I know it's a complex issue, but I want to know what you all think about the natural state of humanity. Do you think most people are good by nature, or are we inherently cruel/selfish/etc.?
Humans are naturally selfish, we have to survive and by doing so we betray each other and kill everything we see as a threat, the same can be said for any predator really. Our natural selfishness isn't necessarily only about survival but its also about needs, we have needs which we need to fulfill so we may hurt each other when we try to achieve those needs.
We rely on convenience way too much and humans are unstable because of this e.g if something happens to a provider (parent/guardian) we will struggle to live and so we begin to unravel our natural selfishness by committing crimes like stealing to survive, this happens often to children who aren't taken in by care homes, that's another thing what if care homes didn't exist? Once again a form of convenience.
Humans aren't naturally evil, we our naturally selfish. Convenience is our friend and when we lose that friend we grow to be unstable and dangerous which leads to us developing an evil personality. We aren't naturally good either, selfishness isn't a good quality but one quality is out weighed by other qualities and all our qualities are what define us, not just one.
neutral id say that circumstances and society etc and a bunch of other stuff makes ppl Evil or Good
but humans are just like other animals focused on their own survival
I don't think humanity is "evil" per se, but I believe it might be on the negative side of neutral at least. Humans are naturally selfish to a degree but in most cases that selfishness pertains to self-preservation as opposed to actively putting others down for ones own personal gain.
I'd honestly have to say naturally evil, we as humans are always finding it a constant struggle to be good, to do good and if we we're naturally good, wouldn't it be in our nature to not have to fight against sins all the time?
I think humans are neutral. As a few others have said, humans and really I think all living creatures are naturally selfish, though more often for self preservation. That said I think it's more likely to find someone who does harm for fun than it is to find someone selfless, but I think that's because it's harder to survive when you lean towards selflessness.
I think people are naturally evil. I think a lot of people enjoy harming others intentionally, even if there is no benefit other than the satisfaction of hurting another person. Some people are really nice and don't seem to have ulterior motives, but I think there are very few of them and they have to work really hard at being good people; it doesn't just come to them naturally.
the entire good/evil dichotomy (morality) is entirely fabricated by humans so nothing is really inherently good or evil
but, like what soda fox said, humans naturally go for self-preservation which may be seen as evil in the eyes of some people, depending on how the person at hand tries to survive. stealing, killing, and divides in community may be seen as "evil" but can also be used to continue living
so basically i think we're neutral
I agree with WhiteFlamingo. It's our inclination to be selfish to survive. But we have conscious thoughts. We have feelings. Most of us have a conscience. We know what's good and bad in a black and white sense. I think we are naturally good for the most part, but many of our experiences and cultures and various influences shape us into something evil. There are of course people just born twisted too
maybe not evil, but incredibly selfish by default. humans are all 'evil' to a degree, no matter how hard people pretend to be nice. we are selfish creatures. we want what we don't have, some will kill for what they want. we pollute the earth, we shun things and people who aren't the same as the standard and will kill what are different to them. so to an extent, yes, humans are automatically evil.
Stripped from the expectations and implications of society, humans are (probably) a lot like animals, which are generally considered neutral. That being said, I don't really know if true evil or true good even exists. Both are dependent on individually-determinant opinions regarding morality, which, obviously, vary greatly from person to person.
