Bro, you have the most Kantian take on the human experience. I mean to each his own, but real live people don't exist in a binary vacuum. No one is an objectively good or bad person, a moral or amoral person. People can simultaneously be horrible and wonderful to people in their lives, because people are ridiculously good at compartmentalizing, they are also particularly apt at hurting the people they love the most. And even a person who lived their life thoroughly selfishly can grow and change. As can a person who lived selflessly, they can change for the worse. Or just putting this out there because we see this a lot with LBHs, what about people who do really nice things for the payout, not because they are actually nice? Being a crappy spouse doesn't some how negate everything else some one is. All I wanted to say was that each of us needs to find the balance in being true to ourselves and being a friend when confronted in situations like this. Maybe watch The Good Place. They reference Kantian theory a little too much for my taste but it's an exceptional sitcom about this exact thing.
I think this is too holistic a look at "good and bad". You've mentioned this in other people's threads too. You are right, very few (maybe genociders(sic) like Stalin and Hitler) are pure bad. But I would submit that a bad person, that treats those that he loves well is still a BAD person. Take racists. They typically love and nurture their loved ones, but have a strong hatred towards people of other races. I would submit that no matter how wonderful they are to their loved ones, they are still "bad" people.
If your point is that what is good or bad to individuals is purely subjective (one person's good is another's bad and vice-versa), I can see that point. But I believe in an objective standard of right and wrong. Good and bad. So I think it is a righteous judgement to say that someone that committed their life to another person, but then goes and does the most intimate things two people can do with a third party, is a bad person. No matter how good they treat their mom or their kids, etc.
Now wayfarer, obviously right-minded people can have a disagreement on the fine points we are discussing here, so please do not think I am saying my opinion is superior to yours, because it is not. But I do question how you square someone that does bad things, but also some good ones, being simultaneously a good and bad person? A little leaven raises the whole lump.
Last edited by SteveLW; 04/15/2102:20 PM.
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
