Poll: Are People Inherently Good?
- Thread starter Guvnorium
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Allow me to play the amateur anthropologist for the moment.
People are not inherently good. Inherently, people are scum. Oh sure, some of them are nice, some of them obey the law and put others before themselves, but that isn't their personality, it's society's requirements forcing themselves on the person.
Let's take a newborn baby as an example. People might think "aww, it's so cute!" but they'd be wrong. A baby is a person at its most basic level, and a baby's personality is the closest we can realistically get to what people are inherently like.
And what are babies like? What do they do when they don't get what they want? They kick, and scream, and cry, and don't shut up until everyone else has given up hope and given the baby what it wants. The only reason all people aren't like this is because they realise that if they continue acting like this they're going to get punished. They don't do it because they become aware that it's wrong, or because they're basically good; they're doing it out of self-preservation.
Yes, I'm a misanthrope. But my argument is valid.
People are not inherently good. Inherently, people are scum. Oh sure, some of them are nice, some of them obey the law and put others before themselves, but that isn't their personality, it's society's requirements forcing themselves on the person.
Let's take a newborn baby as an example. People might think "aww, it's so cute!" but they'd be wrong. A baby is a person at its most basic level, and a baby's personality is the closest we can realistically get to what people are inherently like.
And what are babies like? What do they do when they don't get what they want? They kick, and scream, and cry, and don't shut up until everyone else has given up hope and given the baby what it wants. The only reason all people aren't like this is because they realise that if they continue acting like this they're going to get punished. They don't do it because they become aware that it's wrong, or because they're basically good; they're doing it out of self-preservation.
Yes, I'm a misanthrope. But my argument is valid.
No nor are they inherantly evil, as good and evil are subject to moral defenition which varies greatly from person to person depeinding on background/education/mental health etc. What we most definently are is inherantly selfish I can aknowledge that I would do anything to survive and lead a comfortable happy life even at others expense and im fine with that.
I basically agree. "Good" and "evil" are abstract concepts. They have no meaning to any other species outside of humanity. And moral concepts can be notoriously hard to define. Evolutionarily speaking, we're all born with survival instincts. This makes us, for lack of a better word, inherently self-serving. But there's also a drive to protect our families/society/species as a whole. Most animal life feels some need to protect its young or its family (look at wolf packs, lion prides, pods of dolphins, troops of monkeys, etc.). The concept of preservation isn't one confined just to Man. But we're the only species to define laws and morals in order to protect ourselves. I think without laws, families and close-knit groups would protect each other, but there'd be even more violence between opposing clans.Nmil-ek said:
ThisZeroMachine said:
I suppose that before now, people used to think that it all depended on nature, such as the idea in Shakespeare's plays that bastards were inherently bad (like Edmund in Lear), and therefore people were born either bad or good and had no choice at all.
I think we all have a choice whether to be bad or good, and most people will choose to be good.
Then again, it could be said that, as we grow to accept people for being what they are (which I think is definately a good thing), some parents are maybe too lenient and it means people grow up not knowing the lines between right and wrong as well. It could be that as you grow up you grow to understand the consequences of your actions better, and that leads you to make the decision.
everyone is inherently different. there are some people out there that would kill no problem and others that would have trouble saying a bad word in a conscious direction. you could blame it on peoples upbringing, and that will affect it, but i think personality is born in.
however there is a difference between arrogance and evil, some people will do bad things just because they think that they can do it and get away with it, not to harm the person.
not a simple question to answer..
however there is a difference between arrogance and evil, some people will do bad things just because they think that they can do it and get away with it, not to harm the person.
not a simple question to answer..
Everybody is inherently bad. It's human nature. And we can all supress these feelings, but they shine through in other ways. When you lose your temper over something trivial, or in some cases people who do bad things, like kill and steal and so on, this is merely your true nature coming through. Everyone has a hidden dark side and it will always come through at some point, no matter how much you hide it. For me, it's a fascination with the macabre, and I also hold grudges. Anyone who does me ill, I make sure they suffer for it. Everyone else is the same, we all have hidden dark personalities, and as I say this is human nature. It's why we're drawn to violence in the media, in film and TV and games. This inherent badness isn't true evil, it's just not us all good. We all have a hidden element of evil though and as I say we mostly suppress this feeling.
Humans are animals, as such, they're actions are only determined by the environment they were raised in. The only thing people inherent from their ancestors are their personality traits, and even then, those can only be brought out from the subconscious.
Bad.Guvnorium said:
It's always easier to do the wrong thing instead of the right thing. If people were inherently good, it would be the reverse
No, everyone is jelous (and I hate to say it because Im gonna sound like a religious nutjob but for lack of better words) "sins". But people can be good, by trying to "sin" less and act more humane, (or would that mean unhumane) my brain hurts
nah, that would make life seem reasonable and society perfectible.Chips the Magic Dragon said:
I think its the luck of the draw. But for most people, I believe we're all assholes and have to be conditioned and motivated to be otherwise.
Humans are not good or bad. People are inherently people, nothing more then that. We made the concepts of good and evil ourselfs, and those definitions are not solid and differ all over the globe. Hence it's an impossible and irrelevant question to ask. People are just people, just another species in the big history of the planet.
Normally i'm quite nihiistic (as are a lot of others in this thread by the look of it) but i think we are born generally good people - though it takes a while to really show through, kids can act pure evil, but theres no malice there, they're just following a feeling to see where it goes.
We can only apply it on ourselfs, we say that we are good (or bad), but that's rather easy to say that about yourself. Good or bad compared to what, who decides what good and bad is, and why would that person/thing hold that authority, on what ground. I don't see the use of the terms good or bad, I only see the use in analysing cause and effect, especially effect in the case of morality and ethics.Avida said: