Is Mankind basically good or bad?
 

I'm surprised that no one has bothered with the simplest of philosophical questions.

Is Mankind basically good or bad?

As far as I can see life is selfish, life wants to live and will do what it needs to do in order to ensure it's survival. Given Maslow's Heirarchy of needs, it's easy to show that man does what he needs in order to fulfill the lowest levels of those needs.

Man is good by nature and evil by neccessity.

This may not be the absolute truth, but I think it's a fair working model.

Depends on how you define "good" and "bad". If you want humans to seem bad, you simply make sure everything they do is considered bad. Hence the bullocks about sex being bad.

I believe humans are basically neutral. But then again, I used to play D&D. :)

That sounds a bit like...

"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains"

which, as someone witty once said, sounds like...

"Sheep are born carnivores, and everywhere eat grass"


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My 2 cents:
Take man away from the institutions that we have created to keep us civilised and we turn into cruel animals. (See Stanford Prison Experiment, or Stanley Milgram's Yale experiment).

To put Oscar Wilde in an unintended context:
"We are all born in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars".

Well yes. As Dragonlich said it all depends on your definition of good and evil. I personally see mankind as mostly good. But I see good as just trying to live your life. As long as you are trying to be happy and trying to make life for those around you better (or if nothing else are NOT trying to make it worse) and basically do not intentionally harm to others then you are "good". "Bad" is basically just those rare few who, for whatever reason, seem to want to mess with other peoples lives. Unfortunately those bad few are, as a rule, more aggressive in their stance. By definition the "good" people are rather live and let live and alot more passive. Very susceptible to the bad people who want to actully change things. So the world changes for the bad as a whole. But most of the actual people are still good. Thats atleast my take on it all.

Ever since I have had an opinion, my opinion of humans is that we are the most brutal, savage, cruel, vicious, and muderous animal ever to have walked the earth.

It's not really an opinion.
It's a plain and simple fact.

One view would be that Mankind is neither good nor bad - it simply is. The question is predicated on the assumption of absolute morality, which I would argue we cannot assume due to the subjective nature of existence.

The behaviour of any entity is determined by both the composition of that entity and the composition of that which it is surrounded by. Therefore, things are only 'good' or 'bad' in the context of their circumstances.

I agree with Dragonlich, that man is neutral. Terms like 'good', 'bad', 'right' and 'wrong' are merely conceptual devices through which we can more easily create sustainable order. The interesting question for me is whether mankind is inherently sustainable or not?!!

Good points, llama. Even calling humans neutral assumes there are tho polar opposites in whice to be neutral about. However, as my post-modern upbringing would cause me to believe, there is no strict good nor evil. Not any absolutes anyway. However, being social creatures, we have invented society. Within a society, we construct values and norms that most people try to live by and thus create order and the ability to sustain our life. Whether or not you want to label society as good or evil is a whole different question altogether.

If you relativists, subjectivists and post-modernists aren't comfortable with talk of good and bad, then maybe a related question might be:

would you like humans to act differently to the way they do presently?

"is the glass half empty? or half full?"

I'm inclined to think that people are neither- we have free choice. The thing is, if a person doesn't choose good, bad seems to be the default. It seems like humans have a certain tendency to worship themselves. I don't think people can actually create a good world unless they can live for something larger than themselves. Otherwise, ego corrupts everything. If that is religion, religion obviously in the past has been totally abused. I suppose it depends on the god you worship, and what you think He wants from you. If it is to crash a plane full of people into the twin towers, that's pretty f*cked up. If He wants you to oppress people and do terrible things, it's wrong. Maybe all dogma should be dropped, theology forgotten. I think if people actually think "hmm, there's something bigger than me, the world comes from somewhere, and gee, there is a lot of beauty here", then maybe we could start to see ourselves as caretakers rather than masters. I think maybe that could bring a truly peaceful world.

This is one of those black-and-white questions people like to toss at grey issues. For this reason, there is no answer.

But onto my opinion. Mankind, the bushel, is good - rotten apples are bad.

llama, i like the reply...

i agree with the idea that absolute morality cannot be applied to this situation, only subjective morality.

If you view things one way, they are bad, if u view them differently, they are good.

It all comes down to your frame of reference

Minks kill for pleasure. They kill everything they come across.
The whole reproduction of dolphins consists of gang-rape. Dolphins team up and try to force females away from other packs. If a group is not successful, members tend to join other packs.

As for humans; humans are practical. The pack comes first.
It's the humans that've never belonged to pack we call evil.

"While the Mink’s preferred prey is the Common Muskrat, it also takes rabbits, mice, chipmunks, fish, snakes, frogs, young snapping turtles, and marsh-dwelling birds; occasionally it raids a poultry house. Like weasels, the Mink kills by biting its victims on the neck. It eats where it kills, or carries the prey by the neck into its den, where it caches any surplus."

http://www.enature.com/fieldguide/s...p?recNum=MA0037

"Sometimes a mink kills more food than it can eat at one time; it stores the rest in its den to eat later."

http://ladywildlife.com/animal/americanmink.html

You can find dozens restatements of this.
The behavior of the other animal you mention is statically anomalous in comparison to the systematic patterns of rapacious humans.

it's all fascinating.

this isn't deep - it's quantitative.
a few dozen excess food kills is statistically insignificant compared to the millions and billions of humans that have destroyed equal numbers of humans and other species by the most savage means available in the animal kingdom.

it doesn't get you anywhere trying to dispute this simple numerical and quantitative fact.

you can make ethically relativistic arguments if you like. but you'll notice I didn't use any ethical judgements in my statement:

"Ever since I have had an opinion, my opinion of humans is that we are the most brutal, savage, cruel, vicious, and muderous animal ever to have walked the earth."

There's no denying this simple fact.

Nope, it's an opinion.

Mankind is both good and bad. Everyone has an agenda, and the way you go about that agenda and the decisions you make are a function of your experience and concience. Everyone has the ability to be both selfish and selfless, no matter how hard you have to look...

I dont think the question can be answered in any meaningful way.

I haven't said anything at all about good or bad because that particular question doesn't interest me. I have been discussing the observable and documented behavioral evidence of our species' history.

I'm not addressing ethical issues, just offering a description of human behavior as an animal species. Feel free to decide for yourself or continue to discuss the ethical implications. I don't see any point in assigning "good" or "bad" designations to things.

Good and Bad don't exhist, those are terms that we made up to feel better about ourselves like liberty and rights. Man just is.

Artelevision, is it possible you are overstating the destructive nature of humans? Most humans seem to be rather friendly people, not at all the blood-thirsty monsters you describe.

If it is significant, perhaps we're just better at killing, because of our intelligence...

I think that the question has to be framed in different ways to get an outcome that is relevant. Who defines what is good and evil? How good is good enough? Are we talking about survival, or dominance? And why is the question even being presented? are we subject to something beyond us that calls into question our morality?

Dragonlich,
I submit no other animal brutalizes and destroys nearly the numerical or percentage of total of its own and other species as does man.

A stretch would be ants and a very few other creatures who can be said to wage war. In these instances, the quantitative measure would be percentage of total.

It's pretty much a no-brainer, given the record of human history.

Human beings---
One of the few animals to develop opposable thumbs...

And the only ones to use them to shoot eachother.

Mankind good at being bad. We're the ADHD of the world.

I think it depends on the environment (war? culture?) and person (psychology). Most humans I know are perfectly normal. On the other hand, there are enough murders on a global scale to justify your claims...

Perhaps a small number of bastards are ruining it for the rest of us. They're just very good at killing or forcing others to kill.

Think about it: it is said that during the American civil war, a large percentage of soldiers never actually fired their gun, or at the very least did not aim at the enemy. It takes a lot of effort (target practice) to persuade a soldier to kill. The same applies to "normal" humans. Only people who see the rest of humanity as unimportant/unworthy are truly capable of killing without thinking about it - they're psychopaths. The rest of us cannot kill that easily.

So, I'd say that humans might be good by nature, and that they can be turned to evil... if one wants to apply such subjective terms to their actions.

Good or bad I think humanity is on the up and up. If you look at our past you can see we've developed a much better sense of ethics than in the past. From racism to the vast problems that existed in the class system(yes its still there but its with a much larger middle class as opposed to one with barely any middle class and many more in poverty) you can see signs of improvement.

good, with bad tendencies
:p

I've always agreed with socrates view on this where we never really commit any evil acts just to be evil, but we think it will help us in some way.. So in essense we're all good trying to be good to ourselves.

maslow's model is seriously flawed. there is also too much variation in the definitions of "good" and "bad". but if i had to lean one way...bad.

Ahh, but who can truely and acturatly define good and bad? I choose to say that, in the end, there is neither good nor bad, it just is.

Dueteronomy 11:26

"Behold, for today i set before you a blessing and a curse."

I think that we choose... I've yet to meet anyone who's either total evil, or total good, but i have seen the ability to be responsible in everyone. While Art certainly has some reason for the cynicism, i'd say its quite unfair to single out man for brutality awards. Many mammals, including our close relatives kill one another, and use agression in what we would see as "cruel" ways. It is man's mind and capabilities that magnify this agression...but also have provided ways out.

I think that this a big question that just can't be answered. Whether you see everyone as good or bad it doesn't really make a difference in the long run. Basically as a whole we are all just animals who take up a large population of the world but not the largest amount. No other animal to our knowledge can think about things like philosophy as us. Black and White and the shades of gray are meaningless, in the end we are all probably like ants and other warring animals, no one really has their own individual view, therefore I don't believe too much in individuality and me saying this does not make me an individual. Having certain views on things such as good and bad people have been seen that way before and there's no real answer, well all end up colorless. If you see a person who's unique in a certain way there's definately another out there just like them. Good and bad don't exist, life is just moving nothingness because eventually it all ends.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by ~springrain
"is the glass half empty? or half full?" [/QUOTE

The glass is too small.

If the glass was filled to the top, then half was taken out it is half empty.

If the glass was only filled halfway at the start it is half full.

=p

Mankind is just another kind of animal. Terms like Good or Bad are subjective, and don't apply. At least, that's my view.

This whole question needs to be re-asked... Are we talking about how mankind IS, or how mankind BEHAVES? Because I say those are very different things.

I believe that EVERY human being is magnificent, perfect, whole, and complete in every possible way.

I also believe that EVERY human being has barriers that prevent the expression and the experience of that magnificence, perfection, wholeness, and completeness.

I don't believe this because I have evidence for it. I believe this because it empowers me to believe it. It gives me an ennobling place to stand in relation to other people. This is what I'm standing for from humanity and from individuals--people defined not by their barriers but by their perfection.

id, ego, superego.

I don't think we start out evil as much as we start out ignorant that other people exist.

Neither. We just are.

I think Dragonlich summed this one up pretty well. If you want to make humans seem good, you can take some of the uglier parts of humanity and argue that it's necessary or explain through good intentions. If you want to make humanity seem bad, you can argue that the good points in humanity are driven by greed and selfishness.

The problem is, good and bad are relative terms. Each person has a general perception of what is "good" or "bad." Asking people from various cultures will result in various responses.

My conclusion on this would be that we are neutral. We have good and we have bad. There tends to be a balance.

Inherently greedy.