This thought is about why people are nice in the first place, and not why they should be nice.

A person is nice (i.e. good) for either (or both) internal and external reasons: internal being reasons the person creates for themselves and external being repercussions imposed by society on individuals who are not good.

In regards to “internal” reasons, these can again be subdivided into either into empathy or how one view’s oneself. When I say empathy, I mean that a person is nice because when they make someone else’s life better, they themselves get a kick from it. They feel what the other person feels.

Another reason that someone may be nice is that they simply view themselves as a nice person and will not adopt behaviour that contradicts this in their view.

Finally, the third reason someone is “nice” is because in some situations, society has demanded it and imposed it through laws. This is because should a person decide not to be nice, there is a significant detrimental impact to others and the only way to deter them from their not-niceness is to implement deterrents such as fines or any other judicial measure.