Poll: Are human beings born good, evil or something else?

[messy]

I'd have to go with the daithesis-stress model. Essentaially you have a genetic predispostion to certain things (although i persoanly i think this is a very small percentage of how you act e.g 15 percent) then your environment can "activate" certain genes causing you to be good or bad etc. or you conditioning from said environment can shape your decisions. And finally i believe humans have some component of free will and the ultimately humans can ignore inate drives and conditioning, essentially these things give us the chocies but ultimately we make the final decsion.

 

[quack35]

Tabula Rasa, man. Tabula Rasa.

 

[a stranger]

i belevie we start differnt depending on how your parents rase you but to be honset ive been a good kid but ive been slowly turning into one evil basterd

 

[likalaruku]

Everything humans do, they do against nature. Nothing is more unnatural than a human. Except for the survival of domesticated animals, everything on earth would improve if humans were gone, so by natural standards, humans are evil.

 

[Altorin]

tabula rasa, barring some neurological disorders

 

[twistedshadows]

I think you may be referring to cultural relativism: every culture has it's own set of moral codes, there is no standard with which to judge another society, one's own society has no special status, there is no universal truth when it comes to ethics, moral codes determine what is "right" and "wrong" in a certain society, and it's arrogant for one society to judge the conduct of other cultures.

I think that's what I meant. Your wording is too smart for meee xD

It's a philosophical theory! Although it is true that philosophical arguments can be a bit hard to follow at times, I'll give you that.

 

[Blood_Lined]

No one is born good, or bad, we are born innocent.

 

[Zersy]

I am not sure what I hope to accomplish with this thread but, it could lead to some good discussion. I believe that human beings are born evil. Why else would we need governments and rules? I know that everyone is born at least slightly different, but as a race we cause allot of misery and destruction, to other species and each other.

I think that anyone born a blank slate would stay a blank slate and grow up to work for the government. For our purposes lets define good as "considering the well being of other people and incorporating those considerations into ones actions so that they will ultimately leave everyone involved better off" and evil as "not considering the well being of others when taking action or deliberately harming others for the sake of harming others." If we agree that killing someone purely for fun is bad but saving a toddler from falling off a cliff is good I think this will work.

Human beings are adaptive animals making us the superior speicies since we can adapt to the situations, we are the reason why we act this way.

It's deep in our DNA to survive which is our purpose, our purpose is to survive nothing more nothing less and the reason why there's all these bad things in the world around us is because of our natural instinct to survive what ever the cost.

think of it like a child they can be the most cruel and ruthless because they are sub conciouslly trying to survive but as you mature you develop morals and such which is why you question your purpose and the world around you.

this answer is alot more complicated then i can really describe so i am going to finish off with some simple points

1. Our Purpose is to Survive (Took me my whole life to figure that out)

2. We are Social animals so we would want to help someone in need we need some sort of social act otherwise we start to go insane.

3. We adapt to the situation we are in

4. One human is evil but many humans are good

 

[bad rider]

Humans are born selfish, not so much evil. According to Freud's psychic apparatus [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id,_ego,_and_super-ego] . If you want a vaguely scientific aguement click the link. If you want a philosofical one I'm sure they have been expressed.

 

[manaman]

Cut!
Nom nom wall of text nom

Mammoth sized difference there between what I said and what your are saying. Societies that have practiced cannibalism did it as a part of a ritual, eating the heart of an enemy to gain his strength etc. Or in one case as a part of a mortuary ritual. Nearly always only specific parts where eaten and NOT for sustenance, outside of the ritual no thoughts where given to eating humans for pleasure or a kind of mysticism spiritual crap lines cannibals try to feed now. I will challenge you to name one society that accepted cannibals who ate the flesh of others outside of famine times, and outside of rituals, and killed what he was eating. There are few places in the world where cannibalism in the form I described is still practiced. Africa being one of major spots. There the people that practice it are usually driven from the villages. They are thought of as ill.

Edit: Cannibalism as I described is usually a sick thing, many cannibals thinking they are eating a portion of the persons soul. Think they derive power from the act. Or sexual related, they eat the sexual organs of the other person.

Cultural differences do crop up, and some things good in one country will be neutral in another, and some tings evil will also be neutral.

In your example they only way your persona could be labeled as good would be with a significant number of other white supremacists around. They would still be well in the minority and as such from a society standpoint (which is how I made my argument) they would still be evil sons of bitches.

You can argue all day that the lack of morality in one person, means there is no such thing as good and evil, but we are all part of a larger society that determines what is right and what is wrong in it. Take a quick look at what is generally illegal in societies around the world and you can come up with some common things pretty quickly.

Annasazi, Miyanmin of New Guinea, Aztec (Its considered that it was to address the chronic protein shortages of their lifestyles).

Yeah fair point, but you'll also find exceptions.

Miyanmin - You should read accounts of the missionary works done there. The cannibalism was either famine induced, or in most cases a kinda way to stick it to the other tribes turned into a ritual. The tribes all lived fairly close to each other and as such battles would occur frequently. They would usually select on adult male (never more) and cook them while the enemy tribe closes in to watch in horror as their fallen member is cooked and eaten. Thats a ritual cannibalism more then anything else. Not a food source and not done unless there is a battle.

Anasazi- This is acutally a Navajo word, means ancient enemy. The Pueblo people, the guys that built stuff into the cliff faces, offer only small traces of isolated communities that may have resorted to cannibalism during times of famine. At he most prominate site to this the remains of only 24 humans where found all from near the same time period that have signes that may indicate they where eaten. Hardly a cultural thing.

Aztec - I would not believe much you heard about them, even the ritual sacrifices so famous where not to the scale most people hear of. Also the myth of cannibalism is just that, brought on my accounts of the Spanish for dehumanizing the Mesoamerican people, and has never been substantiated through archaeological findings (unlike the human sacrifices which they can find evidence of). Your view of widespread cannibalism is actually an extreme. That there was no cannibalism, or that it was very limited in scale is the other extreme. There was likely some cannibalism, but more as a ritual and part of the sacrifice ritual, and not as a food source (the reason most people believe it happened, has been proved false). Also not as a social norm but limited more to local custom.

Edit: I never debated the eating people in itself was evil, to me once a person is dead they are just a hunk of meat. Eating the long pig should be avoided if at all possible because of health reasons. It turns evil for reasons I described way back in the chain of messages. Like murder for the sake of murder, no reason to it, but to destroy.

 

[UnwishedGunz]

I am not sure what I hope to accomplish with this thread but, it could lead to some good discussion. I believe that human beings are born evil. Why else would we need governments and rules? I know that everyone is born at least slightly different, but as a race we cause allot of misery and destruction, to other species and each other.

I think that anyone born a blank slate would stay a blank slate and grow up to work for the government. For our purposes lets define good as "considering the well being of other people and incorporating those considerations into ones actions so that they will ultimately leave everyone involved better off" and evil as "not considering the well being of others when taking action or deliberately harming others for the sake of harming others." If we agree that killing someone purely for fun is bad but saving a toddler from falling off a cliff is good I think this will work.

and i also have one more thing to say it is very simple if a person is born with a blank slate it means they have nooooooooooOoOoOooOOoOoOOoOoOOooOOoOoo soul...dot

 

[sokka14]

AAAAAAAAAAH!

good and evil are subjective!

 

[JJDWilson]

Everyone is born so that they are influenced by their environment. I do not have any reason to believe it but I MUST believe it, or else we can never improve ourselves.

 

[darkless]

We are all born a blank slate and the upbringing and life experience decide our personality traits.

 

[Unstoppable Wall]

I believe we are born with...potential, as in, it can go either way, and can change at a moments notice, everyone has good in them rather you believe it or not, that being said everyone has an evil streak in them, experiences change to what way a person sways, for most people they stay in mid-ground, for some it's different, but then again maybe I'm wrong, that's just how i see it