Who's the better person?

@syz, It’s good to see you.

I’m wondering about being the recipient of the actions of either person. If I’m receiving assistance from either one, do I need to know their motive?

But I see your tags. I am troubled by the notion that humans need cajoling or threats to maintain decent behavior. I don’t think we do.

It occurs to me that what we really need instead of reward or fear is the fulfillment of basic needs. If I’m secure in my personal needs for safety, housing, food, companionship, etc,, I’m much less likely to act maliciously.

I think we can see this for ourselves in our surroundings. Secure people don’t regularly commit crimes. They are able to self-regulate their actions and are less likely to act injudiciously.

It’s my opinion that crimes are committed by people who are not secure in their basic needs and/or who have a history of trauma, abuse, or neglect.

Good question.

No one is better than anyone else. If someone were helping me when I desperately needed it, I wouldn’t care why they chose to do so.

Does motivation matter. really? Or is the person’s goodness (whatever that is) enough by itself?

Do we care why people act? Or just that they do?

There is a dialog in the Jewish religion on this subject.
A clever student asks “What lesson can we learn from atheists? Why did God create them?”

The Rabbi responds, “God created atheists to teach us the most important lesson of them all — the lesson of true compassion. You see, when an atheist performs an act of charity, visits someone who is sick, helps someone in need, and cares for the world, he is not doing so because of some religious teaching. He does not believe that God commanded him to perform this act. In fact, he does not believe in God at all, so his acts are based on an inner sense of morality. And look at the kindness he can bestow upon others simply because he feels it to be right.”

“This means,” the Rabbi continued “that when someone reaches out to you for help, you should never say ‘I pray that God will help you.’ Instead for the moment, you should become an atheist, imagine that there is no God who can help, and say ‘I will help you.’”

ETA source: Tales of the Hasidim, Vol. 2: The Later Masters [Martin Buber, Olga Marx]
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I consider this subject a bit like making a charitable donation that I cannot list on my income tax. It is all charity.
Real example: A family in my neighborhood suffered a large fire in their garage that spread to part of the house. (caused by lithium batteries, BTW) People were sending “thoughts and prayers” on the neighborhood page. I put cash in an envelope and left it attached to their front door anonymously. 1000 T&P will not restock a refrigerator, or buy clothes, or replace a lawnmower – (hopefully gasoline powered this time.)

If you need the fear of punishment or the promise of a reward to behave, you are not a good person, period.

Well, I’m choosing sides here. Door number two is a “better” person. How we define good, better does matter but if it’s up to me, I want someone on my team who does the things we consider to be right because they’re right without needing external motivation.

When we talk about some people being morally better than others, there are two things we could be thinking about: their moral value, and their moral acumen (how accomplished one is in doing the right thing). Moral value is about a person’s worth. It’s what people are invoking when they say that members of one caste or clan or race or even hair color are superior to the members of another. Moral acumen is about a person’s judgment. It’s what people are invoking when they say that murder is worse than jaywalking or when they encourage someone to be the bigger person.

If the question were about moral value, I would agree with @KNOWITALL that we are all morally equal. No person is worth more than another, even if we are not all equal in strength, size, intelligence, or ability. But I take it this is a question about moral acumen and will answer it accordingly. In short, I think we are morally mature when we stop needing external reasons to be kind or friendly and not to be cruel or hostile, and I am more than a little concerned by people who say that the only thing holding them back from committing certain terrible acts is the fear or punishment and/or judgment.

I would also like to note that nearly every moral theory, whether of religious or secular origin, agrees that doing something because it is the right thing is morally superior to doing it out of a desire for rewards or a fear of punishments. While it is true that many religions tell you that there will be a punishment for doing the wrong thing, and while those may be used as incentives to get on board with their moral program, they also expect people to grow beyond those initial motivations.

So while there are certainly religious people who say things like “the only reason I don’t murder people is because I will be punished after I die,” they are mostly just exposing themselves as being in the early stages of moral development. And I suspect that their fellow believers who are further along the path are just as concerned about them as I am.

As for why we might care about someone’s motivations for doing the right thing: a person who does the right thing for the wrong reasons fails to do the right thing when their reasons aren’t satisfied. A person who does the right thing for the right reasons is far more reliable and serves as a better foundation for a moral community.

The act and result may be the same, but in the bigger picture, the motivation does matter in the long run. If the reward is withheld the next time, and the good act is not performed, solely for that reason, even if there are no consequences for performing the act, then I go with the better person being the one who does the right thing because it is the right thing, being the better person.

But the good news is that in the first case, the good act is still performed.

@canidmajor GA! Perhaps a person likes to help others and happens to be a Christian. He isn’t whispering names and addresses to me, that’s a certainty. :)

Depends on your morality system, and what you’re actually asking, and how you measure it.

I tend to much prefer people who do good because they want to by themselves, rather than because of some perverted misunderstanding of a morale code that threatens them to try to compel them to do so. I see such efforts as misguided and/or immoral.

The best of us create the very idea of goodness through their actions. They don’t just do the right thing they demonstrate what the right thing to do is. Hence the expression “The truth doesn’t makes a man great it is man who makes the truth great”.

@syz Good to see you.

People that support other people in that are in stress !

I think both. The person who does something out of fear still has to recognize what is right from wrong. Its like saying the taxi driver is selfish because he requires to get paid for giving people rides. Its neither good nor bad that they do a service for money because they need to earn a living. Its just a fact. Now you have a person with time and money who gives rides for free because he sees a need for that and doesn’t need the money. Does it make that person all the better? Also, there is the matter of consciousness.You don’t know if the one that always does good but doesn’t believe in the afterlife, does it because they feel guilty or because they like that it gives them respect from people they value. Or because if it makes them feel proud. You don’t know how genuine it is. Whereas the one that gives the ride for money could also very much enjoy helping someone out for a ride. Doing the service without bitterness My point is we don’t know what is truly in someones heart and people sometimes don’t understand their own heart, and no one is immune from selfishness.

My dad who was very Christian and very kind person without judging others use to say the saints all live in heaven. I like to think that his kindness was motivated more than just by what he thought God would want but because it was a part of who he was . But being poor he did what he could when he could so long as it didn’t hurt the family or put other out. From stories from my aunts and uncles, it was just how he always was. Believing in an afterlife doesn’t automatically mean people will be what they are not. They naturally will corrupt and justify wrongs to fit their beliefs if they need too.

The right thing to do for whom? A lot of evil shit has been done by people who thought they were doing what was right.

Assuming that we can agree with the morality of a certain act, a person is more moral who sees that performing the act is a net cost to them, as opposed to someone who believes not performing the act results in a net cost.