To be Good, or not to be Good - do we really have the Question?

“Goodness comes from within, 6655321. Goodness is something chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man.” – The prison chaplain

I keep coming back to this quote, because the question it raises is one that makes me think a lot. How does one define true goodness? According to the Oxford Pocket Dictionary, being good means to have the right qualities, of the kind that people like. In the case of a person, it usually means someone who is kind and well-behaved. Alex is certainly not good by this definition, but he understands what goodness is, and he has made his own conscious choice to be the opposite because that appeals to him more. As readers, we have to respect his individuality although his dedication to his chosen ideal of violence horrifies us. I already feel that Alex refuses to be good precisely because society expects him to be so. The essence of true goodness is making that moral choice. The treatment will force Alex to become incapable of even thinking about violence, let alone doing it. Instead, he will be as nice as possible in order to counter the sickness. I do not think that such a reaction is goodness. Why is he the most good only when he is thinking about being the most violent? It is not goodness, it is pure selfishness to avoid being sick. Or worse, it is just reflexes. Man has moral choice, something animals do not. If you take away that choice, you reduce him to something even less than an animal – to a human shell with a machine for a conscience. If it were the unbreakable rule that all humans should be good, we would not even have the option of being wicked at all. The mere fact that we have free will to decide on our own actions, entitles us to do as we please. It is up to the individual to become civilized and gain the necessary maturity to realize that some of his actions may harm others, and that he has no right to destroy the happiness of others. If people are conditioned to behave exactly as some authority sees fit, there can be no room for varied opinions or dissent. There can be no room for creativity, innovation or art. There can be no room for all the beauty arising from free will, which makes us what we are: human. Any goodness arising from such a situation is nothing but a pale mockery of mankind’s potential. Creation requires imagination. Imagination requires freedom. If we do not have freedom of thought, we have no freedom at all.