Is humanity basically good or evil?

[coloradodem2005]

I think it is a dog-eat-dog world, so I am going with evil.

[sangh0]

1. Both

We are born with the capacity for good and evil, IMO.

[Wickerman]

2. Evil, of course

oh, Humanity - I thought you said Hannity. er, both.

[Snow]

3. Yes

[Guy Fawkes]

4. Is this one of those "original sin" ideas?

[LostInAnomie]

5. Good and evil are based solely on who is judging

It is a completely subjective measure.

[Selwynn]

16. So is rape sometimes good then?

[iconoclastic cat]

23. Are you just in a peevish mood this afternoon, or are you starving

for a good debate?

[Selwynn]

24. Just answer the question.

This is my domain.

[iconoclastic cat]

28. I'm not getting into a fight armed with a grapefruit spoon, Sel.

We should be doing this in a bar, where I could at least lose with a cocktail in my hand.

on edit: Not that I don't enjoy the the parry-and-thrust that you tend to bring to discourse. Believe me, I dig your whole scene. But it's a bit over my head beyond what I had in grad school.

[Selwynn]

30. That's a very fair point! :) We should be in a bar!

This is one of those conversations that needs about five beers!

[GumboYaYa]

27. Rape is bad, but not evil.

Good and Evil are concepts that imply a power relationship between people. Because of the inherent nature of evil, it is impossible to have any concept of good and evil that applies to all people.

The perfect example is Osama and Bush. Bush call Osama evil and Osama vice-versa with respect to Bush. Defining something as evil creates power over it. It is a notion that subjogates others. You have to get beyond the concept of evil to begin to do more than simply react to the power relationships that define human experience.

Bad explains how an individual reacts to a circumstance and is a much more appropriate term. It is individualized as subjective judgments should be.

[Selwynn]

33. Forget good and evil: how about right and wrong?

Is there ever a situation in which rape would be right?

If no, then I've got all kinds of room to play with your mind...

If your gutsy enough to say yes, then I've got all kinds of room to make you look really bad hehe... but only in fun :)

[GumboYaYa]

40. Rape by itself is not right or wrong, it simply is.

In order to live in a structured society, it is necessary to define rape as wrong. It is a matter of creating order in our relationships.

Rape is bad in the sense that it prevents the individuals involved from flourishing as you put it. That applies to the person raped and the rapist.

<ON EDIT> as I read your other posts, I think we are essentially agreeing. There are things that are bad because they are not life affirming to the individual who experiences those things. My point is only that to really understand what is good or bad, you must focus on the individual experiencing thise things beacause as you point out the context gets really messy in real world ethics if you do not. To me good and evil are ways to control people, not affirm them.

[Selwynn]

45. That's actually a pretty great answer - I think we're "close" to agreement

..sort like in parallels :)

[LostInAnomie]

32. It completely depends on your point of view

From the raper's point of view what he is doing is fine.

From the victims point of view it is horrible.

[Selwynn]

37. Is it appropriate for those of us other than the rapist to ever have .....

..the point of view that says, "that was perfectly fine?"

If yes, why does society say it's not appropriate to do that?

If no, then why?

If your answer to why is simply its because of social context, then that means that in a different social context where people said rape was ok, that would be appropriate and reasonable?

Or its it possible that a fundamental reality of the way life works makes it so that something like rape is always a wrong (among agents with the capacity for self-awareness and moral reasoning), because it breaks the fundamental underlying naturalistic principle behind all ethical evaluation: the flourishing of life.* In simple terms, its wrong because it is destructive - and we can all it universally wrong because it is universally destructive. It is never helpful or conducive to life for either victim or victimizer - it has nothing to add but destructive to life. And we create language of calling things "wrong" or "right" to describe things that are destructive to the fundamental driving aim of existence - flourishing survival - or conducive to the same, respectively.

*To me the flourishing of life is not a faith-based foundation. Instead, it seems to be a clear and obvious element of the natural order. Life seeks to survive and flourish, that seems to be inseparable with the definition of life, and with what it means to be alive. As unique beings with the capacity for moral reasoning and self-reflection, we literally have the capacity to choose against life, to resist and oppose life. That's how we define right and wrong - wrong being opposition to life, right being embracing of and flourishing of life.

Certainly, when we move out of the heady meta-ethical plane into the realm of practical reality, determining what decisions will oppose life in essence and what ones embrace life is complicated and contextual. But I still believe this is an acceptable and appropriate model for basic moral ethical living on a naturalistic, non-theological foundation.

[LostInAnomie]

41. Right and wrong/good and evil are socially defined concepts

There have been many cultures that felt that rape was acceptable. Vikings, Greeks, many barbarian cultures have all allowed rape. We may not agree with these values but does that mean that they are evil? No, it does not.

There is no such thing as natural right or wrong if there were every culture would have the same values because it would be ingrained into our being. The "flourishing of life" depends on what your count as "flourishing". The murder of a competitor for mates is murder but it increases your chances for your genes to flourish. Is it evil in the mind to the murderer to kill if it increases his chances of his genes living on for generations?

I take a more legalistic view. Evil is only evil if one thinks that the action is evil, and then performs the action.

[Selwynn]

43. See $42 for my humble counter argument. I will only add:

"There is no such thing as natural right or wrong if there were every culture would have the same values because it would be ingrained into our being."

I don't think that is a necessary claim. For it is quite easy to think of beings like human beings as those with the capacity to choose against the fundamental structure of life - in effect choose to oppose life. That's the risk of choice, of self-awareness, of the capacity for moral reasoning. Is that we are in fact, literally able to choose against the natural way of things.

...and we frequently do.


"he murder of a competitor for mates is murder but it increases your chances for your genes to flourish. Is it evil in the mind to the murderer to kill if it increases his chances of his genes living on for generations?"

The definition of "flourishing" becomes more nuanced in direct proportion to ones capacity for moral reasoning. As a ball of instinct, it may not be possible to reflect more intimately on whether or not murder is really the most in accordance with the basic aim of life. However, as a critically reasoning free moral agent, I know that determining what is really best for life, both my life and life around me - the two are not possible to separate - is complicated and often contextual. Once again, while I sometimes sloppily use the words interchangeably, I try to avoid the word "evil" - to me it is associated with some kind of conscious supernatural persona or some "thing" that has self-existing ontological status. I don't believe that.

However, I do believe in a world in which we can - rightly - call certain things right and certain things wrong and have a healthy, appropriate, naturalistic justification for doing so, that depends on no God for its basis, though I consider myself a spiritual man.

And as I said, see #42 for the bigger discussion.

Unfortunately I'm going to have to leave for a while, but maybe I can say more later.
Sel

[Speck Tater]

6. Humans are the only animals that

feel the need to define "good" and "evil."

In fact, humans are chaotic and neutral.

[Gothic Sponge]

7. 98% Evil

[DCdem87]

8. hmmmmm

Well i think humanity is essentially neutral. Sure i think all people have the potential for evil, but it's the conservative zealots that want you to think humanity is evil. Any given person in any given environment may turn out either way. That social Darwinism is how the bushies justify the corporate cronies for stealing our money and the "prosperity" of our strong nation.

[DaveFL99]

9. Ask me after the election results are in

[xchrom]

10. neither

[Khephra]

11. amoral

[aneerkoinos]

36. Bingo!

Humanity cannot be moral or immoral, only amoral.

[iconoclastic cat]

12. Niether. Good and evil are human contructs.

[Selwynn]

17. Do you know what that means?

[iconoclastic cat]

22. Why, yes, Selwynn, I believe that I do.

That statement means that human beings are responsible for creating concepts such as "good" and "evil." These ideas only exist because we have either been taught them explicity or come to a conclusion based on all of the cultural currency we have behind us. Being the only creatures on Earth with the capacity for language, we have agreed on a certain set of signifiers, and value judgments are a part of that set. Am I missing anything?

on edit: I should further clarify that by "human constructs," I mean that only because we have language can we create such definitions. A parrot may be able to speak hundreds of words, it cannot possibly understand the impact of its words.

[Selwynn]

25. Does that mean that the concepts have no meaning?

What about ontological status?

[iconoclastic cat]

26. Concepts

Concepts only have meaning because of the concepts that we use to create them, all the way down to the phonemes. Are we getting into a debate on the existence of universals? That's not an argument that I can competently conduct.

[Selwynn]

31. No, I was going more for an argument from pragmatism...

...you need to come to a bar near me. :)

[aneerkoinos]

35. Meaning

No, concepts have no inherent meaning, they are just nodes in the holistic network of language. The meaning comes from the relations of concepts. Even this is slightly misleading, concepts are not universal but individual (or tribal) fuzzy bundless of notions. What are the notions and what they got to do with meaning, you may ask, but at that point we start to tread the deep waters of quantum and consciousness...

And yes, what about ontological status?

[RUSTY SHACKLEFORD]

13. Human nature is steeped in survival.

Survival is steeped in greed. Greed is steeped in evil.

[arwalden]

14. Basically Both...It's Fundamentalism Religion That Brings Out The Worst...

in people. As a species we would be much better off without religion.

-- Allen

[Selwynn]

15. False dillemma. Humanity is basically neutral, the moved to polls by...

...different forces.

[Gryffindor_Bookworm]

18. Humanity is basically selfish and self-centered.

This can be a good thing (if more people voted in their own interest, Kerry would be up by 99%).

Or, this can be a bad thing (if it spaws someone like Shrubby.)

[EstimatedProphet]

19. We're bipolar

Democrats-good
Republicans-evil

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

20. Humanity is basically judgemental and avoids self reflection

that's why we're so addicted to useless paradigms such as the good/evil one.

[Selwynn]

29. Also, we see things in the world that feel like they need to be called...

...good or evil, rightfully so. But what we fail to appreciate is that "nature" is not the issue. The issue is the force of culture and context that push a neutral natured being in healthy or unhealthy directions, with positive or disastrous results.

We see too much ugly stuff in the world to rest in the meta-philo ivory tower of good and evil being abstract and meaningless. There is a need to have the proper language to point to stuff that is wrong and call it wrong.

We recognize that there are certain kinds of reality that are nothing but destructive to life - they oppose the natural foundational underpinning for ethics - so that life may flourish. This is at the heart of nature - not simply survival but flourishing. There are things that are literally contrary to life, at odds with life, and we use language to label that stuff "bad" or "evil" -- the definition of which is exactly what I said, things that are or contribute to the opposition of or destruction of life.

That's find and dandy, but when we get into particulars and out of the meta-ethical plane, it becomes a little more complicated. How do we know how to make decisions in the complexity of human context. Context does matter. What might be right (right defined as, in accordance and not opposition to the aim that life might flourish) may in fact be totally relative to different context. So how can we even hope to make moral decisions? Because on the normative plane of ethics we identify some guiding principles that are key to honoring life. And the applied plane we have do our best to make contextual decisions that best honor normative principles which relate to the ground for ethical decision making - the fostering of life itself.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

34. Long but worthwhile in considering

although careful...you're gonna get accused of moral relativism...don't you know we live in a world of absolutes? :evilgrin:

[Selwynn]

38. Heheh I am a moral relativist - just not an ABSOLUTE moral relativist :D

[Snow]

39. Hmmm. Try this, Selwynn

Do good and evil exist outside the human sphere? Can you come up with events or things in the rest of the universe (assuming no other sentient beings who contemplate such things). Does the deer consider the mountain lion evil? Do bears consider trash cans good? (certainly the case in my neighborhood)

[Selwynn]

42. Moral questions apply to that with capacity for moral reasoning

If you don't have the capacity for conscious decision making, moral questions have not context, and are there for not relevant.

And nothing I said above is incongruent with that. If I slipped into old habits and used the world "universal" up there, when I mean is, universal to human context - but that really isn't even fair, because I may not know of other things with capacity for moral reasoning, so I should just say within the context of entities with the capacity, x becomes a reality.

(1a.)The fact that life seeks to survive and thrive is a natural, non-contextual, observable empirical reality. It is entities with the capacity for moral reasoning that have the potential to directly resist and oppose and act against that natural progression. The act of working in harmony with that basic progression of life we often call "good" or "right." That act of working in opposition to that basic progression of life we often call "bad" or "wrong." And appropriately so, on both counts.

(1b)Where it gets more tricky is when we start trying to figure out how to actually live and move an act in ways that are most frequently in harmony with this natural progression, and avoid living and moving and acting in ways that aren't in our daily lives. Our daily experiences are richly contextual with a myriad of variables and dependencies and sub-contexts. What may be "right" (as defined above) in one context is not necessary "right" in another. So how can we ever try to choose "rightly?"

Between the meta-ethical plan (described in 1a.) and the applied ethical plane (described in 1b.) there is the normative plane. Normative ethics takes on a more practical task, which is to arrive at moral standards which help is determine right or wrong conduct, good or bad choices, in practical complicated contextual applied situations. This is where we establish not absolute rules for action and behavior in all contexts, but guiding underlying principles that, if all things were equal, would represent things which promote the ultimate aim of the natural world - to survive and thrive or flourish.

Of course there is room to debate what kinds of guiding principles should rightfully be normative. And two normative principles can come into conflict. We might for example, believe that both the principle of do no harm and the principle of protecting the well fare of others were important guiding principles for helping us choose in ways that promote life. But if a crazy man wants to kill our family, it's possible we might feel that it is impossible to honor both those principles. This is really what it means to have "value judgments." We must struggle to understand which values should have greater priority in our context - and understand that context does matter.

The best we can come to is an absolute foundation for asking moral questions - the naturalistic one that says what we call "right" and "wrong" are based on what actions/decisions are in harmony with structure of life, its push to not just survive but flourish - and a very loose set of guiding principles - or heuristics - to help us make decisions in the applied world of our daily lives. A heuristic is basically a good rule of thumb which isn't always true. And that's what we have to work with when trying to live a live that most honors life buy making choices that are "right" (as previously explained) vs. "wrong." It's not easy, its contextual, the answers are not always the same depending on circumstances - but there is a foundation for the game.

[info being]

21. Both

False dilemma.

[Deja Q]

44. Chaotic evil...

When we hype up about all the good things we supposedly do, there's always a price.

Life is what we make of it. We all need to look in the mirror every time we complain. Myself not excluded.

[Ramsey]

46. Isn't it obvious?

Let's see: murder, rape, nuclear weapons, genocide, the Holocaust, sweat shops, global warming, the ozone layer, Republicans, treachery, greed, mendacity, organized religion, racism, homophobia.... I could go on.

I'm going with "evil".