Humans: Are we evil?

[Volstag9]

Not at all. People don't just wake up one day and say: "I'm going to be an evil person today!"

People want to be good. The want to do good things. Sometimes while trying to do these good things they become horribly misguided, or insane, and the good thing turns out to be evil.

 

[Averant]

We're inherently survivalists. To survive most times you need to be selfish. Selfish these days is either good or bad at certain times, but mostly bad. Thus, we appear evil.

 

[Blow_Pop]

personally good and evil don't really exist. they are constructs that are deemed "good" or "bad" by society. I believe everyone has a choice of what they want to do. If they choose to shoot up a school it doesn't mean that everyone might do that it just means THEY did. If that makes any sense to anyone other than me....

 

[Nieroshai]

Humans are capable of both tremendous good and tremendous evil. For the most part, though, we trend toward the darker side of mediocrity because of our inherent selfishness.

 

[Crazy]

Evil is a matter of perspective, dear child.

 

[RatRace123]

We humans have adapted to the point where we're comfortable going either or. Some people are evil, and I'm not one to say that humans are all inherently nice and goody goody, but a lot of people try to be good and there are a lot of good people, far more than there are bad ones.

On the whole though, I'd say humans' karma meters are more or less neutral, at least when we first start the game.

 

[trenton9]

Our natural instinct is to seek pleasure and avoid pain. If that pleasure seeking is followed through to its natural conclusion, we commit many evil acts along the way. However, we have a duality - the ability to choose good, even when it is painful to do so.

Naturally, we are evil creatures with the capacity for great good. Even God says that none of us are truly good.

 

[Ryuzaki]

I don't think humans have the capacity to be evil. We can certainly perform evil acts, but doing so does not make one evil. Humans are not 1 dimentional characters, there is always a reason behind someones actions.
People do not perform evil acts simply because the acts are evil, they will always justify their actions to themselves and no matter what warped logic they may use to justify them this shows that they are not truly evil.

 

[Jedoro]

We are inherently self-serving, because that's how you stay the hell alive. You can't focus on serving others, because then you die of exhaustion or starvation. Some choose to work for what they want and get a good feeling from helping others every now and then, some will stab you for the money in your wallet instead of getting a real job for whatever reason.

 

[trenton9]

Our natural instinct is to seek pleasure and avoid pain. If that pleasure seeking is followed through to its natural conclusion, we commit many evil acts along the way. However, we have a duality - the ability to choose good, even when it is painful to do so.

Naturally, we are evil creatures with the capacity for great good. Even God says that none of us are truly good.

 

[walrusaurus]

Seeing as good and evil are societal constructs; ones that have changed drastically and constantly over the course of human history, we can't really be born as either. We are born with a set of biological imperatives which can be expressed with varying degrees of antagonism. Do some people have a tendency towards more antagonistic resolutions to conflict? Perhaps. Does that make them evil? Is someone who suppresses/subverts those tendencies good? Maybe, depending on your perspective.

 

[walrusaurus]

Our natural instinct is to seek pleasure and avoid pain. If that pleasure seeking is followed through to its natural conclusion, we commit many evil acts along the way. However, we have a duality - the ability to choose good, even when it is painful to do so.

Naturally, we are evil creatures with the capacity for great good. Even God says that none of us are truly good.

Thats a very odd perspective on human psychology. How can doing something we are designed to do be 'evil'? Acting against ones own needs/purpose, and attempting to force others to do the same seems pretty 'evil.'

 

[Laser Priest]

Am I evil? Yes, I am.

But anyway, no one is born plotting to take over the world aside from me. Some people are more prone to become bad people in the future, but I think it depends mostly on your environment.

 

[Soveru]

We have the capacity for both good and evil which makes us unique. I have seen individuals who are pricks yet at the same time, are extremely nice people. We are a species of contradictions and we should embrace it

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

I just finished watching Discovery Channel's How Evil are You, with Eli Roth, and I was wondering, are humans inherently good, or evil?

What do you think?
Personally, I don't have an opinion, yet. We'll see.

Define good and define evil.
As I define them (Which is too complex and I don't feel like going into what verges on a diatribe), yes. Humans are by their own inherent nature partial to sin. Sin is evil. Ergo, humans are inherently evil.

 

[justsomegirl]

I think that stating that humans are inherently evil is an inappropriately strong statement. As a lot of people have mentioned, inherently self-serving would be a better phrasing.

Evil to me indicates that you are performing an act solely for the destruction/carnage/hurt feelings it will cause. Self-serving merely means that you would perform an act that caused destruction/carnage/hurt feelings IF you believed it would benefit you in some way.

Characterizing humans as self-serving is a somewhat primitive characterization of us as a species, but as has also been stated, there is some evidence to support this view.

I tend to view the whole thing as a continuum between pure altruism and pure self-interest (not pure good and pure evil), where being too far along in either direction is a bad thing. (Disagree? Think of someone who is so altruistic that they give away everything to others - including the food and shelter they need to survive. Pure altruism is the recipe for a very short life.)

I think, as a species, our "centre of mass", if you will, is a bit more towards the self-interest end of things. However, as in any population, there will always be variation from the average.

 

[Nooh]

Humans inherently have the desire to be good. That can be changed through the way they are raised and/or mental disorders, however. If humans were inherently evil, we would not have survived ~250,000 years on this planet without making our own species go extinct.

Also: I consider "evil" things to be the conscious act, or the indifference to the consequence, that harms innocent humans or even mankind as a whole. It gets a bit iffy when it comes to humans' treatment of animals, me being pro-animal rights and the fast-food industry being as large as it is, so I won't comment on that.

 

[SnakeoilSage]

Hitler lost, we're good guys. Or at least Lawful Neutral.

 

[Thaluikhain]

If humanity is the be the yardstick for something, than humanity is only average. So...not really.

If I am to be the yardstick for something, most people disagree with me. So...yes.

 

[Kiju]

Evil is such an opinionated word. It's a useless term that we seem to like applying to things that we just don't personally agree with. People have different beliefs than us? Evil. Different tastes in culture? Oop, they're evil too. I mean, if you think about it, when Europe invaded the Middle-East on one of their many Crusades, their Crusaders were all viewed as heavenly, God-sent warriors on the side of good and righteousness up there with angels and whatever. Yet on the other hand, the warriors defending their homes from these invaders viewed these murderous, raping, plundering lunatics as complete evil.

But, back on topic: Are humans inherently evil? That's a rather loaded question. Humanity as a whole is flawed. Terribly, terribly flawed. There's a lot of greed, bigotry, racism, sexism, hatred, religious zealotry, and otherwise a lot of complete assholes.

However, there are also wonderfully pleasant people who are just there to enjoy their life without getting in anyone else's way, and there are some people who try to make the lives of others better, sometimes at the cost of their own comfort.

And of course there's the middle ground. Good and Evil always has a neutral zone, though people tend to want to deny it. There's people just living their lives day to day, trying to make it to the next one while making some evil decisions, some good ones, all depending on how they personally feel about the situation.