Original Human Nature.

Mictlantecuhtli · February 9, 2016, 12:09pm

There are two predominant historical western thinkers discussing the subject of human nature. Jean Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Hobbes. Jean Jacques Rousseau believed that humanity was originally good natured and free where the many artificial constructs of civilization overtime corrupted this original human condition. A sort of fall from grace model.

Thomas Hobbes on the otherhand believed that human nature originally and still is nastily savage or brutish revolving around inherent forms of selfishness. He believed that human nature needed to be controlled by a government along with forcibly being reformed under its laws.

I shall now offer my own insights. Thomas Hobbes was correct partially in that human nature originally was and still is savagely brutish revolving around selfishness however his ideals of reforming such nature under the fictitious set of laws under government is laughable. Moreover his insistence that it fall under the control of any kind of government is unnecessary.

Jean Jacques Rousseau was incorrect on all accounts of his infantile philosophical views on human nature except on one only. He was correct in stating we were more free originally where human beings had more freedom before the advent of civilization.

It is when governments and the constructs of their fictitious laws sought out to domesticate our original brutish self centered savagery that we began the long road of having our freedom stripped away from us.

Quite simply we were more free than we have ever been in our ancient primitive self centered brutish state of savagery.

As for me I say embrace your inner primordial savage nature and be free.

Ultimate_Philosophy · February 9, 2016, 1:00pm

Humans were the middlegrounds. There is no evolutionary advantage to being excessively brutish. Humans chilled at the campfire, talked about various things, hunted every now and then, and ate berries.

Magnus_Anderson · February 9, 2016, 2:24pm

It is actually true that we were originally good natured. This can be easily observed in young children who initially do not display moral corruption. It is only through contact with the external world, and through the process of aging, that people become morally corrupted, not the other way around.

Instinct is the end, the product of natural selection, it is not what comes first.

For this reason, it is wrong to say that it is civilization that corrupts. To the contrary, it is nature that does so, which is why we NEED civilization if we are to protect nobility and achieve universal salvation.

Freedom means freedom FROM instinct. What you call freedom is no freedom at all, but liberty, which is a freedom TO indulge in instinct, and a means to perfect rebellion-free slavery.

We didn’t have more freedom before the advent of civilization, bit less. What we had more of, perhaps, is happiness, but happiness IS NOT freedom.

You need to stop using the word “freedom” and instead start using the word “happiness” or “power” in order to more accurately describe your position which is nothing other than good old hedonism.

This applies to you, this applies to anarchists, this applies to libertarians, this applies too liberals in general and all those who confuse liberty with freedom.

You are a slave.

mafdet · February 9, 2016, 2:27pm

Are humans basically good? … or are they basically evil?

The question is somewhat complicated by the fact that more often than not, to be kind, one must be cruel.

Ultimate_Philosophy · February 9, 2016, 2:31pm

Magnus Anderson:

It is actually true that we were originally good natured. This can be easily observed in young children who initially do not display moral corruption. It is only through contact with the external world, and through the process of aging, that people become morally corrupted, not the other way around.

Instinct is the end, the product of natural selection, it is not what comes first.

For this reason, it is wrong to say that it is civilization that corrupts. To the contrary, it is nature that does so, which is why we NEED civilization if we are to protect nobility and achieve universal salvation.

Freedom means freedom FROM instinct. What you call freedom is no freedom at all, but liberty, which is a freedom TO indulge in instinct, and a means to perfect rebellion-free slavery.

We didn’t have more freedom before the advent of civilization, bit less. What we had more of, perhaps, is happiness, but happiness IS NOT freedom.

You need to stop using the word “freedom” and instead start using the word “happiness” or “power” in order to more accurately describe your position which is nothing other than good old hedonism.

This applies to you, this applies to anarchists, this applies to libertarians, this applies too liberals in general and all those who confuse liberty with freedom.

You are a slave.

Your concepts seem a bit muddled. it seems the child’s base instinct is to be good, but then you say you must be free from instinct.

I think hormones corrupts the mind, love is a dangerous game and when people get hurt they get violent. Children are free from slavery to love, which is an evil demon, and are therefore free.

Magnus_Anderson · February 9, 2016, 3:08pm

We can say that children are born blank slates and that it is this state, and not instinct, that makes them good-natured. As they age, however, the lizard brain becomes more and more assertive, forcing them to struggle to retain their innocence. Most succumb to their instincts, and of those who don’t, most get eliminated by nature.

Apparently, if we value universal salvation above personal salvation, then not all instinct is bad, but all instinct must eventually be overcome, just as all life must eventually end.

Mictlantecuhtli · February 9, 2016, 5:55pm

Neither understanding moral nihilism, skepticism, and emotivism as I do.

Humans are basically amoral, sociopathic, savage, and selfish.

Socially competitive sociopaths if you prefer.

Mictlantecuhtli · February 9, 2016, 5:59pm

Magnus Anderson:

It is actually true that we were originally good natured. This can be easily observed in young children who initially do not display moral corruption. It is only through contact with the external world, and through the process of aging, that people become morally corrupted, not the other way around.

Instinct is the end, the product of natural selection, it is not what comes first.

For this reason, it is wrong to say that it is civilization that corrupts. To the contrary, it is nature that does so, which is why we NEED civilization if we are to protect nobility and achieve universal salvation.

Freedom means freedom FROM instinct. What you call freedom is no freedom at all, but liberty, which is a freedom TO indulge in instinct, and a means to perfect rebellion-free slavery.

We didn’t have more freedom before the advent of civilization, bit less. What we had more of, perhaps, is happiness, but happiness IS NOT freedom.

You need to stop using the word “freedom” and instead start using the word “happiness” or “power” in order to more accurately describe your position which is nothing other than good old hedonism.

This applies to you, this applies to anarchists, this applies to libertarians, this applies too liberals in general and all those who confuse liberty with freedom.

You are a slave.

Instinct is nature and there is no natural selection without nature or instinct.

You think you can somehow free or transcend yourself away from nature and instinct. You’re sadly misinformed.

Mictlantecuhtli · February 9, 2016, 6:01pm

A child is not naturally good but merely undeveloped which is more of a neutral state if anything.

Wizard · February 9, 2016, 7:56pm

Thomas Hobbes posited that government is necessary because people will murder each other without it, and that’s correct. The average human being must be threatened with punishment as recourse for committing crimes, not just murder, but also theft and rape. This doesn’t stop everybody, but it does stop most people from committing crime. So the government is formed and persists as a state of perpetual force and violence. In essence, the state and government is the “biggest criminal” of all. The biggest threat of force and violence.

Hobbes believes this is necessary, because people intrinsically seek order, protection, and security “out of the wild”. Since nature is so chaotic, cruel, ugly, violent, stressful, people will submit to a government and supreme force of violence, in exchange for illusions of safety. This is the state of mankind’s civilization, an illusive safety net of promised protections and securities, when their reality is actually very few.

The government scares people into not committing crimes, while committing crimes with impunity, itself.

Taking Hobbes to his extreme logical end, there is no escaping “Nature”. There is no escaping “violence”. And therefore, there is no escaping “death”. Christianity is a reaction against this, as they propose a “second life” and “after life”. Christianity is a thesis against Hobbes, anti-thesis. By posing an after-life, Christianity pushes the state and government even higher. Christianity promises the impossible, necessarily, to keep the government loyalists loyal to the state.

For Hobbes, evolution is the endless competition of nature. There is no “finality”, only increasing sophistication and methods of competition.

The war of All against All. Bellum omnium contra omnes.

Man against Woman. White against Black. Adult against Child. Human against Animal. Life against Death. Ad Infinity.

Pandora · February 9, 2016, 8:28pm

Children fight over toys, and have to be taught to share their toys with others.
youtube.com/watch?v=EdmzABzGDjU

Can throw fake tantrums to get attention.
youtube.com/watch?v=NM8vKTFbMZM

Lack self-control/discipline.
I want it NOW store tantrums are example.
youtube.com/watch?v=vBfYS4FnZNg

Mictlantecuhtli · February 9, 2016, 9:35pm

Wizard:

Thomas Hobbes posited that government is necessary because people will murder each other without it, and that’s correct. The average human being must be threatened with punishment as recourse for committing crimes, not just murder, but also theft and rape. This doesn’t stop everybody, but it does stop most people from committing crime. So the government is formed and persists as a state of perpetual force and violence. In essence, the state and government is the “biggest criminal” of all. The biggest threat of force and violence.

Hobbes believes this is necessary, because people intrinsically seek order, protection, and security “out of the wild”. Since nature is so chaotic, cruel, ugly, violent, stressful, people will submit to a government and supreme force of violence, in exchange for illusions of safety. This is the state of mankind’s civilization, an illusive safety net of promised protections and securities, when their reality is actually very few.

The government scares people into not committing crimes, while committing crimes with impunity, itself.

Taking Hobbes to his extreme logical end, there is no escaping “Nature”. There is no escaping “violence”. And therefore, there is no escaping “death”. Christianity is a reaction against this, as they propose a “second life” and “after life”. Christianity is a thesis against Hobbes, anti-thesis. By posing an after-life, Christianity pushes the state and government even higher. Christianity promises the impossible, necessarily, to keep the government loyalists loyal to the state.

For Hobbes, evolution is the endless competition of nature. There is no “finality”, only increasing sophistication and methods of competition.

The war of All against All. Bellum omnium contra omnes.

Man against Woman. White against Black. Adult against Child. Human against Animal. Life against Death. Ad Infinity.

Couldn’t of said it any better myself. This is the best that humanity has to offer?

And authority along with government? What a joke!

Impunity? What the individual does is called a crime but, what the government does is called law?

Arminius · February 28, 2016, 11:15pm

Nice topic.

Arminius:

When it comes to distinguish the nature of human beings from the nature of other living beings, then human nature is human culture/s. Although it is difficult to say whether there is one human culture or several human cultures, I would say, if I had to refer to merely one human culture, that a human being is a luxury being. In another thread I said:

The luxury is a very special phenomenon, especially for human beings. Human beings are luxury beings. They make their artificial island of luxury in the sea of nature. Evolution is not just about adaptation to nature, but also about distancing from nature, thus about the luxury islands.

Only human beings (thus no other living beings) are able to distance or disassociate themselves so much from nature. Humans live on islands of luxury. They have their human bubbles like hulls / shells, caves, huts / cottages, houses, beyond that: castles, churches / cathedrals, cities, city states, states, nations, empires, global empires … and so forth. Because they are much more spiritual / mental / intellectual than other creatures, they have not only a bodily but also a spiritual immune system. This spiritual immune system is the main cause of the enormous luxury and the characteristic feature of human culture/s. Because of the fact that there are many different spiritual immune systems of humans possible, one should rather speak about several human cultures and not about one human culture.

Arminius:

Evolution is not just about adaptation to nature, to environment, but also about distancing from nature, from environment, thus about the »luxury islands«.

Human beings are the only living beings that can disassociate themselves from nature in such a dimension that they do not completely have to adapt themselves to nature, to their natural environment. They can destroy the nature just for fun. Other living beings can also have a little bit luxury, but their luxury is always embedded in their immediate nature, their natural environment. They are not able to overcome their dependence of nature. They remain living creatures in the sense of Darwinism: those that are successful have the most descendants, and those that are not successful have the less or no descendants and die out. Luxury beings are the only living beings that can show also the opposite direction: being successful and having less or no descendants (children) and beeing unsuccessful and having the most descendants (children). This two cases would immediately lead to extinction, if they were completely embedded in nature, in natural environment. In the case of human beings it does not lead to extinction, if they are in situations of independence of nature; they often are in such situations, and then It depends on human decisions whether a group of human beings or even all human beings die out or not. Humans have two natures: (1) the real nature which all other living beings also have, (2) their own nature as their culture(s) which is (are) much independend of the real nature.

So when I say »human nature is human culture/s«, then I mean that - in a pure natural sense - humans are 98%-animals; so in this sense they have a 98%-animal nature and merely a 2%-human nature, but this 2% are their culture/s. And in a pure cultural sense this relation is inversely proportional.

If humans are humans to 100%, then merely to 2% because of their nature; but to 98% because of their culture/s

Disassociation from nature is luxury.

Arminius · February 28, 2016, 11:17pm

Those two were not predominant but had the most extreme opinion when referring to human nature. Their biographies reflect their opinions on this topic.

When Thoams Hobbes (1588-1679) lived there were many terrible wars, for example: (1) the war between England and Spain (1588-1599), (2) a very terrible war, probably the most terrible war of the Occidental history - the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) -, (3) another war which was terrible too - the English Civil War (1642-1651) - and (4) the also terrible wars started by Louis XIV of France.

When Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) lived the wars were already so called „Kabinettskriege“ („cabinet wars“), thus they were not as terrible as they had been before.

But Rousseau’s philosophy about the human nature is wrong, because his „natural human“ as the „wild human“ is not the better human.

Mictlantecuhtli · April 11, 2016, 10:43pm

Original human nature was amoral, selfish, impulsive, and very individually self driven beyond surviving with other individuals within a social group or setting. The social group setting amounted to extended family and relatives which was the basis of the tribe. Neighboring tribes were other separate distinct families.

Original human nature was a kind of unfettered impulsive instinctual primordial freedom where there was no knowledge, perception, or consciousness on the hypocrisy of that thing we call morality today. Literally no knowledge of good, evil, right, or wrong and no given thought to the future beyond immediate short term daily survival. There was no living for tomorrow where instead each individual lived for each day as it came as if it was their very last. An existence of pure unadulterated self fulfilling willpower.

No conception of god and authority where everything centered around what was in their own control or lack of in self preservation of themselves.

Arminius · April 24, 2016, 1:10am

HaHaHa:

Original human nature was amoral, selfish, impulsive, and very individually self driven beyond surviving with other individuals within a social group or setting. The social group setting amounted to extended family and relatives which was the basis of the tribe. Neighboring tribes were other separate distinct families.

Original human nature was a kind of unfettered impulsive instinctual primordial freedom where there was no knowledge, perception, or consciousness on the hypocrisy of that thing we call morality today. Literally no knowledge of good, evil, right, or wrong and no given thought to the future beyond immediate short term daily survival. There was no living for tomorrow where instead each individual lived for each day as it came as if it was their very last. An existence of pure unadulterated self fulfilling willpower.

No conception of god and authority where everything centered around what was in their own control or lack of in self preservation of themselves.

The question here is what you exactly mean by “oiriginal human”. Do you mean the genus austalopithecus or the genus homo or a certain species of the genus homo, when you say “original human”? Probably you mean the species homo sapiens.

However.

The very first group of human beings had at least one moral law: being a member of the group. Leaving the group was only possible by becomig the foe / enemy of the group. This often meant the death of that foe / enemy. Each member of the group knew this moral law, its breach, the comsequences of this breach, thus the punishment. So the very first human group was already moral, although in a primitive sense.

Moral has to do with knowlewdge of it or of something that is like moral or law and its consequences like punishment.

The first moral is a means of surviving: one’s surviving depends on the group’s surviving. Leaving the group can lead to a new group and new morals, of course, but that does not change the meaning of the first moral law: means of surviving.

By the way: The main problem that modern humans have with morality has not to do with this first moral law or other laws of the primitive morality. It has to do with the fact that modern humans are not capable of acting and reacting according to the consequences of the facts that humans created by inventing things, especially technological things. In other words: Humans have got a problem with living on the same level that they have reached technologically - the human nature is always far behind the human spirit (including moral), because the human brain is made for surving, at least primarily. The first moral law has to do with surviving. But the modern humans have created moral systems that have not much or even nothing to with surving.

Homo sapiens is a species that has reached a stage of development of a huge difference between nature and culture.