what does it take to actually be a good person?

morality in this strange place we call the internet.

Photo by The Walters Art Museum on Unsplash

Some years ago, I was talking to a girl.

Regular rizz activities, nothing too crazy.

While we were talking, the topic of freedom within relationships came up.

In response to something she said, on this point, I paraphrase-quoted bell hooks’ idea that, where true love is present, the need to dominate whithers away.

In response to this, she (half-playfully) mentioned that I had just passed another “misogyny test” by quoting hooks.

Apparently, she was keeping score, and I was doing well.

Now, this interaction happened long before the discourse on morality emerged in full force on TikTok and here on Substack— before we started explicitly exploring themes related to “goodness”, “performative goodness” and the strange, almost pathological desire for moral purity that sometimes comes up in these circles.

Studying moral philosophy is part of my job, so these issues are always on my mind, but lately I was thinking about this “misogyny test” conversation in light of this question of “performative goodness”, and I’d like to reflect for a little bit.

Our question here is,

What does it actually take to be a good person?

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To begin, let’s talk about misogyny for a second.

I once watched a TikTok that said something along the lines of— where misogyny and men are concerned, the question is not if? But to what extent?

In other words, the question is not “if” your man— any man you know— manifests some elements of misogynist thinking, the question is “to what extent do they do so?”

This was an interesting thought.

Now, we could quibble about definitions here, regarding what is meant by misogyny, and that would be an interesting conversation for another day.

For our purposes here, let’s take this statement as true at face value.

If it is true, then we encounter an interesting and odd issue.

If all men are inextricably linked to misogyny, then what makes a man a good man?

A good man would simply have to be less misogynistic than the rest. To ask for a man free from misogyny would be impossible.

At least, this seems to be the conclusion to this train of thought.

Now, on some level, there is nothing controversial being said here.

If we were to swap out “misogyny” for “badness” and “men” for “all people”, then we’d get a pretty tame claim.

The idea here would then be that all people practice things that are not-very-good.

To be a human completely detached from badness would be impossible, so what we shoot for is to be humans who are, all things considered, less bad.

But, here we run into an issue— less bad than what? Or, to take our first example, less misogynistic than what?

If a person were to say, “yeah, I’m not perfect, but at least I’m not as bad as ** insert name of the most diabolical historical or contemporary figure you can think of right now here **, I think most of us would agree that the bar to cross should not simply be being better than the most diabolical person that comes to mind.

The fact that all humans have the capacity to do not-very-good things raises a question about where we might draw the line separating a “morally normal” person from a morally problematic one.

To make this point, imagine a person— let’s call him Kyle. Kyle occasionally falls short of being a good partner to his significant other.

Kyle occasionally forgets important things, but genuinely tries to make things better; things just fall through the cracks sometimes. Kyle makes mistakes, yes, and his mistakes hurt people sometimes, yes, but this really is just a case of a person who’s trying his best. Nothing pathological seems to be on the scene yet.

Now compare this person to another person— Jeff— who functions in exactly the same way, except for one thing— Jeff cheats on his partner once. Let’s call it a moment of weakness. He begs for forgiveness, explains what happened, and his partner, after some time, agrees to forgive.

Now, if TikTok is any indicator of the will of the masses on these issues, then it would seem as though this is the point where most people would officially turn on Jeff.

There is no redemption for cheating.

"A moment of weakness” does not fly in this case.

Once more, at least, if TikTok conversations on similar occurrences count for anything, then Jeff’s a bad person. End of story.

Yet, it gets more sus because we have to suppose one more case: the case of Geoff (Jeff’s evil twin).

See, Geoff is a serial cheater. He finds it enjoyable to get into relationships so he can cheat. Something about watching the tears in his partner’s eyes form if they find out just puts him over the moon.

Alright, so there’s clearly something wrong with Geoff here.

Might we even say he’s a bad person?

Perhaps, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves yet.

The issue here is, if we were to assume that Geoff is a “bad person”, then are we all absolved from the “bad person” label so long as we’re not like him?

If perfection is impossible, if there’s nothing higher than being like Kyle— being a person who’s just trying their best— then, so long as we’re not Geoff, we’re in the clear.

In reality, maybe most of us oscillate between Kyle and Jeff, and that’s really all we can hope for.

Perhaps this entire dialogue simply shows us what it might take to not be a bad person. Maybe that’s the easy part.

But what about goodness?

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One interesting thing about goodness is that the aspect of “performative goodness” has made its way rather strongly into these internet conversations about morality.

A TikToker once said that she’d rather be played with by a good-for-nothing F-Boy than be played with by a “feminist leftist man”.

At least the F-Boy is simple in his evil, so the thought goes.

The leftist feminist man will sophistically gaslight and manipulate, and then, when it’s all over, suggest that in reality, you— the woman— were not healed enough from internalised misogyny to open yourself up to something real. Again, so the thought goes.

Now here we have another interesting issue, because we must then ask— what’s the difference between a performative good man and a good man?

We have a problem, of course, because we’re not sure that good men/people even exist.

So, that would mean that there are bad people, normal people and performative good people.

These three categories seem to be less controversial than “good people”.

So, does this mean we are cooked?

Well, yes, but not for any reasons related to this essay. We’re all cooked for many (many) other reasons.

Anyways, this, of course, all leads into the general conversations about performativeness that have been present in our discussions on this and other apps for a while now.

Without rehashing too many old debates on this topic, I’d like to introduce a consideration of authenticity into the mix.

So, here’s the thought—

A performative person is a person who does all the things a good person would do, but they do so for nefarious reasons. They weaponise goodness for their own ends.

So, if we were to find a person who does the exact same things as a performative good person, but they do so simply for the love of the things in themselves, would we have a case of a good (or, at least, a good-ish) person?

Perhaps a good person simply might be an authentic performative person.

Now, if you find it strange that we’d derive goodness from its perversion, and not the other way around, you’d be on to something.

In other words, if you’re wondering why we’d want to define goodness by looking at performativeness, you’d be asking the right questions.

I won’t answer this question here, though, it’d derail us too much. But it is an interesting question for another time.

For now, we’re concerned with something else— is this an accurate description of goodness?

Is a good person simply an authentic performative person?

This is a question I will leave for the comment section.

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I want to close with a recapitulation of the story I began with.

The first question we’re concerned with is: Is there any way to quote bell hooks without falling headfirst into the performative allegations?

This is an interesting thing for me, because I fear I have a habit of quoting things when I speak.

Partly for dramatic effect, but also just because I like to play around with ideas, and verbally quoting things is usually a good way to do that.

Plus, I enjoy sharing things I find interesting with peeople, if they are willing to listen.

On at least one occasion, though, this practice has been interpreted unfavourably.

A friend asked me for my opinion on something, and I began my response by saying, “Well, I think Kant would say…”

And she stopped me mid-sentence and said that she wasn’t asking what Kant would say, she wanted to know what I would say.

Now, this confused me for a second because, in my mind, I was about to tell her what I thought; I just wanted to show my work and build up to it.

I think, funny enough, this has consistently been labelled as one of my least-liked quirks, at least from some people.

Over the years, I’ve learned to tone it down when necessary, but, in my mind, my thought process remains the same—

As the Scriptures say, nothing is new under the sun.

I don’t think I’ve come across a thought in the course of talking to anyone that I had not encountered in some version or another elsewhere. Discovering such connections really is one of the joys of talking to people, I’d say.

So, in my mind, before I mention my thought on a thing, I find it wonderful to first mention where else I’ve encountered it, or, if my thought on a question comes directly from someone else, I like to mention that.

So, in the moment where I quoted bell hooks in our opening story, I did so because the conversation floated to this question of freedom, and I personally find the idea that domination fades away where love is present to be a wonderful thought.

It’s an idea that’s stuck with me ever since I read it, and so, I thought it’d be a nice moment to share.

I wonder if I would’ve done anything different if I had known that there was a misogyny test going on.

But, perhaps the question you are wondering at this point is— do I think I’m a good person?

Sometimes, upon learning that I do moral philosophy, this is a question people tend to ask me.

Funnily enough, though, philosophers never ask me this question. Partly because, in moral philosophy circles, we don’t really speak much about “goodness”. It’s a bit of a spooky term, and we’re often concerned with other things. But this is also a conversation for another day.

So, am I a good person?

You’ll be pleased to know that I often answer this question by quoting something else.

I quote none other than the big JC Himself, the star of the Bible.

Here’s the full conversation, for dramatic effect.

As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.

— The Gospel of Mark, Chapter 10, verses 17—18.

Makes you think, doesn’t it?

vibes est vida.