QuestionsAre humans good by nature?The line between good and evil runs through every human heart: there is no race of evildoers
Are humans good by nature?Both at once

The line between good and evil runs through every human heart: there is no race of evildoers

The line dividing good and evil; "who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"

Alexandre Soljenitsyne 1918 · 2008Russian writer, eight years in the Soviet camps, who tells that world in The Gulag Archipelago and sees there a line between good and evil running through every heart.
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What it claims

The human being carries within him the best and the worst. There is no race of evildoers to separate and destroy, and the fight against evil begins with the line that runs through each of us.

Why

The line between good and evil does not divide groups of men: it runs through everyone's heart and it shifts.

The same idea through history
Blaise Pascal1670Pascal describes man as both great and wretched. Solzhenitsyn does not speak of the greatness and wretchedness of the human condition, but of a moral line, which in each person separates good from evil.Immanuel Kant1793Kant describes a disposition to good that nothing destroys and a propensity to evil that man has given himself. In Solzhenitsyn, the line moves over time, according to what each person chooses to do.
Alexandre Soljenitsyne1973The version presented here. The Gulag Archipelago was written in secret between 1958 and 1968 and published in Paris at the end of 1973 in Russian. Solzhenitsyn tells the story of the camp system as seen by a former officer turned prisoner.
In short

"The line between good and evil runs through every human heart: there is no race of evildoers" is an argument by Alexandre Soljenitsyne (Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, 1973 (Part I, ch. 4; Part IV, ch. 1), 1973) on the question "Are humans good by nature?" (answer: both at once). Its claim: The human being carries within him the best and the worst. There is no race of evildoers to separate and destroy, and the fight against evil begins with the line that runs through each of us. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P5). AskPhilosophy presents 3 objections, 2 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, 1973 (Part I, ch. 4; Part IV, ch. 1)
Valid with an implicit premise

Why do ordinary men become guards, interrogators, executioners? Solzhenitsyn spent eight years in the Soviet camps. He notes that it would be simple if there were somewhere evil people insidiously committing evil deeds, and one only had to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. It is not fixed: it shifts within us over the years. Even in a heart overwhelmed by evil, a small bridgehead of good remains; even in the best, a corner of evil remains. The argument does not say that all are equal. It says that no one stands on one side only, and that each must first look at the line that runs through himself.

P1One would like evil to be done by people apart, whom it would suffice to spot and destroy. But the line dividing good and evil does not run between groups of men: it cuts through the heart of every human being.
P2Solzhenitsyn first finds it in himself: a self-assured young officer, convinced he was doing good, he recognises himself as capable of cruelty and abuse of power. He does not place those who made him suffer in a species distinct from his own.
P3This line is not fixed: it shifts within us over the years. Depending on what we do, the share of good or of evil grows or recedes.
P4Even in a heart overwhelmed by evil, a small bridgehead of good remains; even in the best of hearts, a small corner of evil remains. No one is therefore entirely on one side.
P5 · implicit premiseIf good and evil run through every heart, shift with our acts and leave no one entirely on one side, then each human being carries both within him: a leaning toward good and a leaning toward evil.
So the human being carries within him the best and the worst. There is no race of evildoers to separate and destroy, and the fight against evil begins with the line that runs through each of us.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P5, the computer finds a case where the line runs through each, shifts, and leaves each on both sides, and yet the human being has no leaning toward evil: evil could be a mere effect of circumstances on a neutral basis.
Without the hidden premise P5, the first four premises describe the line, its shift and the presence of both sides in each person, without saying how this amounts to having "two leanings". With it, the conclusion follows. The debatable point is in the premises: is this line in the heart, or in the situation?
Analogy. We often picture the border between good and evil as the one between two countries, with the good on one side and the wicked on the other. Solzhenitsyn says it runs through the living room of every house, and moves from one year to the next. Asking which country is the wicked one is a way of avoiding looking at what goes on at home.

Objections

3

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1755 · attacks the conclusion

Rousseau holds that man is naturally good and that society depraves him: the progress he has made and the knowledge he has acquired. The evil found in man therefore does not come from a leaning of his nature. Solzhenitsyn's "line" would be drawn by history, by the camps and by a regime, not by the heart.

a defender replies
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Immanuel Kant defender of the argument · 1793 · Kant, radical evil
Kant calls the propensity to evil a radical, innate evil in human nature, which must nevertheless be imputed to each person: an evil we have brought upon ourselves. He does not derive it from a corruption of society.
The debate goes on (our summary) Our summary: Kant and Rousseau differ on the origin of evil, not on its existence. In Rousseau, it comes from a social state that alters a good nature. In Kant, it is a choice of the will, imputable to each person. Solzhenitsyn speaks of a line that moves with acts, which is closer to Kant, but he does not say where it comes from.
Where the debate stands (our summary)Rousseau: evil is a product of society on a good nature. Kant: the propensity to evil is universal and imputable to each person's will. The basic disagreement remains: does evil come from social organisation, or from a leaning it finds in us?
François de La Rochefoucauld 1678 · attacks premise 4

La Rochefoucauld holds that our virtues are, most often, only vices in disguise: self-love hides behind the finest actions. If that is true, the "bridgehead of good" one thinks one finds even in the worst is merely an interest in disguise, and the line does not divide two leanings but a single one under two masks.

a defender replies
see the argument
C
C. Daniel Batson defender of the argument · 1981 · Batson, altruism exists
Summary: from experiments in which one could help a person receiving electric shocks by taking her place, Batson and colleagues argue that empathy produces a motive to help that aims at the good of the other and not at relieving oneself. People feeling empathy help even when they could easily escape the scene.
R
Robert Cialdini 1987
Summary: Cialdini and colleagues reply that empathy-based helping can be explained by the desire to reduce one's own sadness, caused by seeing someone suffer. In their experiments the effect of empathy disappears when participants believe their sadness has already been relieved in another way.
The debate goes on (our summary) Our summary: La Rochefoucauld writes three centuries earlier, and the objection bears on what the "bridgehead of good" contains. Solzhenitsyn does not discuss this point: he describes what he saw in the camps. Experimental psychology has taken the question up without settling it.
Where the debate stands (our summary)La Rochefoucauld: virtue is vice in disguise. Batson: empathy can produce real concern for the other. Cialdini: that concern may still serve to relieve one's own sadness. Open point: the experiments do not clearly decide.
S
Stanley Milgram 1963 · attacks premise 1

In Milgram's experiments, ordinary adults obey an experimenter and send an unknown person shocks they believe dangerous, sometimes up to the maximum. Behaviour changes greatly with the situation (proximity of the victim, presence of others, legitimacy of the authority). This suggests that what separates the good act from the bad one lies less in a line in each person's heart than in the setting he finds himself in.

no reply
We have not yet found a direct reply by Soljenitsyne in the texts.
The debate goes on (our summary) Our summary: Solzhenitsyn does not mention Milgram. But his thesis does not oppose the situationist one: if the line moves with circumstances and acts, a situation that pushes toward obedience moves the line. What separates the two readings is the place of personal choice: Milgram shows that the setting weighs heavily, Solzhenitsyn holds that each person bears a share of responsibility for the shift.
Where the debate stands (our summary)Milgram: the situation explains much of conduct. Solzhenitsyn: the line is in each person and moves according to his acts. The basic disagreement remains: how much does personal choice count against the pressure of the setting?