If you want a quick but accurate self-check as to your moral state, you can immediately gain a feeling of this status, as to whether you are innately good and kind, or at least have worked hard to become a good and merciful adult, or if you are naturally nasty and cruel—if you can get away with it without anyone noticing.
If you are a big, strong guy, and there are women, children, and pets, or an elderly or sick, vulnerable relative dependent upon you, what is your chosen way, without reflection, to interact with them? You have power, perhaps total power over them, but you resist any temptation to inflict unnecessary pain, suffering and hurt upon them, then you are a good man.
If, on the other hand, you know you should not hate them by inflicting unnecessary pain on them—that is practiced malevolence—but you never say not to every opportunity to hurt them, you are evil, There was no one but yourself to curb yourself, and you had the power to hurt, so you took it. You are a rotten bastard.
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