So, I'm kind of surprised I didn't do this yet. I mean, I've kinda gone around the issue in a lot of ways, I did mention it a little in my worldview articles, as well as some stuff I wrote back in 2016 about how atheism influenced my perspective, but I never really did actually devise an actual post outlining exactly how my morality works in a comprehensive way. As such, I would like to do that here today.
Fundamentalist Christianity, Divine Command Theory, and the Euthyphro Dilemma
As some of you know, my original worldview was based on fundamentalist Christianity. In such a worldview, God is the author of all morality. He is the source of objective morality and without God, all morality would be subjective and people would be allowed to "do whatever they want." It would theoretically be as moral to kill someone as it is to not kill them. Many Christians would also argue if you have an intuitive source of morality, you should consider where that comes from, and that would be "God." Basically he writes his words on our hearts and we intuitively know good from evil because of him. Everything goes back to God.
Obviously, I grew out of this perspective. As I tried to follow the golden rule of loving my neighbor as myself, and developing further morally in college and grad school, I kind of find authoritarianism to be a horrible source of morality. As the Milgram experiment would point out, people can do horrendous things if they can shift the moral culpability to an authority, and say that they were "only following orders." But...many people, not just Germans who committed the holocaust, but all humans, are susceptible to this moral flaw. Heck, the Bible itself exhibits this moral flaw. God himself in the Bible basically ordered a genocide in ancient Israel (and you wonder where the Israelis got it from, their holy book is FULL of ethnic cleansing of the holy land!). And it was apparently moral because God did it. I also had issues with the likes of sentencing people to hell, which seemed to be, like, the most screwed up thing ever. Like tormenting people for all eternity? Yeah. Pure psycho crap. And then there was the issue of liberalizing attitudes toward homosexuality at the time where I felt like I had to choose between the letter of the Bible and the spirit of it, and I kind of realized that my own moral conscience had surpassed the Bible and I no longer viewed the Bible as an authoritative source of morality. Divine command theory is actually kinda lazy when you think about it, just appealing to god and making an argument from authority, and it's kinda messed up. Is something moral just because a strong authority commands it? Or is it moral based on something else?
This is, essentially, what is known as the euthyphro dilemma, which in my opinion skewers divine command theory by asking "is something moral because God says so, or does God say so because it is moral?". Well, if you accept the first prong, congratulations, morality is arbitrary and just subject to whatever this all powerful being commands. No thinking or principles required, it's God's raw power as dictator of the universe to decide whatever he wants to be moral to be moral. The most messed up things I can think of, like genocide and hell, both things that are accepted in the Bible, are suddenly okay. Just because God said so. I'm sorry, but that's messed up. Which brings us to the second prong of the dilemma.
The second prong would imply that God commands that which is moral, because he knows better than everyone else. But God himself is not necessary to know morality. And that's the kicker. God is just passing along knowledge of morality based on some other standard that exists. But what is this standard, and if we can know morality for ourselves, do we actually need God?
The thing that really caused me to peek behind the curtain on this issue is that, as an increasingly educated person in secular ethics, it became very obvious to my that while morality is very difficult to define and even more difficult to develop a single objective moral standard anyone would agree to, that my own ethics had simply surpassed the Bible, and that I no longer had a valid reason to call myself a believer from a moral perspective. I rejected the source material and as such I recognized that I had to develop another approach to morality altogether, this time based on secular ethics. Of course, given my education level, this wasn't particularly hard, I was standing on the shoulders of giants and I had all of human knowledge available to me both through my education and this call thing we call "the internet", which, at the time, I views as the second coming of the printing press. And it still basically is. I just recognize people don't always use it responsibly.
Explaining what morality is and where it comes from, from a secular perspective
So...technically, the Christians are right in a sense. Without a god to tell us what to do and not to do, we can do...anything we want. We can kill people. We can save people. It makes no difference to the universe at large. Heck, the universe at large seems cold to the very idea of our existence, and historically, life on this planet either survives...or it doesn't. Over 99% of species to have ever existed on earth are now extinct. Life either makes it, or it doesn't. The universe doesn't care either way. What is, is, and the pieces fall where they fall.
However, while this is true from an "objective" perspective, let's face us, most of us would prefer not to die. Most of us would prefer not to feel pain. I'm not saying we are like this in every single instance. Suicidal people exist, and so do masochists, but generally speaking, humans try to remain alive and avoid pain. This is a nearly universal preference in humans. As such, what can be said to be morality starts with a form of proto utilitarianism, a general urge to avoid pain and prolong life. This doesn't mean i embrace "utilitarianism" to its extreme logical conclusions, we can discuss what an ideal moral system looks like later, and I'd argue that it's possible non exists, because human preferences can be diverse when we get into the nitty gritty of morality, but I'm sure the overwhelming majority of us can agree that pain is generally something we should avoid, and we should generally try to extend life.
So what is morality then? Well, I would argue that it's the applied science of trying to enhance human existence, with the first priority being to preserve life, and to enhance well being. We generally prefer to avoid suffering. We prefer long lives over short lives, and we have a preference of pleasure over pain.
And what is the basis of morality? Well, it comes from the social contract. You see, in political theory, the above state Christians speak of where we can just kill and rape people as much as we want is known as the "state of nature". It is, as Hobbes would say, "nasty, brutish, and short." You don't live long in the state of nature, and it's not very pleasant. And because humans have this preference to not die or suffer, they tend to band together and agree to a set of rules that they govern themselves by to reduce such unwanted behavior. As such, we are then able to enjoy the rest of our liberty, in relative security.
And that's where morality comes from. It's a social convention by humans to advance their own interests. It's not about an authority dictating things to others at all. if anything, in enlightenment theory, authoritarians are generally bad. Rousseau himself talked about "the right of the strongest" and how if morality is just might makes right, morality changes with the coming and going of dictators. it's not that the dictators are moral, they can be quite immoral, simply forcing their way on others rather than recognizing peoples' rights to be governed. Ans divine command theory is just appealing to the ultimate dictator. Something like torture or genocide, which seems completely counter to the most basic precepts of morality, are suddenly okay because the one with the biggest stick says it's okay. That is not okay.
The fact is, to some extent, while no "objective" morality exists a la Christianity, we can say that some acts just go against the definition of morality reflexively. We can say that some acts are arguably so egregious or counter to the definition of morality, that you're just doing it wrong.
The limitations of so called "objective" morality
Even if we can agree on some baseline of morality that should exist, obviously, we are going to differ on a lot of details. Ultimately, humans are the keepers of what morality we accept and reject, but there is going to be wide differences in how morality manifests. Some people would prefer more authoritarian moral codes, while others more libertarian ones. Some would prefer more collectivist systems, and some more individualistic. Some are more consequentialist, while some are more deontological. Some would apply morals only to a specific ingroup while dehumanizing those outside of the in group, while others are more universalist in their interpretation. There's so many different approaches to morality I won't even attempt, at this point, to claim one system is better than others. The only thing I will say right now is that humans are the ultimate keepers of all morality. We are the masters of it. Morality is something that we create, to improve our own living conditions, and while we can argue some moral systems do a better or worse job at doing so by different metrics, no system is perfect, and no one seems to fully agree with each other on everything. Still, I will make a case here for how I see things and how I design my own moral system.
Adhering to the core definition and the theory of progress
A lot of people on the right, who tend to adopt more conservative, authoritarian, or religious models of morality that I obviously disagree with, sometimes seem to disagree with me even on the basics. I've come across conservatives who are so lost they can't even agree the concept of reducing suffering is a good thing. This perspective is defined by their worldview. If morality comes from say, a religious god like Yahweh in Christianity, and morality is about conforming to their moral system and being "virtuous" within it, then they might not care about suffering. Some of them think suffering builds character, which to me is completely messed up and misses the entire point. Why am I litigating this again? because these guys would also call the concept of "progress" a myth. The idea that we can improve on our moral systems. Because to them, morality isn't a matter of designing a system in order to further our own interests and survival instincts, but conforming to a strict set of rules dictated by an authority they call "god". God is already perfect, so the idea that we can improve on God's work is hubris and itself essentially what the "original sin" of Christianity is (in eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they essentially "became like god" and determined what is moral for themselves rather than listening to mr cosmic dictator). But for me, all morality IS us deciding for ourselves that which is good and evil. And because there is that quasi objective standard that morality is about improving our lives and living conditions, there are going to be some forms of morality that are better at accomplishing that goal than others. And we humans tend to learn through a long process of trial and error. All of human history is, essentially, such. We started out with very primitive systems based in authoritarianism that often missed the point of what morality is about, but as we developed, we started thinking for ourselves, and like Adam and Eve, deciding what is and isn't good for us.
We should, assuming we systemize our efforts to figure out what works and what doesn't, come up with better and better systems of morality over time. And this is what progress is. And as I've said previously, in every society, you have three major factions. Progressives, conservatives, and regressives. Progressives want to move society forward. They believe that if only we make changes XYZ, we can actually live in a better society than we do now. Conservatives like to keep society the way it is. They like the status quo. They think further changes would mess everything up, and we're fine where we are. And of course, regressives think society has gone too far and needs to go back to how we used to do things. In modern society, the left is "progressive", liberals are often more "conservative", and what we call "conservatives" at this point arent even arguing for the status quo any more, they're arguing to go back to a previous era of society, whether it be the 1950s, the 1890s, or 1776 or whatever. And this is where a lot of our political divisions come from. Politics is ultimately how we settle disputes peacefully in society. And different factions want different things. Some people think we changed things too much and things were better in the past for whatever reason. Some thing we're fine where we are, and some are gonna say that we can do things better than we do if only we change XYZ.
And as we know, people who are "progressives" cant always agree on what progress should be made. Some want more radical progress like overturning the system and replacing it with something else, while others want more incremental progress. Some want progress via the theory of intersectionality and social justice politics, while others like myself have a more traditional "modernist" idea of progress. And this is also why the left tends to have so much infighting and hates itself. Because we can't always agree on what progress looks like and what progress should be made, because keep in mind, there is plurality among what moral system is best and what the best system looks like.
Explaining the importance of enlightenment theory and liberal society
So, as we know, the original forms of society used to be quite authoritarian. Despite the social contract being the theory behind society, most societies started with strong men simply taking over land by force and subjecting people to their rules, and as we know by now, this isn't a good idea of doing things, because strong men don't always look out for peoples' well being. We actually find dictatorship to actually be a pretty bad system of governance, and enlightenment theory basically came up with the social contract as an alternative. And then wars were fought long ago in the 1700s and 1800s, and over time, monarchies and autocratic systems were overthrown with a more modern liberal system of governance. I generally approve of these changes. I would argue a system in which we can theoretically have an input in is better than one where people just tell us "this is how it is". If anything, such systems are almost as nasty brutish and short than complete anarchy.
Our constitution in the US was developed with the idea of controlling the powerful. We established systems of checks and balances separating the branches of government from each other, so that they can check and balance each other out. We established forms of voting so people would have a say, although the founders seemed skeptical of pure democracy at times. I will discuss some of these issues myself, but I do think that they were themselves elitist and aristocratic with their concerns sometimes being overblown and biased toward their own aristocratic ideals. I'm personally more in favor of democracy, since systems in which people have input are better than systems in which people don't. We all should have a say in the system that governs us, and I see this as a good thing.
However, because people generally don't and can't engage in all the nitty gritty details of governance and law, as this can be quite complex, I'm happy with representative democracy where we elect experts to hash out these details on our behalf, and they tend to represent their voters' interests.
Now, other features of our system that I think are worth discussing and praising. The rule of law. In the past, we used to do things like have blood feuds against each other. Like one guy wronged another guy, so the other guy killed that guy and ate his corpse, but his family would be pissed off about that, so would want to kill the other guy. A core importance of the modern state is to develop a system of law in which we leave retribution in the hands of the government. Instead of having these lines of blood feuds, which we still see btw with gangs and drugs cartels and mafias where people are whacking people all over the place, we defer that to the government where they try people and enact their own justice. This is intended to keep interpersonal violence to a minimum.
Next, the court system itself. We believe in things like innocent until proven guilty. We used to shoot first and ask questions later and it would cause a lot of false accusations to go through (remember the witch trials?). We would have the state locking people up without pretext and holding them in prison indefinitely, this is why we have rights like innocent until proven guilty, a right to a speedy trial, no double jeopardy etc. Virtually all of our legal protections enumerated in the US constitution come out of some flaw in the system that existed in their absence, whether it be an abuse of power or just something that didn't work.
Same with the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. If you look into the history of punishment, humans are screwed up, and have developed all kinds of cruel ways to torture people to death. Our system is designed to ensure we punish people in as humane a way as possible. And progressives still want to make things even better and more humane, such as getting rid of private prisons, and abolishing the death penalty, and getting rid of differences in how the justice system treats people of different races, etc.
We have constitutional rights to free speech and the like, because historically governments have persecuted people for saying things they don't like. We have a free society because of that. We have freedom of religion and a separation of church and state, which isn't explicitly in the constitution but can be inferred from the establishment clause and free exercise clause. We want to limit the influence of religion in government and have a secular set of morals instead. We want people to be free to practice their own religion as they want.
I mean, our system does a lot of things right. It isn't perfect, we can talk about making changes, but I generally prefer making changes around the edges. The problem with revolution is that if you throw the whole system out, you also throw the progress it made out and risk going back to the days of authoritarianism and strong man dictatorships. our system is actually intended to protect us from that.
On the limitations of democracy and the social contract, liberty vs security, etc.
So, within the context of liberal democracy, there are a ton of debates worth having. One question is whether if something is okay just because the majority is okay with it. There is a real risk in pure democratic systems about the risk of "tyranny by majority" where just because the majority agrees with something, whether it should be imposed on others. In order to counter the excesses of this, constitutional rights such as those i discussed in the above section are necessary to preserve the minority's rights. We essentially put a set of super laws on the government limiting what it can and can't govern, with the intent of limiting democracy's worst impulses. Most of these limitations are good and to be desired, as without them government can overreach into peoples' lives in invasive and unnecessary ways. Just because the majority agrees with something doesn't always make it right.
Likewise, the social contract itself has limitations, especially as far as minority rights go. To some extent, the libertarians who say "i didn't sign no social contract" are kind of correct. The law applies to people whether they voted for it or not, and whether they consented to it or not. And as such, law should be limited in the scope of what it can do.
After all, the whole concept of governance and morality is really about a tradeoff between liberty and security. The whole idea is that while we have absolute liberty in the state of nature, we would prefer to give up a little of that in order to enjoy the rest of it in relative security. The default state of humanity is liberty. But, as Rousseau would say, "man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains."
I think that any sound social contract would try to go out of its way to limit its power over others so that people can enjoy liberty to the greatest extent possible. As such, unjustified incursions into peoples' liberty should be looked down upon. The point of the state and state enforced morality is simply to prevent harm to others and solve problems that arise from a state of total freedom as they come. They should not enforce morality in people to a degree significantly greater than is justified.
This is not to say there isn't some level of debate to be had. Most rules exist to solve problems that exist in their absence. A good amount of them are justified. We should argue against those that have no justified purpose in restricting others' freedom and defend those that have a valid purpose.
In every society there seem to be authoritarians who want to enforce some level of morality on others unjustly. These guys should be largely resisted. Most of them are religious in nature, although some are simply "progressives" who promote solutions that are unjustifiably heavy handed to solve problems that exist. Sometimes it is arguably better to allow some problems exist than to solve them through overly intrusive state action.
Again, the line that we deem acceptable though is subjective, people will agree, and while our constitution does provide some limitations on our ability to govern ourselves for our own sake, ultimately, democracy is gonna prevail and we will get the system we vote for.
It's okay, in my worldview, to be selfish
Given morality ultimately comes from humans, it only makes sense that humans are going to develop moralities and systems of governance that suit their self interests. There is nothing wrong with this. If anything I think it's more questionable to support systems that don't serve the interests of people, whether indirectly or directly. What is the point of morality if it does not serve the people subjected to it? Who does benefit from such morality? These are valid questions we should always ask. Often times, tyrants will like to disguise their morality as something that involves someone else sacrificing something for them. If something does not benefit the citizens subjected to it, then why should they accept it?
It is true that in some instances, some level of self sacrifice might be good for society. Maybe in the event of an existential war against a tyrant (see Ukraine vs Russia for instance), you could argue a military draft is justified. Maybe sometimes individuals do need to sacrifice for the greater good. But the amount of sacrifice expected should be proportional with the dire of the need for it. Ultimately, the benefits of such sacrifices should outweigh the costs, although admittedly, this is subjective, and I would not blame someone wanting to evade a theoretical draft in the name of self preservation.
Still, I would encourage people to think long term instead of just short term, and think in terms of the collective and how they benefit from it, rather than what's short sightedly beneficial to an individual. I coined the term "enlightened self interest" on this blog for a reason. We should think in terms of what our long term strategic interests are rather than being short sighted. The problem with a lot of selfish people isn't that they're selfish, it's that they're stupidly selfish. They think only in terms of what's right in front of them, and lack the sociological imagination to see how systems can benefit the individual. They don't think about how if they pay taxes, they might get cheaper healthcare, or roads, or military for national defense, or a UBI that solves poverty and actually increases their freedom. They just think "government is taking money from me, that is bad" or something. Same with things like laws against noise, or smells, they ignore how if they bother others with loud music, others can also bother them. How if they just turn their back yard into a landfill, that can negatively impact others and in turn others' actions benefit themselves. They just think "muh freedom", which is very short sighted.
Enlightened self interest is what the term is, self interest that is enlightened and thinks in terms of the big picture, understanding that even if certain things are inconvenient short term from a raw selfish libertarian perspective, they're actually good for them long term and collectively. I don't ask for anyone to go against their self interest. That would be stupid. Rather, they should think intelligently about their interests.
Applying this to social policy
On social policy, I generally have the opinion that we have a duty to stay out of each others' way. While we can stop in and govern interactions that impact others negatively, we should mostly mind our own business. We should generally not govern sexual relations between consenting adults, or regulate abortion, or lock people up for smoking a plant, and given our belief in the second amendment, I would advocate for a balance between the right to bear arms and public safety, not veering too hard in either direction. Sometimes we have debates between liberty and security, and I would prefer to err on the side of liberty, only ceding to security when the benefits far outweigh the costs. I generally look down on all forms of authoritarians, whether they be religious authoritarians on the right, or "woke" ones on the left, who want to impose their ideas of morality on people. I believe in a separation between public morality which is the morality which we are all governed by and needs to exist for civil society to exist, and private morality, which are a bunch of oughts and shoulds some people might believe in, but should not be imposed on people as their costs to our freedom are far too high relative to the benefits, if there are even any benefits at all.
Applying this to economic policy
There are three major schools of thought economics in our modern day. All of them are, to some extent flawed. Conservative economics claims to be for freedom, but capitalism is inherently an unfree system that coerces people to work in order to produce wealth, while often having little control over their lives. While arguably some level of work is needed, we fetishize it due to the protestant work ethic, which seems more about imposing morality on people than it is about our needs.
Marxism recognizes that capitalism is an oppressive system, but misdiagnoses the problems somewhat by believing that the problem is merely the bourgeoisie oppressing others, and that if only we had socialism, ie some form of economic democracy, that this would solve all problems (see the discussion on the limitations of democracy and tyranny of majority above). The problem with socialism, above the fact that democracy itself may be flawed in some instances, is that it often relies on revolution to replace one system for another, creating a power vacuum which may lead to a regression to a nakedly authoritarian state, and that in replacing one system for another, it kind of destroys all of the positive benefits that come with that system. In some ways capitalism is about liberty, it's just the short sighted form that I condemned above. Replacing it with an inherently authoritarian system is not a solution. Virtually all forms of socialism struggle in terms of the logistics for how such systems would work.
As such, liberalism is probably the best of the three. It recognizes the benefits of capitalism, while trying to regulate the worst of its excesses. However, often it stops short of solving problems and merely tries to put band aids on them, as such I believe we need a new approach.
Social democracy is a sub form of liberalism that proposes more progressive measures than more moderate forms. It often comes with higher taxes and universal safety nets, but still seems to avoid addressing the work issue entirely.
We need a form of social libertarianism that acts like social democracy, but is focused on restoring freedom to the individual and recognizing minority rights. People should not be forced to work for the system more than necessary to continue its existence. A basic income, medicare for all, free college, and a housing program should essentially give people freedom as the power to say no.
Keep in mind there is nothing special about work. The economy exists for our own benefit, and work exists to provide for our own wants and needs. Much like as in Christianity, I see work as a bit of an evil. Keep in mind it was the original punishment from God for original sin. I see work as an evil, but one to be conquered. We should, as we become more productive, strive to work less, and to make work more voluntary. Fetishizing work seems to be a flaw of all mainstream economic ideologies. The protestant work ethic underlying work seems to be a form of christianity trying to force its weird idea of virtue ethics on people, in violation of what morality actually is. Work ethic is associated with virtue, laziness or its lack is associated with sin. We must break this dynamic as it is an affront to what morality is.
Applying this to foreign policy
Keep in mind, if the social contract is the basis for morality in a modern context, that means morality essentially is grounded in the institution of the state. Foreign policy is interaction between states. While states can work toward common goals in an international framework, it is, essentially, the state of nature. Many states do not value the same principles of liberal democracy I outlined above, and are governed often by naked authoritarianism. And because in the state of nature, those who have the biggest stick often dictates the terms for others, if we value our moral system, we have to ensure that we have a stick big enough to defend it. As such, as much as I would love to be non interventionist and to mind my own business (and when possible, I largely do), I do believe it is important that we forge alliances with likeminded states in order to preserve our way of life. Just as we humans band together to protect ourselves from the terrors of the state of nature, states must do the same. As such, I support the alliances of say, NATO, and oppose the expansion of rival powers such as Russia and China, who hold values counter to my own, and who, if given a chance, would threaten our western way of life.
I am not saying the west is perfect. I am progressive. I believe it needs to change and continue improving itself to give us better and better quality of life (see the theory of progress above). However, we need to defend our institutions from foreign threats. Period, end of story. We can only improve while we have the freedom to improve. Being threatened by hostile foreign powers, or being taken over by them stops us from being able to do anything. As such, I will fiercely defend the west and its way of life.
Conclusion
This should give an overview of my system of morality. I felt it was necessary to write this as I realize that I didn't have a blog article specifically dedicated to this topic, and it's quite an important one. This is literally the basis of my entire political worldview. All of my views on human centered capitalism also stem from this, and I may write a companion article in the future focused on economics in particular to expand my views of human centered capitalism and social libertarianism. But yeah, this is a solid basis to go off of.
Addendum: Being a "good" or "bad" person
So, I'm adding this part specifically due to a discussion I've been having with someone else, but it belongs here, so I'm adding this section. I don't like the idea of calling people "good" or "bad". I mean, I don't see morality as a standard by which people should be forced to conform to more than necessary, rather, I see morality as something we create to enhance our own experiences while here on this planet. Ideally, we determine that which is moral, it is not necessarily IMPOSED on us, unless to prevent harm to another person. If you notice, I hate the idea of "private morality", ie, morality that goes above and beyond the minimum and limiting negative consquences toward others being forced on people. This might be common within authoritarian religions and moralities like that of Christianity, but as you can tell, my own morals are a rejection of that. As such, I'm reluctant to use those terms or frame the issue that way. I'm also not inclined to be judgmental of "human nature" and whether it's "bad" or "good", it just is, really, and I would say more than anything it's selfish and interested in self preservation, and the preservation of its immediate in group, whatever that might be.
I don't think someone can be said to be "bad" unless they hurt someone else. Even then I'm more inclined to say that the actions are bad rather than the person being bad. I'd only be inclined to say a person is bad or has some moral fault if they keep doing negative things to others without remorse or any attempt to correct for their mistakes. I don't expect people to be saints, just don't hurt other people if you can avoid it.
If anything, I think most people in modern society are generally more "good" than "bad" if I had to judge anything. I don't think most of us go out of our way to harm others, and while "bad" people who regularly mistreat others exist, I dislike using the term unless it's a really pervasive pattern of behavior.
I also don't think that the use of the term should be applied lightly in reference with the law either. Sometimes law and morality don't always mean the same thing, even if law is in fact that minimalistic common morality we should all be subject to. Sometimes if a legal system is unjust, breaking the law is "moral". Think hiding Jews in nazi germany or something. Likewise, if you're an IDF soldier just unrepentently killing children in gaza, I might be inclined to think you're "bad" for that even if your government is encouraging that behavior.
Sometimes people get arrested for no reason. And keep in mind we have a system of innocent until proven guilty. So even if you are arrested if the state can't prove wrongdoing, you aren't necessarily bad in the eyes of the law either. These legal protections exist for a reason.
And even then false convictions exist. Keep in mind the innocence project is a thing and has been exonerating people for decades now who allegedly committed crimes but it turns out they didn't.
And sometimes people get away with stuff that they shouldn't like the public figure who just died and is known for basically murdering his wife and getting away with it. Legally innocent, probably a scumbag.
So yeah. The point is, should we worry too much about labels? Probably not. If anything, I tend to want to believe the best about people until proven otherwise. And even if I think someone is an idiot, it doesn't mean they're necessarily a bad person. Again, the question seems to imply some objective standard to measure people by and the only objective standard IMO is "are you doing harmful things to others?" If not, then you're not a bad person, period. And I'm not really the type to enforce a private morality with tons of obligations on people either, so I'm not overly concerned with virtue of conforming to some ideal of morality. Basically, it's just "don't be a ####."
I just wanted to add this specific section.
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