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Is man inherently bad?

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ddviper

Golden Member
Do you think that man at his core is inherently bad? Although I know bad is existing in the eye of the beholder, use your own beliefs of bad, or just go by what is normally accepted in society today.
 
I think man is inherently amoral.
Good & evil are labels applied by society to differentiate how well a person subscribes to the norms of that society.
 
Ah i agree exactly with your 2nd statement. What I feel entirely and partly why I hate society in general.

But your amoral statement, is a bit different then mine, but ill wait to post my opinion until I hear from other points of view to get my argument perfect.
 
I think that man is inherently selfish. People need to be unselfish to live together, so the selfish tendencies get the 'bad' label.
 
Originally posted by: ddviper
Do you think that man at his core is inherently bad?
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Yes
Although I know bad is existing in the eye of the beholder, use your own beliefs of bad, or just go by what is normally accepted in society today.
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That is not correct. For the beholder or society to have some opinion there must be something about which to have the opinion.
 
Perhaps the OP felt that this is the best place to get some thoughtful, intelligent replies from smart people. Wrong forum tho. 🙂

I think people inherently care more about themselves than anyone else, much like everything else in nature. Is this evil? I don't know. I don't think so, it seems natural.
 
Originally posted by: ddviper
Do you think that man at his core is inherently bad? Although I know bad is existing in the eye of the beholder, use your own beliefs of bad, or just go by what is normally accepted in society today.
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I agree with the first reply that we are amoral. We always want what we cant have regardless of how we get there.
 
Man is inherently good. Man does not in general set out to destroy himself nor his environment. Man has the capacity for self regulation as well as the capacity to consider effects of his actions and the actions of men. I believe that the human race (man) is progressing in knowledge, communication, and social responsibility. These things demonstrate inherent goodness.

It will take a while before our various social structures become compatible with one another but I believe we will get there.
 
Originally posted by: NeoCorn
Man is inherently good. Man does not in general set out to destroy himself nor his environment. Man has the capacity for self regulation as well as the capacity to consider effects of his actions and the actions of men. I believe that the human race (man) is progressing in knowledge, communication, and social responsibility. These things demonstrate inherent goodness.
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Are "knowledge, communication, and social responsibility" good?
 
Originally posted by: makoto00
i think man is inherently in it for himself. good or bad is just a label and in itself a by-product.
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Not necessarily true. There are lots of good people out there. Not everyone is corrupt and evil.

 
Man is a blank paper, until taught. He can not survive on his own, and good and evil are taught to him. He then has the choice to pursue either one.
 
While "is man inherantly evil" an interesting and philosophical question, I think we all know deep down that any answer is going to be too general. It seems obvious to me that there are good and bad people, and what is good or bad is more or less the same throughout most societies. From my experiene, most people are good.
 
Originally posted by: CSMR
Originally posted by: NeoCorn
Man is inherently good. Man does not in general set out to destroy himself nor his environment. Man has the capacity for self regulation as well as the capacity to consider effects of his actions and the actions of men. I believe that the human race (man) is progressing in knowledge, communication, and social responsibility. These things demonstrate inherent goodness.
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Are "knowledge, communication, and social responsibility" good?
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As it stands man appears to be a unique animal with the ability to reason, accumulate and communicate knowledge, and apply it to uses which knowingly benefit more than the individual. In all of this there is choice. As a cheetah is a fast animal and uses its speed to survive, man uses his brain. But man uses his brain for more than survival and chooses his actions every step of the way. This is not to say all actions are good or all people are good.

To answer your question about whether knowledge, communication, and social responsibility are good I think I have to turn the question around. How about, 'Are ignorance, miscommunication, and social irresponsibility good?' If you consider man as a group, would we (man) be better off ignorant, isolated, and generally hostile to other men? Ignorance, isolation, and hostility cannot lead man to improving his lot to any great degree. Knowledge, communication, and social responsiblity can lead man to improving his lot and we have. There have been and are going to be many growing pains along the way but I think we are going to continue to improve as our worldview gets larger and clearer.
 
Is that a yes? You have said they are things that improve man's lot. Now if these things are good and man is progressing in these things as you say then your statement that man is inherently good cannot be correct since man would have to have them inherently to be inherently good.
 
Are you confusing good with perfect?

The OP asked if man was inherently bad without any specifics. As far as I know, man is the only thing we can even ask that question of. You cannot ask that question of any other thing without some type of qualifying statement. For example asking if copper is inherently good is a nonsensical question. If you ask if copper is inerently good at conducting electricity you have a question which makes sense.

If you were to say man was inherently bad how would you support the statement? You might cite the many examples of mans inhumanity to man, our numerous failures before getting something right, or our inability to yet get things right. At different times and from different perspectives you may be have convincing arguments.

I say man is inherently good. That we can and do use knowledge gained, and communicate the knowledge gained, to change our behavior I hold up as proof that man is inherently good. If we were to go against reason in a majority of instances we would not progress intelectually and even more important we would not be able to survive to the degree we have survived. In other words going against what we learn would mean our general behavior would be self destructive. We would more often do bad things than do good things. I say we more often do good than bad. We use reason and knowledge to determine what is good and then we act on it.
 
Considering the concepts of good and bad are standards that men came up with, I would say that no, men are not inherently bad since "bad" is used to label things that are not suppose to be done. By definition, men therefore do not desire to do such things and therefore are not bad.
 
I would rather save myself than 10 strangers, does this make me evil? I don't think ask this without a basis of evil, give yourself a definition and then you could make a decision based on that.
 
Originally posted by: FelixDeKat
Originally posted by: makoto00
i think man is inherently in it for himself. good or bad is just a label and in itself a by-product.
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Not necessarily true. There are lots of good people out there. Not everyone is corrupt and evil.
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i never said that there were no good people out there. i just said it is irrelevant to place labels. all animals are in it for themselves - "themselves" being an operative word contigent on their gene pool and not necessarily in reference to a cingular entity. do we watch the discovery channel and comment about how bastardly those lions are for killing them cute little zebras? humans are animals, marked by the difference of just being better at "it" than any other animal... with the exceptions of viruses, cockroaches, and some strains of bacteria.
 
Before jumping to ethical questions about good v evil I wonder how this question is to be construed. Looking at some people's medical record, I wonder men's construction is inherently bad. Especially considering the failure rate being 100% - eventual death being a question of when, not if.
Concerning the ethical debate, I'm inclined to support the argument that a society works better if people sacrifice individual gain for the greater wellbeing of all - and label "good" and "evil/bad" accordingly. The return for the person sacrificing it is smaller as if he/she would forego the "greated good" and act selfish. This seems to be seen as "evil" and needs to be deterred by the society.
 
Originally posted by: Crassus
Before jumping to ethical questions about good v evil I wonder how this question is to be construed. Looking at some people's medical record, I wonder men's construction is inherently bad. Especially considering the failure rate being 100% - eventual death being a question of when, not if.
Concerning the ethical debate, I'm inclined to support the argument that a society works better if people sacrifice individual gain for the greater wellbeing of all - and label "good" and "evil/bad" accordingly. The return for the person sacrificing it is smaller as if he/she would forego the "greated good" and act selfish. This seems to be seen as "evil" and needs to be deterred by the society.
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commie. 😛
 
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