What Incentivizes You to Do Good?

[SalixIncendium]

**Please note that this is not a debate forum**​

I want to hear from religious, spiritual, and irreligious people on this subject.

Assuming you and others consider you to be a good person, what incentive(s) do you have to be good?

Is there a promise of reward for good deeds and punishment for bad deeds at some point in the future?

Do you do so because of karmic consequence?

If neither of these, what drives your benevolence to those around you?
____________________________________________

 

[Sunstone]

My main incentive in doing good is to impress the babes.

 

[SalixIncendium]

My main incentive in doing good to impress the babes.

I thought that's what mustache fires are for.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

It let's me sleep soundly and hope others take a similar view.
Alternative approaches seem to trade long term peace for short term gain, which seems a short-sighted approach to life to me.

 

[Polymath257]

My wife's suggestions.

 

[Brickjectivity]

**Please note that this is not a debate forum**​

I want to hear from religious, spiritual, and irreligious people on this subject.

Assuming you and others consider you to be a good person, what incentive(s) do you have to be good?

Is there a promise of reward for good deeds and punishment for bad deeds at some point in the future?

Do you do so because of karmic consequence?

If neither of these, what drives your benevolence to those around you?
____________________________________________

Being a volunteer on a team can be very rewarding. It becomes fun as if you're at a festival.

I don't consider most people to be good, not because they're particularly bad but because people are mostly interested in self. Most people are Ok within their own systems and norms.

 

[Sunstone]

Seriously, I think most of it comes down to instinct and hedonism. Instinct, because so much human behavior is rooted in our genes and expressed as instinctual behaviors. Hedonism, because those behaviors are shaped and refined by what either feels good or bad to us.

So I am not mainly inspired to do what little good I do in this world by ideologies, principles, religious or philosophical concerns. Those play a role, but not often as a source of inspiration. More often, they help to guide my inspirations, than to inspire them.

What inspires me to do good begins as instinct. It is then shaped by a desire for the pleasure of doing good, and a desire to avoid the pain of doing bad.

Of course, the only time I do good at all is during the week between Christmas and New Years. I used to do good all the time, but things just kept getting messy. Now I hold back for that week and only that week.

 

[Sunstone]

My wife's suggestions.

She tells me you're pretty good at listening to her, but that you could do better. I say, Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.

 

[SalixIncendium]

Seriously, I think most of it comes down to instinct and hedonism. Instinct, because so much human behavior is rooted in our genes and expressed as instinctual behaviors. Hedonism, because those behaviors are shaped and refined by what either feels good or bad to us.

So I am not mainly inspired to do what little good I do in this world by ideologies, principles, religious or philosophical concerns. Those play a role, but not often as a source of inspiration. More often, they help to guide my inspirations, than to inspire them.

What inspires me to do good begins as instinct. It is then shaped by a desire for the pleasure of doing good, and a desire to avoid the pain of doing bad.

Of course, the only time I do good at all is during the week between Christmas and New Years. I used to do good all the time, but things just kept getting messy. Now I hold back for that week and only that week.

What are your thoughts on doing good for the pleasure or happiness of another at the expense of one's on pleasure or happiness? What do you think that might be driven by?

 

[Vinayaka]

If you have a sense of self awareness about how you feel, and its causes, you do good, because it feels better than the opposite. I agree with Sunstone that its our nature. Call it conscience, instinct, or whatever, but the end result is a better feeling about yourself.

I once read somewhere, that society is largely composed of 2 kinds of people ... givers, and takers. This is a simplistic take for sure, but has some merit. But it does vary by degrees. It simply feels better to be a giver.

 

[bobhikes]

**Please note that this is not a debate forum**​

I want to hear from religious, spiritual, and irreligious people on this subject.

Assuming you and others consider you to be a good person, what incentive(s) do you have to be good?

Is there a promise of reward for good deeds and punishment for bad deeds at some point in the future?

Do you do so because of karmic consequence?

I believe that if I am willing to help then others are willing too.

I believe that I waste to much time and money so should use some to help my fellow human.

I feel happy when I help and I like feeling happy.

 

[Sunstone]

What are your thoughts on doing good for the pleasure or happiness of another at the expense of one's on pleasure or happiness? What do you think that might be driven by?

I think sometimes such actions really are at the expense of our own pleasure or happiness. For instance, parents often sacrifice their own pleasure or happiness for their children's well-being. To me, that bespeaks the power of parental instincts to shape behavior.

But I also think that a whole lot of times, there is no profound trade-off going on. A person is doing something for another person at his or her own expense, but on another level, they are getting immense satisfaction for satisfying the instinct to come to the aide and comfort of those in trouble. There is actual evidence that instinct is so deeply rooted in us that it goes back all the way to Homo erectus!

 

[ChristineM]

**Please note that this is not a debate forum**​

I want to hear from religious, spiritual, and irreligious people on this subject.

Assuming you and others consider you to be a good person, what incentive(s) do you have to be good?

Is there a promise of reward for good deeds and punishment for bad deeds at some point in the future?

Do you do so because of karmic consequence?

If neither of these, what drives your benevolence to those around you?
____________________________________________

I am i, no other reason

 

[Salvador]

I like exchanging favors. Even if somebody can't monetarily pay me for helping her out, she could pay me back by pleasing me in some sort of other way.

 

[Windwalker]

We feel healthy when we eat healthy food. We feel crappy when we don't, even though it gave a reward at the time. Being good, respects our emotional and spiritual body. Being bad does not.

What motivates me to be good is because that is true to our nature and how we are built to survive and thrive. I feel good when I do healthy things. Do I feel better when I breathe fresh natural air, or the exhaust from a tailpipe?

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

It let's me sleep soundly and hope others take a similar view.
Alternative approaches seem to trade long term peace for short term gain, which seems a short-sighted approach to life to me.

yeah, this^^^

 

[sayak83]

**Please note that this is not a debate forum**​

I want to hear from religious, spiritual, and irreligious people on this subject.

Assuming you and others consider you to be a good person, what incentive(s) do you have to be good?

Is there a promise of reward for good deeds and punishment for bad deeds at some point in the future?

Do you do so because of karmic consequence?

If neither of these, what drives your benevolence to those around you?
____________________________________________

I have a strong sense or feeling of responsibility for and interest in the well being of the world and the beings who inhabit it... today and in the future. My motivation for "good" comes from this. Doing "good" is both my spiritual "purpose" and central to my sense of who I am here in this earth.

 

[Heyo]

**Please note that this is not a debate forum**​

I want to hear from religious, spiritual, and irreligious people on this subject.

Assuming you and others consider you to be a good person, what incentive(s) do you have to be good?

Others consider me a good person, I, myself - not so much.

Is there a promise of reward for good deeds and punishment for bad deeds at some point in the future?

Do you do so because of karmic consequence?

I do what I like. Sometimes I like the good feeling of helping. But overall I like to have a pleasant life.
I have also noticed that people are prone to copy the behaviours of those around them. Monkey see, monkey do. Of course my actions are only a small contribution to the input of others but so is my vote in an election. Some people I see only once. So there is no direct tit-for-tat but just that infinitesimal change of "temperature" that I can contribute but it will change society for the better.
You could call that "karmic" (for those who need a simple explanation for the complex interconnectedness of all things), I call it rational.

 

[Jim]

...

what drives your benevolence to those around you?​

I don’t remember ever thinking that I had any reasons for it, other than just wanting to. I’m thinking that it just comes naturally, that it’s part of human nature.

 

[Jim]

I said that I don’t have any reasons other than just wanting to. It’s just an impulse not following from any reasoning process, but looking deeper, I’m thinking that I don’t always follow my impulses. That raises the question, why do I choose to follow that impulse. Maybe it’s because I think that it’s a healthy impulse. Then again, I think that all impulses are healthy. What can be unhealthy is how we use them.