What is the point of considering yourself good?

[Hazmatac]

Like the title says, what is the importance of considering yourself a good (moral) person? And, what's wrong with seeing yourself as evil?

Rob

[Jake_Ellison]

You should see yourself exactly the way you are (good, bad, or mixed).

You should be good, of course, but if someone is not good, they shouldn't delude themselves into thinking they are. They should evaluate themselves honestly, and find a way to change.

[anonrobt]

Like the title says, what is the importance of considering yourself a good (moral) person? And, what's wrong with seeing yourself as evil?

Rob

It is a psychological matter - the issue of self-esteem.. if you do not see yourself as worthy of living according to your nature as a human being, then you would as such embark on a suicidal course, that is a course of action not in your best interest as a human... if, on the other hand, you accept that you are worthy, as a human, to live as one, then it is the good in that you further that goal - the moral is the rational, and the rational is the fundamental means of your survival as a human...

If you see yourself as evil, that is, not worthy of being human, then you are seeing yourself as inimical to being a proper part of the environment, and destruction is inevitably the consequence because you are setting yourself against your nature, creating within yourself a conflict which would only increase over time... a viable organism, by its nature as a living being, must be an integrated being else it could not survive, and an internal conflict is a lack of integration...

Edited March 28, 2009 by anonrobt

[offtotheright]

You should see yourself exactly the way you are (good, bad, or mixed).

You should be good, of course, but if someone is not good, they shouldn't delude themselves into thinking they are. They should evaluate themselves honestly, and find a way to change.

I agree with Jake!

[Grames]

Like the title says, what is the importance of considering yourself a good (moral) person? And, what's wrong with seeing yourself as evil?

Your own life is the standard of value. Your own evaluation of yourself with respect to that standard is variable.

But aren't you by definition always good if you evaluate yourself by the standard of your own life, and if so then what is the meaning of good and evil?

The good is objective, and you are volitional, thus your acts are not always automatically good. Being a good (moral) person means choosing to act to achieve the objective good. Considering yourself good is a judgement that you have chosen well. It is also an anticipation that, because you are good you will choose well in the future. Thus being good increases desire for life.

Being evil is not choosing to act to achieve the objective good. Considering yourself evil is a judgement that you have not chosen well. It is also an anticipation that, because you are evil you will not choose well in the future. Thus being evil decreases desire for life.

It is an improper formulation to state "being evil is choosing to act to achieve the objective evil" because it leaves unevaluatable the choice not to choose. If throwing yourself off a cliff is evil, so is sitting on the edge of the cliff until you starve to death. Life requires action therefore passsivity is a moral failure.

[AllMenAreIslands]

It is a psychological matter - the issue of self-esteem.. if you do not see yourself as worthy of living according to your nature as a human being, then you would as such embark on a suicidal course, that is a course of action not in your best interest as a human... if, on the other hand, you accept that you are worthy, as a human, to live as one, then it is the good in that you further that goal - the moral is the rational, and the rational is the fundamental means of your survival as a human...

If you see yourself as evil, that is, not worthy of being human, then you are seeing yourself as inimical to being a proper part of the environment, and destruction is inevitably the consequence because you are setting yourself against your nature, creating within yourself a conflict which would only increase over time... a viable organism, by its nature as a living being, must be an integrated being else it could not survive, and an internal conflict is a lack of integration...

I agree with anonrobt.

The point of considering oneself good is to be able to enjoy the pleasures of human life. And the basic pleasure is the act of thinking. If a person can't enjoy thinking, learning, doing things with his mind, choosing a set of facts to focus on and going from there - then he is going to feel vaguely ill at ease with himself.

The philosophies infecting various branches of philosophy all share altruism vs self-absorption, when life requires that individuals be able to focus on sets of facts separate and apart from himself in order to successfully navigate through life without doing himself an injury.

Another important part of the fabric is the fact that coercion is legally permitted in all countries, to some extent or other. Coercion is the opposite of rationality. Anyone who supports the concept of taxation does deserve to feel ill at ease, so that may help explain why so many people do feel worried about their own goodness, and are so keen to turn to religion for reassurance that their lives will be worth the dirt their remains will become, coffin or no coffin.

Unfortunately, relatively few people have even an inkling of what thinking is really all about. It's using one's rational faculty, in as many capacities and for as many interests as one can find, or stand, or have time/energy for.

The essential human pleasure is thinking. All other pleasures that human beings have are shared and enjoyed to some extent by quite a few other species on the planet (not that I'm saying it gives those species rights, just stating the facts. Humans need to learn to enjoy the act of thinking, but in order to do so, the species first needs to acknowledge that there is a Law of Human Interaction, a proposition that actually does prove the truth of its contents, and therefore is self-evident.

It is the law that no individual or group of individuals can have the right to initiate the use of force. Our dear Ayn Rand wrote that sentence and it is exactly the sentence the world needs to acknowledge, accept and abide by.

By agreeing to live by this Law, and to formulate no laws in contravention of this basic Law. All law should be extrapolations from that basic concept. Any act that constitutes an initiation of force, for example by government or labour unions, would henceforth be prohibited from this day forward (and don't you wonder if there's a Latin phrase for that?)

The act of thinking is the means by which men and women solve the problems of living. It's taking stock of a given situation, and putting together a plan to achieve first a basic then progressively more luxurious or whatever way of life. When people are busy focusing on their own day-to-day, and they know at the same time that NOBODY else has the right to initiate force, including the government itself, then there will finally be a chance for human beings to give birth to the first true civilization - one that flourishes without the initiation of force between or among human beings.

Once again, being able to achieve this Utopia requires dealing with the problem of feeling good about ourselves to the point where enough of us say we deserve to have this Utopian kind of existence right damn now.

How good about yourself do you feel?

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

Remember that in Objectivism, reason, purpose, and self esteem are the primary values that a man ought to strive for. And considering oneself to be evil is very much against self-esteem. A fully rational man will not try to hide anything he has thought or done from himself, because he will want to become integrated and fully real to himself. Dr. Peikoff was asked a similar question a few times via his podcast, and basically, he stated that even if one got away with an injustice, it would haunt one for a very long time and decrease one's self-esteem. And I think this is true. Just think of a minor injustice you might have committed and how it bothers you, and multiply that a hundred times and how much self-esteem and the desire to live decreases after that. If you actually come to the conclusion that one has committed an evil, this won't be able to become integrated into one's consciousness. For minor violations, like say getting unjustly angry at someone, then one can apologize; but if someone has done something really evil, like committed a murder, there is no way to make up for that -- and judging from criminals, they only way to continue to survive is to become a mindless brute, never introspecting and never achieving rationality, and therefore never achieving the primary values required of a rational man.

In other words, self-esteem must be earned, and it is earned by means of rationality. To commit an evil, under Objectivism, means to do something one knew was against reason, and to do that is to decrease one's self-esteem and one's motivation to live as a rational man as opposed to living like a mindless brute.

So I agree with the earlier replies that one needs to be fully honest with oneself in order to achieve self-esteem and have a reason for living. As a living being that has volition, self-esteem is your motivation to continue to live; and if you lose it, the only way to get it back is to embrace rationality once again. And there is no short-cut.

[AllMenAreIslands]

Thomas, how about all the people who consider themselves "bad" on one level, for example, by the standard of their religion, or by the standard of environmentalism, but who by a rational standard of value would not be bad? Such less obvious cases are probably the more prevalent ones, too. There are too many "mixed value" people these days.

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

Thomas, how about all the people who consider themselves "bad" on one level, for example, by the standard of their religion, or by the standard of environmentalism, but who by a rational standard of value would not be bad?

That would be unearned guilt, and it will slow people down in fighting for their values, which is why they need a rational philosophy to guide them. It was unearned guilt that led those AIG managers to give back their bonuses instead of standing up for their right to get a bonus under their terms of employment. If one does not have a rational standard -- especially one that cannot be followed, such as religion or environmentalism -- then one will necessarily feel guilty about being a man. This was one of the problems of Hank Rearden in Atlas Shrugged and he had to think it through very carefully to overcome it. However, without a rational philosophy and a rational ethics, one will feel guilty about all sorts of things that one ought to be proud of -- that is the problem with accepting an irrational standard. Unfortunately, even though Atlas Shrugged is very high on the best seller list right now, their aren't many people checking those philosophical premises. They see the particulars of the story and sympathize with the characters, but the philosophy is not as real to them as it would be if they became fully rational.

Having gone through the conversion to Objectivism from Catholicism (when I was younger), it takes a great deal of dedication to reason and a lot of premise checking. And it is difficult to do that while one is under attack from all quarters. It rather like the issue of going by reason instead of emotions, because the unearned guilt will still be there, but one has to explicitly think through the issues. In other words, a lot of people are saying enough is enough, but they are not taking that extra step of questioning their chosen morality.

[softwareNerd]

Like the title says, what is the importance of considering yourself a good (moral) person? And, what's wrong with seeing yourself as evil?

Instead of starting at the broad level of self-esteem, consider a very narrow example first. Then, see if that applies to different concretes that are equally narrow. Then, see if it can be generalized.

For instance, one might narrow this down from self-esteem to (say) playing soccer. One might ask: how does confidence in his ability to save goals help a soccer goalkeeper? Isn't it enough that he can save goals; why must he also be confident of his ability to do so? Can't he be completely lacking in his ability and still save just as many goals? Distinguish here between a deep lack of confidence in his ability to be a goal-keeper, as opposed to the anxiety he may feel during a performance. The latter is something the afflicts some people, and yet they perform. However, imagine that it is not about anxiety "in the moment". Imagine that when he wakes up in the morning and has to head to soccer practice, he knows with every fibre of his being that he will never be a decent goal-keeper. How will that make a difference?

If you can answer, "what's the point of a goal-keeper considering himself capable of being a good goalkeeper?", it might help understand the more abstract version of the question.