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One more thing about being a good person I feel needs to be mentioned. People's goodness is measured by the sum of their deeds, NOT their intentions or their motivations so much. In other words, what one actually does is the best indicator of who they are.
Actually, you're mistaken, motivation is the core of moral behaviour. Actions tend to be rather morally neutral by themselves, it's the motivations behind the actions that add subtlety and nuance. Otherwise you're just saying that there's a list of actions that are always good or bad in every circumstance, which is not how any human actually thinks.
Take the case of killing, for example. Most humans would say that the act of killing is wrong, however there is much to it than that. A person who kills another because he is about to murder a baby, is not the same from most moral perspectives as if he killed another because he thought it would be fun to do and he was bored on a Friday night.
Let's posit this in the same set of circumstances. Let's say that we have the same scenario, a man who sees another man about to strangle a baby in his crib. Which of these do you think is a better moral example? The man kills the other to defend the life and health of the innocent child. Or he kills the man just because he happens to be there and he's bored. The scenario that sets up the action is the same either way, and the action itself is the same. However the motivation paints two entirely different pictures of both the scene and the man involved.
Another example can be taken from the story of Robin Hood.
Here we have a character who robs from the rich and gives to the poor in the stories. He's a very classic hero figure that most people would say is rather admirable.
In my favourite movie adaptation of the story though, it shows Robin as having had a discussion with his men about the price that the Sheriff has put on their heads for their capture and they worry about the very real possibility that someone might turn them in for the reward before long. So Robin comes up with the idea of giving the money back to the poor, thus ensuring that they will love him and hail him as a hero and not turn him in for the reward. Making the act of robbing from the rich and giving to the poor not a real act of charity, but the equivalent of a basic marketing ploy. This is all to further his goals of getting vengeance on the Sheriff.
Again, we see that all it takes is a different motivation for the same act to be held in an entirely different light. This is how people actually think and view morality, it's how our courts work. Murder is different depending on why and how you did it. A sudden crime of passion is different from a deliberate and thought-out killing.
Point is, we don't judge people just by their actions. Deeds can help to establish a pattern of behaviour as to what the person
might be like or what they might do, however the reasons behind the deeds are necessary in order to effectively judge the character of the person.
