This is what I was trying to say a few months ago to someone:

When a friend does something wrong, we quickly defend the person and say “but she is a good person.” We usually end up saying that about all our friends. All our friends are good people. “Bad person” is a designation we give to people we do not know, of whom our only knowledge of is by just so happening to witness one of their nastier actions.

This is not rational, of course, and because we happen to work this way, sentimentalist ethical projects may accomplish a lot of good for humanity.

However, while sentimentalist ethical projects are insightful on a very general level — I mean, there is some truth in the idea that we are all “good people” and that we should broaden our circles of sentiment to include as many people as possible — they don’t solve the hard problems of ethics, and the hard problems of character judgment. They don’t tell us something very practical and important but that we all have such a difficult time with: how to choose our friends.

Pascal discusses rightly why this is such an important, yet tangled affair:

Our minds and feelings are improved by conversation; our minds and feelings are corrupted by conversation. Thus good or bad society improves or corrupts them. It is, then, important to know how to choose in order to improve and not corrupt them. But we cannot make this choice if we have not already improved and not corrupted them. Thus a circle is formed, and they are fortunate who escape it. (S658)

It seems to me that we must knowingly and take particular effort to USE our standards of right and wrong when we come to judging people (do not tell me you don’t have a standard of right and wrong, and do not tell me that subjectivity precludes you from being able to judge others by it, because you do judge anyway, every day — the point is to make better, clearer, less confused, more consistent and helpful judgments). It is beneficial to think of everyone as a generally “good person” on one level — even every day, so that our acts of charity are ever-flowing — but it is not helpful to say that and specifically be reflecting upon their character and actions. Introspection helps here. We witness ourselves very clearly doing bad things with bad intentions. Your friends are the same way. We need to be merciful to them in act (as we would want our friends to do to us), but to know that they are doing something wrong, and those two must be held distinct.

All this really boils down to a question that has been on my mind: what sort of bad action (or series of bad actions) does a person have to do for you to stop your feeble though incessant defense of “but she’s a good person”? My complaint comes down largely to how we are using words — for wrong usage of words leads to serious category mistakes in how we think. And then we end up with a ton of falsehoods we will forever have to grapple with. Pascal’s fragment above (though for a different purpose) shares this presupposition: conversation — the way we use words with others and the ideas behind those words — has a grand effect on our thoughts and feelings.

Instead of saying that all our friends are “good people,” we should say what makes a lot more sense — what we really mean or should mean: things like “I care about this person because this person qua human being has dignity and worth and has just so happened to end up in my life,” this person is “promising,” or the likeliest assessment “I have a relationship of pleasure or utility with this person and there really exists not an ounce of virtue in it. This is not a friendship of virtue, but I should certainly take opportunities to push it in that direction.” A first step is accurately assessing your relationships: there is certainly no requirement to call your friend a “good person” if your friendship is grounded in diversion and entertainment (how often do we find ourselves hanging out with the incarnation of Pascal’s fragment “witty narrator, bad character”!). And to actually say that someone is not a very “good person” does not necessitate at all ending the relationship with the person. It is merely to have a clear moral assessment of the person in your mind, which you always have easy access to (as moral data to serve your clarity of thought and your own possible self-improvement), and which your friend may have access to if she asks for it. If she asks for it, it is your duty to give it to her, and to give it to her clearly.

We should use “good person” and “bad person” meaningfully or we should not use the terms at all. The ideas are probably better expressed by less ambiguous (and blanket) terminology such as “this person often thinks and acts like I would like to think and act,” and “this person often thinks and acts in a way that I very much disapprove of.”

However, some people focus more on their friends’ thoughts when judging them. This person does vulgar act X and malicious act Y and destructive act Z, but the irrationally loyal friend’s defense ranges from
“she’s trying hard to be good and always has good intentions” to “she’s ignorant and confused and has good reason to be.” Our focus is turned from our friends’ actions to their thinking, because we are more acquainted with their thinking than the evil that they do. This is because our friends thoroughly share with us the natures of their complex dilemmas, regale us with their tortuous, labyrinthal thought processes, and, of course, by shedding tears add the dimension of feeling. Ultimately, their justifications are most compelling to us. And yet, we must be wise. It is good to trust our friends, but there are some considerations that constitute a healthy skepticism. We must remember how often it is that we 1) have very base motivations and desires underlying all of our treks into interpreting our situations as morally ambiguous and oh-so-nobly and arduously analyzing them, 2) easily deceive ourselves, 3) find delightfully reasonable justifications to satisfy truly base and selfish desires, and 4) put on an even more convincing show for our friends who are usually even more disposed in our favor than we are to ourselves. Again, “witty narrator, bad character.” Your friends are like this too. Again, Pascal says it best,

We are not satisfied with the life we have in ourselves and in our own being: we want to live an imaginary life in the minds of others, and for this purpose we endeavor to make an impression. We labor constantly to embellish and preserve this imaginary being, and neglect the real one. And if we are calm, or generous, or faithful, we are eager to make it known, so as to attach these virtues to our other being, and would rather separate them from ourselves to unite them with the other…

Your friends are like this too, but again (as usual), degree is important. Sometimes your friends have less of this self-enslavement going on than you do. Sometimes you should be more charitable in judgment to them than to yourselves. Principles exhausted, praxis is key here.

Because of this, moral externalism comes into play. While I am an internalist — I think our intentions are what really matters morally — I do know that because self-deception is so common in self-reflection and in communication with others, as well as solipsistic judgment, our epistemic limitations here require that we sometimes resort to using some external data (our friend’s acts X, Y, and Z) for character judgment. Assessing a mix of external data with apparent internal data must be done with an attitude of sensitivity and humility. Some people only use external data, which is terrible and unfair. But all you people with the “good person” defense, need it, BADLY.

Compared to God, we are all the same. But compared with each other, we are different. We need to make distinctions, or else disarm and do away with morality altogether.

Next time I’ll have to address more in full the opposite problem: the tendency to deconstruct and reduce everything your “friend” does (e.g. a vicious cycle of: ambiguous action must be bad because intentions are bad, and I know intentions are bad because of all these ambiguous actions which, of course, must be bad…and on and on), to believe everyone is a “bad person” to boost our own self-esteem, to disbelieve and distrust everything your friend says regarding her own motivations. The “bad person” problem is the greater of the two evils, for I see not an ounce of charity nor humility in it.

Good judgment lies between these extremes. And the best judgment is directed at yourself. A nice alternative to solipsism Pascal suggests: “It is not in Montaigne, but in myself, that i find everything I see in him.”