are people, and is life, inherently good?

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

So i got thinking this morning, and something came to my mind, i was wondering if life and people are inherently good? Firstly i should define what i mean by good, and by good i mean, a. Not spoiled or ruined b. of high quality.

So is life good? Are people when they are born and have not developed and been exposed to the phenomonal world good? Id like to think yes. originaly all things with life are good, For example, when you but a towel from a store, it is clean not dirty in any way, it is good. Only after the towel has been used and exposed to dirt does it become tainted, and even at that point you can throw it in a washer and return it to its good inherent nature, this may be a weak example, but somehow i see humans in the same way.

We are born good, with all the universe dwelling inside our undeveloped bodys and minds. Now i can see some people saying that being genetically disadvantaged would not be good. That someone who has down syndrom has already been spoiled and is born at a disadvantage, i disagree with this , they were born whole and complete as they were and thats something that is good. Infact when i ecounter “retarded” people i see more of a innocence and a much more honest response to stimuli then most, they are a great indicator of how things are, since i dont see them judging to much.

So are we good? Do we have the potential to return to this state after being exposed to the phenomonal world filled with suffering, death, anger, all the things we have all experienced since the first day we really “came to” and left the state of innocence?

I would like to hear some of your thoughts.

2

Given that you are asking a metaphysical question, the definition you give here is pretty poor. What does it mean for something that inheres in people, as a universal property I presume, to be spoiled or ruined? Assuming the color red is a universal, what would it mean for a thing participating in redness to be spoiled? What does it mean for good to be of high quality? How does a universal property differ in degrees? And finally, to bring this down at the human level, how is it that you arrive at all this information? Are you imagining all of it, or are you looking at something that produces reliable true information and then just reporting what you see?

3

I see the essence of life become more visible in relation to death. Good and bad, of course are man’s terms and are applied through his perceptions towards his life. People on the verge of death usually drop certain attitudes and I would say that at that moment they express goodness/innocence (most anyway).
I am not sure about handicapped people; there are some people in the world who are in constant physical (or emotional) pain, so I wouldn’t know if they would perceive life (or conversely, death) as good as they are about to die, though I do think they would still see themselves, at the core, as good and innocent.

4

It’s all relative to what good is.

If goodness means lack of selfishness, then the answer is no. All things that drive are related to our subconscious animal instinct, and that is first, to survive individually and secondly, to propagate the species.

5

existence equals love :smiley:

ps.
interesting that you made this forum after you criticized me in one of mine- it seems like you are starting to realize fundamental truths that i have already explained here on ilp - like i said- interesting :slight_smile: but i am here on the other hand to congratulate you on starting the beginning of your enlightenment- feel free to ask me any questions you may have and you might want to read my “intelligence equals love” forum- if you didnt already do so, since i pretty much go into all of the things that you might realize in the future of your enlightenment- just keep on thinking deeply- it will come!

6

170-200 million people dead by violence in the last 100 years, thats roughly 1.7million a year, would suggest whatever we are, inherently “good” is not fully accurate. People have the inherent capability for good, most of us anyway.

7

Its not. Personal survival is commonly sacraficed in fights over reproductive resources or status. On top of that survival of the species is nonexistant, selection works on the level of GENES.

selection of genes, which is different than individuals or species, this isn’t an abstracted idea unimportant to everyday considerations, entire species can go extinct or approach extinction because of gene selection.

XX/XY

Genes on X can be harmful to males because they have x2 the chance of finding themselves in a female. In this way some insect species have almost died off, so yeah.

8

Sacrificed fights over family is because of the need to survive as a species. If one has no family beneath, he fights for self. The animal kingdom does not exhibit individual self-sacrifice of non-related members.

9

By spoiled or ruined i mean, that the universal property, or core of someone gets corrupted by phenomena to the point of no return, or will the core always be good, waiting for the energys of the body housing this “core” to align in a certain matter and somewhat “find itself”, Personally i still think that it is always good, as you stated with your analogy of redness. There is no spoiling a universal property. And i guess i am imagining all of this, my philosophys are a way of life for me, thats the only reason i ponder.

High quality to me is arriving at a acceptance of what we are, whole and perfect as created, which it seems like most people loose and go off through other facets of there being, ego, attachment to thoughts, etc… and loose this wholeness, Oneness with all things. To me wholeness is a powerful thing, , becoming one with all things, including death, other beings, suffering, Looking it all in the face as it presents itself, without judgement, and letting flow to the core of my being, then reciprocating with what comes through me, has created magic in my life, for the most part, im not claiming to be enlightened, and i hate making definitions, but there is a certain magic that pertains to true compassion even in the face of a world that presents very very brutal situations and even the animal kingdom is very harsh, survival of the fittest, but i do believe that humans rise beyond this with our comprehension and possible concioius abbilites, we have the ability to transcend this and see a true core of what life is.

10

This is why i see humans as a magical species, we can easily responed to stimuli as an animalistic creature, but with a certain perspective, and lots of cultivation of patiences, and with strengthing our link to Intention, we could intened to transcend animalistic nature and see things in a way that will utimatley set us free, in the sense that we can live peacfully and not experience the emotional turmoil that makes human beings suffer, animals are responsive amazing creatures they feel pain im guessing, but they do not beat themselves up over things like we do as humans, its either our ignorance of the ability to transcend our so called painful lifes, the constant complaints and feeling of seperation, or just the choice to rather not see it in that light.

11

good cannot exist without evil what we have is choice or will so you should be able to answer this question yourself if you take a general view we are slowly but surely recking the camp this wanton destruction has to be said to be evil if however you are a believer then take comfort someone said they would save the world for one just man

12

“life” is not inherently anything, other than a materialistic physical process of self-directed change over time.

good and bad do not apply to “life” or “people”-- they are meaningful IDEAS only in individual human minds, and have no objective or external meaning.

life is not good, life is not bad, life just IS or IS NOT.

13

Life is inherently corrupt, the creation of an inferior being - an alien God, this thesis entails/explains the following:

I) why evil exists (strictly speaking not traditional evil but the inevitable chaotic results of imperfection)

II) why God doesn’t intervene (he is not responsible for something he didn’t create, anymore than you or I are)

III) why nature is imperfectly made (the eye is a good example but their are plenty of others in the atheist literature - see Dawkins)

IV) why we die (God does do this)

V) good = realization of one’s cosmic circumstance

14

Like anything, it kinda boils down to a linguistic clusterfuck. What do we mean by “inherent” and “good”? Daoism/Buddhism holds that were are ‘inherently good’ when we are born, either due to our naive nature or due to our Buddha nature (both of which pretty much boil down to the same thing). Orthodox Confucianism holds that we are ‘inherently good’ because we contain within us the potentiality of becoming a sage, the highest realization of the ‘good’ as defined by Confucianism. Orthodox Christianity holds that we are ‘inherently bad’ and that goodness exists as something that their god gives us through ‘grace’. Heterodox Confucianism holds that we are ‘inherently bad’ because of those fundamental aspects of humanity which cause strife and suffering.

There are numerous takes on this theme, but they all boil down to perspective. Human beings can be violent, chaotic, destructive, and a variety of other things which we humans consider to be ‘bad’. Human beings can also be loving/benevolent, honorable, wise, just, filial, and a variety of other things which we humans consider to be ‘good’. So where do we draw the line with respect to a question like this? Which have we seen more of, which aspects of the human condition affect us more and which aspects of the human condition are we seeking to address? No right or wrong answer, since humans are a combination of both.

I think human beings are inherently good because of the potentiality for goodness which we embody and the goodness which we actualize. I’m an optimist like that. But it boils down to the concept of the beauty of virtue and the deformity of vice. I believe (and neurologists and sociologists have gone a long way towards affirming) that human beings possess an innate moral grammar which affirms the basic premise of the beauty of virtue and the deformity of vice. But that in no way argues against deformities which are present in the world. Likewise, a Christian, a Xunzian, a Jainist, or any other number of ideologies can point to those deformities and argue that humans are inherently bad and that goodness is a deviation from the norm.

Which brings us to the normative nature of the terms we are using and how we want to apply them. An idealistic person (not to be confused with an idealist, damned terminology) can’t help but think that human beings are bad, after all, as a class we so routinely fail to actualize the good. A more pessimistic person can’t help but think that human beings are good, after all, we deviate from the bad incredibly regularly.

For me, since we can discuss concepts of good and bad and find almost universal agreement, I’m inclined to say that we are inherently good, that is, it is human nature to be good. But we are inherently good in the same way that an acorn is inherently an oak. We all know that an acorn isn’t an oak. But if an acorn develops according to its nature it becomes an oak. One could just as easily say that it is an acorn’s nature to be food for a squirrel or rotting on the ground. More acorns end up as fodder for animals or rotting on the ground than become oaks, after all. So do we want to be idealistic and then let down by failures to actualize the ideal or are we pessimistic and embrace those rare specimens which actualize the ideal? Perspective.

15

Purify your heart and your mind and your heart will follow… (paraphrasing Gandhi)

16

I would have to agree that people in their core are good. People can be born or develope into something that hates and is spiteful of the world. People become embittered and apathetic of the world when it no longer gives them any pleasure. Some people have genetics that influences them to think in the way that they do. They become hateful and embittered as a result of their circumstances. I think that what makes people good is that fact that they want to return to a state of pleasure, contentment, or whatever could be said to constitute happiness. This is in itself good so that make them good. People undoubtedly commit evil to try to obtain this goal. Killers often get a rush out of taking an innocent persons life. I do not think that they are “evil”, they just commit evil as a result of the rage that is inside of them and their will to release their rage. They enjoy what they are doing. The goal of happiness is the same. Their circumstances are different than the average persons . Circumstances would include the mental state of the human, the conditions that they live in and other factors. The world with all of its hardship and evil exposes people who have good souls to evil and turns them into reciprocators of that evil. Why the evil in the first place though? It just seems to work itself out that evil is able to work itself into the equation despite the will that everyone has the circumstances seem to warrant evil.

17

It depends. If you are born into a good life, there is a higher probability that your life will be good. It’s not 100%, but its goodness is more probable than someone born into a bad life.

As for one’s response to the inequities of life, it depends on both the traits we develop according to our first position in life, and on our interpretation of life. Some people can turn a good thing into a bad. Some can turn a bad thing into a good. It depends on the person.

18

i guess it really boils down to perspective…ha i love it.

xun well put, im always amazed at how fluid and comprehensive some people could write down there thoughts, i feel the same way, i just dont have a way at translating my thoughts to writing, i jump around to much and forget about things becoming lost in translation.

The Wise man sees beauty in the worst of cicrumstances, The fool sees ugliness and wretchedness in what some would call a “NIce, Comfy” situation.
Both men have the same nature, And the same potential.

The most amazing part of life to me is the {“magic” “chi” “energy” “lifeforce”} Is so powered by perspective, we hold intentions that form our perspectives which in turn change the way we “see” the world, the way we feel the world, we can be anything and everything. We are only bound by our minds.

Love is a word filled with traps, What people try to express when using the word love is the magic that descends upon them at those moments in life where you become more then a mere seperate human being, but rather become One with all things.

Perspective, perspective, perspective. The power we have to change ther world. Im still amazed with how the universe responds to me projecting a gentle kindness toward “itself”, ive tried my hardest ever since my death experience to show the most sincere compassion to all human beings(including and starting with myself) , i see myself deep in all peoples eyes, i can see and feel what people feel, i understand their pain when there hurt, Their joy when their happy, Their tears when their sad, i myself am sad at this moment, i am alone, you are alone, we are alone, but we are all alone together.

Everyone have a wonderful day