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Separate From Your Actions

Separate From Your Actions

Looking for philosophical answers: Do you think one can be charged separate of their actions or must they always be considered based on their actions? In other words can someone be likable, and in a sense have a 'good' nature and yet make a horrible decision and then be condemned by it or should they be judged based on a sum of things?

Actions Your Separate

I go by the notion that your actions always speak louder than words. You can be a great person and well liked in the community but if you do something bad because you had a weakness then your reputation will be in ruins. Sometimes it is a simple mistake that can bring a well liked or well respected person down to earth. IF it is a crime that they committed then they will be judged on that action rather than their great past. Granted the past will come in play and may help them in some ways. In the end it is going to be the severity of the action that lead to their downfall that will say how badly they will pay for it.

Separate From Your Actions Health & Special Psychology

I think it can also apply at a lower, more personal level. I have some friends who are living with another "friend", but I quit visiting because the guy that owns the house, though a good guy who has helped the others out, letting them live there, buying one a computer for graduation etc., is a complete donkey - to me anyway, though to me, for my perceptions, he's an obnoxious jerk even just talking about subjects, and to people.

Strangely most everyone likes him and get along well with him. I don't deny to an extent I wasn't terribly fond of him to begin with, I met him in high school when he "saved" me from the class bible fanatic (no offense to anyone, this guy was seriously over the top), so I played D&D with him and some of his friends a couple of times, then I introduced him to my friends and we played games and such, but he was really obnoxious, just overbearing, not polite or a good guest, loud, crude language, doing prodding and annoying stuff - so I got to where I didn't like him and more or less mentioned this, indirectly, a few times in our group of friends - from there, there developed a, not really a rivalry but more an active mutual mostly civil dislike, one that I think still exists.

Or maybe it's just he's still an obnoxious jerk and I just don't like that kind of person - it's a matter of taste/empathy with an observer - I think he'd even help me if I was in trouble or needed money for something vital or a place to stay, it's not the kind of thing where either of us would absolutely refuse to help a fellow human, so I don't really have any trouble with his overall inner humanitarian tendency, but everything above that, surrounding it, built on it, layers leading all the way out to external - I just can't stand to be around that kind of behavior and mindset.

So to me, I think people's actions can be separated from their own self to some extent, because someone who would generally offer aid for anything important and be decent in those sorts of ways, can also be an irritating, offensive/insulting troll - but as noted, action-wise, he's still a good guy, one I'd even trust in about any important way on just about any issue or crisis.

To me this could similarly be applied to religion, and I'll go with some people in any church service/community, the people that proclaim goodness and biblical teachings and try to push others to the approved path of behavior and development, criticizing what they see as "wrong" or immoral, etc, all the while, honestly, being hypocrites, drinking to excess, doing drugs, stealing/embezzling, etc. These people's "words" definitely have little to nothing in common with their behaviors or "deeds" - very separate, in my opinion.