I recently got into an argument with my dad about where I draw the line between a good person and a bad person. Now I know this is negative, but the definition I use is "someone that has no problem inconveniencing others for self gain." EX1: Pushes someone away to try and get ahead in line. Bad EX2: Asks for help from a classmate on some math homework. Not Bad This is general and while a murderer is a bad person, a bad person is not necessarily a murderer. The reason my dad does not like this is because with a view like that, the majority of the world is "bad" in my view. I stand by this and honestly believe that most humans are just bad by nature. The ones that survived through evolution were the ones that cared about themselves and let others around them fall. Truth be told, though many will say otherwise, I consider myself to be a bad person. If given the opportunity to sue a giant company for something that was my fault, I am not sure I wouldn't do it. I would like to hear where others draw the line to say who is malevolent vs charitable. Thanks for listening.
Those are so specific that they aren't even comparable. Malevolent to me means spreading evil for evil's sake, while charitable means giving your assets (namely financial assets) for others' benefit. The line between good and evil though? Very hard to define, as it's totally subjective. But I define it in regards to the general well-being of the world. Good people try to promote well-being, whether for personal return or pure altruism. Evil people tend to reduce well-being and instead promote suffering. ^^It could be that parents rob a bank in order to fund their kid's college, and that's when it gets muddy. But I'd still consider it evil because it creates suffering for many just so you can lift up one. It's a debate topic that will probably be batted back and forth as long as humans are around.
I'll be honest, I was writing an English paper before I posted that, and I'm pretty sure instinct told me to use synonyms. Fair enough about them being specific, but the main point is the same. Where do most draw the line? As for stealing food to feed your children, I still consider that bad. You are inconveniencing others. Now lets say you are stealing from someone that wont miss it. Like taking $10 from a billionaire to buy food for your family. Still bad. The billionaire is in the wrong for not being charitable (just give some, not all) but two wrongs never make a right. Trust me about the money thing, Friends of my family never tip more than 5% at a restaurant, but have got their driveway heated so that they don't have to shovel it.
Well, I think most people do bad or evil things without being bad or evil people. Doing bad things continuously for your own benefit makes you a bad person if they outweigh the good you do. And vice versa for my definition of a good person. Evil? I don't really believe anyone's evil. Psychopathic killers and whatnot can be, but at the same time, it's hard to say, because it's sort of like a mental illness. They can control their actions, but if they have no natural sense of morality, I find it hard to see them as evil. Evil is more...having morals, knowing and understanding them, and choosing to act against them. But I don't know, I don't tend to think anyone as an evil person. What Hitler did was evil, but I don't even think he was an evil person. He just had a horribly warped view on how to help 'his people,' and exercised them in evil ways. So I'm pretty lenient I guess. I also don't think a lot of people who commit murder are bad people, because I'm sure a lot of murder is done in a spur-of-the-moment bout of rage or jealousy or whatever, which is not so much bad as it is a severe lack of self-control.
I appreciate all the input. Thank you all. I guess it is true that I have a black and white mind. I am definitely a logical thinker that likes most things to have answers that are right and ones that are left...er, wrong. Hence, I enjoy math and physics, but have an avarice for English. Thanks again
If someone has altruistic motivations, they are good. If they are selfish, not so much. However, we must also take into account the neutral people, who are neither good nor bad.
Actually, no. Altruism can be selected for evolutionarily. First, helping your relatives is obviously beneficial evolutionarily, because they carry your genes. And it doesn't have to be your own offspring - a full sibling is as closely related to you as your child would be. There are a number of species (such as grey wolves, scrub jays and meerkats) in which many animals will forego reproducing themselves in favour of helping mom and dad raise their younger siblings. Helping unrelated individuals is less common, but it can be selected for through the reciprocity rule. Essentially, if a social group typically operates along the rule of 'you help me, I help you', then helping members of your social group improves your chances of being helped by them later. A fairly dramatic example can be seen in vampire bats. If a vampire bats doesn't eat anything in 24 hours, they will starve to death. So if they don't manage to find a creature to feed off of in a given night, their life is at risk. However, when the bats get back to their roost, they'll go to one of their buddies (usually unrelated, but always a bat they know reasonably well) and beg for some food. In response, the other vampire bat will regurgitate part of that night's meal into their hungry friend's mouth. Many primates also show nonkin altruism between long-term associates. This can be for survival (for example, alarm-calling rather than just hiding when you spot a predator, so it can't ambush your friends) or it can be to increase relative fitness. Chimpanzees will trade favours in order to gain sex and social status, for example. And capuchins will take turns getting the better reward in a cooperative task that gives unequal rewards, in order to ensure the continued cooperation of their partner. So, no, evolution doesn't make us selfish. It actually makes us want to help others, in the hope that they'll return the favour later on.
I won't pretend to be a biology major, but there are plenty of examples of why selfishness also survives. While wolves in a pack have a family, they are still extremely territorial and will compete for land with other packs. No concern is given for how the other pack survives, just one's own. In other words, Survival of the fittest would encourage letting those weaker die off to support yourself. Wolf packs will abandon members if they can no longer hunt, in turn agreeing with your "favor for favor" argument, but still shows that they were merely kept until their usefulness came to an end. There have been studies done on humans to find out why people cheat. The result was that if neither cheated, they would both get similar decent scores. If one cheated, he would get ab above decent score while the other would suffer slightly. If both cheated, they failed. So the final result would be collectively better if neither cheated, but individually better if one did cheat. It seems like a bit of a conundrum.
Mutual cooperation, not competition, leads to long-term success in terms of evolution. You should read some of Kropotkin's works. --Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin
