Human nature

I don't quite have an argument or side yet for this but i really wanna hear some opinions so i'm going to pose the question:

Is human nature inherently bad?

By that i mean if a person was not affected by any outside factors would they steal, murder, etc....
Or would they be good and care for things.
Really excited to see some opinions

human nature as is the nature of all beings is inherently good. it is up to the being how it chooses to be, we as humans have our ups and downs and sideways, but we are good overall. some people feel the need to be bad for whatever reason, but the rest do good because it makes us feel good and we enjoy it, or we just feel we need to. 1 bad apple spoils the bunch is pretty much the thing here, we may seem bad but we're not. the bad people just have the power because people stopped caring for a second and they took advantage, but they won't have power for long.

We have talked about in the IRC and you already know that in this thread, it will be very hard to debate due to the vast amount of influences from the different parts of the world and different schools of thought. I'm sure this sections' smarter members will pick this up and give a good explanation, while the new or less debate format inclined members will say a line or two that basically summarizes one of the larger schools of thought included. Please don't take anything I say here negatively. The words I say may sound like put downs (words like "dismisses", "fails to", etc), but they are my way of saying "Here is something that you might have missed, maybe this will lead you in a different direction." (This actually goes for most of my posts in the debate section and elsewhere).

So allow me begin by dissecting your question and the addendum.

Your original question asked whether humans are inherently "bad". I put quotations around "bad" because as I go on, there are a lot of factors that revolve around ethics. I quote from my "Not an argument" post:

Ethics is the science which discovers morality. Morality is not the same for everyone, but its principles are. For example, it may be moral for you to quit your job, but immoral for someone else to. Ethics has no power other than telling you what you ought to do if you wish to achieve good mental health.

This follows with the philosophical school of thought that encompasses Normative ethics. I recommend looking at the philosophers listed there and reading some of their works, and seeing what resonates with you.

As for your hypothetical "if a person was not affected by outside factors". The hypothetical invalidates your question, as "bad" is a term that is fabricated by the mind. Your hypothetical dismisses the idea of moral relativism due to its failure to account for the fact that one cannot be exempt from the influence of outside factors. Culture shock is one example of deeply ingrained cultural roots being exposed when placed in a completely different life. This can be as complex as moving from the US to Asia, or as simple as moving from the country to the city. We are influenced all the way down to the family level. The way a family is set up can influence the way one acts. For example, an abusive parent, an absent parent, a strong patriarchal/matriarchal household, can all change the perception one has on any number of things.

You ask if human nature is "bad" and then list things such as theft and murder. Now, both of these things have their various descriptions and legal definitions. Murder in self defense, mass murder, homicide, the list goes on. These things have a grey-scale that I believe cannot be summarized with black and white objectivity. There IS such a thing as objective morality, however objective morality places things in categories of right and wrong in ethics, and then states that they are universal sets of morals for everyone to follow. The problem with this is that it is very hard for one person to state that their way of thinking is the correct way of thinking without interfering on personal freedoms, but that is a different argument altogether.

Let me bring an example into this: Islam has a variety of headgear that females wear in regards to their spiritual devotion. This headgear ranges from a headscarf to a full on body covering outfit. In the Western world, a large number of people believe that the fact that this is required of women is an infringement of the personal freedoms of the woman. At the same time, this blanketing ethics fails to account for the number of free thinking women who voluntarily wear the religious garments, and drifts into the territory of policing thoughts. What this has to do with whether human nature is inherently bad or not is that in some remaining tribal areas, cannibalism is still a valid thing. In most of the world, it has become "wrong" to eat the flesh of a human.

Morality and ethics are a large part of philosophy, as they are the theories that question and attempt to explain human action. These schools of thoughts sometimes become hot button debates, and ethics are definitely something that encompasses a vast number of topics. I hope this helps you out, thank you for the thread.

JIGL0JAY wrote:We have talked about in the IRC and you already know that in this thread, it will be very hard to debate due to the vast amount of influences from the different parts of the world and different schools of thought. I'm sure this sections' smarter members will pick this up and give a good explanation, while the new or less debate format inclined members will say a line or two that basically summarizes one of the larger schools of thought included. Please don't take anything I say here negatively. The words I say may sound like put downs (words like "dismisses", "fails to", etc), but they are my way of saying "Here is something that you might have missed, maybe this will lead you in a different direction." (This actually goes for most of my posts in the debate section and elsewhere).

So allow me begin by dissecting your question and the addendum.

Your original question asked whether humans are inherently "bad". I put quotations around "bad" because as I go on, there are a lot of factors that revolve around ethics. I quote from my "Not an argument" post:

Ethics is the science which discovers morality. Morality is not the same for everyone, but its principles are. For example, it may be moral for you to quit your job, but immoral for someone else to. Ethics has no power other than telling you what you ought to do if you wish to achieve good mental health.

This follows with the philosophical school of thought that encompasses Normative ethics. I recommend looking at the philosophers listed there and reading some of their works, and seeing what resonates with you.

As for your hypothetical "if a person was not affected by outside factors". The hypothetical invalidates your question, as "bad" is a term that is fabricated by the mind. Your hypothetical dismisses the idea of moral relativism due to its failure to account for the fact that one cannot be exempt from the influence of outside factors. Culture shock is one example of deeply ingrained cultural roots being exposed when placed in a completely different life. This can be as complex as moving from the US to Asia, or as simple as moving from the country to the city. We are influenced all the way down to the family level. The way a family is set up can influence the way one acts. For example, an abusive parent, an absent parent, a strong patriarchal/matriarchal household, can all change the perception one has on any number of things.

You ask if human nature is "bad" and then list things such as theft and murder. Now, both of these things have their various descriptions and legal definitions. Murder in self defense, mass murder, homicide, the list goes on. These things have a grey-scale that I believe cannot be summarized with black and white objectivity. There IS such a thing as objective morality, however objective morality places things in categories of right and wrong in ethics, and then states that they are universal sets of morals for everyone to follow. The problem with this is that it is very hard for one person to state that their way of thinking is the correct way of thinking without interfering on personal freedoms, but that is a different argument altogether.

Let me bring an example into this: Islam has a variety of headgear that females wear in regards to their spiritual devotion. This headgear ranges from a headscarf to a full on body covering outfit. In the Western world, a large number of people believe that the fact that this is required of women is an infringement of the personal freedoms of the woman. At the same time, this blanketing ethics fails to account for the number of free thinking women who voluntarily wear the religious garments, and drifts into the territory of policing thoughts. What this has to do with whether human nature is inherently bad or not is that in some remaining tribal areas, cannibalism is still a valid thing. In most of the world, it has become "wrong" to eat the flesh of a human.

Morality and ethics are a large part of philosophy, as they are the theories that question and attempt to explain human action. These schools of thoughts sometimes become hot button debates, and ethics are definitely something that encompasses a vast number of topics. I hope this helps you out, thank you for the thread.

^^^^ some nice examples here.

Here are a few points on the other direction. When it comes to "Is human nature inherently bad?" we can also think of our mental health and capacity. I read a few books on serial killers ( and many other forms of murder) that mention a lot of underdeveloped brains, damaged brains and birth defects- something none can control.
First example is Jeffrey Dahmer. He had a "normal" white, middle-class, suburban upbringing. He was loved by his parents, had enough attention. Pretty much what most middle-class white Americans do. Then later on he chops people up and eats them. Dahmer and a few other have been studied for years now. Even though he did not have any mental issues or brain damage he was intrinsically fucked up. He was aware of his crimes and never wanted to be free, but still claims that he does not remember most of his murders.
Other examples are of "going postal". This started in the 50s ( I think, need to check sources), when a postal employee loaded up all his guns and went on a shooting spree. Also this man did not have a negative childhood or influences in his life, that would shape him into mass killing.
Other examples not just of murder, suggest underdeveloped brains or damaged frontal lobes- which controls impulse, memory, decisions making, organization, controlling our behavior and emotion, and selective attention. There are examples of criminals that could not differentiate destroying a chair or a person, to them it is the same with no emotional connection or thought. People can be born with brain damage or it can be inflicted by injury or beatings.

Another take on this topic could be a religious one. People are intrinsically good and bad, we have to choose and work on being good and to resist the devil- which I think is just a tool to explain something we don't understand- evil.

Or it is what it is, there is nothing else after this, so fuck it and who cares.

Overall my point is, people are shaped depending on culture, mental health, and upbringing. Few points that are the same all over the world.

1. Do not kill
2. Do not steal
3. Do not lie
This means that we all have the same understanding, the rest is choice, circumstance, and something we might not be able to comprehend.

My theory is quite simple. Humans naturally survive, and that's the only "Human Nature" there is. Why do you think it takes so long to lose fat but only a few bites of pie to put it back on? Survival. Instinct guides our decision to be selfish. Our 'culture' simply forms our more modern ideas of what it means to survive, to live now, versus just to survive then. Where I find flaw in my logic is rules. Rules, then laws, have been around since the evolution/creation of man into what is similar to today's humans. Guided by logic and reason relative to the time, they were put in place to insure the maximum number of survivors. This noble act of unselfishness, preserving the lives of others, did not come out of no where, suggesting that on top of the survival tactics for one's self are tactics for keeping a lineage, or recreation of one's self, strong. This fostered unselfishness, as parents gave up their lives for children, and I believe that is how the 'good' in the world started it's chain of evolution. Unfortunately, when those that were inferior to others noticed they had been betrayed by genetics, envy caused them to commit 'crimes' which then started to breed 'evil' in the world. After many years of evolution, just about every culture now has a similar and universal sense of good and evil for this reason. And there you have it, man is inherently neutral, in relative terms, but in today's terms, bad for being selfish.

Hmm good question.

Well look at it this way during the times of the during the cave man times as far as we know they would only kill one another if it was necessary meaning that if one was rendered useless from a hunting trip ect..
Behaviors such as stealing or murder are mal-adaptive meaning that the person performing the action has adapted to live that way and has become a norm for them, and also go again your social norms.
Adaptive behaviors tend to be genetic such as being scared of the dark this is because during the period of cave men the animals would hunt at night therefor they would be scared to go out at night, these behaviors are adaptive as the person learns to live with them and all humanity has such behaviors.
Murder and theft would come under mal-adaptive as the person forced those behaviors upon himself.
Murder can also be explained psychologically as the murder may have something wrong with there nurotrasmitters or find death of another person fun, when certain people kill another he get adrenalin rushes and slowly become addicted to them its similar to cigarettes.

So in conclusion no human nature is not bad but in some cases may be.

Hope I helped

Is it in human nature to think human nature is inherently bad? That's all we'll really find out in this thread.