Thesis #5: Humans are neither good nor evil

• August 2, 2005 by Jason Godesky

Are humans essentially good, or essentially evil? This is one of the most basic, perennial questions in philosophy. Many identify our individual answers to this question as determing our political spectrum–conservatives believe humans are inherently evil, and require strict rules to make them good, while liberals believe humans are inherently good, and must simply be free to act on such goodness. Both positions are unrealistic. Humans are products of evolution, and evolution is unconcerned with such abstractions as “good” or “evil.” As Aristotle said, humans are social animals. We are neither “good” nor “evil.” We are only inherently social.

From the beginning of our civilization, our vision of ourselves has suffered from a sort of schizophrenia, pulled between these two unrealistic poles of good and evil. Plato posited that we each had an angelic spirit in our mind, and a bestial demon in our belly, with all our actions, emotions, and passions torn between them. This provides a foreshadowing of Descartes’ dualism, which remains a powerful idiom today, even though modern medicine has conclusively proven the strong interdependence of mind and body. Though I doubt it was a conscious modeling, it would be a mistake to overlook the obvious philosophical heritage this provides to Freud’s formulation of the id, ego and superego. This dichotomy was only made more severe by the influence of Zoroastrianism. Once adopted by Judaism prior to the splintering of Christianity, and later Islam, this vision of the universe at war between good and evil was combined with the ancient Greek concept of macrocosm and microcosm to only further this “bizarre superstition.”¹ Even Jesus makes reference to this idea in the gospels with, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:41) In this vision, humanity itself is neither good nor evil, but only because each individual human is a spiritual battleground between the two. It is a vision of human nature that is not inherently good, nor inherently evil, but instead, inherently schizophrenic. Though widely accepted, it is a rather crude attempt to reconcile “the better angels of our nature” with the ugly facts of our history. Descartes’ dualism, once fundamental to the early practice of medical science, has since become an impediment. Neurology, psychiatry and biopsychology have all highlighted how closely knit the mind and the body are. In fact, any separation is now recognized as utterly lacking in any basis in reality.

Another concept, equally ancient, dismisses such ambivalence by simply claiming that humans are inherently evil. Perhaps the earliest formulation of this came from Plato, who argued that men act ethically only for fear of punishment. This sits well with the concept of “original sin” we find in the Abrahamic traditions. In Christianity, the inherent sinfulness of humanity necessitated the sacrifice of Christ, and subsequently, obedience to Holy Mother Church. On the other side, it is argued that altruism is an illusion, because every seemingly altruistic act is motivated by some selfish desire, even if it is only a desire for a feeling of self-fulfillment. Dawkins’ central thesis in The Selfish Gene is an argument grounding this concept in biology: that altruism arises as a genetic strategy of propogating itself.

This vision of humanity found its ultimate fulfillment in the work of Thomas Hobbes. “*Bellum omnium contra omnes*“–Hobbes’ “war of all, against all”–was the first word on the “state of nature.” It was a hypothetical then, a possible time when humans may have existed without government. Philosophers were only beginning to consider the possibility of the scientific method, and Hobbes was a strong proponent of the superiority of philosophical thought experiments. Anthropological data was only beginning, and even what little there was, was generally of the form of imperial apologia, describing the horror of barbaric pagan ways, and how desperately they needed the salvation of Christendom and European civilization. Hobbes’ “state of nature” owed much to the Christian conept of the inherent sinfulness of humanity, and much to the trauma of his own childhood. His mother went into labor prematurely when she became panic-stricken with news of the Spanish Armada’s approach, leading Hobbes to later remark, “Fear and I were born twins.” The individual human in the “state of nature” was, in Hobbes’ philosophy, a solitary predator whose cruelty was matched only by his cowardice. The result of such “anarchy,” in the traditional, pejorative sense of the word, was a life that was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

This idea of human nature is more often associated with the right side of the political spectrum. It argues that humanity is inherently evil, and that a just society is only possible when humans are compelled to act justly by the threat of force. This idea underlies our concepts of law, justice, and punishment at a very basic level. One might consider rhetoric of “deterrance” as a euphemism for this philosophy of terrorizing others into compliance. Hobbes is a powerful underlying current in the philosophy of the neoconservatives.

In counterpoint to this is the view that humans are inherently good. We might find faint echoes of this in Abrahamic mythology of humanity as the “crown of creation,” but Christianity has traditionally emphasized the fallen nature of humanity, over its exalted nature. The concept that human nature is essentially good is much more modern, finding its roots primarily in the changing strategies of colonial apologia in the 1600s and 1700s.

Where Hobbes’ “state of nature” was supported by the tales of cruel heathens and their primitive ways, with the obvious call to colonize those lands and save the savages by giving them Christ’s redemption and civilization’s benefits, by the time of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, imperial apologists had turned to a different strategy. Evoking the imagery of an Edenic existence, they wove a myth of the “Noble Savage.” The term “noble savage” first appeared in English with John Dryden in 1672, though it originated earlier, in 1609, with Lescarbot’s Histoire de la Nouvelle France. Lescarbot noted that among the Mi’kmaq, everyone was allowed to hunt–an activity enjoyed only by Europe’s nobility. This led Lescarbot to remark that “the Savages are truly noble,” thus referring to nobility of birth, rather than nobility of character. However, to trace the etymology of a popular phrase is a very different problem from the history of that idea it expresses. In this new form of apologia, indigenous peoples are presented as innocent, unspoiled by civilization. They are innocent, honest, healthy, moral people living in harmony with nature and one another. The savage is like the child, innocent of the “real world” and all its concomitant iniquities. And just as children must be protected by their parents, so too must these innocent savages be protected by more mature, worldly European powers.

In The Myth of the Noble Savage, Ter Ellingson argues that the myth of the noble savage was never widely believed–a straw man made to be universally debunked. She points to the racist work of John Crawfurd in 1859 popularizing the concept, attributing it to Rousseau to give it intellectual weight. I haven’t read Ellingson’s account, so I can’t speak much to it except that it seems to contradict the entire body of Romantic thought. Though Crawfurd may have been the first to introduce the racist messages of the “Noble Savage” myth of “ein Volk, ein Land,” the two ideas have become inextricably linked in Romantic philosophy. It became a primary basis for Nazi ideology in the 1920s.

Yet, these ideas contradict Rousseau’s own argument in many ways. The myth of the “Noble Savage” states that savages are innately good because of their race. Rousseau argues that all humans are innately good, regardless of race, and that we are “corrupted” by civilization.

This myth has been thoroughly debunked by writers, philosophers and anthropologists, who highlight the darker side of “savage” life. In War Before Civilization, Lawrence Keeley highlights the violence of Neolithic and horticultural “primitives,” and shows that, per capita, they experience more violent casualties from war than civilizations do. Another favorite criticism is the “overkill theory,” but this particular argument is deeply flawed: though humans were no doubt involved in the extinction of the megafauna, our contribution was likely no greater than any other alpha predator would have made. Tribal societies suffer from the same ethnocentrism as all other human societies. Tribal societies are not idyllic utopias, and their members are not angels. In the “state of nature,” humans are not always and invariable “good.” These arguments are sufficient to prove Rousseau wrong about the essential nature of our species.

If, then, Hobbes is wrong to project his own fear to the entire species, and Rousseau is wrong to project his idealism the same way, where does that leave the truth of who we are? If we are neither good nor evil, what are we? What manner of creature has evolution created in us?

In my study, I have identified several characteristics that I would call the essential hallmarks of “human nature.” If I had to sum them up into a single, pithy slogan, I would take Aristotle’s: humans are social animals.

1. Society. Humans are social animals. In rare and extraordinary circumstances, in areas barely fit for human habitation, there have been collapses of even the simplest forager societies, such as among the Ik. This is an exceptional extreme of social collapse. In general, humans need some sort of society to survive.
2. Culture. Culture is not unique to humans, but we have certainly emphasized it to an unprecedented degree. Our brains are hard-wired to receive culture. The acculturation process can stir us as powerfully as genetic impulses. This is highlighted as simply as the old (useless) debate on “nature versus nurture.” To consider an analogue from the world of technology, Herbert Simon helped write the General Problem Solver (GPS) in 1957. Prior to this, programs were written to solve specific problems. This was perhaps the first instance of a more generalized approach: the GPS could be fed information on specific problems, and then solve them. It is the difference between a machine that is hard-wired to do a specific task, and a machine that can be programmed to do any number of tasks. This is the difference culture makes; it allows for another layer, and gives humans an adaptive edge. It also means that we have much less of an essential “nature” than other animals, since we more closely resemble Rousseau’s “tabula rosa.”²
3. Egalitarianism. There are ambiguously gendered humans. This in itself shows a degree of sexual dimorphism among the lowest in the entire animal kingdom. Males are not significantly larger than females, and morphological differences are minimal, particularly when compared to many of our closest primate cousins. Male baboons are three times the size of females, and mandrill males sport distinctive coloring that make them almost look like an entirely different species. Sexual dimorphism throughout the animal kingdom is correlated with gender equality. Emperor penguins have as little sexual dimorphism as we, and they split child-rearing responsibilities evenly. This physical evidence strongly suggests that gender equality is part of human nature. Egalitarianism in general is supported by a total lack of evidence for any form of hierarchy in our species, except in cases of exceptional abundance and surplus (that is, after the Neolithic, except for the singular exceptions of the Kwakiutl and the burial sites of Sungir). This is further corroborated by the universality of egalitarianism among modern foragers. Even in hierarchical societies, in all times and places, there is a universal aspiration towards more egalitarian forms of society–even where population pressure and complexity will not allow for egalitarianism. Thus, it seems that we should consider egalitarianism part of human nature.
4. Technology. The genus Homo suffers from one of the most ridiculous distinctions in all of biology, thanks to the powerful force of anthropocentrism: we are defined by our tool use. Though other primitivist writers define themselves by a rejection of technology, even the most primitive societies use tools of some kind. Tool use, though, is a very different proposition from an almost messianic belief in the power of technology to save us from all problems. Technology is morally ambivalent, capable of good or evil depending on how it is used. Yet the creation and use of tools of some kind is a universal human trait, and one that figures prominently in our evolution. The creation of the first stone tools is strongly correlated to the exponential increases in cranial capacity that defines Homo habilis from Australopithecus afarensis. It is also strongly correlated to handedness (a rather unique quirk we possess in the animal kingdom), and another crucial aspect of human nature:
5. Language. Though humans are not unique in their use of an advanced and nuanced communication system, there is little that can compare to the complexity of human language. Much of the human brain is hard-wired to use some kind of language. There is a “universal grammar” born instinctively in every human child. All human societies have some kind of language. The implications of this are far-reaching, from abstract thought to Wittgenstein’s philosophies.
6. Story-telling. Australopithecines were almost certainly scavengers, competing in the African savanna–an environment where the emergence of “super-predators” had given rise to one of the most competitive ecosystems in the history of the planet. They could hardly compete with some of the other scavengers, such as hyenas and vultures, and so developed tools to get to a kill site first, grab the meat, and get out before other scavengers arrived. As tool use became more sophisticated, early humans began to hunt for themselves. This innovation required a range of skills, including story telling. Tracking has a great deal to do with weaving a story. The tracks, scat and other signs are, themselves, meaningless, unless one can weave that evidence into a narrative of the animal’s state, size and progression. This combines with human’s capacity for language and abstract thought to create a creature that tells stories. Scientific explanations of the Big Bang and evolution are as much stories as ancient myths and legends. Any narrative that links elements in a linear, causal line is a story. This article is a story. What does this say to the essential question of whether humans are “good” or “evil”? Nothing. Humans are neither. We are not good, we are not evil, and we are not torn between the two. There are characteristics of human nature, but none of those characteristics can truly be called “good” or “evil.” We are what we are, and nothing more. We live more easily, and more fully, when we work with that rather than against it. That nature, though, is neither “good” nor “evil”–it simply is.

Footnotes