Are people inherently good or inherently bad?

This is something that has been rolling around in the back of my mind for a while.... I thought it would be interesting to see what you all have to say about the topic.

There seem to be two competing schools of thought on this. One is that "people are basically good", but sometimes resort to doing bad things because of their conditions/environment/failings of society/etc. This kind of thinking seems prevalent mostly on the politically left-leaning side of the spectrum. (I would call it "wishful thinking".)

The other school of thought is that people are basically bad, but can choose to do good. I think this idea tends to align with Christian philosophy, i.e. that man is "fallen" and therefore lives in a state of sin, but by faith/choices/good works can become good. I think this also aligns with conservative ideology / politically right-leaning people who tend to be more rational / logic-based in their view of the world (whereas the left are more emotional-based), because any rational person looking around at the condition of the world would have to acknowledge there are a lot of bad people out there.

My personal take on it is that people are inherently... selfish. I view selfishness as a bad quality in general (although there are always limits/exceptions), so if there is a spectrum from good to bad, most people are somewhere on the bad side.

Certainly humans are capable of great evil, i.e. your Hitlers, Stalins, etc., but that's the extreme. Most people are not murderers -- but I do think most people are predictably too self-centered in their decision making. I'm talking about people who care about their own desires more than (or at the expense of) the needs of others, if they even think of others at all, and who take advantage whenever they feel they can get away with it. People who naturally lie, cheat, or steal for personal gain (no matter how small). In my experience the majority % of people fall into this category.

(And yes it should be stated here that "good" people do exist, i.e. people who genuinely care about others above themselves, who often make sacrifices at great personal cost for the needs of others, or for the objective moral "right thing to do". But based on my "lived experience" I would say this is a minority % of the population to be sure. When you find genuinely good people, you should cherish them!)

All that being said -- if people are generally selfish (or on the spectrum of being "bad", if you will), why isn't the world an even more horrible place than it already is?

It occurs to me that there is at least one other force going in the other direction -- people's inherent need to be "liked" by other people. Certainly the importance of this influences different people to varying degrees -- some people are extremely sensitive to what others think of them, some very little so. But it seems to me that this a fairly universal phenomenon.

So there we have 2 competing forces -- one the desire to get whatever we want regardless of who's expense at which it comes, but at the same time the desire to be liked or thought well of by others, which restrains us a bit.

Am I on the right track here, or am I missing something?

What a great discussion!

The question you present is ultimately a question of behavior: why do humans conduct themselves or "behave" the way they do? It's an age-old question, and despite our technological progress in biology and connectomics, I doubt we'll be able to create a technical map of behavior any time soon.

Therefore, it's far more useful to address the empirical world: what behaviors tend to emerge and under what conditions? Humans tend to behave in a manner that raises or maintains the way they perceive their own hierarchical status, and that does not trade off food or other perceived essentials like a woman or a family member whom they've grown attached to. But, as I'll get to later, having food and other perceived essentials are indistinguishable from maintaining/raising one's own hierarchical status.

You can imagine a little man who is beat by his superiors, into submission, and is convinced by the forces exerted against him that there's no hope to ascend within the hierarchies he's come to know. Nevertheless, he will try to maintain his position and not do any more wrong, so as to avoid any more beating, thus maintaining his current hierarchical status. Or, he may decide to rebel again, ferociously, in an attempt to defeat his captors and thereby raise his hierarchical status. Or, he may decide to commit suicide, not for selfless reasons, but because he believes that the torture he's enduring is worse than death, and he would have a higher status in death.

Imagine another person, who is about to do something that he knows for certain will result in his own death, but he is going to do anyway because he believes it will make him a "hero" of the republic. In other words, people are both able to perceive their own hierarchical status in life, and imagine what it would look like in death. This is the primary rationale for the good "soldier," and explains why he commits "heroic" and "selfless" acts that would raise his hierarchical status significantly in death or, in the event of survival, do the same. #longLiveTheRepublic

If you don't have access to food or water, your hierarchical status will plummet, because you will die. Thus, these items are also part of the hierarchy framework.

Thus, people do "good" and "bad" things in an effort to at least not lose their current hierarchical status.

Selfless actions can always be spun into a selfish act.

I was just having a similar talk with my girlfriend who was mauled by a nematode.

Apologies in advance.

Yours faithfully,

Convicted SP farmer

Your reflections touch upon deep questions about human nature, and I appreciate your honesty in wrestling with these ideas. As an Orthodox Christian, I believe our faith offers a profound response to this tension between good and evil in humanity.

Orthodox Christianity teaches that humanity was created in the image and likeness of God, which means that we were made inherently good, with a natural orientation towards love, goodness, and communion with God. However, with the Fall of Adam and Eve, sin entered the world, and our nature became wounded. It is important to note that we do not believe people are essentially bad; rather, our nature has been distorted by sin, leading us to selfishness, pride, and actions that can harm others. This is what Orthodox theology calls "fallen" humanity. In essence, we are created good, but sin has twisted that original goodness.

The key point in Orthodoxy is that, though fallen, we are not without hope. Through Christ's incarnation, death, and resurrection, we are offered the possibility of healing and transformation. The Church provides us with the sacraments, prayer, and ascetic practices to participate in this healing process, known as theosis — the journey towards becoming more like God. This is not just a matter of "doing good" but of being transformed from within, restoring the divine image that has been darkened by sin.

You mentioned selfishness, and this is indeed one of the most prominent consequences of our fallen nature. Self-centeredness leads to many of the behaviors you've observed — lying, cheating, and prioritizing personal desires over others. However, Orthodoxy emphasizes that even in our fallen state, the image of God remains within us, and every person retains the capacity for repentance and growth in virtue.

Why then, you ask, is the world not worse? From an Orthodox perspective, it's because of God's grace. God sustains the world with His love, and even those who do not know Him benefit from His mercy. People are also guided by their consciences, which, though sometimes obscured by sin, still reflect the divine law written in their hearts (Romans 2:14-15). As you noted, people want to be liked or thought well of, but deeper than that, there is a longing for communion — to be in a relationship with others and, ultimately, with God. This is a reflection of our original design for love and community.

In summary, while selfishness is a real and prevalent force in human life, we are not defined by it. Orthodox Christianity holds that through faith, repentance, and participation in God's grace, we can overcome our fallen tendencies and grow in holiness, restoring the goodness that was originally intended for us. This is not an easy path, but it is possible with God's help. So, yes, we live in a broken world, but the light of Christ offers hope and transformation for each one of us.

I do not believe that modern psychology would agree on either thoughts. People are not inherently good/bad. The debate on the question you asked is part of the bigger fight between psychologists that lasted for years - behavioral vs cognitive psychology.

Behavioral psychologists fought for the concept of tabula rasa, which means that people are born as "blank table" - neither good nor bad. The environment shapes who they become. This is a big part of what behavioral psychologists believed. Skinner, for example, thought that people's actions are the result of conditioning - rewards, punishments, and the environment around them. So, in this view, bad behavior happens because someone was either taught that way or lacked positive influences, and good behavior is learned the same way.

From a cognitive psychology perspective, behavior is shaped by how we interpret and process information about the world. Rather than being "blank table" when born, we develop mental frameworks based on our experiences, which influence how we understand situations and make decisions. For example, if someone grows up seeing selfish behavior, they might develop a framework that assumes people are untrustworthy, leading them to act defensively or selfishly. In contrast, someone exposed to kindness and cooperation might develop more positive ideas, influencing them to act altruistically. It's our thoughts and beliefs that drive behavior, not just our environment.

But then you have other perspectives, like Freud's. He believed humans are born with certain drives - selfish and sometimes destructive impulses - but society teaches us to control those urges. So, it's less about being born "good" or "bad" and more about how we manage our basic instincts in a social world. Society and norms help keep us in line.

The fight between behavioral and cognitive psychology faded long time ago and modern psychologists understand that the true nature of human psychology is a mix of both. All this ties into my favourite piece of psychological theory - Maslow's hierarchy of needs.



According to Maslow, a human must satisfy bottom line needs, things like food, water, and safety. Once those are met, people move up to things like love, belonging, and esteem (basically, the need to be liked or accepted which you talked about). The higher up the pyramid you go, the more you can focus on "self-actualization", which is about becoming the best version of yourself - being creative, altruistic, and caring about others.

So, if someone is stuck at the bottom, just trying to survive, they might be more selfish or act out of desperation. But once their basic needs are met, they have more mental energy to care about how they're seen by others (belonging and esteem), and that can encourage better behavior.

As for why the world isn't worse off? I think you're onto something with the idea that people's need for acceptance and approval keeps a lot of selfish behavior in check. Even if someone's natural tendencies lean toward self-interest, they'll still want to fit in and be seen as a decent person by society. So yeah, it's a balancing act between our self-serving instincts and our social nature.

Putting psychology in political contest does not work. Psychology as a science doesn't fit neatly into left-right split. Even if we were to try to fit psychology into political ideologies, it wouldn't be as clear-cut as you think. For example, on the right/conservative side, there are plenty of groups, like Mormons or other religious communities, that don't necessarily believe humans are inherently bad. Many of these groups emphasize that people have the potential for good and are capable of growth and improvement through faith, personal choices, and moral development. They focus more on the idea that people are born with the agency to choose between good and bad, not that they're doomed to be one or the other from the start.

On the other side, not all left-leaning ideologies view humans as inherently good either. A lot of leftists tend to believe that the human nature is destructive, particularly when it comes to overconsumption and harming the planet. It could even be argued that left-leaning ideologies were created in order to control human negative urges.

All in all, it is not healthy for the society to assign moral or political value to human brain.

Humans are molded by their environments. It requires a great deal of empathy and compassion to understand that no one is inherently bad or evil. We are all just humans living in this world and we all have our problems and our own thoughts and ideas. To see the world through someone else's eyes is what will make you realize we are nothing but meat flesh suits and we are animals with primal urges. So we just are is my conclusion.