ARE HUMANS INHERENTLY GOOD OR BAD??

A while ago, I read a post that stated “if you can’t be good without the promise of heaven or the threat of hell, then you are evil”. This got me thinking about the concept of virtue and how it is played out in human societies.

Virtue is essentially conforming to standards or to a level of morality. In most societies, being virtuous is desirable but the definition of virtue varies from one society to another, making it hard to pin down what constitutes true morality. For the sake of this piece, we will stick to the generally acceptable fundamentals of what that is.

When athletes run, they do so to get a prize. When students read, they do so to get good grades. Would an athlete be considered fake because he runs with the medal in mind? And if prizes were given to every student in a class, imagine what a school that would be.

If we remove law, order and consequences from our ‘civilised’ societies, we immediately become aware of how uncivil people can be if indulged. Unhinged, you will be surprised what you would get up to when excited, provoked, in love or even bored.

Also, devoid of something to aspire to (both psychological and celestial), the human condition becomes less compelling and a drag. Imagine Heaven as the best possible scenario of your future and hell as all your bad traits overtaking you in the future, that is motivation enough, not just because you have it in yourself to be conscientious. Religion (as divisive as it can be), is an important tool, in that it points the direction to an ideal and implores followers to strive for it.

It is easy to say “do better”, “be better” because we are Enlighted and educated or better still woke. We know that we are all capable of evil and have sides to us that we keep at bay; from the public and frankly, from ourselves. But the fact that there is a universal reward system that ensures you eat the fruit of your deeds helps us to think twice before we do things.

To be honest, the world we live in is reward-based. Living solely for the reward is also not advisable, because the person we become on the journey is as important as the reward. But taking away the reward makes the journey worthless.

To the question of humans being either inherently good or bad. Just as our earthly existence is marked by day and night, so are humans good and bad. It is never in equal proportions. On some days more good, and more bad on others. But the promise of repercussion or retribution keeps our excesses at bay.

So instead of asking humans to be good for the sake of it, it is better to call on everyone to find something that compels them enough to live above the darkness within them.

Because, frankly, anything better than evil, is progress…