad thing to come before the result of the action, trying to judge an action just based on what the person knows when he does the action. Ofcourse as Mill thought, the person have to take the consequences into concideration when performing the action.

So what's your standpoint? What do you think makes an action good or bad? You can take the consequences aproach if you wish to, just want to know what you think...

[Didymos Thomas]

Good is what you think is good, bad is what you think is bad. It's all there is.

If I steal your stereo, and think my action is good because I have a new stereo, the action was still wrong.

But deep down you know what is right and what is wrong for you and you alone.

We may be the most capable of evaluating our own needs, but if I feel, deep down, that I am justified in committing arbitrary murder this is no justification for such an action.

[Vasska]

Originally Posted by Didymos Thomas

If I steal your stereo, and think my action is good because I have a new stereo, the action was still wrong.

We may be the most capable of evaluating our own needs, but if I feel, deep down, that I am justified in committing arbitrary murder this is no justification for such an action.

I did not talk about justification, and will never talk about it in the sense of good or bad actions. I think somewhere along the way we started mixing everything up because it's so difficult so say that something is either wrong or good if there are two sides of the story.

If i steal a stereo from you it can be to sell it and buy food from it. I think we must define a line between personal gain (like stealing) and all others(like helping).