Pretty self explantatory. I personally think that people are generally good. I think culture causes corruption and when people are at the brink of death, desperation always happens, but when people have what they need, they are fairly good.

Well define good. I know that sounds silly, but there are numerous different opinions of good.

Personally, I'm not to strong on the side of "nature" as I am with "nurture". Meaning I think good and evil are not real, but simply things we are taught. Indeed, I think we are a product of their environment.

However, in despite of that, I think I agree with the ancient Greek thinkers, in there is something in us that attaches us into some moral sensibility. Really can't explain it, but I do think there is moral objectivity in this world, just we may never know it.

So to restate, I don't think humans are naturally "good", but I do think they have a tendency to drift that way. But due to their environment, "good" is never a guarantee

I voted other.

There are good people and there are bad people. There is no way around it. Yes, in a utopian society, maybe, just maybe, everyone will be good. But in a utopian society communism would also work and capitalism would be a horrible thing.

The point I am trying to make is that there are "bad" people. Whether they are affected by something or not does not change reality. You wouldn't have people murdering each other by the thousands and millions, including children, if there wasn't bad. You wouldn't have cheating husbands and wives. You wouldn't have rapists. However this is the real world and treating "bad" people as potentially "good" people is only fooling oneself about reality.

Well in a utopian society, captialism would be unnecessary.  The reason for a lot of things in capitalism, is to account for human nature, or so they think.  In a utopian society, or even the one the communists thought of, there is no such thing as human nature as most of those societies don't think human nature exists.  Everyone is a product of their environment.  If all they know is good, then they will only do good things.  Is actually what Walden II by B.F. Skinner discusses, although it wasn't necessarily to make them good but make a perfect society.  Of course, many don't like the idea of taking "free will" out, but if humans can be so easily manipulated it makes you wonder if free will existed to begin with. 

but that's the thing, we don't know if there are "good" people or "bad" people.  Hell we don't even know what "good" and "bad" is.  Especially for those who believe in moral objectivity, especially one that comes from a higher power.  For all those people know, that god could think rape is good.  I know this is a huge nature versus nurture argument, but I just have problems expecting that a little creature like a human born, has anything other than his biological processes.  Everything he knows about the world, has to come from the world.  It's just hard to think, at least for me, that human is encoded with something that makes him more prone to things the society likes or doens't like. 

But interesting topic, but rather deep eh.

I fully believe that nurture has the dominant role in human development, but there are things that are imprinted in humans from birth. All those emotions, love, empathy, sympathy, anger, etc. are encoded in us evolutionarily because they have all had, and some still have, great importance in the survival and proliferation of the human race. All those things are encoded in us and some people lack empathy, psychopaths, or the ability to regulate anger well enough, or other such things. However through nurture the things that are already existant can be changed, it's proven that imprinting works, and that's just one way of overriding nature. There are many many more.

Ultimately it doesn't matter whether it was nature or nurture that caused a bad man to be bad though. The fact is that a person is what they are, nature and nurture combined, if it's bad then it's bad and there's no way around it.

No, I believe people are good because it is helpful for them to be good in some form, no matter how small or unconsciously derived it may. To create a civil society, acting in the good of others benefits the individual.

Reality is subjective therefore being good is undefinable. I am a firm believer in cultural, historical and subjective relativism therefore stating that something is good only represents that individual at that very moment in time. So asking if people are good is a great topic of conversation, but another one of those unanswerable questions.

no, people are not generally good. they are generally a bunch of mind-bogglingly stupid, dicks and assholes.

1. People generally act good.
2. People generally only act good because of consequences (Hell, law, pain, ect)
3. Therefore, people only act good because they are looking out for themselves
4. That is selfish
5. Therefore, people are generally selfish.
6. selfish is not good
7. Therefore, people are generally not good.

Comparatively.

Animals are dicks. People often talk about how animals don't murder each other or start wars... that's actually not true.

Think of it this way... we are the only living beings on this planet whose species is no longer decided by "survival of the fittest."


Retarded, paralyzed, blind... whatever... as a society we take better care of those would would die if we had a more animal like personality. Even pack animals aren't as protective as their own as humans... especially ones who aren't blockaded away where they aren't hit as much by the enormity of the poor.

We aren't Jesus... but we've come a HELL of a long way from animals.

This, well said. odd that i agree with you though.