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this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2024
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Maybe I phrased this badly, but I definitely don't think it's 100% on parents, society and life experience play a huge role as well.
There will always be a very small percentage of people who just turn out cruel, but I believe 99.9% of people are fundamentally good. It's just fear or pain in their past or present that causes some to be bad to others.
Also I think this is pretty firmly in the realm of philosophy, at least for now. I'm not aware of any research that can really answer this, although more broadly nurture seems to matter more than nature.
In my understanding, the research shows it's rather the other way round. But these things are pretty hard to quantify so the debate is always going to be a bit sterile.
I do however take objection when science is instrumentalized in the service of political ideology. As you surely know, a core tenet of Marxism is that human beings are socially constructed. Therefore, rather like religious fundamentalists on the subject of evolution, doctrinaire leftists have a strong incentive to deny science on this subject.
I didn't bring up politics at all, and I don't think that really applies here. It feels like you have an agenda to push...
You agreed that nurture is "definitely" is more important than nature. That's a scientific truth claim, it can be answered without philosophy, and the scientific jury is out on it. And yet the claim is often deployed in the service of Marxist political ideology as if it's a proven fact. Which it's not. Maybe you're not aware of this context. It's true you didn't explicitly bring up politics.
I'll assume you're commenting in good faith.
I actually didn't claim nurture was more important than nature as a sweeping statement. It clearly isn't in cases like eye color for example. I haven't done a deep dive on this, but research seems to show that genetics play a significant role in predicting personality in general, but less than 50%.
Regardless, whether or not people are 'fundamentally good' or not is a moral statement, not a quantifiable one, as is "being shitty to other humans". It's a different question than personality, which is the closest topic that there seems to be any science on. Is there any specific research that actually makes a claim like this? (also, take a step back and remember what post this is on)
Also as a sidenote, while believing in the good in humanity probably makes someone more likely to be leftist, I don't think Marxism actually relies on people being 'fundamentally good' at all.
Paradox. Personally I do this with everyone without commenting on it, and yet I don't believe they're almost all good people. Or bad. Every individual has the capacity for both, as far as I can tell, and the outcome depends on incentives. Particularly social ones, in my reading.