Ethics of Persons

In a previous post, I considered the ethics of objects, and arrived at the conclusion that ethics cannot correctly be applied to objects, in that an object is not inherently right or wrong, good or evil, except in its use.

The concept of "use" implies that there is an actor, who takes an action, that has consequences. Each of these components bears consideration - and for the present post, I will consider the ethics of the actor - the individual who undertakes an action - and consider whether the actor is subject to ethical consideration.

The question of whether a person is inherently good or evil was explored in classical (Greek) philosophy and perpetuates to this day in certain schools of religious doctrine. Such systems maintain that there are persons who are inherently good and persons who are inherently evil, and they should be considered as such regardless of what actions they undertake.

This line of thinking quickly degenerates into logical quagmire. Is a person good because they do good, or is the doing of good what makes a person good? If a good person does only evil, is that person still good? Is everything a good person does to be considered good? Is a person who does mostly good and some evil a good person or an evil person? The contradictions in these questions arise because the quality of good is applied to both the actor and the action, and is resolved by accepting that one of them is good or evil, and the other is unimportant to matters of ethics.

If we are to eliminate either actor or action as subject to ethical consideration, and assuming that the actor is the source of good or evil would suggest that a person who is good or evil is not subject to judgment - they simply are what they are and do what is in their nature to do, and will remain essentially good or evil. Such a perspective makes ethics moot, and as such must be considered of no value to ethics. The result is that the action, rather than the actor, is to be taken as subject of ethical consideration, but the action. This will be considered in further detail in the next post.

To make a distinction, the present inquiry is to the nature of a person as the source of good or evil rather than the character of a person, which represents something quite different: our expectations of their future behavior based on past behavior. There may be some merit to this assertion, and there may be some value to knowing the character of a person when predicting the course of action they may be expected to choose - but this bears separate consideration.