Goodwill versus Manipulation

It has been reasoned that when a person undertakes a unilateral action for the benefit of another party, he seeks to increase his goodwill in the context of a relationship, or his esteem outside the context of a relationship, thereby making others more inclined to regard him as a "good" person and less resistant to the notion of entering into a relationship that benefits his interests. But does this mean that the notions of goodwill and esteem are wrong or evil, or that a person who seeks to establish a positive reputation has sinister motives for doing so?

Not necessarily.

The notion of "society" is a complex web of connections and relationships among individuals who become, to some degree, dependent on one another. The notion that ethics is important at all derives from the function of ethics in guiding human interaction in the context of society. In this sense, establishing a positive reputation is a means toward facilitating the entry into relationships, is a means toward establishing relationships, is a means toward participating in relationships, is a means toward establishing and preserving society itself. It is therefore socially beneficial for an individual to pursue the self-interested objective of seeking to gain esteem and thereby improve his reputation.

However, a line is drawn between a genuine interest in improving one's esteem and performing an action that is used to obligate others to act in one's own benefit in a direct and specific way. The former is regarded as goodwill, the latter as manipulation.

It is noted that a relationship is based in mutual obligation, and mutual consent. A manipulative individual seeks to convince another person that they are in a relationship, even though the other party has not consented to participate, nor have they been in a position to negotiate the terms of that relationship, or of the exchange. It is most common, in instances of manipulation, for the manipulator to perform some trivial act at minimal cost to himself and demand, in return, that another party undertake considerable effort to repay the favor.

In the strictest sense of ethics, an individual is not responsible for fulfilling any unspoken expectation of others, but is held responsible for acting upon the communicated expectations of others in the context of a consensual relationship or mutual obligation. And so, when a person is the subject of manipulation, they are within their right to ignore the insistence of the other party that an obligation that was previously unspoken must be fulfilled due to the unsolicited action they have taken.

However, the act of presenting a demand for compensation is ethically separate from the action performed for the benefit of others. The original act that was done for the benefit of other parties is not inherently unethical, even if it is done with the specific motivation of benefiting one's own reputation or esteem, as it is taken for granted that an individual is expected to act in their own interests, and they are entitled to do so. But when that action is used as a rationale or justification for demanding that another party enter into a relationship, as a means of negating the voluntary consent, this demand (but not the original action) is unethical.

As such, an action undertaken to generate goodwill cannot be categorized as unethical - it may be considered ethical, or at worse, it can be considered to be ethically neutral.