If we didn't know the identity of the ghost, we'd probably have no way of knowing whether they were a nice person when they were alive or not. That is, unless you are working on the presumption that the ghost has been identified with doing nice deeds or takes on a nice demeanor when it appears
It's important to note that not all people are afraid of ghosts and some can recognize when they are friendly and react calmly to them. My dad has had some experiences in this realm and has been totally calm and relaxed about it whereas I have been quite frightened when the same happened to me (of course I was much younger then, I don't know how I'd react now)
I think it's because ghosts represent the unknown and, even though we can sometimes have some sort of interaction with them, we don't know quite what we are interacting with and how the entity that we are interacting with functions. We rely on our huuman senses and yet we are dealing with an entity that is not human (or at least human in the earthly sense of the term) and therefore is beyond our understanding.
When I encountered the ghost of my grandfather when I was ten, I was scared out of my wits. I loved my grandfather and would have loved the chance to have been able to see him again (he died without us having seen each other for a long time) but I guess I was frightened because (1) my rational state of mind knew that he wasn't supposed to be there and (2) because of the suddeness of his materialization and because I wasn't in control of the way that I was interacting with him.
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