Degrees of goodness

As a socitey, I think many, most of us interpret acts of good and bad by assigning them a degree. Is the person donating their free time at the Food Bank or at a Hospice helping dying people do so comfortably doing a better act than the guy massaging his partners shoulders after a long stressful day? Both people are doing an act of goodness that benefits someone else. Is one act better than the other? And if so, why? And is one act more selfless than the other? Both good doers would be doing so because it makes them feel good.

This is no more apparent than in our legal systems where we've divided the decidedly most offensive act, murder, into degrees. The deciding factor often being intent. Take two examples. In one, a person hates a coworker and kills them after careful planning. In another two drunk people at a bar get into a fight. One gets hit in the head a certain way and dies. Two degrees of murder. Is one really worse than the other? Is the intent of violence not the same in both cases? Dead is dead.

 

Motive matters. Why does someone generally work as a volunteer at a food bank? Why do you give your partner a massage? Case solved jk (but it illustrates my first line well)

 

The motive in both examples is exacty the same. To make another feel good while making oneself feel good for helping.

 

I'm not sure

 

In the UK at least we have first degree murder and then "Manslaughter",which seem to carry a lighter sentence.I am very ignorant of the legal system though,one of the things that never really interested me...

 

I used the massage as an example of something generally seen as more selfish.

Point being, do you think there are different degrees of good and bad? We're so conditioned to assign all acts this way. It seems to me there is only good and only bad. It's a man made construct, legal systems, that say otherwise.

 

<<Dead is dead.>>

And good is good. Degree is in the eye of the doer.

One of the few partial liberties Americans still have is choosing the good they will or can do. There is always room for more good in the universe.

Edit: pardon, "lunaverse"....

 

It alway seemed to me that Nietzsche's "beyond good and evil" philosophy was just an intellectual justification for doing bad.

 

I don't view them as degrees when I think about it, but I apply the degree idea on bad deeds at first instance as well, like most people. This does not mean it is really a matter of degrees, but it may imply that it is the most handy way for us to perceive the difference in them when placing a verdict.

 

Of course. There's always grey area in life. A person here who accidently kills someone with their car is often charged with manslaughter. Sure, they're a murderer, but certainly not by choice.

We have the freedom to choose to do good. Yet so many choose to do bad.

 

One of the few of his I haven't read. Why do you feel that way?

 

Good is not always good, same with bad.

 

Motive in the legal system helps to determine a person's likelihood of repeating the same offense in the future. If a person pre plans a murder they are more likely to do it again compared to if it was an accidental killing.

If a person does good out of selflessness they are more likely to repeat the action in the future even without a reward. So there again motive can predict future action.

 

I think that is gratuitous, gainful or vengeant...kinda like "good" I guess?

 

Something else I wanted to discuss, selflessness. Is there such a thing as true selflessness? Take the example of someone who volunteers. They are doing it to help others, but it also makes them feel good. There is a reward for them. Is this a selfless act?

I saw on the news recently a man on vacation heard and saw a young boy drowning in the ocean. He swam out and saved the boy. Everyone called him a hero and he declined the title. But it certainly made him feel good to save the boy and thus a life. He may be inclined to do it again because he feels its right and it made him feel good to help. Is this an act of selflessness? Or a lesser degree of selfishness?

 

Nobody knows for sure except the person itself. We can only deduct so much until it becomes projecting associations onto them of why, how, etc. a particular someone would volunteer.

Did you notice this thread by the way? http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=484947&f=47

 

Yet in our hearts,we always know when we are doing good,and when we are doing bad.Drugs are peculiar though,as even though they are "bad",I always use them with a sense of love.

 

Most people who do things of their own free will do not do things they do not want to do. They want to do them. If we want to do something, how can it be selfless? The self wants it.

 

I would consider risking life and limb as selfless. I think there are different kinds of good. You can feel physically good through the 5 senses with pleasure or spiritually good through helping others. The spiritually good is felt by expanding and making connections outside of yourself.

 

I used to do a thing many wouldn't, out of selflessness as well as selfishness I think. I would take those wanting to die in their own homes out of hospital so they could die in their own environment with one person poking them and feeding them and all that came with it.
Yes I got paid to do it but if someone handed me just enough cash to survive on and said "do nothing" I still would have done these things because I liked knowing they were in my care and were comfortable going that way without having to put up with all kinds coming in to bug them, poke them with meds, feeding them and even throwing different moods at them depending on how each person's day was going that would be caring for them at different times of the day.
After doing it a few times I found it hard even tho it did get easier after the first time. It's hard to watch the life leaving someone's body. When we found out my hubby was going to pass on in short time his first worry was, Where will you put me?,,, I told him I did this before and will take him through it right at home and I did.
Will I do it again? Here is the real selfish part in me coming out, after that I don't think I can ever do it again, for any money even tho I am good at it. Work in a care facility? Never, with all of the politics that plague any medical facility and the worker competition and slackers that come with it I could never and have never worked in a facility even tho I would be hired by any one of them I could apply at.
I wish I could do it again and have been asked many times. It hurts that I won't and it's not because I have my own work, I could hire in more to fill what part of it I do, it's because with all the good it is I know what a toll it takes on me even tho when I started doing it I had a passion to be the best at it so I could make someone happy to be in his/her own environment while leaving this earth. I feel selfish in that way and in a way I also feel selfish that I excepted money to help those people through but I had to have money to survive and pay my bills too.
Here is my point, if we didn't need money to survive would we do these things for others? Anything like mow an old lady's lawn? Bring them groceries and help them just enough so they could manage at home instead of being stuffed in seniors homes by their family members? Would we care for our own? I think I would and my parents are aging, part of my ploy in saving money is in hopes I can help them and to have enough to be able to help them when they need, so I don't feel too much like a selfish one and I think I will end up doing their end of life care unless I get hit by a bus before that. Bonus for me is they have saved gracefully and are secure as well so it shouldn't be a financial set back for either of us.
Does anyone else think this way? Do you weigh your selfishness with your selflessness? I think we are both good and bad in many ways, with some like criminals being more on the bad side but even they may have done some good at some point.
I was almost gonna ditch this after I wrote it because I am not sure it fits with the title,,, here's hoping it's not too off topic... (submit reply,,,,)