You are a competent good person who would have gotten the points anyway. But since you are not immune to human error despite being a generally competent person, you do something which you perceive as necessary for the general good, but which actually, on the balance of things, causes harm. The law lets you off for this based on your good work.
It’s too easy to be a “good person” in general but prone to bias in a small area.
You are selfish in some way that doesn’t pattern-match to “selfish about every single thing”, so you would do good regardless of the law, but the law means you can also do some evil. I can imagine a doctor who would heal people for no reward other than his salary, but who might get stressed or frustrated and hurt people if he could do so without consequences. Or a white supremacist who would help fellow white people regardless of whether it benefitted him personally, but who might also beat up a couple of minorities on the side if the law permitted it.
Responding to old post:
You are a competent good person who would have gotten the points anyway. But since you are not immune to human error despite being a generally competent person, you do something which you perceive as necessary for the general good, but which actually, on the balance of things, causes harm. The law lets you off for this based on your good work.
It’s too easy to be a “good person” in general but prone to bias in a small area.
You are selfish in some way that doesn’t pattern-match to “selfish about every single thing”, so you would do good regardless of the law, but the law means you can also do some evil. I can imagine a doctor who would heal people for no reward other than his salary, but who might get stressed or frustrated and hurt people if he could do so without consequences. Or a white supremacist who would help fellow white people regardless of whether it benefitted him personally, but who might also beat up a couple of minorities on the side if the law permitted it.
Fair point.