Are people good or bad?

Victor

I've had this discussion with a few people and they all say that people are "bad", however I feel that on balance "people" are good (yes they occassional do bad things and some individuals are bad). Opinions?

tman

i'm a bad mother****er, CHAMOAN!

BuffyBot

I don't think that people can be inherently good or bad - we're just born as blank canvasses and circumstance affects us from there on.

Stark

Depends on your definition of bad. Some people do "bad" things out of frustration, some out of greed, some out of basic drive (desire for power etc.). I for one feel I'm basically a good person, but if the circumstances of my life had been different (if I'd been given power etc.) that I could have grown to be a thoroughly ruthless bastard. Maybe that just means I'm a bad person who's waiting for his oppurtunity to do bad

froggie_1

more and more lately i have been thinkin people are basically bad.
has anybody ever really done anything that was totally for the good of others?
even a seemingly selfless act of kindness is intended to make the person thats doing it feel better about themselves if nothing else. someone prove me wrong!!
i mean look at the atrocties that are carried out during ethnic cleansing or genocide....can anyone image what would make a person carry out such acts of violence and brutallity?
take looting during a blackout or war....i mean the only thing that stops us robbing and stealing during daylight is the fear that someone might see us or we could end up in jail.

are we just animals pretending to be civilised????

ah my head....think im in the wrong line of work

Iago

Depends on how you define bad...

Is a lion bad for attacking and killing a Zebra? Or is it simply fulfilling it's function in the greater scheme of things...

In WW2 it's generally accepted that the Nazi's were bad and the allies were good, but they both killed for a cause they believe in, so does that not make them as bad or as good as each other.

Take it a step further, not all transcripts into the german army believed in Hitler and his plan but had no choice but to join up, does that then make the allied army bad and evil for killing them, they were essentially innocents forced into a position by circumstances....

do we then define bad as being an act or lack of act due to malicious intent on the part of the perpetrator or the person who allows the act to be perpetrated without interfering and preventing it?

If this is the definition then I would argue that people are not by nature bad, the vast majority of us do not commit acts with malicious intent or allow acts to take place if we can intervene. There are people of course who do this, but this is born out of something that has gone wrong in their life rather than any genetic issue or problem with nature.

Which brings us back to the whole nature v's nurture argument, and that could go on forever

Suaimhneach

I think it depends on the persons outlook and experiances. You are never going to get a completely unbias point of view like.

Raam

Originally posted by froggie_1
more and more lately i have been thinkin people are basically bad.
has anybody ever really done anything that was totally for the good of others?
even a seemingly selfless act of kindness is intended to make the person thats doing it feel better about themselves if nothing else. someone prove me wrong!!

If we are only doing something 'good' for someone else because it makes us feel better about it, then, by the above argument, for a person to be truly 'good' they would have to do something for someone else which would make them (the person doing the act) feel bad. This would then make that person a 'bad' person, because they made themselves feel bad!

That probably makes no sense at all.

KR

deadduck

for example, if i rob a bank, get caught and i say it wasn't me, it was my mate. for some reason the cops believe it and my mate is facing 10 years in the big house. i realise i've done him wrong and i go own up. now i get the 10 years and my mate is in the clear. i might feel ok cos i cleared my consience but i'm gonna feel a lot worse having to do the ten years.

bad analogy, but you get the idea

McGinty

I personally believe we are both, we have good and bad inside each of us. I don't believe we either 'bad' or 'good' only, we are all comprised of opposites, like light and dark, ying and yang, etc.

I believe some people have a higher degree of good in them and others have a higher degree of bad in them. An example of this could be a person that murders but is kind to their kids, or like the old East End London gansters who thought nothing of cutting up someone but would help old ladies. On the other side of the spectrum well known 'good' people have their dark side too.

I also believe it all comes down to perspective. I personally believe in the philosophy of hate the action not the person, (mind you sometimes I fail in this, its hard to seperate the two).

Lastly I do believe we are selfish, but for some reason this is classed as completely bad, its true if I do a good deed, I do it for two reasons, one to help the person out and two to feel good about myself, but I don't see anything wrong in this. I fail to see how this is classed as 'bad'.

Trebor

There is no such thing as good or bad. there is only what we perceive to be good or bad.

what one person thinks is bad another person might think is good. so who is right?

150 years ago it was acceptable to kill a person in a dual.
it was acceptable to kill a women because some one thought she was a witch.
it was acceptable to subjugate people because their skin color was different.

today it's acceptable for companies to force people to work in sweat shops in order to reduce cost's.
it's acceptable for men to treat women like objects in some parts of the world.

in each case if you ask the people involved if what they think they are doing is "bad" they will say that it is not. why? because they have not been told it is bad. the only way something becomes bad is if the majority of society decides that it is bad and force their belief's on the minority.

so to say people are bad or good depends on what you define as being good or bad.

mike65

J-H-C! Life is complex enough without having to consider if we're all saints or sinners.!

A Depeche Mode tune comes to mind....

People are people so why should it be
You and I should get along so awfully

So we're different colours
And we're different creeds
And different people have different needs
It's obvious you hate me
Though I've done nothing wrong
I never even met you
So what could I have done

I can't understand
What makes a man
Hate another man
Help me understand

People are people so why should it be
You and I should get along so awfully

Help me understand

Now you're punching and you're kicking
And you're shouting at me
I'm relying on your common decency
So far it hasn't surfaced
But I'm sure it exists
It just takes a while to travel
From your head to your fist

I can't understand
What makes a man
Hate another man

Help me understand

Mike.

simu

This is a philosphy forum! You can't ask whether people are good or bad without at least trying to define what you mean by these terms.

Polls can be useful to get an idea of the general feeling of people about specific issues but in this case, I don't think the poll results will be of any value as the question asked is too complicated to be reduced to a yes/no situation. (If you disagree and have some reasons why I should have left the poll open, PM me).

I'm closing the poll but feel free to continue this discussion.

DadaKopf

Aren't "good" and "bad" socially constructed terms?

Doesn't this question imply that 'Man' is essentially one of these socially constructed terms?

How can Man be essentially anything which has no universal or objective essence in the first place?

The question infers that human beings, whose identities are socially constructed, are essentially something which is socially constructed.

In which case, this question is meaninglessness.

Please redefine your question.