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Let's start with the question, are people fundamentally good or bad?

I'd say neither. People are not born good or bad. Only his actions, and even these are relative and shaded in gray.

Humans are just primarily self-serving, hedonistic creatures whose actions are based upon his needs to survive and acquire emotional,mental and physical satisfaction and pleasure. Animals are the same except they don't have the same form of higher intelligence. Hence all they do is survive and procreate and hang around. Same thing with plants. Lifeless objects are worse- all they do is chill. Humans have the intelligence to adapt to his surroundings and take whatever action required to make his life better as he sees fit. He's also smart enough to find the principles (sciences, maths etc) governing his environment and use it to his advantage. He is creative- he is able to create. Hence the advent of society and civilizations.

What is "good" or "bad" depends on what society as a whole has defined at a certain point of time. For example, in certain tribes, women go around with their breasts bared. In a different society, that may be considered sexually suggestive and labelled morally wrong. And in yet another society, they may be cool with it except that it's impractical due to the weather.

Therefore good and bad are both subjective. Killing a person may be bad, but it's good if you look from the point of view of, say, an iceberg. If everyone started to go on a killing binge, society would probably collapse, leading to the extinction of the human race, and preventing the greenhouse effect from taking hold, therefore the iceberg won't melt. Good for the iceberg's survival, but not for humans.

So a person does something good in order to serve his society and ensure his survival in it. Do something bad and he may be punished. Do good and he may be rewarded. Some people decide on one extreme, others the other extreme and the rest somewhere in the middle. Actions may not be outrightly good or bad, it may be neutral or some shade in between.

So how does he reach the decision to do something that is good or bad? It depends on how he has been shaped by his learning, surrounding environment, tradition and culture. All these of course were developed in the course of time in the society he lives, by both present and previous generations.

Genes also have play a role in shaping his "character", hence his reaction when a decision is required of him. If all it takes to shape a person's character is the effect of his conditioning, then it'd be possible to shape each person to conform to the society and hence create an utopian society where everyone lives in harmony (but they'd be no more than a bunch of robots with predictable actions).

However biological factors introduce an element of randomness into the equation. It causes people to behave differently in different degrees and to have different needs. What action will be taken by a person in a certain situation may sometimes be unpredictable and differ from others. The consequences from his action also cannot be predicted determinitiscally, but it will affect in varying degrees his life, the people around him and ultimately society and the course of history. Therefore society remains in a constant state of flux, which is why until today each society still have their own set of problems.

So, what are the implications ?

1. the purpose of a person's life is primarily to ensure his continued existence and fulfilling his needs - which are determined both environmentally and biologically. It is up to that person to create his own purpose- for example he may want to be like Mother Teresa and serve to improve the condition of his society.

2. sometimes you get what you want, sometimes you don't. you have the choice to pursue what you want, but not necessarily the freedom to do so because there may be obstacles to it. it's up to you if you want to go against the obstacle. some wants may be easily fulfilled, others almost impossible. the consequences of your action is not fully predictable, but they do have effect one way or another.

3. the meaning of life - this sentence ceases to make any sense. you can do whatever you want with it. for example, life is a game, life is acting on a stage, the meaning of life is whatever meaning we give to it, life need not have any meaning etc.

4. as mentioned above, we are not able to control our genes. yet. but with the advances in genetics engineering, this may become very possible. that'll add a powerful tool to our portfolio as creator- we can literally become our own "god". Will society then become an utopian haven? Need to think more about that. I have to go fulfill my physical need of eating first since it's now time for DINNER.

***disclaimer: this is only my agnostic opinion.

.: Leftnwrite - 4/11/2002 :.

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