Are Humans Inherently Good, or Evil?

None. Neither "good" nor "evil" by nature.

It's only a matter of whim whether we act good or bad.

Yes, but are we inclined by our nature to act one way or another?

We just are.

The "good/bad" balance is more a matter of society and culture. And as a matter of fact/sample, south-east Asia balance is less settled on saint/evil or even "good/bad" than order/chaos.

Cultural relativism works fine until we realize some cultures die out. The other way in which it falls is when we see animals displaying moral behavior which suggests it's not, as I keep talking about here on Fakku, «society, dude».

When you say animals displaying "moral" behavior, I just see anthropocentrism.

Or would you say for example parasites and such are displaying "immoral" behaviour ? What about the ichneumon which, says the anecdote, had made the great Darwin to cease believing in god existence when he discovered how it takes care of its offspring ?

Hence it's better guarding oneself from hasty judgement, particularly about possible anthropic bias.


Satus quo still keeps great value, even whithin human societies.

All humans are born neutral. Good and Evil are subjective. For instance, killing someone can be justifiable depending on where its being done, and who its being done to.

not gonna choose either, cause none is correct.

Same for me. Neither is correct cause our actions and environment affect it. Let alone certain aspects for the way person acts can be looked at in more than one way. Like a society killing a group thinking they will bring the downfall to their society, so one side says they are protecting themselves so it is good, but other will say they are murdering people which is evil.

To me the question just never made sense why it is still asked.

Empty, fake and evil.

Also, i don't believe in "good" and "evil" but in what is socially good, and socially bad, as there are no real morals when you think about the reality of things.

I didn't get a notification, first time seeing this.

I wouldn't go as far as parasites but if you plug into to National Geographic and stick around long enough, you will see some species that do follow a moral code. I wanna say whales, penguins and some other mammals like wolves but I could be horribly wrong on that. Even though I don't take full on Biology, I did take one course on it and the professor's point was more or less that philosophers are idiots if they think morality is a trait exclusive to humans. Some people like Daniel Dennett stay close to Darwnism when making philsophy for that same reason - it appears Evolution has something to say about morality. To me, it comes as no surprise.

I can't vote in your poll because the answer is truthfully neither.

Good and evil are human machinations. In nature there is only what is and what is not. Good, evil, it's a human concept that we apply to the world around us. So in the most basic sense, humans are as neutral as a lion or a bear.

It's true that lions and bears may kill other animals and it's also true they may even kill their own kind. You could also say it's possible that some of them could even kill humans. But does that make them evil? No... Humans have created good and evil and it's a very thin line of morality that has no meaning whatsoever. We apply it ourselves and as society changes so too could the definition of what is good and evil, so to answer whether humans are inherently good or evil we have to then first answer what then can we apply as good or evil when the definitions thereof are constantly changing?

In Ancient Egypt you may have been "evil" if you were a Jew, or in Native America you may have been "evil" if you were white. Does this mean that if you're white or a Jew that you're evil? No. It's a social perspective, and it has no meaning. That said, it was a pretty dick move what we did to the Indians, but still... my answer stands.

I say evil just because humans are naturally greedy and need to be taught morals,but at same time since good/evil itself differs from person to person it's kinda hard to say since while some ways are brutish and evil to most by nature it's all go...

Shorter and simple opinon:
Entropy leads humans to evil/chaos if left unchecked so must be naturally evil

imma have to say evil... anyway its more fun to be evil :P the dark side has cookies

A big mistake since there are lot of parasits what are animals.



Don't be mad but you're anthropocentrist on that way to see it.



Me I have. So much that my teachers tried to put me into the scientist field -- it did not realize because of administrative matters.



Social codes and cultures. Moral ? I suspect some misunderstanding or some clumsy way to popularize some data -- happens sooo often it's sadly uncountable...



Still I prefer to that the original darwinian evolution.

Daniel Dennett may be a soft determinist but still determinist, so it is doubtful or at least debatable when he teams up with Dawkin.

I doubt you would really understand all what is said about all those people, but believe me : it can become a veeeeery specialized and technical debate with looot of studies on those questions and looot of publication (Pubmed, Nature, Science, Cell...) as well to investigate and above all understand even within their possible bias or even "mistake".

Needs a lot about epistemology, too.

That's not my point, now is it? What I said is that I don't think parasites have morals but other animals do. Why is it a big mistake? To prove my point I wouldn't need to prove it in all animals, just one aside from humans.



I really don't see why. It's not a matter of disagreement either. I just literally don't understand where you got that from my comment. Not being sarcastig either. I'd appreciate an explanation.



Considering this is the internet, neither of us have a way to prove it so this is just pointless «I said, he said». Still, I didn't take a full biology course but what I took was with a biologist so... Yeah.

Also, I don't really see what your own experience has anything to do here since I'm not talking about my experience either. I'm talking about what others said, point blank. You could be Einstein, Tesla, Darwin and Justin Bieber rolled into one, it wouldn't make much of a difference. Well, maybe if you were Darwin...

If it is true, sorry to hear that.



Could very well be. Biology is not my thing. But this is yet another example in which the conversation takes flight. If I remember correctly, last time the same happened - I state P and you state «Not P» on the grounds of «He said» and the main point is lot. To reiterate - Do *some* animals display moral behavior?



I doubt you understand them too but on the other side which would be philsophy, namely morality. I would say that on the grounds that this last comment only featured the word «moral» once and it was in a one word rhetorical question.

I'm in a better shape than yesterday.



1) Let's see. Why do I insist on parasits ? Take the ichneumon : a wasp specie "laying" its egg into a living and vivid host. Since this wasp take the burden to approach a living target, not killing it nor stunning it, and putting its egg inside the target's body ; the egg will not be the prey of other insects, as long as the host fights for its survival. In the same time, the egg hatch and the larva begin to eat the host from inside, but keep off from eating organs essential for the host survival. This way the host is still able to move away from its predators and keeps the hosted larva alive in the same time, until the larva have nearly eat all it can of its host and get out of it to the next stage of its development.

Now try to look it with your moral eyes and tell me what you think.


2) About wolves, lions and such.

When male lions take control of a female group by fighting down some other males, they kill all the cubs so the females get in heat quicker.

When a lambda wolf reach "puberty" in its pack, it's only the (fallible) surveillance of the alpha male what keeps that lambda wolf to impregnate the alpha female, whether this female would be or not its mother. If the lambda wolf is able to chase away or kill the alpha wolf, then it becomes the new alpha wolf and impregnate the female of its choice. Don't even believe the legend of wolves couple fidelity : studies had invalidated it because once all the wolves are grown up in a pack where the alpha male and female have disappeared (meaning none of them had chase away the puberiscent wolves), then those wolves will mate with each other without distinction, until either the pack explode into new groups, or a new alpha couple kill other rivals and eventually their offsprings.

Again try to look it with your moral eyes and tell me what you think.




Forget it. Fakku is not the right place.




Only "humans", if they're willing to. The moral (which values can even change from a culture to another) is our specie's social code if you might "prefer". It has things to do only with us.

We may "see" in some species more or less "proach" to ours, some behavior making us think we understand what it happens. But to understand what it really happens, we must obliterate our own social code as if we were learning another "language". Then come some similarities but also differences. But since they don't have the same brain as ours, never take some other specie's behavior for a "synonym" to any of our behavior. It is only (more or less) similar, not completely the same.




I know a bit more about Dawkin than Dennett and I can say I respect the biologist but his ideas are a little... "twisted" ? "too simple" ? too determinist and not available for too much exceptions -- you could even say it "may function" only for some given exceptions too... The same for Dennett.

And about philosophy, you're not forced to involve "morality" or some anthropocentrism when talking about animals -- rather the contrary in fact. I've explained above one of the reasons to keep off from anthropocentrism.

Philosophy is not about giving some "humanity" to animals, it should be about analysis of ideas, if possible not concluding for an exception but carrying on some generalization. In my eyes : running a hypothesis out of any possible ideas to theirs extremities. Ending up the reasoning.

Aside from the massive amounts of manipulation from our good old friend Mr. Illuminati, I would say we are as species good by nature. There are many examples that supports that, if we were ever faced with a crisis then we would naturally team up to face the crisis so we as species can live on. We as human beings strive for a better life, and one of that is called cooperation, we work together to achieve that happiness, and to top it off, it hurts us to see someone less fortunate than us, and we would feel better if everyone was doing well.

I know what I posted was BS but please keep on paying attention.

I know someone would post about greed, fear and all that, but doesn't those feelings come from someone else to cause it? For example if we were to have fear of being poor, and somehow we come into thought that someone would take it from us, then we would become heartless and greedy, but is that evil, of course not, because we just have fear, but it doesn't necessarily mean we "hate". So in reality we are not "evil", rather we have fears.

Of course our dear friend Mr.Hitler also said in his famous quote, " Children are our future", which means that we play as a role of influencing the young, which means we have the power to shape their being. Leave a child alone with his natural environment, excluding unnatural influences, the he become a good human being, which further supports the fact that we in nature are good.

Then why do people like priviledges for themselves ? Why not always refusing, so you won't have more than anyone else ? Why keeping a hierarchy, since it creates inequalities ? Why do thieves exist, since they will always despoil somebody of something ? Why do bully exist, and any form of harrassment ?




No need of fear. You can also have/use jealousy (a master trigger), misunderstanding, egoism, envy, hope also, despair too, conviction often... A lot of triggers exist indeed to cause someone harm somebody.

Keep in mind wealth does not imply generosity, neither would poverty causes greediness. You can even have hand in hand greediness and wealth as well poverty and generosity.

And by experience, jealousy is a huge source of hatred. Even within animals.




Hitler is not a friend of mine. That aside, you can't make a child anything you would want. You can teach him/her and give him/her choices, but don't believe there would be only "one" choice even with the best control. Moreover, curiosity often lead children to explore what would be forbidden. All to say children aren't your ideal puppets as your sentence (may) seems to say.




What would be a "natural environment" for a child ???

Leave a child alone and he/she would not survive -- he/she would die. And won't be happy because of lack of social interactions. It already has been studied even during past centuries.

Diderot already had invalidate the Noble Savage myth, and Hobbes too if I remember.

We're neither good nor bad. We just are.

We do everything for the good.

Either for others or ourselves.