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People and thier Nature

Nick Soapdish

Nick Soapdish

Secret Agent
We all have a dark side.. some more unleashed than others. There are too many people that are driven to control, subdue, take advantage of and sacrifice others for their own benefit. This is why we need government to protect us. In my opinion that is the government's primary role: security. People who are for anarchy or non-government are not considering the thugs in the world.

Beyond that, I am fairly libertarian. I do not want a government that is always prodding at my personal business.
 
kai

kai

ragamuffin
Saint Tigeress said:
From a non-religious standpoint (i.e. not involving belief or non-belief in original sin), do you consider humans to be innately good or bad? How would you define good and bad in people and what makes them this way? Is it relative and circumstantial... ever changing? How do you think the nature of govt. should be in accordance with your view on the nature of people?

The way we were discussing this in class yesterday, our instructor said that a persons view on human nature directly affects thier view of govt. People who believe humans are essentially bad and evil support a stronger hands on govt. Wanting to give up more liberties and freedoms in exchange for stronger protection and security. People who believe people are essentially good tend to support a "hands-off" type of govt.

I might be wrong on my details here, but there are three philosophers to reference on this topic:
Hobbs: Grew up in a war time when parlament fell, and his area was thrown into chaos. He witnessed the atrocities that come out of people when their is no one to govern them. So of course he believed people are essentially evil, and a strong govt. is needed to keep people from thrusting theselves into anarchy and chaos.

Locke: I believe he is somewhere in the middle... I think he was more like... people are good, but good people can do bad things. He was around after Hobbs, and his enviroment was moderatley civil... with a moderately strong govt.

Russo: I believe he thought people were wholly good, and everyone should go back to nature-like conditions. Relying wholly on the social-contract of interaction I suppose.

What are your opinions on this subject?
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my opinion is that peolpe tend to forget that they are in fact animals , animals who have territorial and feeding needs like any other but have taken to wearing trinkets and building shelters etc so thousands of years ago we probably took what we wanted from other animals including people, two men cannot stare at one another withour confrontation or one must back away , women look each other up and down to assess the threat , all animalistic behaviour , so god and bad is a human concept. were just apes thinking we are gods
 
Vasilisa Jade

Vasilisa Jade

Formerly Saint Tigeress
kai said:
my opinion is that peolpe tend to forget that they are in fact animals , animals who have territorial and feeding needs like any other but have taken to wearing trinkets and building shelters etc so thousands of years ago we probably took what we wanted from other animals including people, two men cannot stare at one another withour confrontation or one must back away , women look each other up and down to assess the threat , all animalistic behaviour , so god and bad is a human concept. were just apes thinking we are gods
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Lol! Very true. We are very animalistic. When our "social contract" to one another is broken up, or when the measures of order and law break down, our true nature shows in order to survive.

What is boils down to is:
hey- I'll make you sword if you bring me a few bags of your harvest. Fair trade. When the sword is done the food is brought for the trade. The farmer goes to give the blacksmith the goods and he is stabbed in the gut. Now the blacksmith has food for his family, and a new weapon to defend them as well. No different than the lion killing the zebra to provide for it's babies right?

When there is no social contract the world goes by "do unto others before they do unto you." If you don't follow, you die. The blacksmith had to kill the farmer because the farmer might have killed him with his own sword once handed over.

I am positive something similar to this would be common if we went to what Ruesso (-sp) proposed. Having no govt. and going back to nature. Which shows how animalistic we really are. Nature is not always flowers and berries.
 
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