Is human nature good or evil?
- Human is fundamentally good just like the quotes: "Nhân chi sơ tính bổn thiên" - Mạnh Tử
- Or basically evil - "Nhân chi sơ tính bổn ác" - Tuân Tử
Which statement do you agree with? Why?
I just want to know your idea about this so if you find it too hard to answer in English, you can use Vietnamese
english debate
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Humans are naturally societal creature. We are not build to be good or evil since there are no good, precise, and satisfying definition and classification of good and evil. Good and evil are subjective concepts, by which no one person can have a definition that accepted by all.
Humans are naturally build to accommodate life, we are build with certain functions in our brain for the purpose of living with our community, that's a fundamental human's feature.
We are built by the things around us. Through our education and interaction, we develop ideas and instincts of how to survive and go along.
When we, the normal, short-sighted viewers, look and update on news about a ruthless murderer, we got angry, frustrated, infuriated with this human being. So we blame this committed evil onto the so-called "human nature". What we often overlook is their past life with their parents, how they are abused, forgotten, beaten and no one is there for them, or how they lack the education in schools or their own guardians.
By saying human nature is either evil or good, we basically proclaim that a person is set on a course of paths that would lead what people and society consider to be bad or good. The truth is that we humans are a blank paper when we were born, genetics only made up the type and quality of the paper but not what's written on it.
Humans are naturally multisided. There are too many things about the pieces and building blocks that made up a human character. Just like our body, our character is three-dimensional. The human experience both bad and good events and will therefore a both good and bad person. A person can be greedy for him/herself yet super humorous. In fact, it is hard to say whether these are our faults to begin with, since we usually only get them from the education or lack thereof or life experiences in our childhood and adulthood. There is just no definitive answer for such a question, since the concepts of good and evil, just and unjust, and the classification of human beings' character into clear line boxes are just unfathomable.
SaPama
Humans are naturally societal creature. We are not build to be good or evil since there are no good, precise, and satisfying definition and classification of good and evil. Good and evil are subjective concepts, by which no one person can have a definition that accepted by all.
Humans are naturally build to accommodate life, we are build with certain functions in our brain for the purpose of living with our community, that's a fundamental human's feature.
We are built by the things around us. Through our education and interaction, we develop ideas and instincts of how to survive and go along.
When we, the normal, short-sighted viewers, look and update on news about a ruthless murderer, we got angry, frustrated, infuriated with this human being. So we blame this committed evil onto the so-called "human nature". What we often overlook is their past life with their parents, how they are abused, forgotten, beaten and no one is there for them, or how they lack the education in schools or their own guardians.
By saying human nature is either evil or good, we basically proclaim that a person is set on a course of paths that would lead what people and society consider to be bad or good. The truth is that we humans are a blank paper when we were born, genetics only made up the type and quality of the paper but not what's written on it.
Humans are naturally multisided. There are too many things about the pieces and building blocks that made up a human character. Just like our body, our character is three-dimensional. The human experience both bad and good events and will therefore a both good and bad person. A person can be greedy for him/herself yet super humorous. In fact, it is hard to say whether these are our faults to begin with, since we usually only get them from the education or lack thereof or life experiences in our childhood and adulthood. There is just no definitive answer for such a question, since the concepts of good and evil, just and unjust, and the classification of human beings' character into clear line boxes are just unfathomable.
Woo Map
IMO, humans can be both evil and good. They're both sides of the same coin called "human nature".
In 1974, a Yugoslavian (a country located in Southern-Central Europe) female performance artist named Marina Abramovic conducted a research on human nature by letting the pariticpants do anything, ANYTHING, to her body. The participants can use a whole range of many different tools (from flowers, water, ropes, to things like razors, knives, and a loaded gun) during this experiment.
For a period of total 6 hours, she was photograhed, humiliated, undressed to naked, groped, cut. One participant even made her point the gun to her head. And these participants were all strangers to her, which means they didn't have any personal issues with her - no reason to do such cruel things to her body.
Source:
Performance Artist Stood Still For 6 Hours to Let People Do What They Wanted to Her Body
www.elitereaders.com
Also, several other experiments conducted to reveal whether people would rather donate their money to superficial causes (like the girls who need money for things like makeups or breast surgery) or to beggars who actually, really need money for survival needs.
What they found out was really disturbing: people would rather donate to the girls who already look rich, while ignore the girls who look like beggars (and they're both the same person in both videos).
So what does this say about human psychology? Do we tend to be superficial/judgemental and ignorant of others' sufferings and needs? From these experiments' perspective, it seems so. :-(
Mạnh Cương
We should not confuse an act with our nature. That wars exist doesn’t mean that humans are predisposed to violence. The good and bad debate is endless. We are not either good or bad, but both. Buddhism encourages us to be cautious about opposing concepts. Thinking in binary terms is deceiving. Good and evil are two sides of the same coin. We must integrate both.
The struggle between good and evil causes more violence. It creates a sense of moral superiority that divides people. It creates an ‘us’ vs ‘them’ mentality. The story of good and evil sells because it’s easy to understand. It feeds on deception. Once we label someone as evil, we don’t want to understand them. We see them as the enemy.
When we label people, we lose the opportunity to address the causes of their actions. Hate, bigotry, and desperation seed more violence. Hate is induced. But so are empathy and tolerance — nonviolence can also be taught.
Our mind is a constant battle even if we don’t notice it. The battleline between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.
Vĩnh Luân
Bản chất vốn có của con người là tự phục vụ bản thân, tự biện minh, ích kỷ và chủ quan theo bản năng. Nên không thể nói quan điểm của Tuân Tử là sai được.
Tuy nhiên để định nghĩa chính xác được bản chất con người sinh ra là thiện hay ác thì vẫn còn gây tranh cãi khá nhiều bởi vì nó còn bị tác động bởi môi trường và quy luật Tự nhiên. Nên ta không thể khẳng định 100 đứa trẻ được sinh ra ở các mtrg khác nhau, 100 đứa trẻ đều có bản tính xấu được.
Bất cứ điều gì tạo điều kiện, thúc đẩy mối liên kết khép kín, vị tha, vị tha, cùng có trách nhiệm, bổ sung lẫn nhau, thì dòng chảy lẫn nhau tạo ra và duy trì sự sống là “tốt”.Bất cứ điều gì làm gián đoạn các kết nối này, ngăn chặn dòng chảy này đều là xấu xa.
Gia Khánh
When toddlers saw something they wanted, they immediately stole it from another toddler. They were selfish, although no one taught them to be that way. Often, when a toddler was stolen from, they hit the other toddler who stole from them. I guarantee you, no one taught that toddler to hit and hurt someone.
Humans, I believe, are born selfish, unkind, and uncaring.
Kindness is learned. And, to be kind, you must fight against human nature.
Hồ Thủy Linh