A deed is an action, something that is done. The term is often used to denote a brave or noteworthy action, feat, or exploit. A deed may be a good deed or a bad deed (sometimes called an evil deed or dirty deed).
"If one does a good deed, it doesn't have to be on the five o'clock news. Bragging about it takes away from the good deed".[1]
Deeds must always be characterized as good or bad, magnanimous or atrocious, and the like: exploit and achievement do not necessarily require such epithets; they are always taken in the proper sense for something great. Exploit, when compared with achievement, is the term used in plain prose; it designates not so much what is great as what is real: achievement is most adapted to poetry and romance; it soars above what the eye sees, and the ear hears, and affords scope for the imagination.
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An exploit may be executed by the design and at the will of another; a common soldier or an army may perform exploits. An achievement is designed and executed by the achiever; Hercules is distinguished for his achievements; and in the same manner we speak of the achievements of knight-errants or of great commanders.[2]
In the ridiculing and the hatred of the do-gooder, there lies an assumption that a good deed is done in order to achieve personal profit of some kind. Activists working their way up in the hierarchy of power have to pay heed to the ideal of the good deed to get their career started. The good deed thus becomes a means to an end outside the realm of moral virtue and altruism.[3]
"Yet better late than never; a good deed is an encouragement and an example".[4]
The doing of good deeds is promoted by many religions, including Taoism,[5] Judaism,[6] and Islam,[7]
In ancient Greece, good deeds were venerated, with the Athenian Assembly having "passed many decrees honouring the good deeds that individual people had done for the city of Athens".[8]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Roy D. Perkins, Without Denomination: A Critique of Church Doctrines (2016), p. 61.
- ^ George Crabb, English Synonymes Explained, in Alphabetical Order (1818), p. 320-21.
- ^ Børge Bakken, The Exemplary Society: Human Improvement, Social Control, and the Dangers of Modernity in China (2000), p. 193.
- ^ Art-Union: A Monthly Journal of the Fine Arts (1854), p. 315.
- ^ Pooh Ho Sim, Decoding The Tao Te Ching《道德经》玄妙解 (2021), p. 150: "A 'good deed' is a thing done by a person of Tao, and a 'good speech' is what they say. A good deed leaves no trails. A 'good deed' is what a person of Tao does".
- ^ Israel I. Mattuck, Jewish Ethics (2022), p. 54: "A good deed is a pious act. It is a Mitzvah, a good deed, in fulfilment of a mitzvah, a commandment".
- ^ John O'Kane and Bernd Radtke, Basic Texts of Islamic Mysticism: Pure Gold from the Words of Sayyidī ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Dabbāgh (2007), p. 340: "performing a good deed is a cause for entering Paradise".
- ^ Alexandra Villing, The Ancient Greeks: Their Lives and Their World (2010), p. 15.
- This open draft remains in progress as of August 8, 2024.