Is Human Nature Basically Good or Evil?

I was going to go into some long Locke/Hobbes/Rousseau thing but meh. For once I'll shut up. Your opinion is very observant and true I think. Not sure about the karma part because I do know exceptions to the rule. We're blank slates, ready to respond to love and hatred.

Also true but doesn't separate us from animals. From ants on up, cooperative societies of animals work exactly the same way. We're not so different. Animals can have favorite friends in their group, take on specific group roles, try to curry favor with high status animals, they can have enemies too and Jane Goodall even recorded a case of premeditated murder among the chimpanzees of Gombe. We're a lot more animalistic than we'd (at least some of us) like to think.

But this is a case of the exception becoming the rule. There are always abnormalities and variations. In order to apply a generalization correctly, you've got to say it in a way that deals with the ever present exception. This can't be done with human nature, whether you're arguing that people are inherently evil or inherently good. The term "human nature" isn't a formula, it's a general outline - a standard. In order to be as accurate as possible, the only response you could give to such a question is that individuals are individuals. That is human nature. How one interacts with others and the social context of one's life are both important in how an one acts, but beyond all these things is the individual. They make the final decision.

"It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the
great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being
fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being
fundamentally people." --Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Good Omens

Human nature is a complex pastis and scope of emotional continuums. Some people are good in some situations. Evil in others.

I can vouch that I am not good. I am evil. But when I am evil--there is a reason for it. I am not perfect. I am not good.

I believe that people have their own free will but that free will is limited and constricted by the society in which you live. I don't believe our inherent nature is animalistic because we are part divine. This sounds corny I know. But we can decide our fate unlike animals. We have the capacity to understand what is right and wrong unlike animals. We have the ability to control our nature to suit ourselves and survival unlike animals.


I don't know of many hermits anymore. Everybody relies on some group to live. Ted Kaczynski even relied on society to survive teaching math inorder to eat. You cannot be a human being outside the context of society. You would be an animal. By group I mean any social unit. Altruism is not unique to humans however. Social animals exibit the same qualities instinctually.

Premeditated murder among the chimpanzees? huh amazing - can evil exist if you don't know right from wrong? I know tom cats kill kittens from other litters - would you say this is evil or just part of nature? I think evil is a human construct which only exists if you have a conscious. This is why mentaly retarded people who have killed are never put to death. The don't have the ability to understand right from wrong.

Very nice quote Meniscus. I still like your "people like the smell of their own shit" quote better though.

I try to believe that we're basically good, but then, on occasion, I'll pop on here, and my belief in evil will be restored.

I think people are basically good. I think some people that are thought to be "evil" like Jeffrey Dahmer are actually insane.

Oh God, you remember that?

I doing my best to tip the scale in favor of evil.

Yup. It is now in MY head for 14 years.

Yes, I see. No need to state the obvious.

I believe people are basically good, but that we find evil more attractive than good.

Sorry about that. But the fact that it stuck in your head makes me think perhaps you understood the truth of it.

Ain't it the truth? With evil your inhibitions melt away. You can indulge all your darkest fantasties, revel in the forbidden, and project as much power as you want: all without the consquence of remorse.

Perhaps the biggest problem is that as you sate each evil desire that your hunger continues to grow until nothing becomes satisfactory any longer. Reminds me of General Zod conquering earth and then lounging about the White House bored out of his mind.

And Alexander wept...

Tolstoy said 'All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in it's own way,' and I think this in some way applies to good and evil, that there are only so many ways that good can express itself while evil has a multitude of expressions. The urge to be self sacrificing, to give to others, to do other good things doesn't have the same appeal as to take what you want even when it's at a cost to others, to trample over people to get your own way; to behave badly when you know you should behave well is often just easier than to do the right thing. Luckily people have people they love and the urge to do evil things is offset by not wanting those people to be disappointed in you, to find out that you're not the person they want you to be and by the fear of the consequences that society needs to impose to curb our desire to be bad.