Human Nature

[Belacqua]

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.

You're right, I would never want to say that "we evolved that way" equals "and therefore it's good." 

At some point we did evolve the ability to reflect on our actions, at least a little. I mean to some extent we can understand that it's good to control our urges, natural as they are. At least in theory we know that spreading one's DNA around as much as possible isn't the recipe for a good society.

And if we did evolve this reasoning ability, then it's also natural. A part of human nature. So we can't say that human nature is ALL bad. Only that it contains contradictions and opposing forces within ourselves which, at best, we can manage rather than overcome. 

But of course you're right about the hypocrisy -- our reasoning ability often seems strongest when we're inventing justifications for what we wanted to do anyway. 

I suppose there is a never-ending debate about what constitutes "flourishing," under 21st century conditions. Surely there is a part of human nature which makes it normal to care for the weak, or feel empathy for the unfortunate -- at least to some extent. Although these things are shockingly easy to switch off. I still think that these better parts of our nature could be encouraged under different economic conditions. 

Particularly, I wonder about a sort of automatic adversarial mindset that one sees so often. Like, people will say that not only is my tribe best for me, but all the others must be defeated. How deeply is this ingrained in humanity, I wonder?