Goodness

I finished reading Nick Hornby's comically existential novel How to be Good last night, which of course provoked me into thinking about my own 'goodness'. When I think about the ways in which I treat other people, my moral conduct is actually rooted in how I myself would like to be treat. This causes me to wonder if I care about my fellow humans at all, or if I am just acting upon what I reckon to be a logical belief of social karma. Does a good deed really prompt another? Will my purchase of yesterday's Big Issue inspire into that seller a modicum of trust in the benevolence of the general public, causing her to smile at the next buyer? Correspondingly, will the fact that someone has stolen our drainpipe (and I am not being facetious here; despite all the positive connotations of it's name, Providence Road is a truly contemptible place to live) wittingly or unwittingly spur me to, I don't know.. start a fire in a stranger's wheelie bin?