Good People or Bad People?

Published on Linked In Feb 28th 2017

In considering the answer to the question of ‘Why Good People do Bad Things?’ one of the first questions to ask is ‘What distinguishes a good person from a bad person?’. Is it defined by outcomes? character? integrity? or something else?

One way of answering this question is to review some of the key writings on moral philosophy: Aristotle’s virtue ethics (1976), Kant’s duty based ethics (1785), and Bentham (1781) and Mills (1863) utilitarian ethics. There are a surprising amount of common themes running through these normative theories with regard to good people and bad people. A good person according to Aristotle is a person of virtuous character. The key virtues are identified as; courage, temperance, liberality, magnificence, honour, patience, amiability and sincerity (Aristotle, 1976). A good person doing bad things according to Aristotle, is a person of virtuous character being incontinent and acting from emotion rather than from rational thought (Aristotle, 1976, p. 227).

A bad p…