Are You a Good Person? Reconsider the Myth – Dr. Walter J. Matweychuk
Let me begin with a hypothetical scenario to teach an REBT core idea. A young man rapes a woman. A jury convicts him to many years in prison for his vicious, criminal act. This man acknowledges that he did commit the crime. While serving his prison sentence, he meets another young man. Over the course of many hours of conversation, the man guilty of rape comes to conclude that the other man did not commit a crime and is a victim of an imperfect judicial system. One day while they were both in the prison yard exercising a prison riot breaks out. Prisoners suddenly produce illegal homemade weapons and viciously attack one another. During the riot, one of the prisoners is about to stab the man who is serving time for a crime he did not commit. The man who committed the rape years before the riot that is now taking place sees that his friend is about to be stabbed and intervenes to save his friend’s life. In so doing the man accused of raping a woman years ago is stabbed and loses his life. Here is the philosophical question. Is the man who raped the young woman at one point in time and who loses his life preventing another man from losing his life to be defined as a good man or a bad man? Is it valid to define him instead as neither a good man or a bad man but a deeply and uniquely flawed man who has done both good and bad deeds, of significant consequence, over the course of his life?
Albert Ellis argued, and made fundamental to REBT philosophy and practice, that it is not valid to conclude there are good or bad people in the world. Let me be clear he did not deny that people do very bad deeds and never suggested that they were not responsible for those deeds. Ellis also taught that people are in a constant state of evolution and change. Some of this evolution is apparent as our hair grows and we easily see and accept that change. However, some of this constant change within all humans is far more difficult to observe. Furthermore, humans beings have almost an infinite number of characteristics leading to a mind-boggling number of deeds committed over the course of a typical human lifetime. Some of these characteristics come and go over a lifetime. For example, as a young boy, I was painfully shy when going to school and vomited nearly everyday on the way to kindergarten but overcame that fear and earned a doctorate in psychology which required many years of schooling. Because the fundamental nature of a human being is the complexity of characteristics and a constant state of evolution it makes no sense, that is it is philosophically and logically invalid to rate a human as a good human or a bad human, a better human or a lesser human. The only way such an evaluation of a human could be validly carried out is to tally and properly weight all the deeds done by a human over the course of their life which is an impossible thing to do for all practical purposes. Not only would one have to collect a mind-boggling number of observations of the individual’s life but each deed would have to be evaluated and weighed in light of mitigating circumstances which are sometimes very difficult to identify. Ellis also added that when a human thinks of himself or another human as a bad human, a lesser human, they tend to create unhealthy negative emotions towards themselves and the other person. Therefore, REBT is against scoring, rating, evaluating the whole person because it is invalid and downright unhelpful. The hypothetical scenario of the man losing his life told above helps to illustrate the point that defining a good person or a bad person could only be done in an arbitrary way. That man above did a very good thing near the end of his life and a very bad deed many years earlier. He also did many, many other deeds not mentioned in between these two very consequential deeds.
In my experience trying to help people change their behavior and overcome depression and other feelings like guilt and shame, they come up with all sorts of reasons not to accept themselves as deeply and uniquely flawed humans like all other humans. One argument they give is that a bad deed or series of bad deeds can overshadow the good deeds or series of good deeds done by a flawed human. I counter that this overshadowing type of argument against unconditionally accepting people as unratable has two flaws. One flaw is that one has to subjectively identify and weigh the bad deeds which will be used in the scoring of the individual AND choose to overlook all mitigating factors. The second problem with this argument is if the person we are judging as a person is still alive then all future deeds are not being used in the judgment of that person and renders the judgment inconclusive. I counter it is far better to rate the bad deeds or characteristics of the person and stop there. You can choose to penalize the individual for those deeds. However, I go on to advise to only rate the deeds a person does and argue that this will serve you better and enable you to have healthy feelings in response to those deeds. You will feel healthy anger, disappointment, and displeasure at what they have done but you will not be angry at the person as a person and then in a state of unhealthy anger condemn them as a person.
Another reason people resist unconditionally accepting themselves and limiting all their ratings to their deeds and characteristics is that they argue it helps them to change future behavior if they condemn themselves. This psychological flogging helps rein in their evil impulses. I counter that the individual’s so-called evil impulses could be reined in by the healthy negative feelings of remorse for what they have done and concern for future consequences for themselves and others if they continue the antisocial behavior. So one can still feel deep and healthy negative feelings that motivate the individual to change their behavior while not overgeneralizing and jumping to the self-defeating and invalid conclusion that they are a bad person or a lesser person for what they have done.
A third reason people hesitate to adopt the REBT humanistic view of uniquely flawed humans who do good, neutral and bad deeds over the course of their long lives is that they are uncomfortable giving up the illusion that they are a “good” person. To this resistance, I counter that concluding you are a good person puts you on an emotional roller coaster. If you are a good person today because you do good deeds, then your life evolves into a never ending test to remain a saint or at least a good person. I point out that you are human, and sooner or later it is likely you will fall from grace, fail the test, misbehave, and then conclude you are a bad person, a lesser person or a sinner. You, therefore, suffer from anxiety when you are acting good, you strive to continue to prove yourself as a good person, and you then down yourself when you inevitably misbehave or error. When this misbehavior occurs, you feel guilt, shame, depression, unhealthy envy, and self-directed unhealthy anger. You suffer unhealthy feelings until you can flog yourself sufficiently to pass future tests to feel like a good person again if you have not committed an unforgivable act.
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy encourages you to exercise a part of your nature which sometimes is very difficult to exercise. The part or characteristic which I speak of is the power to reason elegantly about your nature, your deeds and your characteristics. Because you are human, it will be quite easy to focus myopically on yours and others misbehavior and negative characteristics. Because it is relatively easier for uniquely flawed humans to reason improperly, you will be inclined to see yourself and other people as either a good person or a bad person. Resist the urge. You can do it, but it takes work and practice. Train yourself in unconditional self-acceptance. Accept yourself with no ifs, ands, or buts; no qualifiers! Unconditional self-acceptance is the keystone of emotional health. Unconditional self and unconditional other acceptance are also downright practical when dealing with uniquely flawed humans. Unconditionally accept yourself and others but judge yours and their behavior with regards to a stated set of values. If you or they display bad behavior, acknowledge it as so. Penalize in accord with the consequences of that bad behavior and mitigating circumstances. Fair penalties will promote better behavior in the future. For the sake of compassionately and healthily living with yourself and others strive to limit all ratings to that of behavior and characteristics of the person. In my view, and in the view of REBT philosophy there are no good people and no bad people. Good people are as mythical as bad people. The devil is as much a myth as the sage. There are just a great many deeply and uniquely flawed humans running around doing what they do which is a complex mix of good, neutral and bad deeds.
Fallibly yours,
Dr. Matweychuk