Good or Evil?

[SpikedLillac]

Are people naturally good or evil and why? If people are good then why are there murders, rapists, liars, theives, adulterers, ect? We've all done bad things, are we evil? We did choose to do those things after all. Are we evil?

[McCulloch]

You say good is those who adhere to society and evil is rebelling. If this is the case, then one could conclude that evil was being "bad".

Not quite. I am saying that if we define good as being true to the values of your society and evil as rebelling against the values of your society then good and evil can be explained by natural selection. With those definitions (and only within those definitions) we find that all good is not necessarily beneficial to society in the long run and that evil, by this definition, is not always bad for society.

The attribute of having a propensity to rebel against the norms of your society can be shown to have a selective advantage. The problem is that this propensity is value neutral. So if there is a propensity to rebel against the norms of society it may manifest itself in ways that benefit society (freedom, enlightenment, civil rights) or ways that harm society (tyranny, ignorance, oppression). It is because society is sometimes wrong that the propensity to rebel is necessary for society to evolve.

[Confused]

You say good is those who adhere to society and evil is rebelling. If this is the case, then one could conclude that evil was being "bad".

Not quite. I am saying that if we define good as being true to the values of your society and evil as rebelling against the values of your society then good and evil can be explained by natural selection. With those definitions (and only within those definitions) we find that all good is not necessarily beneficial to society in the long run and that evil, by this definition, is not always bad for society.

The attribute of having a propensity to rebel against the norms of your society can be shown to have a selective advantage. The problem is that this propensity is value neutral. So if there is a propensity to rebel against the norms of society it may manifest itself in ways that benefit society (freedom, enlightenment, civil rights) or ways that harm society (tyranny, ignorance, oppression). It is because society is sometimes wrong that the propensity to rebel is necessary for society to evolve.

Thanks for my asks back