How should one live, what does it mean to be a good person?

Question

How can one know the difference between good and bad?

Please feel free to share your thoughts and these fundamental questions of philosophy ethics/morality.

Answer 1

Reverence for life--Albert Schweitzer's fundamental principle to follow to live a good life!

Answer 2

I will answer this question in a Christian view. We can know the difference between good and bad by measuring it up with what God tells us in the Bible. For an example, one of the ten commandment are "you shall not steal". So therefore we know that stealing is bad. If you'd like to explore the Bible more you can go to an online Bible at biblegateway.com. I hope this helps...

Answer 3

Sitting silently,doing nothing.

Answer 4

When it comes down to "good-and-bad", its all blurry and i think you can agree with that. I obviously do not believe morality is absolute, maybe morality derived from evolution could be absolute, but then again it can be "reprogrammed".(ie murder into sacrifice)

How should you draw a line between those two? I personally draw conclusion by analyzing it logically, but then again my "logic" might seem evil and considered "bad" to most people...then i choose what to go for, should i go for what i think is right? Or what society think is right?

I think in order to be a "good-person" you should treat others like how you want to be treated. No matter how hard you try to be a "good-person" it is impossible to "satisfy" all people since we have different thought patterns, others might think you are being completely opposite. The conflict between two view points are unavoidable, and it is not your fault. I think what really matters is what you are intending to do or be(in this case).  

Answer 5

Treat others with respect. Give to others by being helpful. What one gives will return two fold at some point

Answer 6

John Galt's oath..."I swear by my life and my love for it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."  

Answer 7

One shall live by the principle of respect for himself and for the rest of Humanity. The rest is easy to understand.

Answer 8

I’m a theist (Christian), so I use authority to determine the answers to your questions.  I’ve been ‘told’ what a good person is and how I should live in order to become/remain one.  But since I’m pretty sure that route has little appeal to you, I’ll try to aim you in the direction of a non-authoritarian answer.  I can’t pretend to be competent to do so.  Humanity has wrestled with these questions for as long as we can remember.  I’m not going to solve the riddle of the ages in an answer on an internet forum.  

The fundamental question, from which the others derive, is the second: ‘what does it mean to be a good person?’.  Figure that out and the answer to the others logically follows.  But how to do so?  I’ll say at the outset that reasoning your way to the answer is impossible.  Ultimately your definition of the good toward which you want to aim is going to be arbitrary.  You will have to assume the existence of things which are good in themselves.  Life, for example, or reason.  You’ll need to assume that you can actually implement a plan to achieve whatever moral/ethical goal you set for yourself.  You’ll have to assume that it’s actually better to be a good person than a bad one, whatever those terms come to mean.  Reason alone cannot answer such basic epistemological questions.  You were right to include the word “mean” in your question.  Before you can answer it, you have to make life mean something.  And when all the fanfare and philosophical dust subsides, ascribing such meaning will be an exercise of naked will.    Realize that, and you’ll have taken the first step.

From the little I know, you seem to have three basic approaches.  Follow the Greeks, follow Kant, or follow Nietzsche.    

The Greek pattern is to posit a telos, and then deduce a set of virtues and vices which move you either toward or away from it.  

Kant posits a perfect world, then uses a consequential method of determining which type of life and action is most likely to produce one.  

Nietzsche...  well, you undoubtedly know more about him than I do.  What makes his approach interesting, at least to me, is the courage with which he faces the impossibility of your task as you’ve defined it.  The best he can do is hope for a spontaneous development of authentic humanity in the wake of it’s destruction.   I’m not suggesting that you embrace nihilism, but rather that you follow him in replicating Alexander’s solution to the Gordian knot-- create your own, as yet unimagined, path.

peace

Answer 9

"All that we are is the result of what we have thought. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him. "

Buddha

Answer 10

Do unto your neighbor as you would want them to do unto you... I think that everybody has a natural instinct to tell you the difference between right and wrong..like a gut feeling. Live your life for the day and the future not the past and don't waste time on what people think of you.

Answer 11

The main rule for me, is : Never hurt other people, animal, Nature.

Answer 12

This seemingly easy question is too difficult to answer. No one can say what is good and what is bad. I think the 'good' and 'bad' are only relative terms.  Nothing is absolutely good nor bad.This is possibly why the religions are there. They tell you right from wrong. But I always believe in  myself and my common sense.