Why some humans are so evil: double standards and irreligion

[Catholic_Lady]

I certainly think that people can be heavily influenced by their circumstances. The examples he gives sure illustrate that. I just don't think we're defined by them. Otherwise literally nothing would have ever changed for the better. There would be no hope for progress or improvement or advancement. And I think we can all agree that humanity has advanced since the first step of our species.

Yeah, that makes sense. And maybe that's where the inherent desire for good comes in. Or empathy. Whatever you wanna call it lol.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I'm not a terrorist because I fear a lord. Fear a day of judgement.

I'm not a terrorist because I'm not an asshole. Do you really need a sky daddy to punish you to keep you from being an asshole. 

Yes, you do.

[henryp]

I certainly think that people can be heavily influenced by their circumstances.  The examples he gives sure illustrate that.  I just don't think we're defined by them.  Otherwise literally nothing would have ever changed for the better.  There would be no hope for progress or improvement or advancement.  And I think we can all agree that humanity has advanced since the first step of our species.

Progress/improvement/advancement is a product of self-interest.  Both on the personal level, and on the societal level.  It is not a moral thing.  For example, slavery was progress at one time.  People were trying to do the work themselves, and they thought "This is hard and not working great."  And then someone came up with slavery.  And everybody was all "This is fucking amazing!  We should have owned another group of people a long time ago!"  Slavery was a very important step in the advancement of society.

[FatAndFaithless]

So in your opinion, no good thing humans have ever done, no advancement or progress ever made, was for moral reasons? Literally everything is in selfish self-interest and defined by material gains and holdings?

[henryp]

Wally, maybe it's the other way around? Instead of the default being that we are all bad except for if we have stuff, the default is actually to be good unless we were raised in extreme circumstances to be bad. Maybe these people who were born and raised in a broken society act that way because that's how they were treated and that's what they know, but the default would really have been to act like decent people?

I still stand by what I said that sometimes people really are just bad, no explanation. But I think when it comes to the overwhelming crimes against humanity in the broken parts of the world, most cases really are a matter of them just having been brought up that way.

I don't know... just kinda throwing my thoughts out there. You raise some interesting points.

I guess it depends on what you view as the 'normal' state.  What we have now has existed in this form for 20 years?  That may be a bit generous.  Does that mean the other 199,980 years of human society falls under the 'broken' label?

[Catholic_Lady]

I certainly think that people can be heavily influenced by their circumstances.  The examples he gives sure illustrate that.  I just don't think we're defined by them.  Otherwise literally nothing would have ever changed for the better.  There would be no hope for progress or improvement or advancement.  And I think we can all agree that humanity has advanced since the first step of our species.

Progress/improvement/advancement is a product of self-interest.  Both on the personal level, and on the societal level.  It is not a moral thing.  For example, slavery was progress at one time.  People were trying to do the work themselves, and they thought "This is hard and not working great."  And then someone came up with slavery.  And everybody was all "This is fucking amazing!  We should have owned another group of people a long time ago!"  Slavery was a very important step in the advancement of society.

But how do you explain the fact that there was still a need to justify it morally?

[The Grand Nudger]

We've been pretty decent folks the entire time.  That;s what makes those big flashy examples of "evil" remarkable in the first place, they're a break from the norm - not the norm. We've gotten up to more shit, recently, than we did in the 40 or 50k years preceding, honestly. Today is not an example of relative peace for humanity n the larger view of our species time here (even if it is compared to more recent history). Today is an example of unbearable inequality and resource scarcity.

[Catholic_Lady]

To add, no one is saying that people are not always in inner conflict with their desire to do good, and their desire to help themselves selfishly. That inner conflict does exist. But to say the latter is always dominant in all of humanity is where we differ.

[henryp]

So in your opinion, no good thing humans have ever done, no advancement or progress ever made, was for moral reasons?  Literally everything is in selfish self-interest and defined by material gains and holdings?

I think selfish self-interest (and tribal-interest) and material gains and holdings are very much a primary driving force.    Is it so odd?  Is that not the 'law of the jungle' so to speak?

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Progress/improvement/advancement is a product of self-interest.  Both on the personal level, and on the societal level.  It is not a moral thing.  For example, slavery was progress at one time.  People were trying to do the work themselves, and they thought "This is hard and not working great."  And then someone came up with slavery.  And everybody was all "This is fucking amazing!  We should have owned another group of people a long time ago!"  Slavery was a very important step in the advancement of society.

But how do you explain the fact that there was still a need to justify it morally?

I think people need societal norms to adhere to.  I think that's important for a society to hold together, for it to have rules/laws.  So the justification is necessary to maintain the rules/laws.  You can't own people.  But we want to own these people.  Well we can't say anyone can own anyone, because I don't want to get owned.  Well, let's just say you can own black people because they aren't human.  I'd also add that because morality/law are intertwined, and people are taught they should be good, they want a way to frame themselves as good/follow the law.  But if they really wanted to be good, would we have had slavery and all the other stuff? 

It's always tricky trying to separate practicality and morality.  Like you say with Catholic doctrine, most of it is rooted in natural law.  So even if the church wasn't there to say it was right, it'd still be practical/common sense in many cases.  The flaw being that it's common sense from the perspective of all humanity, whereas usually laws are more geared towards helping a specific group of humans rather than all of them.

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My favorite modern example, is music. Look what happened when we were able to steal it off the internet instead of buy it. They had to change the whole industry.

We're seeing the same thing with tv/movies now as well even though it's 2018 and we're all in a non-broken society. You can steal it, and there are no consequences. So people steal it.

[downbeatplumb]

Why are some humans this evil?

Usually because of some fucking god or other such primitive shit.

Evil people will do evil things but for a good person to do evil takes a strong idea and religion fits the bill.