by Lot Grundy

Created on: January 20, 2009

I answered no because I cannot accept a universal human nature. If we have a universal nature then all humanity could be seen on a continuum - from those who are developed to those who are primitive. This is unacceptable for someone who will not also accept eugenics as a method to promote goodness in the world. I say this because we are all so different, so some will exhibit whatever standard of 'good' the rule makers decide upon more than others. These people will be seen as more inherently good than the others. If humans have no universal nature then they cannot be inherently good or evil or selfish or superior or inferior - and so racism has no base.

Another problem for the argument that people are inherently good is that one would need an objective standard of good. Some, upon hearing this, would clap their hands together and advocate a God from whom flows the knowledge of 'the good' for all who have faith in Him. This would, of course, mean that God is inherently good - not people.

But let's dig further, assume that humans are only good when in relationship with God; assume that the god-relationship somehow activates the inherent goodness of a person. We would then need to ignore the high correlation between those with fanatical religious tendencies and those who are also sociopaths or narcissists. We would need to ignore the high incidence of child abuse within closed religious communities - by those very people supposedly more deeply related to God; the priests or elders. We would need to ignore the noble agnostics and atheists who have commited praiseworthy deeds - deeds rendered amoral at best by the assumption that goodness only flows from a God relationship.

Soren Kierkegaard wrote of the power of a god-relationship to infinitely nourish and challenge us. But what he understood to be a god-relationship could instead be seen as the very essence of philosophy - the love of wisdom, from which we can have no secrets. To advocate accepted wisdom without challenging it is easy and requires no love for wisdom itself. To claim to know God and to act in his name requires nothing more than reading and encouragement - no love of wisdom or goodness - just subordination and complicity. It is these things that are easiest for every person - it is easy to follow a route, it is easy to repeat what you are told is right and wrong and leave it at that - but just because it is easy for us tells us nothing about what is inherently human. What is easy is easy mainly because of its own nature and less because of the nature of the person doing it.

If we take a love of wisdom as a requirement to be good, define wisdom as the challenger of all thoughts, statements, actions and assumptions, then it is clear to any sentient being that people are not inherently good. I have presented a secular version of an interpretation of Kierkegaard in order to annul any faith based controversy (God/wisdom - love of either leads the same way) and I have shown the very idea of inherent goodness to be unworthy of a cultured human, due to its divisive undertones.

Feedback would be welcome.

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