Good Actions & Bad Actions

It's pretty simple. Nothing justifies actions except the action itself. It's the action that justifies any thoughts, motivations, or reasons, not the other way around. The nature of actions is determined by the action itself. This is the rule I want to talk about.

Bad Actions

Individually speaking, for instance, hitting children is bad, letting off anger is bad, killing people is bad. Actions on their own can be easily determined for its nature. But often people do everything for a reason; actions are always associated with reasons. For example, when a father hits his child, he justifies himself as teaching lesson or giving appropriate necessary punishment. When a protestor lets off anger, he justifies himself as speaking out for his rights. When we send a murder to death penalty, we justify ourselves as being judicial and civilized. These 'justifications' are perfectly reasonable and logical, but if they attempt to transform a bad action into a good one, then ultimately they fail. Bad actions are bad in themselves, nothing change it. All the reasons don't justify the nature of actions. What reasons/ justifications can do is to give tolerance, patience, and acceptability. The father is tolerated when he hits his child because he's teaching a hard lesson. A manager is patient with protestors because they have rights. Sentencing murder to death is acceptable because the murder doesn't value life and has already given up his chance.

Socially speaking, for instance, governments controlling people's access to information is bad, blocking people's freedom of expression is bad, arresting or assassinating dissidents is bad. This involves the same rule as above; bad actions are bad in themselves. There are always lots of reasons behind government's policies, and I'm too lazy to write them all down. I'm just going to leave one here: blocking people's access to global websites is bad. Even though there are many misleading and untrue information that might lead to mass panic or national division, and it's reasonable for the government to control these information and protect its 'naïve' or 'less-educated' or 'financially-left-behind' people, blocking people's access to global information is bad. All the reasons won't justify the blocking, they only make it tolerable for the moment.

Good Actions

Good actions can be determined pretty much the same like bad actions, using the same rule: the nature of actions is determined by the action itself. I've mentioned in the above paragraph: we do everything for a reason; actions are always associated with reasons. Sometimes we can't stop thinking about the motivation behind our actions. When I try to impress my boss, I'll be very polite and respectful to him. And this motivation (trying to impress someone) seems to make my good action 'less good', as I'm merely hoping for a better salary offering, or doing a good thing only as a means to an end. When I go to church, I go in the hope of going to heaven. Following the same reason, I help the randoms or the neighbors with a little bit of selfishness in mind. All these make me question the goodness in my good actions. But now I understand. The nature of actions need to be determined only by the action itself. It's good to be polite and respectful to people suitable. It's good to help others (in a way of actually helping, not trying to help but do the opposite). It doesn't matter what reason motivates you to do good things. Good things are good. It's that simple.

Wrap Up

If a father has once hit his child, he might have all the proper reasons to make his action acceptable, but what he did was a bad thing and that is a fact that won't change. This is the same as history. If a government has once implemented a false policy, or massacred a number of armless citizens, it might hold a positive objective (e.g. develop the country or improve people's life), but the fact is that we face the truth, accept the past, acknowledge that those were the wrong things to do rather than using excuses and attempting to justify bad actions.

The point of this article is to provide some clarity on the matter of good and bad. We often got caught up in an interwoven and endless battle: I do a bad thing but I have my reasons, is it still a bad thing, or I do a good thing just because I want to reach my goal, am I a bad person? After all, we have our different answers. We have our different rules. And I'm merely providing one of the rules available: the nature of actions is determined by the action itself. If someone wants to be a good person, always do good things. If someone ever do a bad thing but he has all his reasons, what he do is still a bad thing. It's not realistic to completely stay away from making bad actions, because there are many occasions in life when we must commit those acceptable and tolerable bad actions. However, isn't it simply to know that even though it is a wrong thing to do, we do it for the sake of someone else anyways. Even though we have to take on the risk of being accused of 'bay guy', we attempt to make things right anyways. It's very much simpler when someone accuses us as 'ass hole' for what we've done, and we no longer need to reply with why we did it, but rather simply say "yes, what I did was terribly wrong, and I'm sorry".

#IdealistsJournal #Ethics