Are people inherently evil?

The old gray marble.

 

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People can be considered evil not merely because they understand but because they accept evil. Good can change while evil wishes to remain stagnant.

 

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Good/bad, useful/useless.

For example signing your post is useless>>>evil

 

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Since we are talking very young children here, young enough that they don't have the cognitive capacity to over come their "innate" behaviors, the fact that they don't act just in wholly selfish ways actually does mean that they aren't innately selfish.

And that makes perfect sense when you consider that we evolved as social animals. Being innately selfish doesn't work well in a social setting.

 

Innately selfish doesn't mean EVERY thing 1 does is selfish.

No, it doesn't make sense when I consider that you evolved as social animals. Being selfish obviously works very well for some. It can't work well for every person at the same time & place. People are obviously very selfish & whether it's innate has nothing to do with whether it works well.

 

Surely in any given society one's first duty is to oneself? Everything one does is self orientated in some way consiously or not. Individuals may like to think they can and are acting selflessly but in reality how can one possibly act 100% selflessly......

something in it for you somewhere

 

That's another topic.

 

So basically you have no point except you think selfishness is an inborn trait along with unselfishness and a number of other traits.

 

It doesn't have to be and there are natural examples where individuals sacrifice themselves to further other ends.

 

Ah, but we are never able to over come our innate, built in behaviors. Adults are no different than children except that they have a slightly more developed brain, adults haven't magically gained some ability to change their behavior. Every organism acts in their own best interest in order to preserve their genes. That is evolution.

I disagree. Natural selection is selfish. Every animal is selfish and will fight to protect itself, not just humans. Even actions which appear altruistic are done because they make you feel good. If you felt bad every time you helped someone, would you do it?

 

Never?

So you wouldn't ever get say, someone throwing themselves onto a grenade to save their buddies?
Or acting as a bodyguard and taking a bullet for their client?
Or dying while attempting to rescue a stranger?

 

Well here's what it is. Natural selection is selfish on the genomic level. We are reminded of this by books like Richard Dawkin's "The Selfish Gene." But beyond genetic frequencies, or what Steven Pinker calls the "ultimate cause" of human behavior, humans are in reality motivated by "proximate causes", like love, which ultimately move along the genes. Some proximate causes can, however, be labeled as "evil." An answer to the question of whether humans are evil really depends on whether humans are motivated by more "evil" proximate causes, like greed, than good.

 

These actions are performed with a lack of foresight. The person who performs these actions does so because they expect some sort of reward, perhaps in the afterlife. Every action is done for selfish reason. There is biological proof for this. Every act is performed because endorphins are released in your brain which make you feel good and dopamine is released in your brain which tells you to do it again.

 

Pure and utter nonsense.
Afterlife?
There is a biological basis for altruism.
Do it again?
How many times CAN you die by throwing yourself onto a grenade?

 

Perhaps in their haste, they wrongly assume that jumping on the grenade will not be the end of their life. What biological basis is their for altruism if it is not going to eventually benefit the individual in some way? Unless an action makes you feel good, you are not going to do it.

 

In their haste?
A soldier's training includes EXPLICIT demonstrations of the killing power of grenades.
Facile rebuttal.

What does it matter whether the individual benefits or not?
The altruism is a biological aid to the species: any specific individual doesn't matter.
It's a numbers game.

How about kamikaze pilots?
Did they believe they'd survive hitting a multi-thousand ton warship at 300 mph with an explosive-filled aircraft.
Tch, of course they did, everybody knows that sort of thing isn't really dangerous.

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People do things in the heat of a moment that they might not normally do. I'm not going to pretend to know peoples reason's for performing acts which appear to be altruistic, I can only speculate. However, What reason does the individual have for caring about his species? Humans are not hive minded, the individual is what matters. Evolution occurs at the genomic, not population, level.

 

So now you've changed your mind about them doing things out of selfishness?
Heat of the moment?
Yup: kamikaze training took me a month or so, but I didn't realise I was doing until too late..

Hive minded?
Wow, you sure have a talent for not getting a grasp.
Altruism helps individuals get on with each, helps them function in society.
Man is a social animal.
The individual may not actually CARE about the species, but then again the altruism doesn't function at conscious level.

 

I haven't changed my mind, I just said I am not sure of their reason. And if an action helps individuals get along with and help each other, guess what? It's good for the individual, which is why the action is performed.

 

Hmmm

It's only incidentally good for the individual: it's very good for the species.
If it developed for the individual rather than the species it would have been eliminated long ago.