Do you think humans are inherently "evil"?

That's the 4th time you muzzled me kennethamy,now will you kindly answer the above question? A simple yes or no will work just fine

Muzzled you? What question?

There are some pretty strong evidence-based counterarguments to this. It's been shown under controlled circumstances that humans have an inherent aversion to being responsible for harm to others, and that this is a characteristic seen in animals as well.

In other words, it seems that humans default to commensal to humanity and symbiotic with those they care about, but both opportunism and violence require some threshold to be overcome.

You'd find this article interesting:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/magazine/13Psychology-t.html

i didn't find any evidence to support a natural tendency to care for external beings

Toddlers spontaneously offer toys and help to others and try to comfort people they see in distress.

Four-year-olds say that it is not O.K. to wear pajamas to school (a convention) and also not O.K. to hit a little girl for no reason (a moral principle). But when asked whether these actions would be O.K. if the teacher allowed them, most of the children said that wearing pajamas would now be fine but that hitting a little girl would still not be.

When anthropologists like Richard Shweder and Alan Fiske survey moral concerns across the globe, they find that a few themes keep popping up from amid the diversity. People everywhere, at least in some circumstances and with certain other folks in mind, think it's bad to harm others and good to help them.

Pulling a trigger is a physically trivial act. Anyone can do it. But most people in this world do not choose to make such a decision. We all have the physical capacity to commit acts we'd judge evil. But most humans never do such things

Would you say that mothers and fathers have a natural tendency to care for their babies?

don't you think that, even in the West, children are reared in environments where they learn to be uncritical, unquestioning conformists

cuz I do

Children up until age 8 or 9 are very concrete, so much so that they really gravitate towards and perseverate on rules and norms. Or they disobey them, but it's for the same concrete reason. It's a cognitive stage and nothing you can do will change that.

If you want your child, when they become an abstract-thinking adolescent, to be critical and questioning, the way to do it is to expose them to lots of different ideas, inspire them with wonder, prompt them to investigate and explore, indulge their curiosity, and avoid moralizing dogmatism.

Being a libertarian isn't inherently nonconformist except insofar as it's a minority view. Productive libertarianism to me is the idea that everyone can self-actualize, it's existential. Real world libertarianism to me is screw you don't tax me or force me to wear a seatbelt and don't use tax money unless I have a traumatic brain injury from not wearing a seatbelt and I need food stamps.

Don't condescend to normal people. They make the world go round. After spending a lot of time as trainee and now faculty at the medical schools at UConn, Harvard, and Duke, my job still comes down to talking to those normal people and making their lives better. The most self-secure people I know are the ones who have the best relationships with such 'disappointing' people.

I do think humans are inherently "evil". But first let me say that good and evil are terms that depend upon the society and reality we live in. In truth, both good and evil are based on perception and what we define each as.

In my opinion i believe society has come to define good and evil as mainly two ideas...

Evil: One is selfish and puts his/her needs above that of others. In all cases of "Evil" i believe a certain level if selfishness is involved. What we think of evil as is when someone puts others at sacrifice for their own personal gain and benefit. To give some examples, lying cheating and stealing are intolerant and "evil" acts that involve one putting his/her own desires (survival needs to trivial wants) above anyone else's desires.

Good: One is selfless and puts others above him/her. Giving, honesty, and fairness are opposites of what was listed above. These are the traits and quality of someone that is commonly deemed as "good" by society.

Why are humans inherently evil? Because humans are biologically programmed to meet our survival needs. Our desires naturally come before others. Unfortunately this of course is at the sacrifice of others' needs and wants. Human's are born with the idea of putting others' before themselves. In the most basic situation, we will desire to survive and meet our needs. Our wants naturally come before others'.

Again, evil and good are based on perception. One person's view of another person's "evil" may be different from that person's view. So for the purpose of proving the idea of humans being inherently "evil" we will assume that all "evil" acts are directly or indirectly related to someone being selfish in some way.

I believe we do have the ability to break free of this inherent selfishness and become a "good" person who may sacrifice for others and that may give care to others before themselves. This argument states that people are created selfish not that humans may not overcome this natural inheritance.

Selfishness is a biological survival trait purposefully designed to promote the well being of one's self without any sort of care for others. Naturally we focus on ourselves before anyone else. Because we as humans are aware of the others we must coexist with, we can understand the needs and wants of others and therefore have the choice to compromise of or possibly be a selfless person, one who is conscious and shows caring for those other than his/herself.

A neutral mindset is impossible to achieve because people will always have conflicting desires. One cannot be neither selfish nor selfless. Everyone has their wants and needs and how they prioritize those in relation to the wants and needs of others determines the type of person society will consider them.

Good and evil are again dependent on your whether your desires benefit yourself or if they benefit other people and possibly humanity as a whole. To survive we must have this inherent and natural selfishness to benefit ourselves above other or else our race would die off due to not being able to survive on our own.

The origin of conflict comes from many having similar if not the same wants or needs. Therefore, someone will get the get the short end of the stick. This will deem the victor, "evil".

So to conclude, all commonly considered "evil" acts will be traced back to one being selfish. We are naturally selfish because that is how we fight to survive. Evil is based on perception and i believe evil is how are race has come to survive.

plus even the majority of people can become monsters under the right circumstances

these circumstances just have to wait to present themselves: e.g., "but they're not like us" and "that man in the uniform told me to do it"

in fact I think this happens very frequently. of course I wouldn't make the claim that individuals are impulsively violent. that's ridiculous. human violence is typically organized, pretty subtle, with a big old smiley face sticker on it to mislead you



if Stanley Milgram's authority experiment is at all representative, then only a minority of people are really moral

I do think humans are inherently "evil". But first let me say that good and evil are terms that depend upon the society and reality we live in. In truth, both good and evil are based on perception and what we define each as.

In my opinion i believe society has come to define good and evil as mainly two ideas...

Evil: One is selfish and puts his/her needs above that of others. In all cases of "Evil" i believe a certain level if selfishness is involved. What we think of evil as is when someone puts others at sacrifice for their own personal gain and benefit. To give some examples, lying cheating and stealing are intolerant and "evil" acts that involve one putting his/her own desires (survival needs to trivial wants) above anyone else's desires.

Good: One is selfless and puts others above him/her. Giving, honesty, and fairness are opposites of what was listed above. These are the traits and quality of someone that is commonly deemed as "good" by society.

Why are humans inherently evil? Because humans are biologically programmed to meet our survival needs. Our desires naturally come before others. Unfortunately this of course is at the sacrifice of others' needs and wants.

Human's are born with the idea of putting others' before themselves.

I am with jewish theology.
There is the good inclination and the evil inclination.
and with Professor Dumbledorf
It is not our abilites, but our choices that determine who we are., Harry.

Our choices, without any external influence will be for the betterment of ourselves rather than others. Our mind feels immediate needs and concerns not those of a bigger picture, everyone around us.(i tend to look both ways before i cross the road,and you?) Without a doubt, selfishness is a biological survival trait that is embedded in our coding. Think about an animal, if you give the animal a piece of meat, will it share it with the other hungry animals?(Happens all the time in nature,and not just for copulation or security measures*great-apes*) Or will it keep it all for itself. The only difference is we have a certain level of intelligence that brings us to a realization that effects of our selfishness have an effect on others. Whether we decide to be generous or selfishness is a decision but inherently we are evil in the sense of being concerned with the well being of our being not that of others.(scratch my back and i'll scratch yours?..or if i scratch your back will you scratch mine?) So in our own sense we are good within our personal boundaries but in a more holistic perception we are evil.

Our choices, without any external influence will be for the betterment of ourselves rather than others.

Our mind feels immediate needs and concerns not those of a bigger picture, everyone around us. Without a doubt, selfishness is a biological survival trait that is embedded in our coding.

Think about an animal,

......if you give the animal a piece of meat, will it share it with the other hungry animals? Or will it keep it all for itself. The only difference is we have a certain level of intelligence that brings us to a realization that effects of our selfishness have an effect on others. Whether we decide to be generous or selfishness is a decision but inherently we are evil in the sense of being concerned with the well being of our being not that of others.

So in our own sense we are good within our personal boundries but in a more holistic perception we are evil.