Are humans good by nature?
Natural goodness, a bent toward evil, or a nature that is shaped
Are humans good by nature? Philosophers give 4 main answers: good by nature, prone to evil, both at once and neither good nor bad. AskPhilosophy presents 17 arguments, from Confucius to Alexandre Soljenitsyne, reconstructed step by step, logic-checked and verified word for word against their original texts.
The 4 possible answers
Each column is one way of answering the question: what it holds and the philosophers who defend it. Click a column to see only its arguments.
We are born with a leaning toward the good: it is society or circumstances that spoil it.
Rousseau, Zhu Xi, Mencius, Pierre Kropotkine
Left to themselves, humans follow their interest, desires or violence: they must be educated or restrained.
Augustin, Xunzi, Han Fei, François de La Rochefoucauld…
We carry the best and the worst within us: a leaning toward good and a leaning toward evil.
Kant, Pascal, Alexandre Soljenitsyne
No one is born good or bad: education, society or our choices make what we become.
Confucius, Gaozi, Claude-Adrien Helvétius, Michel Foucault
The arguments
Click an argument to see it step by step, with the objections and replies.
Good by nature
We are born with a leaning toward the good: it is society or circumstances that spoil it.
5 argumentsMan naturally good, corrupted by society
Natural man seeks to survive without harming others; wickedness comes from vanity, born of life in society.
Human nature is principle, hence good
Human nature is the principle, which is good; evil comes only from the received breath, clear or turbid.
The child at the well: goodness is in our nature
Seeing a child near a well, we feel compassion at once, without calculation or training: it comes from our nature.
Ox Mountain: a goodness damaged, not absent
A bare mountain may once have had trees; likewise a hard person's goodness is cut down day after day, not missing.
Mutual aid: sociability is a fact of nature and the foundation of morality
Species with the most developed mutual aid are the most prosperous, and humans have always lived in mutual-aid groups.
Prone to evil
Left to themselves, humans follow their interest, desires or violence: they must be educated or restrained.
5 argumentsThe theft of the pears: evil loved for its own sake
He stole with no need and no pleasure in the fruit, and finds no good in it: he loved evil for itself, from infancy on.
Human nature is bad: crooked wood must be straightened
Left unchecked, inborn inclinations lead to disorder, and goodness is learned, so it does not come from nature.
People follow their interest: love is not enough to govern
People move toward profit and flee danger, even within families; love does not correct, the law does.
Self-love: our virtues are vices in disguise
Love of self hides, even from us; what we take for virtues is often only a collection of interests.
Homo homini lupus: a share of aggression is in our nature
Man is not gentle: he has a strong share of aggression, which shows when nothing restrains it and precedes property.
Both at once
We carry the best and the worst within us: a leaning toward good and a leaning toward evil.
3 argumentsThe crooked timber and radical evil: a seed of good that nothing destroys, a propensity to evil one has given oneself
Man has a seed of good that nothing destroys and a propensity to evil he has given himself, universal even in the best.
Neither angel nor brute: the greatness and wretchedness of man
Man knows his wretchedness, and that is what makes him great: he bears marks of both greatness and wretchedness.
The line between good and evil runs through every human heart: there is no race of evildoers
The line between good and evil does not divide groups of men: it runs through everyone's heart and it shifts.
Neither good nor bad
No one is born good or bad: education, society or our choices make what we become.
4 argumentsClose by nature, far apart by practice
Differences at birth are small while those made by practice are large, so what we become comes mostly from study.
The willow and the whirling water: a neutral nature, which is shaped
Nature is what comes with life, like water that flows east or west: goodness is a form given to it.
Education can do everything: one is born neither fool nor genius, neither good nor bad
The same people change in character with their instruction, government and position: education makes the person.
The modern individual is fabricated by discipline
School, barracks, factory and prison train bodies by exercises and surveillance; the individual's 'soul' is the effect of this training.
Other philosophers' positions arrive as profiles are completed. No position is presented as the winner.