Have you ever heard the phrase “He did that terrible thing, but otherwise he is a good person”? What can cause otherwise good people to do bad things?
Emotional distress could cause an otherwise good person to do something bad that causes harm to somebody else. When a person is in a state of emotional distress, whether it be anger, fear or some other strong emotion, the person can lose control and do things that that person would not normally do. For example, let us say you have been working very hard on your masterpiece Lego structure for a very long time. Just when you are almost finished with your masterpiece, someone knocks it down by some act of negligence. You lose your temper in the heat of the moment, attack him. Does that mean you are a bad person? Not necessarily. You simply acted out during a point of weakness where your emotions got the best of you. As you calm down, you may feel regret for what you did.
Manipulation and deception are other factors that can cause otherwise good people to do bad things. We have heard of religious cults that manipulate and deceive people into doing some bad things “for their god.”
Still another factor that can cause good people to do bad things is mental illness. However, a bad deed committed by a mentally ill person can still be a manifestation of his/her true character. The reason is that a mentally ill person can still have evil intentions.
To determine whether an evil act is a representation of one’s true character, ask the following questions:
1) Was the person perfectly calm when he/she committed the evil deed?
2) Was there evidence that the person was being manipulated or deceived?
3) Does the person know full well what he/she is doing?
4) Did the person feel true remorse afterwards?
Note that somebody may have influenced the person into committing the bad deed, but influence is not the same as manipulation. Also note that people can pretend to feel remorse when they do not; but if the person doesn’t show signs of remorse, then chances are that there is no remorse.
Television Examples
On television we can see examples of good people doing bad things and bad people doing bad things. When Anakin Skywalker’s mother dies in his arms, Anakin becomes very angry and heartbroken. In his anger and heartbreak, he proceeds to kill men, women and even children with his lightsaber. Is this a representation of Anakin’s true character? While Anakin does end up turning to the dark side, at the time Anakin was still good. He only committed these murders because he was intensely angry and upset. Furthermore, Anakin shows remorse afterwards, lamenting over what he had done, and recognizing how bad it was.
The terrible deeds that Anakin does as Darth Vader are a representation of his true character as Darth Vader. They happen after Anakin converts to the dark side, and is no longer a good person. Darth Vader is perfectly calm when he does evil deeds, and he does not show remorse afterwards. One could say he is under the influence of the emperor, but Darth Vader is not being manipulated or deceived. He knows full well what he is doing, and he can decide to abandon his allegiance to the emperor anytime. Of course, Darth Vader does eventually turn good again, but that is because people’s character can change over time. This is good news because it means that when someone is a bad person, it is possible for him/her to become good.
In the 1990s Merlin TV series, Merlin convinces Sir Lancelot to deceive the King of Camelot into believing that he is of noble birth when he is not so that he can become one of the king’s knights. Sir Lancelot initially rejects Merlin’s offer to help him to deceive the king, but he eventually goes along with the plan because he wants to be a knight so badly. In this scenario, we have two people—Merlin and Sir Lancelot—pulling off a deceptive scheme to deceive the king so that Sir Lancelot can get what he wants.
This deceptive scheme is a representation of Merlin’s true character. Merlin is perfectly calm when he comes up with the scheme and pushes Sir Lancelot to go along with it. Merlin certainly is not being manipulated. He came up with the scheme himself, and any regret that Merlin feels afterwards is most likely because the scheme had failed and the king found out that Sir Lancelot is not of noble birth. Sir Lancelot, however, does show genuine remorse for going along with the scheme to deceive the king. He believes that he is not worthy to be one of the king’s knights, and so he leaves. The deceptive scheme, therefore, is much less of a representation of Sir Lancelot’s true character than it is of Merlin’s character.
The one cockroach
If you see a cockroach scurrying across your kitchen floor, do you think that that one cockroach is the only one in your house? People who have had bug infestations know that when you see a member of an invasive insect species on your kitchen floor, there are going to be numerous other ones hidden somewhere.
The same applies when a person does a bad deed, and we have reason to believe that the bad deed was done out of his/her true character. The bad deed is a manifestation of evil inside of a person’s heart. If the person has proven him/herself capable of that one bad deed, then you can bet there are other bad deeds he/she is capable of doing too.
Good Person Bad Person Shades of Gray
Even when we admit that there is evil inside of the heart of someone close to us, we still want to believe that he/she is “not a bad person” and is instead “a good person overall.”
While the Bible presents a clear definition of good person and bad person (referred to in the Bible as the righteous and the wicked), outside of the Bible, the definition of the “good person” versus “bad person” is fuzzy. Rather, the definition of good person and bad person is in the form of a spectrum with good person at one end and bad person at the other end.
Tall person and short person also are on a spectrum where at one end of the spectrum are people who are definitely tall, on the other end are people who are definitely short, and in between are people who are, for example, considered tall in some circles of people and considered average height in other circles of people.
Many people would say that you are a good person if there is a lot of good in you and not too much bad. Perhaps we are a good person as long as we are more the 50% good and less than 50% bad.
Some people do not want to believe that one of their loved ones is bad. For example, a mother may not want to believe that her son is a bad person even if he does a lot of bad things and with bad intentions. As long as she sees at least some good in him, she will tell herself that he is a good person, even if there may be more bad in him than good. The problem is that if we define someone as good as long as there is at least some good in him/her, then the “good person” label does not mean much anymore. After all, pretty much everybody has at least some good in him/her—even cold-blooded killers.
In my opinion, the definition of a good person is one who, on a consistent basis, makes an honest attempt to do what is right. At points of weakness, a good person may give into the temptation to do something wrong; but he/she would then feel some remorse afterwards and try to do better next time.