Human Nature

[Alan V]

So there are two ways I can think of offhand to decide what "good" means. The first way is Aristotelian: a thing is good if it does well what it is intended to do. [arete] A good hammer does well the things a hammer is supposed to do. A good computer does what computers are supposed to do. So the term "good" for a hammer and "good" for a computer denote different activities or qualities. 

We humans evolved our characteristics in environments which no longer exist as such. No doubt they served us well in those earlier environments, but the question then becomes "Are evolved human characteristics now best serving human ends in our modern, changed environments?"

We are most certainly flourishing in many cases, but not doing so well in others. Overall, with our explosive increases in population, you could say we are doing what we were evolved to do. But with looming climate change, that picture also changes dramatically. We are no longer adaptive in the long run.

What is good in one environment can be bad in others.

Not only that, considering common moral perspectives and not just our evolution, we are failing in the present in many ways. Our hypocrisy in this regard has become quite pronounced.