yeah, i guess my default is "person w non-malicious intentions"
unfortunately many "good" ppl by this definition still do enormous harm
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I think if you want to average things out, for personal peace of mind, a good number of good deeds in your own community is hard to beat.
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No individual presided over making Earth such a hellhole. Much destructive behaviour is just individual survival tactics that scaled poorly.
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Hence it's pretty unfair to expect good people not to do much harm. Too many involuntary conflicts of interest.
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We can limit the bad stuff we do within the parameters of which we are aware, though. It may not help much, but at least it gives us a shot>
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Limiting unnecessary harm is a prerequisite for most or all ethical ways of living, yes.
But you can only limit harm so much. Too messy.
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As I say, I think a certain amount of offsetting inevitable harm by making an effort to do something good is more realistic.
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Indeed, but what's less well-understood is that there are cases where doing significant harm on purpose is perhaps the only ethical option.
Yes. But it's common wisdom that this is not the case, so a lot of odd ideas about ethics sneak into arguments about the nature of good.
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