Poll: Are People Inherently Good?
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People are inherently self-serving: This is not debated.
However, serving the whole is also serving the self. Mankind instincively places social structures so that he might serve the whole without choosing the unnatural and probably impossible act of altruism. Don't fight, it might hurt you, don't steal, it ruins an economy that supports you.
All of human 'badness' spawns from a percieved injustic in the system (nobody who could ever be called evil or a monster ever considered themselves one), and so their motives are still the same basic self-serving tendencies: They can get more through bad than they can through good.
The above is fact, both sides agree on the fact.
However, where the 'Humanity are bastards' crowd goes wrong is assuming humans exist by dfeault with out society. They think that if you took away the rules and laws, people would revert to anarchanistic savages. The actual answer? Not for long.
The 'Two Cows' line of reasoniong spells out the fallacies of anarchy, and shows that people are inherently driven to create social structures... structures that encourage the good and punish the bad. Society is evidently built in at bone level, the very thing that makes us a learned and capable whole is part of our makeup. You can't say 'people are beasts without society' because people then turnj around and say 'No shit, sherlock, water isn't water if you take away the wet'.
1)Society encourages and approves of the good, and punishes the bad
2)People naturally seek out societies, reverting to them as a default state when none exists.
3)The interaction between these two facts: That people want the best for themselves and their children/family/friends, and that the best includes society and moral conduct cocludes that humans are inherently moral and bnevolent creatures.
It just happens that our benevolence isn't foolproof, and sometimes shit happens.
QED.
However, serving the whole is also serving the self. Mankind instincively places social structures so that he might serve the whole without choosing the unnatural and probably impossible act of altruism. Don't fight, it might hurt you, don't steal, it ruins an economy that supports you.
All of human 'badness' spawns from a percieved injustic in the system (nobody who could ever be called evil or a monster ever considered themselves one), and so their motives are still the same basic self-serving tendencies: They can get more through bad than they can through good.
The above is fact, both sides agree on the fact.
However, where the 'Humanity are bastards' crowd goes wrong is assuming humans exist by dfeault with out society. They think that if you took away the rules and laws, people would revert to anarchanistic savages. The actual answer? Not for long.
The 'Two Cows' line of reasoniong spells out the fallacies of anarchy, and shows that people are inherently driven to create social structures... structures that encourage the good and punish the bad. Society is evidently built in at bone level, the very thing that makes us a learned and capable whole is part of our makeup. You can't say 'people are beasts without society' because people then turnj around and say 'No shit, sherlock, water isn't water if you take away the wet'.
1)Society encourages and approves of the good, and punishes the bad
2)People naturally seek out societies, reverting to them as a default state when none exists.
3)The interaction between these two facts: That people want the best for themselves and their children/family/friends, and that the best includes society and moral conduct cocludes that humans are inherently moral and bnevolent creatures.
It just happens that our benevolence isn't foolproof, and sometimes shit happens.
QED.
People are savage animals straight from birth, until they are taught otherwise by their parents.
That's why I don't find abortion to be such a big deal. A human fetus is no different than an animal fetus.
That's why I don't find abortion to be such a big deal. A human fetus is no different than an animal fetus.
People are inherently capable of good or evil, it has nothing to do with how you are born. Man has capacity for both, and I find that using terms such as 'good' and 'evil' is inaccuarate and to some degree incorrect. There is no such thing as good, and there is no such thing as evil, because we cannot see the entire picture, and can therefore not make such a judgement. These are only terms coined by us to simplify a rather complex notion. Put simply, good and evil are only points of view - subjective, not objective, and should, due to that, not be ratified as such.
Edit: One can make assumptions based on morals, but I find that it's hard to say what is right and what is wrong. Are your morals better than mine? Who are you to be the judge of that? All these aspects of philosophy (moral philosophy) are in my opinion void, because they fail to distinguish between the subjective and the objective, as mentioned in my post. Some tribes in the Amazon forest cannibalize their dead (soup, to be precise, or so I have been told). While we find this somewhat disgusting based on our morals, they find it perfectly natural, and might even find it strange or scandalous that we bury our dead.
Edit: One can make assumptions based on morals, but I find that it's hard to say what is right and what is wrong. Are your morals better than mine? Who are you to be the judge of that? All these aspects of philosophy (moral philosophy) are in my opinion void, because they fail to distinguish between the subjective and the objective, as mentioned in my post. Some tribes in the Amazon forest cannibalize their dead (soup, to be precise, or so I have been told). While we find this somewhat disgusting based on our morals, they find it perfectly natural, and might even find it strange or scandalous that we bury our dead.
My vote of "no" is not meant to imply that people are inherently bad, but that different people are driven by varying sets of morals, none of which can ever claim to be The One True Morality. I wish everyone had the same morals as me, but for all the people I consider immoral there are plenty that would look down on me.
Answering the OP:
Yes, at least I hope so. I'd think we're genetically "programmed" to be socially compatible, i.e. "good".
I used to think "evil" people only do evil things out of necessity/misdirection.
Sure, there are sociopaths, who do evil for evil's sake but I think they are an extreme minority. I'd say somebody who kills for money already falls in the category of sociopath because they rate money higher than another humans life.
So, I'd say, in general people are "good", but there are always exceptions.
Yes, at least I hope so. I'd think we're genetically "programmed" to be socially compatible, i.e. "good".
I used to think "evil" people only do evil things out of necessity/misdirection.
Sure, there are sociopaths, who do evil for evil's sake but I think they are an extreme minority. I'd say somebody who kills for money already falls in the category of sociopath because they rate money higher than another humans life.
So, I'd say, in general people are "good", but there are always exceptions.
No their not, people are evil at heart in my belief but they try to suppress it and deny it. Everyone deep down knows that they want to backstab everyone who gets in their way and crush everyone around them to get what they want. I'm just more open about my morality.