[ SECRET POST #3434 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3434 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 48 secrets from Secret Submission Post #491.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Lots of people think that some people are fundamentally evil.

Do you think some people are fundamentally good?

Only one or the other? Why? What makes someone fundamentally either of those things?

[(Anonymous)]

"Goodness" and "badness" are qualities belong to actions, not to agents.

[(Anonymous)]

OP

FTR I have no opinion on this, I want to see what people have to say.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh sure, sure, I was just giving my answer: I don't think it makes sense to talk about people being either fundamentally bad or good.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with this distinction.

[diet_poison]

Agreed to an extent.

I might call someone a "good person" but if I do it's because I think that's defined by their actions, though I think some people have more of a natural tendency to do good or bad things (as I'd define them, or as you might define them by being positive or negative/destructive to society/the people in their lives) we all make choices about what we do and even if some of those choices become habit or feel like easy choices to make, they are still choices. But choices also help to define people, so it can be accurate to call someone a good/bad person based on that. Not that that's set in stone - you could make choices later that change that definition.

[(Anonymous)]

Eh. I mean, in common parlance, of course people use language in all kinds of ways, and I'm not trying to close off anyone's right to moral condemnation. But I think talking about it in that way is always going to be inaccurate.

[herpymcderp]

I don't think anyone is fundamentally anything. That implies there's some kind of on and off switch for a person's social behaviour that's biological, and therefore genetic.

The field of neuroscience doesn't know of a single behaviour that is completely genetic in origin. As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't exist.

A person can certainly be predisposed to certain things (e.g. antisocial behaviour, altruistic behaviour), but that doesn't mean they will automatically engage in a course of action that corresponds to that predisposition. Even at the base level of arguing whether free will exists (and there are good arguments for free will NOT existing), the counterargument is that free won't is something you encounter every day. As an extreme example free won't, it's often pointed out that people have starved themselves to death in political protests; if a person is capable of withholding the most basic needs in order to accomplish an intangible goal, then the ability to consciously control abstain from an action is possible.

So as far as the argument goes for someone being fundamentally something... no. No matter one's biology, all behaviour is subject to motivation, experience, and learning. If someone engages in something universally considered "good" or "evil" it is because they had sufficient motivation, experience, and learning to go forward with that course of action.

[(Anonymous)]

That implies there's some kind of on and off switch for a person's social behaviour that's biological, and therefore genetic.
</>

I don't disagree with your broader argument, but I'm not sure I follow what you mean by this.

[herpymcderp]

...Pretty common line of reasoning in the structuralist view of neuroscience: all behaviour has a biological basis (i.e. the brain), and all biology has a basis in genetics. The concept usually gets referred to as "biological determinism".

If someone were to be "fundamentally" something, it would mean that whatever they are is rooted in biology and can't be changed.

This, of course, is a demonstrable fallacy even from a genetics standpoint since epigenetics investigations prove that even genes aren't a static "blueprint": rather, their expression (even in the brain!) is effected by environment, learning, and experience.

[kallanda_lee]

I think the majority of people tend more towards good or neutral than towards bad, as a default - but everyone has good and bad sides, and I don(t think humans are fundamentally one or the other.

I also think that, given the right messed-up circumstances, most of us are capable of killing (though take no pleasure from it).

[(Anonymous)]

+1 to everything you said

[(Anonymous)]

Good and bad are too subjective for there to be an answer to this question. My grandmother was a good woman who would give you the shirt off her back, and then knit you a new sweater to go with it. She raised her grandkids and half the neighborhood kids got fed dinner at her house. If she had a dollar and you needed it, it was yours.

She was also racist and homophobic. A product of her time, but not considered "good" nowadays...

[(Anonymous)]

Sociopaths are fundamentally evil. Yes, it's a mental impairment, but the result is essentially evil: Self interest to the point that one has no regard for anyone else.

[(Anonymous)]

If you believe that, is there any abnormality that makes someone fundamentally good?

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think that's factually correct as an analysis of sociopathy, and I think it's also a fucked-up way to talk in general.

[herpymcderp]

No, they're not. Your pop culture definition of what it means to be antisocial is incomplete and incorrect. What they are is fundamentally terrible at empathy, to the point of being unable to distinguish emotional distress in other people.

True sociopathy is a form of face-blindness, essentially. It doesn't mean they're incapable of caring about other people or incapable of wanting to be good people, it means they're people who often just can't tell if someone else is experiencing emotional pain.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, no. This is a basic misunderstanding of what sociopathy means. Sociopaths might lack empathy, but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll behave evilly toward others. Many of them are jerks, this is true. But plenty of sociopaths understand that while they may not feel the same regard for other people that non-sociopaths do, it still behooves them to NOT act like an evil asshole. Some of them struggle to make up for their inherent deficiency, much like people with Aspergers struggle to find coping mechanisms so they don't end up social outcasts.

[(Anonymous)]

People like to say that only actions can be evil/not evil, but I think that if you do enough evil actions and your ego becomes invested in them, in justifying them and justifying yourself, you can eventually become evil.

[(Anonymous)]

A characterization of the outputs of a system is not a characterization of the system.

[(Anonymous)]

We're not talking about systems, we're talking about people. You are imagining that people somehow stay aloof from the things they do and aren't changed by them, especially the things they do again and again.

[(Anonymous)]

People are systems. People don't stay aloof from the things that they do, they are changed by them, but that's still a change in the tendency of a system. You can talk about a system in terms of its tendency to produce specific outcomes - but it's still probablistic, not definite or mechanistic.

I think most people are fundamentally neutral.

[(Anonymous)]

And the choices they make and the actions they take and the intentions behind those actions can be good or evil or, again, neutral.