well this is quite a complicated question (and thus why it’s been sitting in my inbox for the past couple of days). on the one hand, i don’t believe he’s this sort of darling justice figure that half the fandom tends to paint him as, but i definitely don’t see him as evil or even morally corrupt, so much as i do? unconcerned. very very concerned with his ‘justice’ and with achieving his ends and doing what he wants to get done, but not very concerned with the idea of hurting people in the process. hmmm, sound like anyone you know?

but honestly, we’re dipping into headcanon territory here and hard, but i see L as this sort of sharply honed tool who was made that way by his upbringing, and who knows he was, completely aware of the fact that his ideals may not be his own and so he exerts almost a sort of power through abandoning or simply just ignoring said ideals. i’d say that L’s moral failings come not from pursuing the wrong, but from neglecting the right. that he doesn’t believe in a strict or pure or achievable justice the way light does, and so doesn’t insist on grappling for it, but expends his energy within a more realistic, almost nihilistic realm of 'the world is never going to be good anyway so why waste time on it. i will stop the worst of it, but i will not make a martyr of myself. you can’t save everyone, so why even try?’

that all said, i think there is, if not a goodness, then a bravery to him. he’s got a rabid fight inside, even if he keeps it locked down, and he sort of runs towards death with open arms because saying hello to it and taking it by the hand is just worth so much more to him than hiding out and hoping to survive, even if he’d probably have a much farther off expiration date that way.

so no, good isn’t a word i’d use, but i’d say great. like, in an 'alexander the great’ sort of way. a big, hulking statue of an idea, L is, and the man himself is smaller and starker maybe, but he exudes a sort of weary glory. and you don’t earn glory through selfless acts, and you don’t save the world by loving it. you don’t save the world at all, actually, you just spackle up the worst of the cracks.

L knows that, Light doesn’t, but they both end up in about the same place anyway.