Inherent Morality

[Opethian]

I voted other because I don't believe in good and evil. I also agree with what sunstone said.

Btw sunstone stop making so many damn good posts cause I keep getting that message you have to pass around karma before you can give it to $_username again.

 

[ikitikitembo]

I know human beings are born with a set of base survival instincts. Most of these instincts would be considered "selfish", therefore to most people (those to do believe in good and evil) "evil". I however, am not sure whether good and evil exist , but I still put evil because these instincts are selfish (a word that can still be used by people who reject the idea of good and evil as long as they don't apply any "bad"/evil connotation), which the majority of people would consider evil.

:fork:

...perhaps since Itruly don't know if selfishness is evil I should have voted "Other"...??
​

 

[Freedomelf]

I believe humans are basically good, and evil is something learned later. Interesting poll results....all across the board.

 

[eudaimonia]

Are Humans Inherently....

We are born without moral character. In a sense, this means we are born "evil", in the soft sense that babies are very impulsive and have little rational or habitual control over their actions, or "good" in the sense that it is difficult to imagine a baby having developed enough emotionally to be able to feel cruel, and this assumes that impulses or emotional alone can be judged as a kind of pre-moral character. Older children have impulses that may be either "evil" (cruel) or "good" (kind), so in this sense we are both inherently good and evil, or neither, or just "evil" if any taint of evil makes the good meaningless because it is inconsistent.

And yet we have the inherent ability or potential to develop good, rationally-determined habits of character. Good character is acquired second nature, but the inherent ability or power to develop character is first nature. A good analogy here is to language skills. We are born with the natural capacity to learn languages, and yet language skills are second nature. I was not born with English language skills, but I was born with the ability to learn any language.

I voted neither, but I prefer to view human beings as inherently good in the sense that we have the innate potential or ability to develop a good character.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Smoke]

I do not believe anybody is born anything, except small and ugly

Fine, but when talking to new parents, always remember that all babies are by definition beautiful -- no matter how closely they resemble Yoda, E.T., or Winston Churchill.

I think that terms like good and evil, no matter how useful or relevant (though subjective) they may be in the adult world, are absolutely meaningless when applied to infants. It's like asking whether sandstone is good or evil, or whether red is round or pointed.

 

[Melody]

I don't think it's possible to answer this question since one group's morality is not another's. Morals tend to be defined by society or religion.

I don't think we are born with morals. I believe we learn morals.

 

[white_wolf]

Morality is the crystallization of compassion, immorality is the crystallization of ignorance/and or selfishness.

 

[Idontknow]

Its all about the evolution of the human nature, yes we give tones and shades to nature, sunstone says nature is evilless and goodless and hes right, but again we are above nature, we've evolved beyond it and thats why we see good and evil, you cannot deny it, we have evolved to have "moral" mixing the spirit or the mind of humans with the body insticts, you cannot deny here that the human is still selfish and still obveys the laws of the world nature but we are still evolving, spiritually talking, at the end our spirits or minds or thoughts or intelligence whatever you may call it has lead us to be appart from animals afterall but we still have inherited in us our animal nature, in the actual society picture we can see that the moral basics are still in development, today most people would see a killing as something bad or evil, some others wont, maybe we will reach a point of universal morality or maybe we never will, all is in constant chage and we cannot foretell where human nature is leaded, after all it is a result of the enviroment, after the enviroment it comes the society which result lead us to human nature evolution, lets say that in 1000 years enviroment and society changes and that killing anyone you want is seen as good, lets hope not ok, but its the way the human psyche evolves and back then we would accept it, I know you may never see killing someone as good but the way you get raised determines you, determined by those two factors i mentioned. So my answer is that good and evil always exist the problem is that what is good for us changes and will change, as evil changes and will change.

 

[gnomon]

I think I accidentally clicked other rather than neither. Oh well.

Good and evil do not exist as an objective measure.

Good and evil are not inherent nor are they developed later. For they do not exist. They can only be applied from an outside, subjective observer.

I agree with Melody. Morality is a cultural phenemenon which is taught.

 

[Kungfuzed]

People aren't born knowing good and evil. At birth they are innocent. But innocent doens't mean good. In this case it just means ignorant.

 

[Kungfuzed]

Morality is the crystallization of compassion, immorality is the crystallization of ignorance/and or selfishness.

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