Are humans inherently good or evil?

[Scrat-]

"If man is left to his own notions and conduct, he would certainly turn out the most preposterous of human beings. The influence of prejudice, authority would stifle nature in him and substitute nothing.”

~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau [1712 - 1778]

Rousseau is well-known for his belief that man is born good, but corrupted by society. He claims that a man who is guided to nothing but his own nature will turn out as a pure, kind human being. His theory is not much his own. Mencius [372 - 289 BC] made the very famous claim that man is born fundamentally good. It's a topic often discussed when confronted by criminality, children, and parenthood.

His philosophy is famously challenged by Xun Zi [312 - 230 BC], who claimed that humans are born evil. He points out that desire lies in the core of humanity.
"A person is born with feelings of envy and hate. If he gives way to them, they will lead him to violence and crime, and any sense of loyalty and good faith will be abandoned."
He says that any good action is a conscious, deliberate activity. A person has to make effort to be good, a person 'fakes' to be good, so to say.

So what do you think? Are people born inherently good, or inherently evil? No answer can be right or wrong, just voice your opinion.

[Dr. Koala]

Radene님이 먼저 게시:

Dr. Rocket님이 먼저 게시:

How is baptising newborns indoctrination?
And how does it prevent a grown human from quitting religion?

According to the scriptures, that's literally what it means. Once you're baptised, you're in. And you can't just walk out.

And yes, there still are people who take that stuff seriously as hell, both in Europe and in the Americas.

That's something the scientology church may do :D

[100% lob juice]

Well humanity doesn't really even exist in my view.

Of course the human species exists, but "humanity" as a single societal monolith with inherent behaviours doesn't match up with history or empirical observation.

[Lusus Symphonia]

TTMXMP - Mr¸ ┬╦님이 먼저 게시:

Good and evil are only concepts made by humans and what is consider good and bad change over time and cultures, just like the human race itself does. So humans are neither good nor evil, only humans imo.
- MrTT :cure:

I completely agree with this.

Scrat-님이 먼저 게시:

Just because they're merely concepts, doesn't mean they're not very existant in our orientation. They're what we go by, what we judge people on. We might have different measurements and different perspective on what defines the actual 'good' and 'evil', but they're still a very present thing in our minds. That makes them not to be dismissed, wouldn't you say?

They only exist if you believe in them and the very concept of good and evil is extremely subjective.
This kind of discussion would need examples but I would not like to bring in religion.

It's a subjective matter and my opinion on it is; everyone needs morals to keep a large society happy.

[Marco]

Dr. Rocket님이 먼저 게시:

Marco님이 먼저 게시:

Yeah, I mean, the catholic church only baptises adults who fully understand what they're doing. It's not like they baptise newborns, that's something other religions do.

How is baptising newborns indoctrination?
And how does it prevent a grown human from quitting religion?

You mark your children as catholic since birth, and intill religious beliefs into them when they barely understand what you're saying. You have the right to do so, but if that's not indoctrination then I don't know what is.

It's indeed possible to snap out of it, but when you've been exposed to a certain set of ideas since birth it's extremely hard to let them go, especially in certain social environments.

[Vectif]

"Consequences dictate
our course of action
and it doesn't matter what's right.
It's only wrong if you get caught.
If consequences dictate
my course of action"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0LqzhOyzIM

Humans are purely a social construct, they are what they learn to be. Otherwise it'd be instinct, and instinct isn't good or bad.

[Dr. Koala]

Marco님이 먼저 게시:

Dr. Rocket님이 먼저 게시:

How is baptising newborns indoctrination?
And how does it prevent a grown human from quitting religion?

You mark your children as catholic since birth, and intill religious beliefs into them when they barely understand what you're saying. You have the right to do so, but if that's not indoctrination then I don't know what is.

It's indeed possible to snap out of it, but when you've been exposed to a certain set of ideas since birth it's extremely hard to let them go, especially in certain social environments.

But by not doing it you mark them as atheists :P
I disagree it's easy to get out of it. Lots of people doubt.
Generally the society is hostile to religion anyway.

[Radene]

Red Monk님이 먼저 게시:

They only exist if you believe in them and the very concept of good and evil is extremely subjective.

The nuances may be, but every religion has the concept of "Thou shalt not kill (asterisk; except in these circumstances)"; and so do non.religious people.

Those asterisks are nuance. There are things that are objectively "bad" and as such considered by the community as undesirable - one such thing is just killing anyone you feel like killing because you want their stuff. Taking someone else's stuff just because you can is another of such things. Or, for example, poisoning the well everybody is drinking from.

There's a margin of error, yes. But just because three people think that poisoning wells is awesome and are willing to die for their little prank doesn't mean that the stance around poisoning the well is subjective.

Yes, it's not hard science, but I dare you - go out there, pour a bunch of strichnine in the local water supply, then defend yourself with "Well, nobody can prove what I did is morally wrong, because morality is subjective".

[Radene]

Dr. Rocket님이 먼저 게시:

But by not doing it you mark them as atheists :P

"Not collecting stamps" isn't a hobby, and "bald" isn't a hair color.

See where I'm going?

[Lusus Symphonia]

Radene님이 먼저 게시:

Red Monk님이 먼저 게시:

They only exist if you believe in them and the very concept of good and evil is extremely subjective.

The nuances may be, but every religion has the concept of "Thou shalt not kill (asterisk; except in these circumstances)"; and so do non.religious people.

Those asterisks are nuance. There are things that are objectively "bad" and as such considered by the community as undesirable - one such thing is just killing anyone you feel like killing because you want their stuff. Taking someone else's stuff just because you can is another of such things. Or, for example, poisoning the well everybody is drinking from.

There's a margin of error, yes. But just because three people think that poisoning wells is awesome and are willing to die for their little prank doesn't mean that the stance around poisoning the well is subjective.

Yes, it's not hard science, but I dare you - go out there, pour a bunch of strichnine in the local water supply, then defend yourself with "Well, nobody can prove what I did is morally wrong, because morality is subjective".

This is a bit extreme for my liking, if someone likes to kill people then I do not think of them as evil but as disabled/mental health problems.

Genes come into play too as someone else has stated that we are subject to biased emotions because our bodies are all different.

Killing a man is evil but it wasn't always evil, we used to kill people when we wanted to survive, to take their land, even the holiest person is subject to human lust and instincts, take for instance the holy action of burning witches at the stake, a lot of people took sexual pleasure from viewing that.
Yes they may be evil or bad in our society but they really thought they were doing gods work back then.

[Prince Jude of Nohr]

Oooh, philosophy!

Anyway, my personal opinion is that humans morality-wise are in a sort of arch on a graph. Say the left corner represents goodness and the right corner represents evil. The middle represents neutrality in all forms.

Most of the human population (I'd say 80%) falls in the middle, being neutral: while not bad at heart, they can be motivated to do bad things if they're swayed or allow their hearts to do such. Then you have the 10% on the far corners, truly good people who care about everyone and value compassion and honor, and the truly bad people who thrive off the suffering of others.

To me, people are neutral on the morality spectrum, but how they're raised can have an impact on people. But I like to think some people are just born good and born evil; it's takes all different types to make a world, after all.

[Marco]

Dr. Rocket님이 먼저 게시:

Marco님이 먼저 게시:

You mark your children as catholic since birth, and intill religious beliefs into them when they barely understand what you're saying. You have the right to do so, but if that's not indoctrination then I don't know what is.

It's indeed possible to snap out of it, but when you've been exposed to a certain set of ideas since birth it's extremely hard to let them go, especially in certain social environments.

But by not doing it you mark them as atheists :P
I disagree it's easy to get out of it. Lots of people doubt.
Generally the society is hostile to religion anyway.

By not baptising them, you do not mark them as anything. It should be simple logic.
And your victimism is laughable. Are you seriously suggesting that society is hostile to religion?
Of 7 billions people only 1 is nonreligious. You're in the majority, and I can't see how a small minority could possibly bully the rest. Theocracies are the places where atheists and other minorities have a bad time, but I know no "atheocracy" where religious people are subject to discrimination.

[Dr. Koala]

Marco님이 먼저 게시:

Dr. Rocket님이 먼저 게시:

But by not doing it you mark them as atheists :P
I disagree it's easy to get out of it. Lots of people doubt.
Generally the society is hostile to religion anyway.

By not baptising them, you do not mark them as anything. It should be simple logic.
And your victimism is laughable. Are you seriously suggesting that society is hostile to religion?
Of 7 billions people only 1 is nonreligious. You're in the majority, and I can't see how a small minority could possibly bully the rest. Theocracies are the places where atheists and other minorities have a bad time, but I know no "atheocracy" where religious people are subject to discrimination.

It's not victimism, it's a simple fact: just look at you saying that it is endoctrination.
I'm not saying I'm getting hunted though, and i know some people are.

Open your eyes, not baptizing someone? ok, but then, teaching the kid religion or not?
If you do then not baptising is absurd.
If you don't then you mark the child as atheist.
You said that it was hard to get out of religion. Well, it's way easier to get out of religion than to get in a religion.

Anyways, christians want the best for their childs, why wouldn't they give them the best?
"choice" isn't a value, it simply prevents discrimination and helps honesty.

[Radene]

Red Monk님이 먼저 게시:

This is a bit extreme for my liking, if someone likes to kill people then I do not think of them as evil but as disabled/mental health problems.

You know you still wouldn't want to live next door to such a person, you'd want them away - be it by imprisonment, or by being "sentenced" to psychiatric help to help them become a better person. And that's what this collective morality is - a shield against individual action to protect the society from individual action that would harm it, and it doesn't care about motive. And it DOES go too far for my tastes sometimes, and it IS too inflexible for my tastes sometimes. But it can't change until the basic, underlying reasons do.

My point is, yes, you can try to empathize, you can try to see an action was borne of "malfunctiuon" rather than a genuine and conscious malevolence - but you'd still want to observe that from a distance, so if you're being pragmatic, there's not much difference at all - because you as an individual, and your opinion, as an individual's opinion, simply don't matter when it comes to collective morality.,

Genes come into play too as someone else has stated that we are subject to biased emotions because our bodies are all different.

I don't like talking about determinism, because I'd need to accept that nothing anyone does has any purpose at all. I could accept that, but then life would get really boring and I'd hate that :(

Killing a man is evil but it wasn't always evil, we used to kill people when we wanted to survive, to take their land, even the holiest person is subject to human lust and instincts, take for instance the holy action of burning witches at the stake, a lot of people took sexual pleasure from viewing that.
Yes they may be evil or bad in our society but they really thought they were doing gods work back then.

Some believe they're doing god's work now. That doesn't absolve them from the fact that they're actively harmful to the community and that in the interest of the community itself, they need to be removed from it. Whether they mean it or not.

This isn't "Needs of the many vs. needs of the few". This is "Surviving as a community vs. being destroyed from within".

Now, of course, if "they" end up outnumbering "us", then suddenly "we" will be the ones who are the liability. But that's how social progress works. Through collective decisions, not individual ones-

[Radene]

Dr. Rocket님이 먼저 게시:

Anyways, christians want the best for their childs

Muslims do, too.

Also, are you talking about Christians in general, or just your personal denomination, whatever it may be (But I'm guessing it's not Orthodox or Calvinist)?

[Ⓥenom Ⓢnake 🐍]

Good and bad are subjective terms, to be interpretive of the viewer. It is impossible for a race to be born to an abstract.