Change "apologize to 10 people" to "save 10 African children from starvation" and I don't see how you can possibly argue this hypothetical person is "bad". If you honestly think this then you also think Ghandi and MLK are bad people, because they both did "bad" things to people who they didn't directly help. If I kill someone to save 1000 others I'm pretty obviously a good person, but I can never apologize to that person specifically or make it up to them. Your moral philosophy makes no sense.
> Change "apologize to 10 people" to "save 10 African children from starvation" and I don't see how you can possibly argue this hypothetical person is "bad"
Quite easily, let me fix your badly changed argument back to what it was, equal, because your change is an intellectually dishonest attempt to make the good outweigh the bad so much that it obscures my reasoning.
If I kill someone, and then save 10 African children from starvation, you're damn right I'm still a bad person. Helping people doesn't make up for hurting other people. Morals aren't math, doing good deeds doesn't balance some scale that makes the bad deeds go away.
Wait wait don't tell me. One of you happens to think that human beings are infinitely valuable and should respect certain rights and duties regardless of consequence and the other guy thinks that good and bad can be summed into some kind of.... utility function that can determine if you should do something or not.
Then guy one will counter attack: You could just enslave a minority to make the majority happy!
Then guy two will make his counter: You could have everyone respect everyone to death while everyone is miserable!
...and so it goes on and on. A nasty syndrome. A classic case of Kant vs Mill. There will be no rest tonight.
I'm not super familiar with his work, but I've heard the popular guy these days is Rawls and his theory of justice. Maybe give him a look?
Morals sure as hell are math, just like everything else.
I wasn't using the "save 10 children" to obscure your reasoning, I was pointing out an extreme case where your reasoning breaks down. You can reasonably call someone who punches you in the face (without good reason) a "bad person". But if you find out they've personally saved 10 children's lives I'm pretty sure you'd think they were a good person. Plus what people mean when they call someone "moral" or "immoral" usually has to do with both their actions and their predicted future actions. Again, most people are fine with calling a reformed thief "moral" under certain conditions, even if they've never personally repaid the specific people they've wronged, because they don't seem likely to be immoral in the future. If you are not willing to do this you are in the minority. Your example is dishonest because murdering someone generally indicates a lack of self control or level of sociopathy that makes future violence incredibly likely. Also murdering someone purely because you don't like them very much or you have something to gain from it is generally seen as more evil than saving a life is good. If someone murdered in cold blood and then went on to save every starving person in the world, then they are also-fucking-lutley a good person. You might want to keep a watch on them, but that seems like a pretty strong indication their murderin days are behind them, and is way more than enough to make up for it.
> I was pointing out an extreme case where your reasoning breaks down
No you weren't, you were setting up a straw man that you could easily known down, nothing more.
> Morals sure as hell are math, just like everything else.
No they aren't.
> If someone murdered in cold blood and then went on to save every starving person in the world, then they are also-fucking-lutley a good person.
No they aren't. They're a bad person trying to make themselves feel better by making up for their crimes. They don't ever become a good person after murdering someone. That line cannot be uncrossed.
That's exactly what will make you a better person. That's how it works.