Are humans good or evil?

[Nebulous]

Do you think humans are inherently good or inherently evil?

 

[Aral]

I think we are inherently neutral, especially at birth when we're a blank slate (babies are fundamentally neutral, neither good nor evil, up until they're old enough to differentiate themselves from others). It's our life experiences and how we respond to them that make us evil or good. I would say most people are neutral, and good people are probably more common than truly evil people, and that most of the time, evil people have gone through traumatic events or periods as children and coped the best way they could, up until it became a part of their personality.

However, I would define an evil person as someone who lacks empathy, purposely destroys others or others' possession for their own gain, don't care about the consequences of their actions, feel no remorse, someone who acts only on their brutal impulses, the typical sociopathy definition if I really want to put this under an umbrella. Evil is more definable than good imo, because it's so easily recognizable. A good person, in my definition, is someone who has found a balance between helping themselves and others. They have compassion for their fellow man (and animal, though not all hold them high in their consciousness, which I understand), try to help whenever possible, but doesn't do so in a selfish way. They do it out of a genuine desire to take care of another.

Most serial killers had an awful childhood, suffered abuse, neglect (in any forms, even spoiling a child is a form of it, because no amount of toys or expensive things can replace a parent's genuine attunement and emotional mirroring), bullying, and they either didn't have the resilience or weren't taught how to cope, and the pain in them grew, and grew, and grew, up until it crystallized in them and created the monster on the inside that basically acts in a defensive way. And of course, at this point, they don't even have any self-awareness or conscience left anymore, so they don't always realize or care to think about their actions.

The best people, imo, are the ones who realize their own evil and choose to change. They are aware of their own destructive potential, but have chosen not to be this way, and instead strive to be the best version of themselves.

 

[Silence The Mothers Song]

I think our souls desire for what is inherently sinful, but I also think that the true "goodness" lies within human's ability to revoke those desires.

I also think there's too many variables to account for; children who might inherent the bad or good personality traits of their parents through genes or influence, what beliefs they develop, how their experiences might mold them—and if they are blessed with the ability to withstand bad experiences, or easily crumble—so I personally think that what we aren't inherently good or bad OR neutral, and to try to measure and define the flowing diversity of humanity when we all have different moral compasses and so many intricate and underlying differences is near impossible.

I think the only true way to measure if someone is "good" or "evil" is by their own actions, and that's the way it will always be. Hope this makes sense LMAO

 

[Hadrian Hardrada Cicero]

Well, we're not angels or demons. That I can tell you enough!

 

[Caspar]

Depends on what exactly you mean by the question. If I'm simply appraising 'people' as a whole, then I'd have to say that 'people' have a lot of self-serving, deceptive qualities about them which, left unchecked, lends itself to a sort of positive feedback loop whereby bad behavior hurts the general social fabric, causing more bad behavior. I'd say people are dangerously blind to their own ability to walk down blind alleys and fall off the narrow way and that corruption and evil is more near to home than they imagine, that honor and virtue aren't things you ask of some far away class of people nobody has ever met, but mundane everyday things which must be practiced like one practices an instrument.

If however, do you mean something 'ultimate' about human beings, then I'd say humans are ultimately good. They're rather 'the good' - meaning, teleologically. The end of human life is future human life; one generation lays the way for the next. Human life is enmeshed between the past and the future and the first duty that comes to a person is their debt to the people who gave them the life they have.

 

[calico_jack]

Man is inherently evil. My opinion on this is entirely informed by Lord of the Flies which i had to read in 9th grade.

 

[Jade]

There's no such thing as good or evil. Morality as we know it is merely the result of undue value placed on laws, customs, and specific actions. Good and evil are the same thing expressed in different ways, and this is ultimately a big part of the reason why evil or villainous characters in fiction are considered so compelling, and often liked more than the heroes.

 

[flayer]

definitely evil. it takes no effort for a human to be evil: just grab a knife and stab the first person you see. easy. however, most of us cannot do that: we grew up with our parents and the society teaching us morality. but all of this morality is thrown away when humans are forcefully ordered to murder someone by a figure higher than them. it is easy for people to just obey the authority and stray off of the path of good, as the milgram experiment indicates. only a few people will ever be able to resist.

 

[Mеченый Яков]

There is no such thing as good or evil in the animal kingdom, that is a construct us humans created to keep civilization on check, laws, morality, everything was made in order for us to avoid killing eachother everytime we had the chance, because what every living thing strives fro, is survival and survival alone, a dog doesn't know anything about their actions, they act by instinct and survival, us hominids used to be like that, until the Neolithic era, the foundation of civilization and the increase of numbers in our especies, we were too big we needed rules to respect other people property, ourselves and defend against other tribes.

I do think about good and evil as the way you respond to the construct and how you deal with your own survival, i like to categorize good and evil in layers tbh, at the end, life is about layers of grey and perspectives.