Quick Question (please Answer Honestly)

[CK9]

A little background:

I am in a ToastMasters club.  ToastMasters is an international organization that helps people improve their speaking by providing them an environment where they can give speaches to gain feedback for improvement.  There is no safer place than a ToastMasters club to really screw up a speach.  I am giving a speach next week that requires me to do a little research, and I've decided to accomplish this with a single question answered by as many people as possible from as many places as possible.

How to respond:

If you don't mind your answer being viewable to everyone, post it here.  If you are afraid of being judged by other people (in example: having people arguing with you over your view, being put down for it, etc) you can email it to me at srentiln[at]gmail[dot]com (symbols not used here to prevent internet crawler bots from just snatching it up for spam) with the subject: TMSQA


the question:

How would you define a good person?
 

[TH300]

Wow, that is a hard one.

One can possibly start by saying that a good person is a person that does only do good things. Then, one would have to define what good things are. We have laws, but laws define mostly the bad things. Everything else is probably subject to personal opinion.

One could say that a good person is an altruistic person. But then one would have to prove that true altruism exists. And can a person, that is sometimes egoistic, not be a good person?

So, maybe the definition of "good person" should be based more on the opinion of people who are in contact with that person. I.e. if I often meet with CK9 and I find that CK9 is always so nice to me, than CK9 is a good person. In that case my opinion would be based on the facts that CK9 shows respect for me, helps me when I need help and is just there as a friend.

A further aspect could be that a good person is always fair to others, i.e. if it is to judge about others it doesn't give one person a greater advantage than that person deserves. Of course that judgment has to be based on the opinions of the people being judged about and also has to take into account possible consequences on people who are not directly concerned.

Furthermore, if I find that CK9 is a good person, someone else may find that CK9 is not a good person.

[Hooman]

How would you define a good person?

I suppose someone who's actions benefit others, or at the very least, are conscientious about not being a detriment to others.

The "others" part makes this necessarily a relative term. Depending on who you ask, a person may or may not be "good".

I also don't believe intent is a necessary requirement to be "good". Maybe people are described as having an innately good character, which seems to suggest they aren't actively trying to be good, but are viewed as good anyway.


Positive social qualities.
 

[Freeza-CII]

I would say there are many factors in a equation in what makes a good person. There is alot I could say it would take me a while to compile it all.  

[CK9]

I'm glad to see that you guys have taken time to think about it rather than going for a simplistic answer