Human Nature

[Tommy Wiseau]

Something that came up in a recent conversation about the global financial system and the immorality which can be attributed to the pursuit of money:

 

Philosophy has been torn for hundreds/thousands of years on whether the human race is essentially selfish, greedy and cruel, or whether we are inherently good and just misguided by states, rulers or circumstance.

 

We've done a hell of a lot of pretty vile things as a species; some intentional (over 800,000 Tutsis and Hutus murdered in 1994, enslaving Africans and shipping them to America to do back-breaking work expanding Empires, the Cambodian genocide by the Khmer Rouge etc), some not so much (the industrial revolution inadvertently causing environmental damage on a huge scale etc), but we've also done a lot of good as well.

 

So what are we? As a species, is our nature inherently moral, immoral or just amoral? Are we more Gary Cooper in High Noon, Jack Palance in Shane, or everyone in Unforgiven?

 

Oh, and

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BlKDXmdiUQ

 

[tian447]

Morals are an entirely human invented concept. No other species seems to have a code of ethics. Think about it, if no one was going to judge you for a decision, you would do the thing that suits your own outcome best. Laws are in place to prevent this kind of thing. If we, as a species, were civilized and rational, we wouldn't need laws to govern us in the first place.