Are Humans Inherently Good, Bad, or Selfish?

Many thinkers have argued over whether humans are inherently good or bad, yet I believe myself to have come to the conclusion that we are neither. Instead, we are merely selfish, and whether that manifests as good or bad depends on one’s psychology. To clarify, however, it is best that I first define what I mean in saying that we are selfish, as well as my reasoning behind such a conclusion.

Selfish is generally defined as putting oneself above others, and often in a malevolent and narcissistic manner. Although my definition is similar, I do not look at it through the lens that narcissistic and malevolent qualities would necessarily arise. We do act in our self-interest, but we do so in a much broader manner than is generally considered. In other words, we are not a malevolent whole of selfish parts, but rather a selfish whole of mixed parts. We may, in specific circumstances, place others above ourselves, but not if there is no reward for our risks and our efforts. There must be some advantage, be it in regards to our social circle, our career, our sense of meaning, or, indeed, our malevolent narcissism.

This ultimately makes much sense, especially when examined through a biological lens. Our priority is to survive and reproduce. When living in individual family units, we would do anything necessary to save ourselves or our children (that’s the only way we still exist). This isn’t quite as obvious today, and it may seem that we have evolved beyond it, but our evolution has really only lay in expanding beyond the family unit. Once we joined together in tribes – with the intent of increasing our overall strength and thus our chances of survival – anything would now be done to ensure the survival of our tribe. This could be from both within – through social cohesion and order – and without – through dominating over other tribes, and protecting ourselves. We have now evolved to the stage where there is minimal need to worry about the outside, and much more need to worry about the inside (this is due to increased societal complexity, interconnectedness, and size). As a result, selfishness is much less obvious, and much more of a general arc that can only be clearly recognised – in most cases – through careful analysis.

Of course, this form of selfishness is also very evidently far from malevolent, and in fact greatly productive to society at large, as well as the individual. Our selfishness ensures that society continues to be sustained, and even improved (as the order it provides is far better than the potential mayhem that could arise), while also ensuring that we take care of ourselves individually in dire situations. Nevertheless, malevolence and unjustified mayhem does exist, and there is clearly a cause for this. What is it? It seems that this is due to what one may call a psychological misalignment. For instance, a sadist – which is neither common nor desirable – finds pleasure in the pain of others, and to act in sadistic self-interest is to go out of your way to bring suffering to other individuals, as well as society at large. Or, if you are a narcissistic psychopath – again neither common (although not necessarily rare) nor desirable – you lack the inclination to look beyond both yourself and the immediate circumstances, something clearly destructive to society. This is what breeds evil, and the opposite is what breeds good, yet, fundamentally, we are neither good nor bad, but selfish.