Is Human Nature Good or Bad?
Introduction: Is human nature good, bad, both or neither? Confucian philosopher Mengzi seemed to think it was good, while Confucian philosopher Xunzi thought human nature was evil. Their teacher Kongzi (Confucius) chose to remain silent on the subject, perhaps thinking human nature is neither good nor bad, or both good and bad. I will offer up an argument in support of Xunzi who states that human nature is not good. Xunzi holds that human nature is evil, and so becoming a good person means actively resisting your inner nature or telos, and instead actively transforming it into something better. I will show how it is difficult for human beings to maintain goodness. If one must constantly work at being a good person, we are not naturally good. I am not of the belief that human beings are evil, for the word evil is a rather strong word so, I’d rather lean towards the opinion of Thomas Hobbes who believed that human beings are naturally selfish creatures and need government to act morally.
Xunzi said the “true nature of man is much like a selfish child.” In fact, as I myself recall, God himself says that everyone is born with sin. You can see proof of this when a child is an infant. It has already learned how to get its parent to hold him whenever it pleases. This often prompts parents to “train” their babies by allowing them to cry. Toddlers have even learned how to lie and manipulate their parents as young as one year old. Everyone knows children need constant corrections and guidance so they can become productive people in society. In Master Mengzi’s theory, he holds that human nature is good and so becoming a good person is a matter of realizing your inner nature or telos. In his writings of “The Nature of Man Is Good”, Mengzi stated: “As far as what is genuinely in him is concerned, a man is capable of becoming good, that is what I mean by good. As for his becoming bad, that is not the fault of his native endowment.” So here in his statement, when Mengzi says that man is capable, what he is describing is some dormant quality that must be discovered. Aristotle stresses that virtues are stable character traits. For this reason, virtues must be acquired by habit. We must practice virtues over and over and over until they become part of our nature. It appears all three philosophers seem to agree that one must work at goodness, which suggests to me that goodness does not come naturally, much like logic.
Anyone who objects may say human nature is not good, but rather neither good nor bad. The terms good and bad are rather subjective; people are too quick to slap labels on others without really understanding what is going on.: For example: Someone who steals food doesn’t’ do it because they necessarily are bad, but because they are hungry; they have acted in their own best interest. Someone who gets an abortion does not do it because it is fun, but because it is in their best interest. Even a serial killer like Dahmer has acted in his own interest. In an interview, he says that he knew what he did was wrong, but he couldn’t help it. In the end, when his life ended, he didn’t even defend himself. In cases like these, even the most seemingly inhumane person may do so out of forces beyond their control such as birth defects or chemical imbalances. If you were to listen to the stories of criminals and really study them, then you would understand how they have become what they are. Good and bad are different to other people; a vegan might think people who eat animals are bad. Is a lion bad because he kills? No. He is just trying to survive, and it is the same as us humans; we are animals trying to survive. Then there’s a matter of perspective: Some people may think you are a nice and kind person while others may have a totally opposite experience of you. What we Americans think of as good can be seen as bad in other cultures. Morals are merely a social construct, therefore there is no such thing as good and bad.
As you can see, those are extremely convincing arguments and perhaps there is no such thing as good or bad. However, I believe that sometimes a thing needs to be called a thing. There is a level of degree of difference between someone stealing food vs someone stealing a car. Even if we were to say human nature is not bad, but selfish, is selfishness a great thing? In the case of psychopaths who may suffer from ailments beyond their control……..
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