We are evil. I can prove it.
Society has rules. Rules are:
1. Positive: such rules tell us how to think and act. For example, be kind, love each other, help the poor, etc. In short, do good.
2. Negative: such rules forbid some thoughts and actions. For example, don't kill, don't lie, etc. In short, don't do bad.
The law, if I'm correct, is mostly about type 2 rules (negative rules). Judicial systems don't impose positive rules of society like they do negative rules.
Yet, we see so many people engaging in criminal activities and so few involved in practicing the positive rules of society.
We could say that:
1. Even in the presence of encouragement to do good and the law not barring such activities we find so few good people.
2. Even in the presence of laws preventing bad actions and the discouraging of evil we find so many bad people.
So, doesn't that mean that people are inherently bad?
1. Positive: such rules tell us how to think and act. For example, be kind, love each other, help the poor, etc. In short, do good.
2. Negative: such rules forbid some thoughts and actions. For example, don't kill, don't lie, etc. In short, don't do bad.
The law, if I'm correct, is mostly about type 2 rules (negative rules). Judicial systems don't impose positive rules of society like they do negative rules.
Yet, we see so many people engaging in criminal activities and so few involved in practicing the positive rules of society.
We could say that:
1. Even in the presence of encouragement to do good and the law not barring such activities we find so few good people.
2. Even in the presence of laws preventing bad actions and the discouraging of evil we find so many bad people.
So, doesn't that mean that people are inherently bad?
Comments (92)
Right; religions traditionally did that (impose positive rules).
Quoting TheMadFool
The dichotomy isn't "criminal activity vs. upholding positive values (love each other, etc)." The dichotomy is breaking the law vs. keeping it, on the one hand, and upholding positive values (love one another) vs. not upholding those values. I can hate someone without breaking the law, and I can engage in criminal activity with love in my heart.
Quoting TheMadFool
Doing good is not attractive; it's not flashy and it doesn't grab attention, generally. To truly do good, to truly look out for the well being of those around you, is something that is done without notice, by very nature of the activity. So it's natural that we don't often notice the good that is being done around us.
Yes, man is "bad", and therefore capable of horrific atrocities.
Conversely, man is "good", and therefore is capable of amazing selfless acts.
Without acknowledging both sides of the coin you do not have the full truth.
The law is set up to discourage people from doing harm. (I see your point.. they play on the assumption that man is bad)
However there are also people who set up non-profit organizations to feed starving people. (these people can't be bad, and can only be seeing the good in humanity)
These are specific examples that serve as microcosms of the bigger picture. There is good, and bad. Their are people who set out with assumptions about both, but I would argue nobody is inherently bad or good. Rather, I would say each individual is capable of good and evil, and it comes down to individual choice. Could we agree on that?
That's a fine distinction but something tells me it all boils down to good vs evil. You uphold the law because you're good and you break it because you're bad. You do good because you're good and you don't do good because you're bad.
Quoting Noble Dust
That's fantastic. I too think goodness=invisibility.
You seem to be saying there's both good AND bad in the world. I agree but on which side does the scales tip?
The problem is that everyone is both; you do good, and you do bad. I do good, and I do bad. It's not a dichotomy of "bad vs. good", of "us vs. them". The only dichotomy is the dichotomy that exists within you, within me. The dichotomy is subjective, in the sense that it's within the subject. Each individual is both "good" and "bad", so if the problem does indeed "boil down to good vs. evil", then the battlefield where this dichotomy is played out is actually the individual person, not society.
And so, the assertion that "we are evil" only describes one half of the human dichotomy.
Ahh very interesting question! Are we talking on a global scale cross-culturally?
That is the general idea behind Original Sin -- man is prone to sin.
Quoting Noble Dust
Borne out in the biography and letters of Dorothy Day. Helping homeless and destitute people, especially through close enough contact to effectively affirm their human value, is very low profile work. People don't like looking at the really poor. We look away.
*Thumbs up*
And on top of that, helping mentally homeless and emotionally destitute people, spiritually poor people, is even more difficult, and even less glamorous. The results of helping the physically needy are physical and easy to measure; the results of helping the mentally/emotionally/spiritually needy are way less easy to measure.
The bigger half?
Quoting Austin Owens
Global phenomenon.
So, you agree.
No. I just cited the doctrine of original sin. Our alleged affliction with original sin removes the element of choice, which is convenient. All the bad things that people do is explainable under that doctrine.
We could assert that man is good, doesn't have the cancer of evil, and everything is for the best. That's way too saccharine.
What I like better is to say that we are a conflicted animal. We have both selfish and altruistic urges, both of which we encourage in ourselves and each other: different urges at different times, depending... Which is ascendent?
Quoting TheMadFool
We could say that, or not. Which of these we would say depends on preference, not evidence, because the evidence will always be overwhelmingly mixed, and one can pick out the pattern that one likes.
But we still haven't gotten to rock bottom yet: What determines our preference for thinking that people are either evil, good, or merely severely conflicted? Probably genes. NO, there isn't an "original sin" gene, a "basically good" gene, or a "severely conflicted animal" gene. What there is are genes that orient us towards a more or less sanguine view of life, and then there is personal experience (which includes education, reading, sermons, human interactions, and so on).
There isn't anything "wrong" with the three preferences, but they do produce different "affect" in people. People inclined towards a more pessimistic view will frequently align themselves with the original sin view. Those who have a more optimistic view will head for the basically good camp. Chronic fence sitters like myself will head for the conflicted animal corral. And these preferences aren't unchanging or unchangeable.
No matter what one thinks about human behavior, we throw up conflicting evidence. We continually do good, bad, and indifferent acts.
I think you've made this whole thing unnecessarily complicated by putting in all this talk about positive and negative rules. What it comes down to is not quite what you wrote in the line I quoted above, it's this - We see so many people doing bad things and so few doing good things that people must be bad.
And....it's not true. I have no real trouble with Bitter Crank's formulation
Quoting Bitter Crank
But just keep in mind, as I've said several times before and will say again, BC is bitter and he's a crank. People are, if not good, social. It's part of our human, animal nature. We want to be around each other. We like each other. Our deepest root values are to get along with each other. In other words, to be good. That doesn't mean that we don't do bad things. Social life involves dominance, aggression, and power along with the nice stuff. Civilization and technology have given us the ability to amplify our negative actions well beyond the effort it takes to make them. It's easier to be really bad than it used to be.
Taking another tack, your view that people's actions are more often bad than good is influenced by the way things are presented. I always laugh at my wife when she's watching local news on TV. The first ten minutes are taken up with bad behavior that they just happen to have video of. That includes events taking place thousands of miles away. What I see on a daily basis is people getting along with each other more or less well. Most human behavior is not good or bad, it's just behavior. Even so, there's lots of good stuff going on. People being polite. Helping each other. Looking out for each other. Strangers as much as friends.
So, I'll admit to some conflict in my views and I like to think I'm realistic and not one of BC's saccharine optimists. At the same time, I like it here. I like just about everyone I've met. I dislike very few people and most of those are related to my wife.
Your proposition that "we are evil" seems to rest on the idea that the aforementioned rules are some sort of definitive example of good, and that violating those rules, means violating goodness, and being evil.
I see no indication that that there is such thing as definitive, objective or real good, or evil, nothing is good or evil, right or wrong, just we there is no such thing as objectively fragrant or pungent smells, or definitively delicious and disgusting food. It's a matter of taste, essentially, nothing is good or evil in the same way water is H2O, what is good is whatever you or I feel is good, and what is evil is whatever you or I feel is evil, and if you think something that I think is good is evil or vice versa, we're both right for us and wrong for one another.
Even if there was some sort of objective good and evil, what makes you so sure that what constitutes "real good" aligns perfectly with the values of the contemporary post-Christian West? Isn't that bit convenient? Don't you think it a bit presumptuous to say that your culture's constructs of good and evil are not just what's right for your culturally, but universally right? What makes your cultural standards of good and evil more true than the idea of good and evil in Pashtun culture, or that of 17th century France, or pre-Christian Rus, or Aztec?
That's true. Which side is winning? To me it seems society, everywhere, is rigged to explode. All we need is a tiny spark to set it off. What I mean is we have to keep in check bad people more than facilitate the good folks.
Quoting Bitter Crank
The conflict you mention isn't equally matched. Our evil side is stronger than our good side. Hence I mentioned the greater importance of keeping the former in check.
Quoting T Clark
:D LOL.
I agree that we're, as BitterCrank said, conflicted. Society, as I see it, is highly flammable kept below ignition point by the rule of law. The same can't be said of our good side. There's nothing that puts a cap on goodness and yet we don't see it effervescing to the surface. Rather what we see are instances where the law breaks down and the inevitable mayhem that follows.
Quoting Bacchus
Find me a culture where killing defenseless people is considered good or one where love is bad.
Objective or not we can't deny that our moral compasses align sufficiently well to find a common ground for my point.
I hope this doesn't sound complacent but, you know, I've lived 68 years and it's mostly been peaceful, modestly prosperous and amicable. I've become a small-town fellow in my old age and the town is a poor, post-industrial, arty-farty place with adverts that say KINDNESS by the supermarket. We're so affable, at least one fellow-poster has considered moving here. I don't feel inherent evil breeding in what some think is a rough town; nor, frankly, inherent good; but at least, a desire to get along, and even if we don't have much, in the words of the old campaigning song, to enjoy roses as well as bread.
Or, to put it more analytically: 'evil' is a hangover from monotheistic times, let's not be glib in claiming its prevalence.
I couldn't find a better word than ''evil''. As you say, it could be like an old coat that no longer fits and is best discarded. But how would we categorize pedophilia, rape, genocide, slavery, mass-shootings? Do you have a better word that describes the theme among such acts? Shit by any other name would smell as bad.
No it means that what humans do, YOU think is bad.
Good and Evil are just value judgements.
And what else could it be?
Well, I don't know how it helps to label certain activities, and then to group those labels under 'evil'. Nor do I see the argumentative step from accepting that some people do these things to claiming that therefore 'we' are 'evil'. I'm claiming that mostly 'we' like to get along in peace and tolerant disharmony, with goodwill towards each other: that this is the predominant mode of life I've known and I'm getting old.
There is quite a lot of literature in the modern era about secular approaches to evil, beginning with Hannah Arendt, who I think one really ought to read: she suffered herself, reflected on it wisely, but was of course divided in her own feelings and opinions by the tug of loyalties and events. My take on the literature and on my own reflections is that each of the sort of thing you want to label is, in itself, wrongdoing, some of it deeply unpleasant and offensive wrongdoing, that I would like to see prevented or punished. I am more unnerved by systematic wrongdoing: be it Nazism or religious orders that condone and cover up child abuse. A small number of individuals are irretrievably bad and I'll call them 'evil' in conversation, but I don't feel a link between them and how human beings 'inherently' are in general.
Of course that's what you see if you take news media as an accurate picture of the world, but you should never do that. I feel bad for people who honestly believe there are more people killing and lying than there are people loving and being kind to each other. Also, as Noble Dust pointed out, there is plenty of overlap between the two.
Quoting charleton
I am very pleased to say that for the first time ever I completely agree with something you've said.
I suggest people all too often drift from a valid generalization about a class as compared to other classes to ascribing that to individuals of that class. 'Baby-boomers' and 'millenials', for instance, are often compared in inter-generational ways. Here in the UK there's been a lot of hassle about brexit and commentators say 'People in Thistown voted for Brexit' if, say, 52% of the voters who voted in that town did. Well, 48% of them didn't, so the generalization doesn't hold.
I guess without hard numbers it doesn't make sense to generalize. I wonder why there are no altruistic statistics when we have loads of crime statistics. Could this fact point to what I'm trying to say in my OP - that our bad behavior exceeds our good behavior?
Every now and then people have a go at this, trying to come up with a happiness index or something, but the world tends to make fun of them. As a football fan, I think of the world's fascination with crime statistics as akin to football commentators fascination with referee rulings: they greatly exaggerate the importance of rule-infractions, perhaps because these are moments of drama, whereas to the aficionado a game of football is best understood over the whole period of play, something that is very hard to pack into 'highlights' to titillate the audience.
I would be interested in someone trying to quantify, say, 'small acts of kindness': I believe they would greatly outnumber acts of supposed wrongdoing, but we just don't have the urge to count them, and maybe then they become invisible and we forget they even keep happening all around us.
My goodness I'm sounding optimistic about humanity this New Year :)
I guess crime or rather its low rate is some sort of parameter in ''measuring'' happiness or wellbeing. My own observation is that people are just waiting to break the law. In the dark, where there's no CCTV camera, sans witnesses, in the certainty that one won't be caught/discovered, something inside us gets ''unlocked'' and we behave in ways we wouldn't in front of others/a camera.
Perhaps the cause lies somewhere else - a poor economic system that creates wealth gaps which turn people to crime. I don't know.
X-) (Y)
Take care because the POV that forms this opinion lies behind everything I think. If you agree here you may find yourself succumbing to other ideas I hold that stem from this POV.
Which society are you alluding to? I've never heard of this one.
Quoting TheMadFool
What rules?
Quoting TheMadFool
So how does that fit with this?
Quoting TheMadFool
Quoting TheMadFool
Are you suggesting that those in whatever society you're talking about commit more crimes than they don't?
Quoting TheMadFool
What encouragement?
Quoting TheMadFool
Laws, criminality, good, bad, evil - what are your definition of terms, here? You appear to be making certain assumptions about the application of several words without disclosing what you mean, so I find it difficult to follow your thesis.
No, I'm not. The lexical definitions I've used are adequate for the message I want to convey.
Hi. We could look at this another way. 'Don't murder' could be phrased as 'respect the lives of others.' Also 'give to the poor' could be phrased as 'don't cling to the wealth you control to the point of endangering the community's poor.' In short, I don't think the positive/negative categorization is essential. It's mostly skin-deep.
In terms of enforcement, prohibition may be a more convenient form. Respecting the life of a stranger often means leaving them alone, not running them over, not interfering with their different but other-respecting lifestyle, etc. Since most of us do this most of the time, it's the violating actions that stand out (which argues we are mostly good or social).
It is not that they are bad, or even criminals, because good people can be bad &/or criminals, but there are those who relish being bad, in seeing or causing pain in others, it gets them off and I suggest these people are Evil.
That's a fair point but I read somewhere that morality has two dimensions viz. Good and obligatory, Bad and forbidden. To take your example, respecting the lives of others implies two things: 1. The positive - do everything to help a person enjoy a fulfilling life and 2. The negative - don't kill. In short, I think the positive/negative distinction in morality is true and useful.
Quoting dog
As I said above a moral truth leads to positive (obligatory) deeds and negative (forbidden) actions.
Are there more of them? On average, are people more evil than good?
Where are you getting this statistic? What makes you say that few people practice "positive rules" of society?
Quoting TheMadFool
I don't think you can label anything as inherently bad, just bad in relation to something else. People are inherently people, capable of good and evil.
Quoting TheMadFool
You're trying to find black and white in a very grey concept. Is a person who kills their girlfriend 100% evil? What about their abusive father? What if someone killed someone who was going to attempt to drive humanity extinct? What if one day, you become a billionaire and you decide that you want to strive for those positive rules, you decide that you want to do the most you can to be good, start a business helping end world hunger and it works?
But then an asteroid hits the earth and kills everyone and you could've stopped it had you started a business to do that instead, couldn't one even argue that not putting your money towards stopping the asteroid was evil? People can't be evil, only their actions can. I personally think that the best way to look at morality is paying attention to the impact that ones actions have on the well-being of others. It's futile to think that hate, lying, or even murder are inherently evil. But I mean it when I say this is dangerous to think about, one of the only Nietzsche quotes that has stuck with me to this day is “Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.”
Quoting TheMadFool
Is Elon Musk invisible?
Quoting TheMadFool
Does it matter?
The selfish urges. Even our altruistic urges are selfish to some extent in my opinion
Quoting T Clark
I think our deepest root value is survival. We want to get along with each other because it is beneficial to our survival. We seek dominance, power and behave aggressively because it beneficial to our survival. I agree with the notion that civilization and technology are capable of creating more bad than before, but it's also capable of creating more good than before. All civilization and technology are doing are making us more powerful, what we do with that power is what matters.
Isn't the rule of law existing all you need to see evidence of a good side?
Quoting TheMadFool
Maybe the reason our moral compasses align so well is because they are dependant on one another.
I think forbidding something, as the law does, is to acknowledge our propensity for evil.
Quoting MonfortS26
That's a different topic but how does ''dependence'' translate into ''agreement''?
Is the act of acknowledging our propensity for evil and act of good or evil though?
Quoting TheMadFool
Lol I completely misunderstood your original point there...Nevermind...
How many people are out there doing charity work? Compare that to how many criminals are out there?
Why do we have CCTV cameras? Why do we have punishment through law? Deterrence, no?
How many charity organizations are there? So few, right?
Quoting MonfortS26
Why not? We may compare two people to assess who's better or worse but each can be said to be good or evil.
Quoting MonfortS26
But the grey lies between black and white.
Quoting MonfortS26
I think it does. What would an alien say about humanity?
That's a false equivocation. How many people are living law-abiding lives as opposed to criminals?
Quoting TheMadFool
To protect against people committing crimes. But just an example, if Wal-Mart didn't have security cameras, do you really think that people would steal more than they buy? Its to prevent the few from breaking laws, not expecting the many.
Quoting TheMadFool
Are you implying that any for-profit company is inherently evil?
Quoting TheMadFool
Under what criteria do you make that categorization though?
Quoting TheMadFool
And expecting pure black or white is idealistic
Quoting TheMadFool
When I said does it matter, what I was trying to say was, does another persons wrongdoing affect your desire to do good? Should it impact your actions at all? I'll admit it wasn't a very good way of getting that point across but it's what I was going for
You have a point. If you do the math then, yes, there are more law-abiding people around than criminals. But don't forget our proclivities. Look at what happens when the rule of law breaks down - disasters, political unrest, war, etc. Atrocities are part and parcel of such events. Doesn't that tell us something about our nature - that it's just Mr. Hyde kept in check by Dr. Jekyll.
Quoting MonfortS26
Yes, people would steal more without CCTV cameras.
Quoting MonfortS26
No, but how many non-profit organizations are there compared to for-profit companies?
Quoting MonfortS26
You said good and bad are relative terms. I agree but that doesn't do anything to relieve the burden of being guilty.
Quoting MonfortS26
I'm being as realistic as possible. I've weighed in both our benevolent side and our evil side. The only thing is I find the evil side is winning.
Quoting MonfortS26
Kant's categorical imperative is an example of a belief that what others do is as important as what you do. What would be the point of being the only person in the world who tells the truth?
Quoting MonfortS26
I'm being balanced as possible.
Have you noticed my profile picture?? Because I agree with you.
In my opinion, the reason he is called the Joker is because a lot of truth is said in jest.
If you'll notice earlier, I said the deepest root value is survival. "When the chips are down, these 'civilized people' will eat each other". We have an innate instinct to not die, when people feel their life is threatened, they do monstrous things. But just as I said earlier, you're only looking at the evidence of evil and ignoring the good. Because more often than not, when the rule of law breaks down, it is built again. Good is not a perfect force. Sometimes it will lose in the short run. But the balance will always be there in the long run.
Quoting TheMadFool
You missed my point. If there were 200 people who shop at a store each day, without cameras, do you think more than 100 of those people would steal?
Quoting TheMadFool
Not nearly as many, but I don't understand the relevance to the conversation if you aren't implying that for-profit=evil.
Quoting TheMadFool
But how are you measuring the two? What are your definitions of good and evil?
Quoting TheMadFool
That doesn't really answer my question of how you're categorizing them. Just because they're relative doesn't mean they're undefinable.
Quoting TheMadFool
There is a reason I've never taken deontology seriously. The notion that the action itself is more important than the consequences of that action is like saying the ingredients of your soup are more important than the taste. If you're not invested in the consequences of your actions, what is the point in behaving ethically?
Quoting TheMadFool
I'm not talking about your balance, I'm talking about the unending duality of good and evil. They are eternally balanced concepts, each dependant on the other for measurement of either. The can't be anything but equal.
This attitude right there is what annoys me the most out of every depiction of post-apocalyptic scenarios. When the chips are down, the vast majority of people, civilised or not, do the same thing they do when the chips aren't down : they band together and try to make the most out of it. A group will always be stronger than an individual.
Saying that the deepest rooted value is survival is also somewhat faulty by tautology. Every value that is selected for is selected for survival enhancement. The general tendency of humans to band together is a value as "strongly rooted" as survival, because it was selected for it's benefit toward survival. It's likely that the remaining anti-social traits that we also find, like the sociopathy displayed by joker-types, were also selected for because, if they are present in very low percentages, they also have a positive influence on survival.
Quoting MonfortS26
I have worked at stores which didn't have security cameras, and while we might not have had 200 people every day, we certainly didn't have 50% of our walk-ins steal our stuff. This also doesn't represent properly how morals and moral action takes place.
Shoplifting is small fries. Those that do it are mainly teenagers or poor people to whom it doesn't even strike out as a moral dilemma, just a cheap thrill with barely any consequences for the workers, or even the company they steal from. Even if someone admitted to me that they were an unrepentant shoplifter, I wouldn't consider them 'evil'.
How many people would resort to violence if they knew they wouldn't get caught? And, perhaps more importantly, how many people would close their eyes and act as if nothing was wrong if they saw someone else being victimised, and they had nothing to gain or lose by helping?
I think very few people would act out in a Purge-type thing, unless it was profoundly ingrained in the cultural fabric of the people who would do it. On the other hand, sadly, I think the default setting of most individual is to bury their head in the sand when they see an injustice that doesn't touch them. If we, as a specie, are 'evil', it's in my opinion more because of this propensity than because of war, of survival or because of capitalism and power.
The fact that they present in low percentages doesn't change the fact that they are present. To say that our desire to band together is as strong as our desire to survive is ignoring the fact that anti-social behavior exists, no matter how small their population.
Quoting Akanthinos
If studies on the bystander effect are to be believed, it depends on the number of people present. But you're right, it is a very dark side of our human nature.
No it is not. I have specifically acknowledged the presence and offered and explanation of 'evil' people. You are ignoring the point I was making : survival is not in itself a value, it's by what every acquired value is tested. Possibly, an overall population of 90% dogooders to 10% sociopaths is sufficiently balanced so that both dogooders and sociopaths have a decent chance of passing on their traits to the next generation. I find it very doubtful that humanity could prolong its existence much further if these numbers were reversed.
Well, that was because I was using your terms. I my own, I would say that survival is the only value by which a trait is selected. Sociopaths, people who buckle quickly under pressure and resort to violence, those aren't people "who value survival first", not anymore at least then the people who band together and try to progress morally despite the conditions. They are just people who value different methods of survival.
Shit hits the fan, you'll find more people trying to rebuild society than people trying to abuse the lack of authority. They are all trying to survive. It's just that being generally polite, mostly good-tempered and sometimes altruistic is a better long-run survival strategy than being a dick.
I don't know that I agree with this. Not all of the chips are necessarily down in a post-apocalyptic society. Say for example there is a plane crash and it leads to 2 couples floating on the sea in a raft. There's a finite amount of resources needed to survive and it becomes apparent that they are running out with no rescue in sight. What do you think is more likely, that people fight to survive in this scenario, or that one of the couples sacrifices themselves and their loved one to let the other couple survive?
Quoting Akanthinos
I agree with the sentiment behind this, but I'm talking about the ultimate shit hitting the fan.
You have a very optimistic view on our moral standards. I share this view but I'm also quite scared that all the good we see in this world is just a thin veneer and that below it lurks the darker side of our nature, just waiting for the law the look the other way.
There's an incentive to do evil, and there's often an incentive to not do good. The comparison is invalid. Most people do not do evil, even though there're incentives. Most people do not do huge amounts of good either, but that can be explained with incentives to not to.
I think this shows a misunderstanding of human nature.
It's very easy to make a statement like that, but would you care to offer an actual argument?
We are mostly human culture.
I don't think it is possible to distill what is human nature as it is so far subsumed by cultural logic, endemic assumptions, and normative imperatives.
This is an discussion that has been covered in many threads in the forum. I have participated in many of them. Here's my position and I think there is factual support for it - Humans are social animals. If you want to pick nits, yes, sociality is one of our evolutionarily developed strategies for survival. If that's all you mean, no argument. If what you mean, rather, is that there is some sort of generalized built in survival instinct, then we disagree. In most cases, we don't help our family and friends so they will help us later, we help them because we like them. We have a sense of common purpose with them.
I disagree. Here is a link to a thread called "Does Morality Presuppose There Being a Human Nature" that talks about these issues.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/2208/page/p1#OP
As I said in my post
Quoting T Clark
Sounds like there is no argument. Although - to say that all aspects of humanity evolved for survival, while probably true, is pretty meaningless. Opposable thumbs evolved for survival. Nose hairs evolved for survival. Capacity for language evolved for survival. Kind of misses the point.
Ah. Ha, ha. Yes. The Munchhausen Trilemma, I know it well. Actually, I've never heard of it. Looked it up. Has a nice ring to it. Rolls off the tongue.
I have no problem with that way of thinking, although I've been trying it out since I first read this post and I'm not sure how it's helpful. To me at least. I'm still thinking about it. I know some disagree, but it's always seemed to me that general behavioral tendencies or capacities, sociality for example, are probably built in but specific behaviors are not. Sociobiology has never made much sense to me. I certainly don't have any credentials to have strong opinions.
Exactly. We are motivated by incentives rather than by moral considerations. Don't you find that immoral?
I hear you. It has its uses. I even suspect that most ways of talking that have caught on have their uses. That's why they caught on. We philosophers tend to make things absolute in a way they weren't intended to be, though. For instance, ordinary talk uses 'certain' comfortably and vaguely and usefully, while philosophical talk dreams up some ideal and elusive certainty that has nothing to do with life.
Quoting TheMadFool
I suppose. But I often think of moral truths as somewhat vague ideal ways of being. I have a vague blurry image of a noble or wise or good person. Depending on my recent behavior I can take pleasure in identifying with or approximating this image or suffer pain in the perception of myself as having been petty or cruel. I can't always specify the good or the bad. I remember a complex situation and feel bad or good about myself. I can then search for the words. I can clarify a gut-level reaction. I can add a conceptual system to something that is more visceral in its functioning.
My favorite part of the name is the meaning behind it. It's a story about a guy who tries to pull him and his horse out of a lake by his own hair lol. Such a perfect analogy
Quoting T Clark
I'm glad you mentioned Sociobiology cause I've never heard of it before and it seems like a scientific approach to memetics which is actually the concept that led me to the trilemma. Thanks!
Considering that an incentive is defined as something that motivates someone to do something, i'm not sure how you can view that as immoral. Is the incentive to be altruistic immoral?
Yes and No. Yes because there's something to gain from being altruistic and you can't deny that. No, because it's impossible to do anything without the prospect of gain.
What, no. It's exactly the opposite. If we do things that contradict incentives that means we're not motivated by incentives, which here means that we're more motivated by morality.
What makes personal gain immoral?
Or you could say incentivized by morality. Motivation and incentive are effectively synonyms. Saying we're not motivated by incentives is the same as saying we're not incentivized by motivation. It makes no sense.
To motivate and to incentivize, maybe. Motivation and incentive, not so much. Motivation is internal, incentives are external (although incentive can be a source of motivation).
How the heck do I know, but altruistic self-sacrifice often does not have an external incentive yet people decide to do so.
I guess incentives and motivation could also be differentiated by having instrumental or intrinsic value if that's preferred.
Quoting MonfortS26
In the context of this discussion, the distinction means my comment makes sense - people do things motivated by their inner moral codes with intrinsical value, even though there are external incentives or motivators with instrumental value.
Let's take the perfect state of goodness, altruism. Even the best altruist gains something from being good. You can't deny that the altruist is happy to be one. So, in actuality, altruism is not what it's defined to be - selflessness.
That said, I think we have to be fair and recognize the sentiment of altruism as uniquely different from what we call selfishness. After all, the altruist does put others before him. Also, taking the self out of the moral equation is impossible. Why hold that against him?
Every action we do on this earth, thought to action is selfish. Yes, giving away money is selfish. Donating is selfish. For even through these things, we make ourselves feel good about ourselves hence why it is selfish. Or it is selfish because we are selfish of the idea that we are in turn being humble.
Again. Morality is subjective. Hitler thought he was doing right by eliminating the Jews. The terrorists believe they are fulfilling their duty to their religion by killing others. I believe by not fighting back, I’ll accomplish more than my defending myself. This all stems from ones sense of morality to another. Because morality is subjective, Man is neither good nor bad, unless and only unless, one can clearly and simply argue for a universal sense of morality.
How is altruism the perfect state of goodness? I agree that it is itself, selfish. I just don't understand how it is perfect goodness
Can't I? I'll call this self-destructive altruism: altruistic behaviour with negative effect to one's happiness and/or well-being.
There can be no such thing. You know it.
What then is an example of perfect goodness?
Why have you concluded anything inherent from your observations and understanding of the last few thousand years of the modern human race's 200,000 year history? It seems a bit of a jump to say that because in agri-industrial civilisations we break laws and fail to pursue good, that we must be inherently evil. Such societies have only existed for the last 6,000 years or so. The remaining 194,000 years we spent in a completely different societal structure about which we have very little by way of historical record.
It just seems a bit counter-intuitive, you obviously think that our current behaviour is bad, so does pretty much everyone (at least the aspects of it you describe), does that not advise at least first testing out the theory that we've simply gone wrong somewhere, rather than damning the entire race?
Yes there can, and no I don't. Are you claiming slef-destructive behaviour in general doesn't exist?
Is there any instance of altruism that doesn't lead to some form of short term or long term happiness? Yes, altruism can be detrimental to one's well-being in the long run but I highly doubt any level of altruism exists that doesn't produce some amount of pleasure in the brain.
Quoting BlueBanana
Where do your 'inner' moral codes come from if not society?
Quoting TheMadFool
There isn't one, but the closest you can come to 'perfect goodness' is dedicating every action to the most productive ways of increasing the net happiness of humanity.
Quoting BlueBanana
I don't think there is any self-destructive behavior that doesn't provide pleasure in the short term.
Whose values are you using? ''Self-destructive'' behavior only for an observer, not the subject itself. An alcoholic/addict enjoys his habit. It is only to others, with different values, that they appear self-destructive.
Isn't this altruism?
I guess you may have a point. But I think the reason to live a 'purely good' life in that sense is more narcissistic than altruistic. Is it truly selfless to do those things?