Are people inherently evil or inherently good?

[Klippy]

History is filled with acts of great humanity and compassion, but also with acts of great inhumanity and cruelty. But are people, by nature, evil or good?

 

[Signomi]

I've always thought it was a case of people being inherently ignorant. Being good or evil sounds too black and white when you consider the how and why factors behind them both. We're all born without any first hand knowledge of the world, and we continuously learn and perceive things in our surroundings that fuel natural human emotions. I believe it's completely environmental. It depends on how a person adjusts themselves to what's around them. It could be the case that one can feel better gratification in doing good deeds, or throw personal resentment into the picture by acting in ways society would condemn.

 

[Gobln]

From the start there are people who are more likely to be bad than good, just genetically, but the upbringing of the people is far more important.

Some people are more evil than others, but that doesnt mean they will ever show (or be conscious) of said evil.

 

[Sun]

I've always thought it was a case of people being inherently ignorant. Being good or evil sounds too black and white when you consider the how and why factors behind them both. We're all born without any first hand knowledge of the world, and we continuously learn and perceive things in our surroundings that fuel natural human emotions. I believe it's completely environmental. It depends on how a person adjusts themselves to what's around them. It could be the case that one can feel better gratification in doing good deeds, or throw personal resentment into the picture by acting in ways society would condemn.

This sums up my thoughts; no one is born good nor evil, it all depends on the environment and what a person has been through.

I've also heard of researches saying that kids' behavior at three are connected to their own adult personality. Just to make sure I'm not remembering things wrong, I searched for a bit and please have a read.

Children's behavioral styles at age 3 are linked to their adult personality traits at age 26.
Caspi A1, Harrington H, Milne B, Amell JW, Theodore RF, Moffitt TE.

Abstract
We observed 1,000 3-year-old children who exhibited five temperament types: Undercontrolled, Inhibited, Confident, Reserved, and Well-adjusted. Twenty-three years later, we reexamined 96% of the children as adults, using multiple methods of comprehensive personality assessment, including both self- and informant-reports. These longitudinal data provide the longest and strongest evidence to date that children's early-emerging behavioral styles can foretell their characteristic behaviors, thoughts, and feelings as adults, pointing to the foundations of the human personality in the early years of life.
PMID: 12901429 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Sources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12901429
https://www.education-consumers.com/oldsite/briefs/behavioral style study.pdf

Therefore I believe it's decided as early as when we were three. :) Then the environment plays the second huge role.

 

[twocows]

At the beginning, we act purely on instinct because that's all we have. The most significant instinct we have at that time is survival, so in our early years, we are primarily self-serving, acting in whatever way our biology or the few teachings we have learned suggests is the most advantageous to us. This isn't necessarily evil, it's just... self-serving. It's nothing to be ashamed of, that's just how it is. When we are young, we lack the intellectual faculties that allow us to understand more advanced concepts. We are more animalistic, more instinctual. We do what evolution has taught us to do, and that is to place our own needs first, the needs of those who feed our needs second, and all other considerations after that.

This obviously changes significantly as our brains develop (biological), as other instincts come into play (biological), and as we begin to understand more advanced concepts (biological and environmental). But to start off with, we're basically on the same level as many other animals. It's pretty easy to understand once you think of it like that.

 

[Universe]

My opinion is that humans are neither inherently evil or good.

Ego is usually constructed and maintained by fear, and as we know, everyone is easily driven by it. The ego makes it easy to separate from others, and it's also what makes it easier for people to cause harm to others.. simply because it blocks out our connections to other people. Some people are simply born with low capability for compassion, sympathy, and/or empathy.. does that make them a bad person? Certainly not. What they do with this low feel for others is for them to decide, and those decisions are usually fueled by what they're taught and whether or not an ego is present. If they've been through some bad **** in their life, you can pretty much guarantee that ego is there and it'll make it tougher for that person to bond with others.

Some people are born with high capability for compassion, sympathy, and/or empathy.. and may even have a lower ego to go with it. All of this goodness and badness is dependent on their personalities, the way they were raised, how their growing-up was, if they were traumatized, whether mental illness is present or not, and many other factors.

We, unfortunately, can't inherently be anything because we're all so different and faceted.

 

[RegdragsPlays]

I've always thought it was a case of people being inherently ignorant. Being good or evil sounds too black and white when you consider the how and why factors behind them both. We're all born without any first hand knowledge of the world, and we continuously learn and perceive things in our surroundings that fuel natural human emotions. I believe it's completely environmental. It depends on how a person adjusts themselves to what's around them. It could be the case that one can feel better gratification in doing good deeds, or throw personal resentment into the picture by acting in ways society would condemn.

I completely agree with this - wither the action is either from good nature or from evil intention, there are background influences that lead to that. A human's history can greatly effect how they will perceive the world around them, in regards to upbringing, experiences and more. Although going through the way humans have evolved (which, when you *really* look at it from a basic stand point, it hasn't been by much.) A lot of inherently evil (for example) or those that appear this way are simply driven by sometimes: Fear, not knowing much about the new environment/social change that has occurred to them, etc.

So overall, I'll have to say it is a 50/50 clean slate which can be swayed depended on what the person has learned, experienced and have acquired throughout the course of his or her life. There has been countless instances where many would agree that a person is beyond evil and knows nothing else but as stated, a lot of the times it is because they witnessed or experienced that said evil and therefore that is what they know and experience. Good topic btw.

 

[Pinkie-Dawn]

Aren't these behaviors also found in other intelligent species such as chimpanzees and dolphins? But that doesn't explain why we humans are capable of destroying our own planet, or those other intelligent specimens would've done so themselves, making us question natural selection if we were meant to be the only dominant species on this planet and that it's the other organisms' fault for failing to adapt to our changes. Could it be something in our brains that's considered unnatural that's doing this?

 

[xFataLx]

to act out in a good way or evil way is a reflection of one's past. If you grow up in a bad environment, your more likely to act out in "evil" ways and vise versa. the whole idea of good and evil is lame in my opinion. something could be evil to one person and good for another. it's all based on ones perception.

 

[OmegaRuby and AlphaSapphire]

As some of the enlightened writers of the past wrote about, I believe that humans are born as blank slates whose views, values, and actions are shaped by their environment. I am much more on the side of Nurture in the Nature (genes) vs. Nurture (environment a person was raised in) debate.

 

[Juno]

Gonna take a more empirical approach in answering this since it reminded me of some developmental psych studies I read a while back. Like others have said, what's "good" and what's "bad" is largely defined by society, which can be hard to measure, but what these studies did was look at how children viewed helping behaviour (I think we can agree helping people is good), and the results were pretty interesting. It seems that kids as young as a few months old are already naturally inclined to feel compassion and want to help others, without being taught to.

I'll start with the babies. So in one experiment, infants were shown a little puppet play where there was a "climber" (puppet with a goal to reach the top of a hill), "helper" (puppet that helped push the climber to the top) and a "hinderer" (puppet that knocked the climber to the bottom). Infants were brought in, shown this scenario a few times, and then presented the helper and hinderer puppets. Nearly every single baby in the experiment reached for the helper puppet, indicating a preference for the "good" character. [link to study]

It's a pretty simple experiment and it's debatable whether they reached for that puppet because they think it's "good", or they simply liked the colour or something, but it's undeniable that nearly all the babies preferred that puppet for some reason. Since there's only so much we can do to learn about babies when they can't talk or do much, let's look at toddlers next.

18 month olds were brought in and the experimenter would "accidentally" drop items in their view (in some trials I believe a different experimenter would snatch the item away and put it out of experimenter 1's reach). Upon noticing the frustration of the adult, the child would almost always help them retrieve the item. This was replicated over many different scenarios - sometimes the adult would sigh out of frustration and try to reach for the item, sometimes they pretend to not notice they've dropped something. They tested distance as well, to see if the kids would only help if it was convenient for them to do so. Even when the child was having lots of fun on their own with all the toys and in the ball pit, they would (look kind of annoyed at first, but then) still go out of their way to help the stranger when they noticed they needed it.

Another thing that's pretty cool is the same guy that designed these experiments on the 18 month olds also decided to try it on chimpanzees, and interestingly enough, the chimps displayed the same altruistic behaviour and would retrieve dropped items for the experimenter. [link to study] - there's quite a few out there by the same guy based around the same concept, as I mentioned, so this is one of them.

Upbringing is definitely important, I will agree with that, but it's very interesting that infants who are only months old and haven't been actively taught what's right and wrong in society can express that they know and prefer helping behaviour, and this behaviour is so innate that it can even be found in our primate relatives as well.

tl;dr toddlers and chimps like to help others without being taught or trained to, and these results can be interpreted as "humans(/primates) are good by nature"

 

[Talon]

I believe people are inherently ignorant, as someone mentioned before. I do not believe that we are born good or evil. Our choices drive us the way we go, and shape us as we will be. Someone who makes lots of bad choices is likely to be a more evil person, and the opposite also applies. We are born knowing very little, so we have less knowledge to base our judgement on, so we may see things differently, and that could cause us to do evil things because we do not see them as evil. I think it's more of how we use our knowledge (or lack thereof) to shape ourselves that causes us to seem inherently evil or good.
However, I do have to say that the ideas of evil and good are opinions. What is evil to you may be good to me. Granted, certain things are generally accepted as evil/good acts.

 

[noa]

Humans aren't inherently either of these things. They're blank slates. Babies completely absorb everything from their birth and grow based on that, they aren't born good people. They learn everything from the world around them, whether its good or bad.

That's just my opinion though...

 

[Sir Codin]

Humans aren't inherently either of these things. They're blank slates. Babies completely absorb everything from their birth and grow based on that, they aren't born good people. They learn everything from the world around them, whether its good or bad.

That's just my opinion though...

But if humans are born blank slates, how did the concept of good or bad originate in the first place? When and what was the beginning of good/evil? Or are both things simply just constructs made by us to define things that we agree or disagree with other people doing?

Are certain good and evil acts truly the way they are or are they just what WE perceive them to be?

 

[Akiba]

This is actually a major topic in the discussion of the philosophies of Legalism and Confucianism.

(I'm sorry, I actually find AP World History fairly fascinating.)

Legalism argues that humans are inherently evil, and must be strictly punished for every misdeed. This was a central ideal of the Qin Dynasty and a major influence that shaped Imperial China's history. Capital punishment was common, and other forms of torture and discipline were used for the purpose of preventing people from doing wrong things. Ironically enough, the government was toppled in a giant insurrection only sixteen years after the ascension of Emperor Qin.

Afterwards, the Han Dynasty embraced the more philanthropic methodology of Confucianism, while still keeping some of the less fascist elements of Legalism. Confucianism argues that humans are inherently good, and can be taught to be civilized, benevolent, and compassionate. It encouraged socioethical harmony, respect, and self-improvement. Aside from a short interruption, the Han Dynasty lasted for a solid 400 years and supported a strong and highly cultivated society.

Comparing these two different dynasties whose governing methodologies were directly motivated by the two philosophies, we can see which is more stable, and thus probably closer to the truth.

tl;dr people are good

 

[noa]

But if humans are born blank slates, how did the concept of good or bad originate in the first place? When and what was the beginning of good/evil? Or are both things simply just constructs made by us to define things that we agree or disagree with other people doing?

Are certain good and evil acts truly the way they are or are they just what WE perceive them to be?

"how did the concept of good or bad originate in the first place?"

Now that, my friend, is above my pay grade. :P But I guess humans do have some innate sense of fairness. You can see it in monkeys and another intelligent animals too. I guess our sense of right and wrong was born from that sense of fairness.

 

[Pinkie-Dawn]

This is actually a major topic in the discussion of the philosophies of Legalism and Confucianism.

(I'm sorry, I actually find AP World History fairly fascinating.)

Legalism argues that humans are inherently evil, and must be strictly punished for every misdeed. This was a central ideal of the Qin Dynasty and a major influence that shaped Imperial China's history. Capital punishment was common, and other forms of torture and discipline were used for the purpose of preventing people from doing wrong things. Ironically enough, the government was toppled in a giant insurrection only sixteen years after the ascension of Emperor Qin.

Afterwards, the Han Dynasty embraced the more philanthropic methodology of Confucianism, while still keeping some of the less fascist elements of Legalism. Confucianism argues that humans are inherently good, and can be taught to be civilized, benevolent, and compassionate. It encouraged socioethical harmony, respect, and self-improvement. Aside from a short interruption, the Han Dynasty lasted for a solid 400 years and supported a strong and highly cultivated society.

Comparing these two different dynasties whose governing methodologies were directly motivated by the two philosophies, we can see which is more stable, and thus probably closer to the truth.

tl;dr people are good

Then you have Artificial Intelligence and Extraterrestrial civilization in science fiction stories believing that humans are inherently ignorant, when comparing each other's intelligence, and are slowly destroying their own planet and themselves from their own creations and believe they must be governed under their own control, though in the former's case, wipe them all out before they do any further damage. All this philosophical sci-fi brings up the third option to humanity's inheritance.

 

[Kanzler]

I agree with Confucius and Rousseau about the transformative power of society to the betterment of mankind. I consider their arguments about the perfection and improvement of man through society to be so compelling to disregard the nature of human nature altogether. What does it matter that we start out good, evil, or a blank slate, when there is so much human potential?

 

[twocows]

Aren't these behaviors also found in other intelligent species such as chimpanzees and dolphins? But that doesn't explain why we humans are capable of destroying our own planet, or those other intelligent specimens would've done so themselves, making us question natural selection if we were meant to be the only dominant species on this planet and that it's the other organisms' fault for failing to adapt to our changes. Could it be something in our brains that's considered unnatural that's doing this?

That's just a matter of ability. We "destroy our planet" because we're more able to cause changes on a global scale.

 

[Wyntilda]

Humans are naturally irrational. This is because not only do we think, but we overthink. One small action done to us or by us can easily spiral in any direction as we magnify it. We're born as empty vessels that desperately seek to fill ourselves, so we absorb what is immediately around us and attempt to comprehend it, forming our own realities of it. As life goes on, we collect experience that we use as a tool to measure new situations and environments by, but our experience can lead to either good or evil reactions.

So, ultimately, it's our environment that determines whether we're "good" or "evil" (which are subjective terms to begin with). Sorry if that was poor wording.