Humans: Are we moral and evolved, or animals with a thin veneer of civilisation?

[Alex Caine]

So, this came from a debate I had at work today with my colleague. These are put simply and without much depth, as I'm hoping people will elaborate.

View 1)

Humans are basically good deep down, and given the absence of law, order and governance (and by extension the consequences for disobeying said laws), most people will try to be morally upstanding, still treat people well and generally be "good".

View 2)

Humans are still basically animals. Most of our behaviour and adherence to Law comes from fear of punishment, rather than a genuine belief that is the right thing to do. Given the breakdown of society, humans would revert to selfish base instincts, putting themselves first and foremost.

Personally, I believe the second. I look at places where "civilisation" has broken down, and the acts that are committed there in order to survive or even just for the hell of it.

Is there much literature on this, or any major studies? What do you folk think?

[Lallante]

Short answer - View 1

Long answer - the premise is impossible but both views have elements of truth (the way you have formulated them means they are not mutually exclusive). Humans have evolved to attempt to impose order on anarchy, society on individuals etc. There is no such thing as the "absence" of law, order and governance in their broadest senses as if you take two any two or more persons and leave them to interact, a degree of tacit undertstanding will arise between them that is in effect a sort of "law, order or governance". Two feral kids in a cage together will quickly decide "this is my side, thats your side, if we keep on our respective sides and dont steal each others food we dont need to fight". Thats a sort of order at its most basic level.

The references you make to the break down of society are interesting but miss the point - there is so much violence and cruelty in places like somalia because of the -break down- of society NOT the -absence- of society. People still want to live in concentrated population hubs like cities, and own consumer goods, even though the social structures needed to sustain these modes of living are absent, and thats what creates scope for the chaos you observe. People are scared and desperate so they act immorally. This isn't because they are naturally immoral and selfish but because the modes of living they understand (e.g. the society they had pre-collapse) no longer apply and they know nothing else. These kinds of situation are self-sustaining because the lawless chaos still has SOME order, albeit in the form of "rule of force" strong groups.

Taking as the counter example every population of "indigenous" people at first contact we have on record - they always live in carefully structured "law abiding" (even though they may not have formalised or even explicitly statable laws) societies. Ordered societies obviously spontaneously arise almost ubiquitously throughout humanity.

If we found a new continent, untouched by the rest of the world, and there were people there living in somalia-like chaotic evil, then you would have good evidence for your Proposition 2. As it is, situations like somalia only arise when something collapses leaving a vacuum - they dont evolve by default.


The key thing to remember is that whichever view you think is "natural" for humans (1 or 2), there are obviously still going to be many people who fit the other paradigm. For every mugger there is a good samaritan and vice versa.

The only proper test of the "true" nature of humans would be to take a sufficiently large sample size of newborn infants, allow them (somehow sustaining them without nurture) to grow up isolated from other humans (including each other), society, technology etc. then introduce them to a situation which allowed for either compassion or selfishness towards another human (the first other human they had ever met). Only the "first encounter" would really prove anything, as after that the "law, order and governance" aka society would have kicked in, even if only at a basic level, and the subjects reactions would be coloured by their past interactions not just their own "inherent nature".

Basically your question could be restated in a slightly different form as the unanswerable question - "do humans learn compassion or is it inherent?". Its obvious that humans in groups tend towards compassion (coordination, order, society etc) but that doesnt tell us much/anything about the inherent nature of the individual.

[Dark Flare]

Somewhere between the two, with large variance on an individual level imo.

I also think environment has a huge amount to do with it. When people don't have to fight for resources they're going to be less violent. When people do have to fight for things they need to survive, things get nasty.

On the whole I don't think it's possible to generalise as widely as the question requests, the world is too diverse.

[Seamus]

Was going to say "obviously 1" seeing as groups of animals are naturally good natured towards each other, evolution and all. Also the only people ive seen who do blatantly nasty stuff basically come across as retarded to me.

Then I thought about it and read lalls reply, and my wild optimism crashed into a fertilizer-barge of realism

[Alex Caine]

The two views were deliberatly not mutually exclusive....I fully expect most to hit the middle ground here.

Thats an excellent point about the "breakdown" of society vs the "absence" though, and one I hadn't considered.

[Smuggo]

Not sure you can really say it's one or the other as they're both linked. Living and working in a society obviously has a number of survival advantages for us. So you could say all the things we do to make that society function better are simply us exhibiting our selfish survival instinct.

Now most "good" things people do could arguably be linked in some way to the survival instinct, as anything that essentially acts as a way of strengthening social bonds and maintaining social norms could to some extent improve your own survivability, even if only in a very small way.

Even if morality is an evolved trait we have developed for survival reasons, we've also evolved to believe we are doing a good thing when we act morally. So I guess the key question is does it really matter if it's just something we've evolved in order to help us survive or us actually wanting to do good things. They're effectively the same thing.

[Lallante]

Somewhere between the two, with large variance on an individual level imo.

I also think environment has a huge amount to do with it. When people don't have to fight for resources they're going to be less violent. When people do have to fight for things they need to survive, things get nasty.

On the whole I don't think it's possible to generalise as widely as the question requests, the world is too diverse.

Isn't he basically asking for your view in the absence of environmental factors

[Lallante]

My gut feeling is that most people are 'genetically' reasonably compassionate and then some people learn to be selfish instead as a result of environment/nurture (/lack thereof). As I've said we cant test this empirically but it makes sense from a social-evolution point of view. Its undoubtedly true that the most selfish least-compassionate people (who often end up criminals) usually have childhood trauma or other extreme environmental factor such as drug addiction involved, or an outright mental disorder.

[inora aknaria]

Hobbes's the leviathan (life is nasty brutish and short)
Locke's two treatises of government

I feel like these are the two books I remember reading/learning about when discussing this question in a political theory course (as well as in hs)

I'm sure there are more, I just remember these from European history.

tapatalk

[Lallante]

Hobbes's the leviathan (life is nasty brutish and short)
Locke's two treatises of government

I feel like these are the two books I remember reading/learning about when discussing this question in a political theory course (as well as in hs)

I'm sure there are more, I just remember these from European history.

tapatalk

And the arguement and conclusion they reached was....?

[untilted]

false dichotomy spotted: humans -> social behavior / animal -> antisocial behavior - as there are quite few species that show (atleast basic) social behavior, the assumption that there's an antisocial "natural state" falls flat on its face.

the actual question should be: which mechanisms help to sublimate agressive tendencies before they errupt in deadly violence?

and here's exactly the connection to lall's pont of the difference between break-down and "absence" of society. in the case of a break-down the common mechanisms to deal with agression may or may not be anymore applicable*. rituals that were legitimized to solve confrontations peacefully may not be legitimate anymore. this violence is usually just a phase, after the transition there will be new rituals in place to sublimate agression. but take a transition extreme/long enough - instead of adaption it will be a paradigm shift (which might as well traumatize everyone used to before-the-transition increasing the potential for agression again)


*) just to show how basal this is, take the behavior of dogs in a park.

if they are off the leash they will quickly sort themselves out, establishing their own temporary order. sure, they will likely need their space to do so, but in the most cases it will quite peaceful.

now take the same scenario, but the dogs are on the leash. their core behavior (/instincts) isn't used to this. instead of the possibility to sort them out like usual, they are now in a situation with limited movement, which increases the likelihood of actual agression a lot.

[Alex Caine]

Hobbes's the leviathan (life is nasty brutish and short)
Locke's two treatises of government

I feel like these are the two books I remember reading/learning about when discussing this question in a political theory course (as well as in hs)

I'm sure there are more, I just remember these from European history.

tapatalk

And the arguement and conclusion they reached was....?

I know Hobbes' work, and i'm not too convinced it applies here. It's obviously VERY old for starters, and heavily based on a Christian-centric view of things.

Chapter 13 is the most relevant here, and contains the quote referenced above..."Of the Natural Condition of Mankind, as concerning their Felicity, and Misery" and contains the famous quotation describing life in the state of war of every man against every man as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

Hobbes is certainly of the opinion that the natural state of man is dog eat dog, every man for himself. But as stated, I am not really sure that this would apply to modern day so much.

You also have to keep in mind this was written during the English Civil War, and he likely saw some very brutal things. At that point, it likely DID seem that things were very bad indeed.

[Hel OWeen]

Short: Two, with emphasis on Humans are still basically animals.

Long: Humans are not good or bad, that's a definition/judgement we deliberatly created ourselves. We are animals and therefore we're mainly driven by egoism. "Egoism" in its real meaning, not the negative notion it meanwhile has. Self-serving, self-centered. You do everything that seems to be an advantage to you and/or your social group (offspring, family, community, friends).

The interesting difference between collapse and absence of society is that the former did know the concept of "property", while the later often doesn't. Take the already mentioned discoveries "indigenous" people. "Yours" and "Mine" is often unknown. I seem to remember at least one tribe which doesn't even know the concept of numbers/counting.

Property is where the evil starts. More property equals better chances in life. An evolutionary advantage. The collapse of a society won't change that concept. Some still have and a lot do need. That's when things go south until the number of mankind is reduced so much that there's enough free resources to grab for everyone = no need for (deadly) competition.

Just look at the current state of the world. There's enough wealth to feed us all, yet people starve everywhere. There's enough technology to avoid any further pollution, yet mankind goes the "cheap way" until forced (by law) to do otherwise and keeps polluting land, sea, air. We perfectly know that the way we massively use current renewable resources will deplete those sooner or later, yet we don't tune down the usage so that they have a chance to regenerate. We'd rather leave a void there and move on to the next resource spot.

[Dark Flare]

Somewhere between the two, with large variance on an individual level imo.

I also think environment has a huge amount to do with it. When people don't have to fight for resources they're going to be less violent. When people do have to fight for things they need to survive, things get nasty.

On the whole I don't think it's possible to generalise as widely as the question requests, the world is too diverse.

Isn't he basically asking for your view in the absence of environmental factors

No. Not unless you see society and government as an environmental factor. I was talking purely of the literal environment. The ground, the weather, the resources. I'm assuming this argument is based on people on earth, as the OP doesn't state otherwise.

[Lallante]

Somewhere between the two, with large variance on an individual level imo.

I also think environment has a huge amount to do with it. When people don't have to fight for resources they're going to be less violent. When people do have to fight for things they need to survive, things get nasty.

On the whole I don't think it's possible to generalise as widely as the question requests, the world is too diverse.

Isn't he basically asking for your view in the absence of environmental factors

No. Not unless you see society and government as an environmental factor. I was talking purely of the literal environment. The ground, the weather, the resources. I'm assuming this argument is based on people on earth, as the OP doesn't state otherwise.

I interpret the question as asking about our "nature" i.e. inherent or genetic traits, as opposed to "nurture" i.e. learned (from parents, society, government) etc.

[Lallante]

Short: Two, with emphasis on Humans are still basically animals.

Long: Humans are not good or bad, that's a definition/judgement we deliberatly created ourselves. We are animals and therefore we're mainly driven by egoism. "Egoism" in its real meaning, not the negative notion it meanwhile has. Self-serving, self-centered. You do everything that seems to be an advantage to you and/or your social group (offspring, family, community, friends).

The interesting difference between collapse and absence of society is that the former did know the concept of "property", while the later often doesn't. Take the already mentioned discoveries "indigenous" people. "Yours" and "Mine" is often unknown. I seem to remember at least one tribe which doesn't even know the concept of numbers/counting.

Property is where the evil starts. More property equals better chances in life. An evolutionary advantage. The collapse of a society won't change that concept. Some still have and a lot do need. That's when things go south until the number of mankind is reduced so much that there's enough free resources to grab for everyone = no need for (deadly) competition.

Just look at the current state of the world. There's enough wealth to feed us all, yet people starve everywhere. There's enough technology to avoid any further pollution, yet mankind goes the "cheap way" until forced (by law) to do otherwise and keeps polluting land, sea, air. We perfectly know that the way we massively use current renewable resources will deplete those sooner or later, yet we don't tune down the usage so that they have a chance to regenerate. We'd rather leave a void there and move on to the next resource spot.

I dont really understand the point you are trying to argue for. People are greedy even in the absence of personal property.

[Alex Caine]

Somewhere between the two, with large variance on an individual level imo.

I also think environment has a huge amount to do with it. When people don't have to fight for resources they're going to be less violent. When people do have to fight for things they need to survive, things get nasty.

On the whole I don't think it's possible to generalise as widely as the question requests, the world is too diverse.

Isn't he basically asking for your view in the absence of environmental factors

No. Not unless you see society and government as an environmental factor. I was talking purely of the literal environment. The ground, the weather, the resources. I'm assuming this argument is based on people on earth, as the OP doesn't state otherwise.

I interpret the question as asking about our "nature" i.e. inherent or genetic traits, as opposed to "nurture" i.e. learned (from parents, society, government) etc.

This is more what I was going for, but both angles are interesting tbh.

[ValorousBob]

I don't have a good answer for this thread, but any of you guys that are interested in human morality should read The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo. Zimbardo is the psychologist who did the Stanford Prison Experiment and the book is about how almost anyone, even very good people, are capable of doing terrible things. It's a pretty interesting book.

[Zeekar]

I hate to say this but Lallante is pretty much spot on.

We humans have developed as animals that are highly dependent on the social network around them. We actually have brain receptors that are responsible for our social behaviour ( honestly dont ask me for a source im too drunk right now ) so people would receive pleasure from performing social behaviour and we have genes that are directly associated with them or if there is a lack of that gene a person is more inclined to ruthlessness and dictatorship via hormone that gene produces (source: http://www.nature.com/news/2008/0804....2008.738.html)

Also i am not sure if viewing a society as an completely external factor is ok since we are creating it as it is it creating us one can not exist without the other.

[definatelynotKKassandra]

Also i am not sure if viewing a society as an completely external factor is ok since we are creating it as it is it creating us one can not exist without the other.

INdeed - if one is going to talk about the 'innate nature' of human beings, you have to recognise that man is an innately social animal.