Why be good?
I am often asked this question by theists and I must admit that the first time I was somewhat taken aback by it. All I could respond with immediately was, “Well, I want to be good.”
It seems strange to me that anyone would want to be anything else. We all obviously know what good is, otherwise we wouldn’t have a word for it. We are quite capable of judging other’s actions as being good or bad. We write stories about gods and devils, heroes and villains. We clearly identify with those characters who are portrayed as good and despise or pity those who are portrayed as bad.
I think the desire to be good stems from self-image. The human mind is great at making models of the universe in which we live and it is with the help of these models that we we are able to predict the future, to a certain extent. The advantage of a highly complex self-model is that it helps one to predict the behaviour of others. For the model to be effective though, it has to be accurate and to incorporate the good as well as the bad. Believing bad things about one’s self is not pleasant so the obvious solution is to avoid doing bad things.
This raises the question of why do people do bad things? I think there are two possible causes. The first and most seemingly obvious is that the individual’s self-esteem is so low already that there is little point in maintaining their self-image. Those who are poor or oppressed might feel differently about theft and murder than those in more privileged positions. The second, and more subtle, is that the individual’s self-esteem is unrealistically low or high. It was long assumed that violent behaviour, for instance, was associated with low self-esteem but research shows that it may result from unearned high self-esteem:
“Violent criminals often describe themselves as superior to others”
“Playground bullies regard themselves as superior to other children; low self-esteem is found among the victims of bullies, but not among bullies themselves.”
—Baumeister, 2001
Either way, it seems the main requirement for moral behaviour is an accurate self-image, though it may help to start out with a reasonably high self-esteem as well.
So why be good? Because you have to live with yourself.
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