Nice vs good was Re: Favorite Snape Scenes

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 122597


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> 
wrote:
> 
> Nora:
> So I would say that yes, a person must be genuinely nice--that is 
> to say, treat other people with respect for their subjectivity--to 
> *be* a good person.
> 
> Pippin:
> My problem here is that  in some cases, consideration of other 
> people can be  so effortless  that it may not be a good indication 
> of  how much  someone would actually put themselves out for 
> another person. 

Niceness, then (the genuine thing--perhaps some mutation of 
kindness), is a necessary but *not* sufficient condition for the 
ontological state of being a good person.  I would argue that the 
maintenance of a genuine state for the consideration of other people, 
which means doing it even when it is hard (right but not easy), is 
not a casual or an easy thing, but something to be taken seriously.  
That said, to some extent it is attempting to describe more of how 
you are treating another person than the more, ummm, content-based 
descriptions somewhat below.

> Such people can be  full of  genuine warmth and helpfulness 
> until it's going to cost them something they don't want to give; 
> then, somehow, they don't perceive the need, or pretend that they 
> don't. Think of Lupin, deciding  that he knows nothing useful 
> about Sirius, or Fudge deciding to believe Rita Skeeter instead of 
> Dumbledore.

Hence the comments about it genuinely being hard...but Lupin's case 
starts to fall over into other areas, hence the comment on content.  
(Although don't let me pull form/content divides into here--that's 
entirely too musical.)  That is a tricky one, I will give you.
 
> On the other hand there are people who require tremendous 
> effort to be civil, much less nice, but who are determined to use 
> the skills they do have for others benefit. I would put Snape in 
> that category.

Hence the potential classification of him as someone who does things 
that are good, but does not obtain that ontological status in and of 
himself.  There is also the problem that we have no idea what his 
actions stem from--which screws any possibility of a Kantian 
evaluation.  That is to say, quasi-right action, wrong source of 
such, is Not Good by that system, for deep reasons--but we just don't 
know.

-Nora has to run to make it to a departmental thing, but notes that 
civility is perhaps *the* main virtue discussed by the philosophers 
of liberalism...and should never be underrated...