Are we essentially good or bad?

Bertie Woot

Original sin is an Augustine Christian doctrine that says that everyone is born sinful. This means that they are born with a built-in urge to do bad things and to disobey "God". Some Christians believe that original sin explains why there is so much wrong in a world created by a perfect God, and why people need to have their souls 'saved' by "God".

Original sin is a condition, not something that people do: It's the normal spiritual and psychological condition of human beings, not their bad thoughts and actions. Even a newborn baby who hasn't done anything at all is damaged by "original sin".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/beliefs/originalsin_1.shtml

I decided to post this in the philosophy forum, as although the concepts of 'good', 'evil' and 'sin' are theological in nature, the dichotomous concepts of 'goodness' and 'badness' have a much wider secular and philosophical import.

I've often felt that most people's bad behaviour is the product of and a response to negative life experiences. Of course there are many reasons for bad behaviour, but many people's bad behaviour would seem to be a response to something bad which has been done to them by others.

For example , many child abusers are people who were abused as children themselves. Many murders are people who were treated cruelly by their primary caretakers. Adolf Hitler was psychologically, emotionally and physically abused by his authoritarian and overbearing father.

That's not to condone or excuse his or anyone elses bad behaviour, but it does offer an explanation to why some people have behaved in the way that they have.

Are people born essentially 'good', with accumulated negative life experiences eventually making them turn bad? Or is the doctrine of "original sin" correct in stating that we are all born bad ie. sinful, and that we must therefore work hard to be good?

18AD

Check out Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals. His take is that evil is completely fabricated in order to supress those who are naturally strong. Originally there existed only good and bad, and what was good was simply what increased one's personal power. What was bad diminished it. The introduction of evil, or sin, was a tactic to make what those who were strong were doing seem evil. It was a method to supress the strong. So traits like poverty and humility became good traits and being powerful and indulgent became evil.



You comment reminds of this article from the other day: http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201305/confessions-sociopath

It's a lawyer who's a sociopath and simply manipulates people to her will. The last bit of the excerpt aims at blurring the lines of what is considered good behaviour, as she gives to charity and does other "good" things. She touches on the upbringing aspect as well.



I'm inclined to think that the idea that someone is good or bad is false dichotomy. Good people do bad things and bad people do good things. There is no overarching good or bad essence of a person, there are just different behaviours which we designate as either. The consequence of this, which I think runs countrary to psychoanlysis, is that there is no true self, or hidden good person in someone we consider bad. You never uncover the goodness in someone, you create it.

I guess you think of this at different levels. Take a community for example. Is a community good or bad? It has different good AND bad elements. To think of one person is just to think the same thing on a different level. A person is a confluence of varying forces, genetic and social, all bouncing around off eachother. To think that all these different forces are solely good or bad is the same as thinking of a community as essentially good or bad.

Bertie Woot

18AD wrote: »

Check out Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals. His take is that evil is completely fabricated in order to supress those who are naturally strong. Originally there existed only good and bad, and what was good was simply what increased one's personal power. What was bad diminished it. The introduction of evil, or sin, was a tactic to make what those who were strong were doing seem evil. It was a method to supress the strong. So traits like poverty and humility became good traits and being powerful and indulgent became evil.

I'm vaguely familiar with Nietzsche's concepts, and have briefly pursued his major works. They were brought to my attention by a combination of obvious sociopaths and far right-wing nutters on the internet. The disturbing part however, is that whilst I disagree with his ideas from both an ideological and moral point of view, I also think that he may have been conveying some brutal truth about the human condition with his Übermensch (overman, superman) concept, which was used frequently by Hitler and the Nazi regime to describe their idea of an Aryan master race. The Nazis would have argued that you must do some bad in order to do some good ie. create a superior race, which of course is abhorrent, in light of what they did.

You comment reminds of this article from the other day: http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201305/confessions-sociopath

It's a lawyer who's a sociopath and simply manipulates people to her will. The last bit of the excerpt aims at blurring the lines of what is considered good behaviour, as she gives to charity and does other "good" things. She touches on the upbringing aspect as well.

I've posted a lot of stuff about sociopaths on several forums, having read Dr. Robert D. Hare's book "Without Conscience - the psychopaths among us". Very interesting and disturbing read. The sociopathic aka psychopathic brain functions differently to normal ie. non-sociopathic individuals brains, in that the part of the brain which regulates conscience isn't functioning properly. So psychopaths aka sociopaths are not necessarily bad people although they do things which are considered illegal/immoral/bad, they are essentially people who suffer from a very serious brain malfunction which robs them of the experience of conscience, guilt and remorse for wrongdoing, thus making it easier for them to engage in socially unacceptable behaviour without any experience of regret. And yes, many sociopaths are highly successful, professional people, not axe murderers.

I'm inclined to think that the idea that someone is good or bad is false dichotomy. Good people do bad things and bad people do good things. There is no overarching good or bad essence of a person, there are just different behaviours which we designate as either. The consequence of this, which I think runs countrary to psychoanlysis, is that there is no true self, or hidden good person in someone we consider bad. You never uncover the goodness in someone, you create it.

I'm not so certain about creating goodness within someone, but I do tend to concur with the good-bad false dichotomy, in that I don't believe there is such a thing as a completely good or bad person. Most of us are a combination of both, with the badness often being produced or brought out as a result of retaliation to wrongs which have been committed upon us by others. I think that a struggle between good and bad resides within most people, and this internal struggle is what gave birth to the human constructs of God, Devil, heaven and hell. Man created God as a personification of all that is virtuous and good within humanity, and "Devil" or "Satan" as a personification of all that is wicked and bad.

I guess you think of this at different levels. Take a community for example. Is a community good or bad? It has different good AND bad elements. To think of one person is just to think the same thing on a different level. A person is a confluence of varying forces, genetic and social, all bouncing around off eachother. To think that all these different forces are solely good or bad is the same as thinking of a community as essentially good or bad.

Whole communities and individuals within them are seen as good or bad in relation to the totality of their actions. So if most of a community or an individual's actions are negative and harmful, then they are perceived as not being good, and if they manifest socially acceptable and/or philanthropic behaviour, then they are perceived as possessing good ie. positive and admirable qualities. Regrettably, "good" and "bad" are in the main, terms of convenience and generalisations.

18AD

Bertie Woot wrote: »

I'm vaguely familiar with Nietzsche's concepts, and have briefly pursued his major works. They were brought to my attention by a combination of obvious sociopaths and far right-wing nutters on the internet. The disturbing part however, is that whilst I disagree with his ideas from both an ideological and moral point of view, I also think that he may have been conveying some brutal truth about the human condition with his Übermensch (overman, superman) concept, which was used frequently by Hitler and the Nazi regime to describe their idea of an Aryan master race. The Nazis would have argued that you must do some bad in order to do some good ie. create a superior race, which of course is abhorrent, in light of what they did.

It must be noted that the Nazi appropriation of Nietzsche's ideas lies an a very large set of misreadings of his work. Nietzsche's sister edited much of his work to conform to the Nazi ideology to gain it's respect. She herself married a man who was a primary exponent of anti-Semitism, which is something Nietzsche abhorred.

This isn't to say that Nietzsche's work doesn't somewhat allow for these radical readings. There is certainly an abiguity there, but I think it's safe to say that his work was widely misread.

I've posted a lot of stuff about sociopaths on several forums, having read Dr. Robert D. Hare's book "Without Conscience - the psychopaths among us". Very interesting and disturbing read. The sociopathic aka psychopathic brain functions differently to normal ie. non-sociopathic individuals brains, in that the part of the brain which regulates conscience isn't functioning properly. So psychopaths aka sociopaths are not necessarily bad people although they do things which are considered illegal/immoral/bad, they are essentially people who suffer from a very serious brain malfunction which robs them of the experience of conscience, guilt and remorse for wrongdoing, thus making it easier for them to engage in socially unacceptable behaviour without any experience of regret. And yes, many sociopaths are highly successful, professional people, not axe murderers.

I'm not sure I'd call it a brain malfunction. I think it's just a variation of brain development which we consider as abnormal, even though the estimated figure of 1% of people being psychopathic is a huge amount of people.

I think that a struggle between good and bad resides within most people, and this internal struggle is what gave birth to the human constructs of God, Devil, heaven and hell. Man created God as a personification of all that is virtuous and good within humanity, and "Devil" or "Satan" as a personification of all that is wicked and bad.

That's interesting. I don't think it's so clear cut. I'm no theologian, but the nature of Lucifer as the devil is connected to free will. Free will was seen to be a disjuncture in the natural order of things. So I don't think you can simply equate the devil with evil.

Or even if you do you have to consider that the context of it's specific interpretation of evil has big consequences compared to what other ideologies think of as evil. So for instance the influence the old pagan religions had on our concept of the devil. For them nature was a Godly and natural, perhaps joyous thing and the Christian form of the devil turned that on it's head.

Then there's the huge array of evil deities in other religions that have their own specific ideas of what is good and evil. I think some of the hindu deities, the supreme beings, are actually destroyers and relate to change.

So I think that if man created God to personify all that was good, it was still within a speciic, if not arbitrary, designation of what they thought was good. Something which varies across culture. And in turn this influences what people think is good, turning it into a feedback loop.

Whole communities and individuals within them are seen as good or bad in relation to the totality of their actions. So if most of a community or an individual's actions are negative and harmful, then they are perceived as not being good, and if they manifest socially acceptable and/or philanthropic behaviour, then they are perceived as possessing good ie. positive and admirable qualities. Regrettably, "good" and "bad" are in the main, terms of convenience and generalisations.

Yeah, it's difficult to say. It becomes an exercise in tallying the amount of good and bad. And as always what those things are are highly contextual.

Edit: What's interesting about this is the maleability of a group and even an individual. I don't think if most of a community are bad then the whole community is seen as bad. I mean this amounts to stereotyping and is the beginnings of racism. Not that this doesn't happen, but I think what is equally prevelant is that people come to redefine their group. That is, the good folk will say they are of a different good group than the bad segment. (Possibly seen in the innumerable variations on a single overarching religion, like the versions of Christianity, but also in secular groups.) In light of what I was saying earlier about thinking of a person as a collective, I think that people do this on an individual level as well. People will often think of negative behaviours within themselves as being somehow foreign or not truely their own behaviour. In fact, in psychoanalysis one of the important concepts is that of owning your behaviour and accepting those parts of yourself you would rather not.

countrynosebag

simply wanted to say 2 things.

I would like to remind you that NOT EVERY abused person becomes an abuser and I think this is not only a tired and over-simplistic cliche, it is at best, a further insult, and more pain for the abused. People mostly do not recover but a good front is maintained. To constantly be compared to some deranged and cruel dictator is another terrible thing to live with too. The last thing in the world they wish is for another person to suffer that fear and trauma.

Secondly, it is impossible for some to 'think' and 'feel' through a religious perspective because it does colour arguments via a deep belief system they have. Many cannot separate their thinking (personally experienced in some very heated seminars). I do not deny the different perspectives to be examined nor that people have the right to say this may be essentially a religious argument, simply because people often use it and/or understand it from that point of view. Another thing that irritates me within that is, that I never disallow, dismiss or deny people their belief systems but i have noted many times that some religious people are most vehement that they have not only the right perspective but the only one.

It is very odd to start talking about innate premises of right or wrong within people when the first two things discussed are learnt behaviours or some responses to external stimuli.

Akrasia

There is no such thing as objective morality

Good and Evil are just words we have invented to describe experiences, these words change in their meaning all of the time. In fact, it is almost impossible to define either of these terms in such a way that everyone agrees

If we can not even define good and evil, we can not declare that people are either innately good, or innately evil.

Fundamentally, I believe that the range between good and evil is defined in relation to the range that humans are capable of behaving.
The most 'evil' thing we can think of is gratuitous deliberate pre-meditated torture of innocents
The most 'good' thing we can think of is ultimate self sacrifice where someone gives up everything they own (including life.health etc) so that others can be saved

Human psychology is evolved in a way that permits humans to act in many different ways along this range between 'good' and 'evil'
We define 'good' as behaviour that is more altruistic than the expected normal behaviour, and 'bad' as behaviour that is more selfish or cruel than the expected normal behaviour.

Humans are neither good nor evil. and also both good and evil.

Bertie Woot

18AD wrote: »

It must be noted that the Nazi appropriation of Nietzsche's ideas lies an a very large set of misreadings of his work. Nietzsche's sister edited much of his work to conform to the Nazi ideology to gain it's respect. She herself married a man who was a primary exponent of anti-Semitism, which is something Nietzsche abhorred.

This isn't to say that Nietzsche's work doesn't somewhat allow for these radical readings. There is certainly an abiguity there, but I think it's safe to say that his work was widely misread.

I read the central thrust of his work as essentially right-wing and unapologetically elitist in nature, and have no difficulty understanding how Nazism incorporated an appreciation of his philosophy into theirs.

It would seem that Nietzsche's sister's predilection to edit his works and to seemingly justify war, aggression and domination for the sake of nationalistic and racial self-glorification was what made many of his "edited" work appear attractive to National Socialism.

I'm not sure I'd call it a brain malfunction. I think it's just a variation of brain development which we consider as abnormal, even though the estimated figure of 1% of people being psychopathic is a huge amount of people.

Under experimental conditions, psychopaths were found to possess no emotional response to horrific images of torture and cruelty, which suggested that they were so emotionally stunted as to be dead. Whether this abnormality is referred to as a 'malfunction' or 'a variation of brain development which we consider as abnormal' is semantic in nature. The crucial question is: are psychopaths born or made? The research to date would strongly suggest that psychopaths are born with their cognitive abnormality, and that it is not something which occurs during post natal brain development.

Relevant article:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2314130/The-proof-evil-killers-born-Psychopaths-brains-lack-basic-wiring-triggers-empathy-compassion.html

That's interesting. I don't think it's so clear cut. I'm no theologian, but the nature of Lucifer as the devil is connected to free will. Free will was seen to be a disjuncture in the natural order of things. So I don't think you can simply equate the devil with evil.

Or even if you do you have to consider that the context of it's specific interpretation of evil has big consequences compared to what other ideologies think of as evil. So for instance the influence the old pagan religions had on our concept of the devil. For them nature was a Godly and natural, perhaps joyous thing and the Christian form of the devil turned that on it's head.

Then there's the huge array of evil deities in other religions that have their own specific ideas of what is good and evil. I think some of the hindu deities, the supreme beings, are actually destroyers and relate to change.

So I think that if man created God to personify all that was good, it was still within a speciic, if not arbitrary, designation of what they thought was good. Something which varies across culture. And in turn this influences what people think is good, turning it into a feedback loop.

Concepts of Lucifer, God, good and evil are context and culture specific, for sure. When I said that 'man created God as a personification of all that is virtuous and good within man' ..or words to that effect, this concept came from Anthony Freeman, a Church of England clergyman who came out one day to his flock and informed them that he didn't believe in God in the traditional sense of the word ie. a supernatural God who created the universe, but instead viewed "God" as a human creation, and to personify the goodness to be found within humankind.

There have been other clergy mavericks like him. Ministers who do not believe in God as a supernatural entity, which of course goes against the entire grain of Christianity:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/393479.stm

Yeah, it's difficult to say. It becomes an exercise in tallying the amount of good and bad. And as always what those things are are highly contextual.

Edit: What's interesting about this is the maleability of a group and even an individual. I don't think if most of a community are bad then the whole community is seen as bad. I mean this amounts to stereotyping and is the beginnings of racism. Not that this doesn't happen, but I think what is equally prevelant is that people come to redefine their group. That is, the good folk will say they are of a different good group than the bad segment. (Possibly seen in the innumerable variations on a single overarching religion, like the versions of Christianity, but also in secular groups.) In light of what I was saying earlier about thinking of a person as a collective, I think that people do this on an individual level as well. People will often think of negative behaviours within themselves as being somehow foreign or not truely their own behaviour. In fact, in psychoanalysis one of the important concepts is that of owning your behaviour and accepting those parts of yourself you would rather not.

The concept of the internal "witness" within psychology, and indeed psychotherapy and new age spirituality is pertinent, in that many people who commit wrongful (however you may choose to define that word) deeds sometimes report that it's as if they are witnessing themselves commit these acts, but ironically, feel that the person who is committing the acts is not themselves. They feel 'detached' from their behaviours, thus enabling them to feel legitimate in not claiming any responsibility for their personal behaviours.

countrynosebag

I see freewill, when talking around it within a religious context, as an evil thing that is, at the very least undesirable, and often punished or threatened to be punished in some way.
It is where a person wishes to (evil thoughts requiring confession) or actually does express by word or deed the desire to be or to act differently from an obedient 'herd' and so not obeying the rules set out for them by particular religions. These religions apparently prefer for people to 'live a religious life' which seems to mean that thoughts, words, deeds - in fact the whole life is mapped out by religious dogma and rituals proscribed by a religion.
The religion is usually represented via a deity (non-tangible nor visible being or beings) and is translated by some sort of local representative in a designated and sacred building. This local representative is part of some sort of hierachichal organisation in which there is a series of ever higher ranking persons that finally reach the upper enchalons to receive the rules and the ways in which they should be applied. These rules and also complex behaviours and rituals apparently come straight from this invisible deity to the head of this organisation and then is filtered down to the masses via the various representatives, teachers, guards (both of this faith and it's rules and, of the 'herd' that must be watched and ordered carefully).
I also see secular states in a pretty similar way which is also why I have never accepted the hollow words of some supposed true freedom of, in particular, the western world - which I have often heard expressed in most thankful terms by so many people - a prayer perhaps?

MaxWig

countrynosebag wrote: »

I see freewill, when talking around it within a religious context, as an evil thing that is, at the very least undesirable, and often punished or threatened to be punished in some way.
It is where a person wishes to (evil thoughts requiring confession) or actually does express by word or deed the desire to be or to act differently from an obedient 'herd' and so not obeying the rules set out for them by particular religions. These religions apparently prefer for people to 'live a religious life' which seems to mean that thoughts, words, deeds - in fact the whole life is mapped out by religious dogma and rituals proscribed by a religion.
The religion is usually represented via a deity (non-tangible nor visible being or beings) and is translated by some sort of local representative in a designated and sacred building. This local representative is part of some sort of hierachichal organisation in which there is a series of ever higher ranking persons that finally reach the upper enchalons to receive the rules and the ways in which they should be applied. These rules and also complex behaviours and rituals apparently come straight from this invisible deity to the head of this organisation and then is filtered down to the masses via the various representatives, teachers, guards (both of this faith and it's rules and, of the 'herd' that must be watched and ordered carefully).
I also see secular states in a pretty similar way which is also why I have never accepted the hollow words of some supposed true freedom of, in particular, the western world - which I have often heard expressed in most thankful terms by so many people - a prayer perhaps?

We all have our master - we require it, otherwise we could not situate ourselves in any sense of reality.

countrynosebag

I still cannot believe that having master is imperative in order for a person to situate themselves.....reality.
There are and have been many types of "ordering" a society that are still being used throughout the world. It sounds unreal unreal that a whole country may actually attempt attempt to desire and frequently check upon the happiness of the citizens are an essential goal bit I believe that this is exactly the case in Bhuttan!
Ordering is used, in this context naturally, to to denote a co-operative organisational system rather than a type of dictatorship which caters for the whims of an individual and/or ruling group.
These different societies are seen as less sophisticated and uncouth, which is everything looked at from certain perspectives too numerous to mention. Quality of life, longevity and the use of so many material goods are supposed to constitute an improvement. This is,no doubt, the "herd" obey certain rules and carry out certain functions functions in order to receive rewards. This is starting to feel Pavlovian to me.
It does seem that societies that do have these improvements and innovations do not seem to actually improved themselves and, eventually less stressful and therefore well and happy as a result of them. Perhaps the sacrifice to a managed,dictatorship, " ordered" society has not resulted in benefits for the majority and therefore not for the greater good. That was not the aim though, was it?
Throughout known, or supposedly kin, history there have been different belief systems which have resulted in many types of societal order. At present, despite vehement protests, the present belief system is about the worship of a strong god and the name of that God is money.
power, or "ordering" is not in order that people may situate themselves in reality but merely about money. Maybe they'll are saying that the unpalatable truth is that people need to understand the reality that obeying orders = cash!

countrynosebag

Sorry for typos -my I verbal has a mind of its` own this morning and has taken to 're-correcting my corrections!

MaxWig

countrynosebag wrote: »

Throughout known, or supposedly kin, history there have been different belief systems which have resulted in many types of societal order. At present, despite vehement protests, the present belief system is about the worship of a strong god and the name of that God is money.
power, or "ordering" is not in order that people may situate themselves in reality but merely about money. Maybe they'll are saying that the unpalatable truth is that people need to understand the reality that obeying orders = cash!

We certainly need a master, in the sense that without a master ( a thing or 'one that knows' ) we would have no shared sense of the world.

As you say yourself, the belief systems may change in content, but the order remains the same.

We need a master, simply because we cannot exist psychologically without one.