Do you believe in bad people?

It's a man made concept perceived through the mind, so consciously, it does exist.

 

I definitely do, some people are just evil and out to get every one and go out of their way for it.

 

In our minds, yes. As I said, though, objectively there is no such thing. You have to arbitrarily define what you consider to be "good" and "bad" or else bad people cannot exist as they are an undefined entity.

Additional layers of complexity become apparent after you define "good" and "bad" as well. You might consider someone to be bad in some regards yet good in others. Consider Gollum from the Tolkien universe for example: he was not in the context of the books, wholly evil.

I truthfully find the concept is a bit ambiguous. We cannot be too eager to judge others.

 

I know a few people who are just evil. No they did not have bad experiences, i grew up with them - they are acknowledging to taking this path. They are people who scam others. In a gangster way since their teens.

Yes, there are just people who can be given the title: evil.

 

I'm on the fence with this one. Are we not born with a sense of morality?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1275892/Were-born-moral-Babies-tell-good-evil-months.html

I believe good and bad are equivocal concepts, shown and made in many different techniques to maintain order. This concept doesn't only pertain to humans, but to all animals.

We have instincts to avoid death, which means the prolonging of our life is necessary the day we are born. Would you consider death good?

There are repercussions for violating code that's embedded in all animals, no?

If you believe in dichotomy, then you believe there is a contradictory to bad, which is good. If death is good, why do we live?

 

Anyone who takes the life of another human being is evil in my eyes.

 

What is good and bad is opinion. If I think raping children (I do it everyday on cod anyway, sorry had to) is a "good" idea, wouldn't that make me a "good" person in my own eyes? If I thought donating to charity was something "bad" people did, wouldn't that make people who did it "bad" in my eyes?

Anyway, there is such thing as good and bad, but it's like talking about morality. It's something that could be argued all day by the two smartest people on earth, both with opinions conflicting each others, and still both of them be correct.

Anyway those are just my thoughts, I could be wrong.

 

I'd say this is the true in a lot of cases. I don't believe that anyone can be 100% good, everyone has their weak moments I think. Sometimes it's just tiny things but perhaps some people have it more than others. I guess a good way to put it is that everyone is different and has their own ethics which they live life by. Something that can be morally acceptable for one, can be a no-go for another.

 

I don't think this is true. I believe that there is a universal moral law that all human beings are subject to, meaning that we can define "good" and "bad", because we expect others to abide by this standard. For instance, I don't think you could argue that something like slavery is acceptable in any capacity.

True, "bad" people and their actions may be understandable or even justifiable given circumstances, but this doesn't change the fact that they are "bad."

 

On the contrary, slavery was perfectly acceptable in our forefathers' generations. Time and a deal of influential people have made all the difference to that mentality, but nevertheless slavery was once commonplace and supposedly good people often had slaves of their own.

We as humans define "good" and "bad". It is subjective, not objective, no matter how you put it. Even if everyone in the world agreed with you, it would still be subjective.

Allow me to take it to a new context for a minute. When you (as in hypothetical, not literally you) go overseas, particularly to countries COMPLETELY different to yours, such as the middle east or south east Asia, you may consider parts of their culture to be inherently strange, wrong or just bad. You may even be driven to attempt to change their culture to suit yours. The thing is, while you may have a righteous agenda, they will not see it that way and in turn you would be considered "bad". This was observable during the expansion of the British empire when American, Australian and Indian natives were subjugated in the name of "civilised people". It is literally something that happens and is a prime example of how morals and standards can clash between people.

There is no universal code. There is no objective definition. Sure, the majority of people may consider killing bad, but in times past killing was used as sport and entertainment (for example, gladiators). I could go on with numerous examples but I don't think I can make the point much clearer: if you think something is bad, it is because you have defined it to be so.

 

This is not a subjective theorem, it is cultural and historical.

 

It is though; culture and history are what teach us to believe something is right or wrong. It is this very act which subjects us to these definitions, and it shows us that these definitions are not globally accepted.

 

Just because something was acceptable in the past does not mean it was good. Or are you seriously trying to say that slavery was a good thing? Also, by what metric are you qualifying those people as "good"?

If there is no objective definition of good and bad then we cannot say that there has been any moral progress from past civilizations/peoples (because then one set of moral values is not inherently better than another). But this is conceivably not true. Why then would we prefer "civilized" morality over "savage" morality?

Do you think that people randomly woke up one day and arbitrarily decided that something like slavery was bad and should be made illegal? Or was it not a moral statement - that the idea of denegrating humans as property is not an act of pure, absolute evil - hard fought by reformers who understood this universal moral law better than their contemporaries did?

 

My point is lost on you then. You're still keeping a subjective scope when I am talking objectively. What I was saying was, there WAS a time when SUPPOSEDLY good people throughout history would have kept slaves. I did not apply any personal subjective metrics to such people or such actions, however reading through a history book one might see what I mean.

Objectively, no we can't. An objective fact is, for example, that wood is different in composition from rock (wood being mainly carbon polymer based while rocks are based on heavy metals and minerals). No matter how you attempt to look at it, that will be the case. Morality on the other hand is subject to each individual (for example, those who are for gay marriage vs those who are not).

Subjectively, there has been a HUGE difference. However, objectively, the only real way to look at it is that there has been change - good or bad, that's up to the individual. You're pretty much missing the point of what I'm saying, so perhaps these definitions will help:

You are making purely SUBJECTIVE arguments. What is "good" to you is not NECESSARILY good for other people, and vice versa.

Edit: allow me to make a more modern example. Most people seem to consider the KKK, the Westboro Baptist Church etc. to be, for lack of a better description, "evil" associations. Yet, if you look at it from their point of view, WE are the evil ones. Literally, the morality is dependant on which "side of the line" you are on. Were you raised in to either of those cults, you would likely have similar views as them ergo you would have VASTLY different morals. Because our morals as humans are so fluid, the only logical conclusion is that they are purely subjective.

 

If you are talking objectively then by what objective standard do you suppose these people as being good?

I don't understand the argument you're making here. If I were raised with the belief that 2+2=5, no matter how firmly I believed that to be truth, it does not change the fact that it is not truth, that 2+2!=5. Likewise, believing that one's own actions are good does not change the fact that they may not be good when sized up with a universal moral standard.

 

tldr some people are simply better then others. inferiors tend to degrade fast and drag people around them down as well which is where social isolation kicks in.

 

I believe in Thomas Hobbes's view of state of nature. Humans are inherently good people, it is the social contract that creates problems such as inequality that lead to evil actions.

 

Pleasure and suffering are objectively defined. For example, the act of slavery is objectively bad because it causes suffering to those who experience it first hand. The end product of it could be considered good as slavery was mostly used for agriculture development which lead to the pleasure of other humans. Culture and history isn't solely projected to teach us what is good or bad, but for us to acknowledge the past to get an understanding of x and y, and why it became so. You mentioned earlier on that there is no such thing as good and bad. Here is a quote that may sway you otherwise.

 

I think harming a person without good cause makes someone a bad person because harm is a bad thing. I don't think all people would turn out bad if they were subjected to the same experiences as those who are bad are. Personality seems to be an important part of how we react to our circumstances, and while it is certainly influenced by our experiences I think it's pretty clear that some of it is just how the person is.

There is a difference between something being objectively bad for humans and objectively bad. Obviously we cannot assert that our ethics apply independently of humans. But I don't think this dismisses the meaning of something being objective for us. Now clearly one may deny the existence/role of a doctrine of ethics, but I think our natural response would be to view these kinds of people as degenerates, or as exceptions to the common humanity (the same way some people are cognitively deficient, or physically deficient, some people are merely psychopaths). Insofar as a person engages the concept of morality, and therefore opens himself up to a doctrine of ethics, I think an objective ethics can be developed through usage of reason. It's not a problem that societies adhere to different codes of ethics. Inevitably some groups are going to fail to properly reason through morality, or perhaps the ethical has been mixed up with political motives. Honestly it's very likely that no society has perfectly encapsulated morality, but I don't view this as a problem for objective goodness - simply because we can still arrive at it through reason and adjust our conduct accordingly.

If my memory serves me correctly from high school, didn't Hobbes view the state of nature as intolerable (the famous quote, "nasty, brutish and short.")? Wouldn't this support the view that humans are inherently bad?

 

I believe circumstances corrupt some people. Upbringing is ever so important.