Are humans inherently good or inherently evil?
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good and evil is subjective and when we are born all we know is basic instinct and barely that so we are neither good nor evil based on basic social standards however if say you were a person who could die from load noises yes a baby could in fact be considered evil. The whole thing is just completely subjectiveretyopy said:
I'll break humans into three categories:
Inherently good: People with actual moral systems that they will never break. They are good people not out of fear for consequences, but because they are empathetic people who genuinely want to treat others well. Maybe 8% of the population, I'd say.
Neutral: 90% of the population. No real morality. They'll just do whatever they can get away with... give in to whatever animal instincts they can. If they think they can't get away with something, they won't do it. They're governed by fear basically. If they fear the consequences of their actions, they'll hold back. If that fear is removed, they'll do whatever they want. Mob rule, basically.
Inherently evil: Probably 2% of the population. These are people who have, basically, the inverse of morality. They thrive on other people suffering. That is their goal. Even the worst of dictators aren't like this. Hitler thought that his actions would make the world a better place. He wasn't evil, he was just a fucking idiot.
As for the "inherently" bit. You can argue that forever. I think, in terms of what influences a person's morality, a fair bit of it is "born-in", and a fair bit is conditioned. Some people are just born with way more empathy than your average person. Some people don't need morality explained to them. They just do it. They want to be nice to other people.
If I go by my categories, I'd say that conditioning has the largest effect on the neutral group. They aren't inherently good or evil. Society will tell them how to act. And, I don't think society itself is inherently good or evil. It's self-serving. We promote "good" in our laws (generally) so we don't have to put up with other people killing us and stuff. It's a live and let live(/die) sort of approach. Society doesn't care what you do as long as you don't harm society.
The good and evil groups have, arguably, more or less made up their minds from birth onward. Conditioning won't have as big of an effect on them.
IMO
Inherently good: People with actual moral systems that they will never break. They are good people not out of fear for consequences, but because they are empathetic people who genuinely want to treat others well. Maybe 8% of the population, I'd say.
Neutral: 90% of the population. No real morality. They'll just do whatever they can get away with... give in to whatever animal instincts they can. If they think they can't get away with something, they won't do it. They're governed by fear basically. If they fear the consequences of their actions, they'll hold back. If that fear is removed, they'll do whatever they want. Mob rule, basically.
Inherently evil: Probably 2% of the population. These are people who have, basically, the inverse of morality. They thrive on other people suffering. That is their goal. Even the worst of dictators aren't like this. Hitler thought that his actions would make the world a better place. He wasn't evil, he was just a fucking idiot.
As for the "inherently" bit. You can argue that forever. I think, in terms of what influences a person's morality, a fair bit of it is "born-in", and a fair bit is conditioned. Some people are just born with way more empathy than your average person. Some people don't need morality explained to them. They just do it. They want to be nice to other people.
If I go by my categories, I'd say that conditioning has the largest effect on the neutral group. They aren't inherently good or evil. Society will tell them how to act. And, I don't think society itself is inherently good or evil. It's self-serving. We promote "good" in our laws (generally) so we don't have to put up with other people killing us and stuff. It's a live and let live(/die) sort of approach. Society doesn't care what you do as long as you don't harm society.
The good and evil groups have, arguably, more or less made up their minds from birth onward. Conditioning won't have as big of an effect on them.
IMO
We're born neutral. We do what we do for our own reasons. There are no good or evil to our actions. Take a bully. He will bully kids that are weaker than him because it gives him social status as cool compared to other kids. He will get respect which is a good thing.
Everything we do is controlled by our genetic code. And what we end up doing is what we think at the time will benefit us in the future. Be it inspired by greed or love neither option is good or evil.
Everything we do is controlled by our genetic code. And what we end up doing is what we think at the time will benefit us in the future. Be it inspired by greed or love neither option is good or evil.
People usually try to do good and live well, the issue us we all have different views of what good is.
Asking whether people are inherently good or evil is a really difficult question, mainly because there isn't any collective definition of what evil is. Personally I think that a better way to phrase it would be with selfish/selfless. That has a much more concrete definition.
But anyways, we're asking good versus evil, so I'll take my best stab at that. Labeling people as strictly good or evil is too much of a generalization, not everyone is born that way. I've seen some kids who're really mean spirited and cruel, and then others that are amazingly kind and giving. I saw this one person who dropped their hat and a 3 year old picked it up and kept following them to give it back to them. The person who dropped their hat didn't notice them and the kid started crying because he couldn't give back the hat.
So yeah, I would say that people start with varying degrees of good or evil, and society just kind of averages it out as they get older.
But anyways, we're asking good versus evil, so I'll take my best stab at that. Labeling people as strictly good or evil is too much of a generalization, not everyone is born that way. I've seen some kids who're really mean spirited and cruel, and then others that are amazingly kind and giving. I saw this one person who dropped their hat and a 3 year old picked it up and kept following them to give it back to them. The person who dropped their hat didn't notice them and the kid started crying because he couldn't give back the hat.
So yeah, I would say that people start with varying degrees of good or evil, and society just kind of averages it out as they get older.
Were born selfish as babies that only care about our own needs regardless of other's situations and this changes over time as we grow up through our interactions with other people. People who are very selfish will likely have problems coexisting in society as they don't care about other people. They will often develop at least a minimal amount of consideration and things like rules and laws prevent people from doing self-serving things like taking things from stores to avoid the inconvenience of paying. There are also some people that do bad things for good reasons, and there are few people who are devoid of emotions and able to be completely good or completely evil because everyone has a conscience. You can't simply call someone good or evil unless you are talking about God and the Devil. This question is just too general to really give a decent answer.
Don't you read you Nietzsche? Human beings have no inherent morality.
I love you.Indeterminacy said:
The fact that the whole world is geared up to generate evil and there are good people, indicates that we're inherently good. However, the fact that people made a world which encourages evil (This doesn't feel like a good use of english) indicates that we're inherently evil.
It's a conundrum that won't be solved until everyone is absolutely good or absolutely evil.
It's a conundrum that won't be solved until everyone is absolutely good or absolutely evil.
I don't believe good and evil actually exist. They are a state of mind that the rest of the world believes in. And everyone's definition is different. I get called evil when I go out in all black. Does that mean I am? no. But I still get called it. I think people are basically a blank slate and have the ability to choose what they want to do.
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Good and evil are human concepts, and relative ones at that. Birth is a biological process. Can't reconcile the two.[/quote]
Hmm... Several people have made this point, and I'm willing to discuss this intelligently. I do agree that people are neither, but I disagree with your statement that "good" and "evil" are nought but human concepts. For they are indeed human concepts, but think about this: We are human. Human concepts make up our lives. Take money. We revolve around it, but what is it but bits of metal and scraps of paper? Absolutely nothing. And the idea of Good and Evil needs to exist, or else we would have no morality. And chaos would ensue. WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO OUR SOCKS?[/quote]
First off I am in the neutral camp. Second I absolutely love your statement about money. I've been saying that forr yonks. Third Yahtzee said it best in his infamous review "Good and evil are utterly meaningless terms that vary from society to society. A few hundreds from now when overcrowding leaves us shoulder to shoulder through the streets fighting over the last croissant in the patisserie the denouncement of genocide will be remembered as tragically quaint.
Good and evil are subjective and change from culture to culture. For example in christianity being a homo is evil, but in a sane culture it isn't bad. Infact it is supposed to be a form of population control which i find as great. In judeo-islamic culture eating pork is evil and that's just batty-nuggets.
Anyway, i'd like you to consider every other animal. as far as we know they don't have any defined means of good and evil and they don't descend into chaos. They just do what they have to continue their species.
For my last point i would like to point out the movie Soylent green. If you haven't seen it, the movie is set in the future where over population has lead to people literally sleeping in the hallways of apartments and the average person cannot buy food like beef. The main staple of food comes from the soylent company and it is given out in the streets. They have soylant red, blue, and green. The people say that soylent green is produced from plankton, but actually soylent green is produced from people that have passed away. Spoiler alert.
And yeah, to some people that cannabalism may sound evil, but all i could think as i watched the movie was
Good and evil are human concepts, and relative ones at that. Birth is a biological process. Can't reconcile the two.[/quote]
Hmm... Several people have made this point, and I'm willing to discuss this intelligently. I do agree that people are neither, but I disagree with your statement that "good" and "evil" are nought but human concepts. For they are indeed human concepts, but think about this: We are human. Human concepts make up our lives. Take money. We revolve around it, but what is it but bits of metal and scraps of paper? Absolutely nothing. And the idea of Good and Evil needs to exist, or else we would have no morality. And chaos would ensue. WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO OUR SOCKS?[/quote]
First off I am in the neutral camp. Second I absolutely love your statement about money. I've been saying that forr yonks. Third Yahtzee said it best in his infamous review "Good and evil are utterly meaningless terms that vary from society to society. A few hundreds from now when overcrowding leaves us shoulder to shoulder through the streets fighting over the last croissant in the patisserie the denouncement of genocide will be remembered as tragically quaint.
Good and evil are subjective and change from culture to culture. For example in christianity being a homo is evil, but in a sane culture it isn't bad. Infact it is supposed to be a form of population control which i find as great. In judeo-islamic culture eating pork is evil and that's just batty-nuggets.
Anyway, i'd like you to consider every other animal. as far as we know they don't have any defined means of good and evil and they don't descend into chaos. They just do what they have to continue their species.
For my last point i would like to point out the movie Soylent green. If you haven't seen it, the movie is set in the future where over population has lead to people literally sleeping in the hallways of apartments and the average person cannot buy food like beef. The main staple of food comes from the soylent company and it is given out in the streets. They have soylant red, blue, and green. The people say that soylent green is produced from plankton, but actually soylent green is produced from people that have passed away. Spoiler alert.
And yeah, to some people that cannabalism may sound evil, but all i could think as i watched the movie was