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What is human nature? v. And are we innately evil?

Nixiam

Nixiam

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Trying to get some sense of newishness in the P&S pool. I'm sure someone else has a thread like this though.

Are we innately evil beings? Do we have to change our definition of evil and ethics to conform woth human nature in its survival stage? Reading The Lord of the Flies got me interested in that.


If a child were raised in a society where everyone projected good feelings about death externally (which I don't think is human nature, but let us say that they did this anyway and secretly felt bad), would the child still see the death of a parent as bad? Would the emotional shock be taken away?
 
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I believe the lines between evil and guiltless are blurred. In an event where a person has done no wrong, yet experiences no empathy, is he still evil?
 
Hence serial killers. But are there consequences for the mentally ill?
 
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Guilt is an emotional measure of right and wrong. I wouldn't say a shark is evil because it kills out of nature.

Death isn't evil, it is simply the last turn before renewal in the circle of life.
 
One Thousand Words said:
Guilt is an emotional measure of right and wrong. I wouldn't say a shark is evil because it kills out of nature.

Death isn't evil, it is simply the last turn before renewal in the circle of life.
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I agree here but one can be put in situations where they do wrong or evil things, be taken out of the situation, and have guilt.
 
Nixiam said:
If a child were raised in a society where everyone projected good feelings about death externally (which I don't thing is human nature, but let us say that they did this anyway and secretly felt bad), would the child still see the death of a parent as bad? Would the emotional shock be taken away?
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you have put your finger on it. no reason though to feel bad. It's the denial of death, refusing to directly face our mortality that creates human evil. See Ernest Becker's book, Denial of Death.
 
Can you give a quick synopsis? Even if we believed death was no big deal, can think of things that can still cause one to create suffering.
 
One Thousand Words said:
A truly evil being wouldn't have the capacity to feel guilt.
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If they don't have the capacity to feel guilt, it wouldn't make sense to condemn them as evil for that. Rather, you would have to consider them acting according to their true nature. It would be like condeming a dog because it doesn't have the capacity to write poetry.

I think the term evil is hyperbolic and largely without substance. Its one of those things that exists only in the human mind. Its easy to describe evil by pointing at people that society has labelled in that way, people like Hitler or Stalin. It becomes more difficult when you realise that even these people did things that weren't evil. It's like describing a person as happy. There is no way that a person is going to be always happy; there is more depth to nearly every human than that.

I think you can say that specific actions fit the definition of the term evil. But, if I kill 10 babies but donate time and money to building an orphanage, and I evil? Or am I good? Or am I, like everyone, a neutral entity that performs actions that are a blend of good and evil?

I would go so far as to say that terms like good and evil are so overly simplistic that they don't have a great deal or usable meaning.
 
Well, what I mean is this.

If everyone regarded death as good, then the innately bad connotation of death would evaporate. And we would believe it is good, so there would hardly be any (emotional) pain when a person dies.
 
Nixiam said:
Trying to get some sense of newishness in the P&S pool. I'm sure someone else has a thread like this though.

Are we innately evil beings? Do we have to change our definition of evil and ethics to conform woth human nature in its survival stage? Reading The Lord of the Flies got me interested in that.


If a child were raised in a society where everyone projected good feelings about death externally (which I don't think is human nature, but let us say that they did this anyway and secretly felt bad), would the child still see the death of a parent as bad? Would the emotional shock be taken away?
Click to expand...

I think that the child would follow his instinct, that have a default setting of good and not evil, that is analogues to cooperation and not competition, the child would feel quite bad.

We are born to default to cooperation as that is the best survival position for man, the weakest animal on the planet.

Competition causes victims while cooperation does not and thus survival is better served for us by cooperation.

Regards
DL
 
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Nixiam said:
If everyone regarded death as good, then the innately bad connotation of death would evaporate. And we would believe it is good, so there would hardly be any (emotional) pain when a person dies.
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Only in the abstract, Nixiam. I do not view death as "bad" but the loss of those I love is painful. There is no way around that, regardless of what you may believe about death itself. Beliefs about death are abstract; the door slammed between you and the person you love is tangible and real every day. For instance, I have had very spiritual experiences concerning my son's death; experiences where my reality and my beliefs existed together for a brief moment in time and I experienced incredible peace. I believe that he exists in everything, as he surely did before becoming "my" son. But inevitably the pain of not being able to throw an arm around his shoulders or hear his skateboard churning up the street or seeing his ironic grin calls forth the well of very real grief and the peace from my beliefs about death is pierced by a thousand little arrows. The good news is that both of these can exist in a person at the same time, both are embraceable. If you do not judge your sadness and grief as something that must be banished as something that negates your beliefs about death--that it is simply as OTW put it, one turn on the wheel of life--you experience death as a painful loss and death as transcendence; they are co-existent.
 
humans are by far the most altruistic animals on the planet, for what it's worth
 
^Whole can of worms here though but does altruism really exist?
 
Of course not but since we are most likely the only ones with a concept of it, its true.
 
herbavore said:
Only in the abstract, Nixiam. I do not view death as "bad" but the loss of those I love is painful. There is no way around that, regardless of what you may believe about death itself. Beliefs about death are abstract; the door slammed between you and the person you love is tangible and real every day. For instance, I have had very spiritual experiences concerning my son's death; experiences where my reality and my beliefs existed together for a brief moment in time and I experienced incredible peace. I believe that he exists in everything, as he surely did before becoming "my" son. But inevitably the pain of not being able to throw an arm around his shoulders or hear his skateboard churning up the street or seeing his ironic grin calls forth the well of very real grief and the peace from my beliefs about death is pierced by a thousand little arrows. The good news is that both of these can exist in a person at the same time, both are embraceable. If you do not judge your sadness and grief as something that must be banished as something that negates your beliefs about death--that it is simply as OTW put it, one turn on the wheel of life--you experience death as a painful loss and death as transcendence; they are co-existent.
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I cried at the comment of your son. I'm sorry Herby.
 
Herby is a truly admirable person, well worth emulating <3
 
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