Are Human Beings Inherently Good or Evil - II

 I will answer from a metaphysical standpoint since I do not believe that a metaphysically neutral standpoint on the world is possible. Within God, there is no gap between his essence and his existence; his concept and his existence do not deviate; to be a finite human being is to be composite, and this implies that his essence and existence can come apart. The goodness of human beings is present within them, but as an ideal. The concrete existence of human beings within nature is the opposite of this ideal; it is selfish and self-seeking. This deviation from oneself is unfreedom and evil. The return back to one’s true nature requires moulding one’s own existence in the image of the ideal that truly represents our inherent nature. This leads to the paradox — how can one make oneself? How can one have oneself as a result since it presupposes some distance from one’s own self? How can one become oneself?

One line of thought against this possibility is that a human being’s concrete existence is who he is, and the ideal is an abstraction, hence nothing real. Interestingly, they also believe that human beings’ concrete existence is not evil but rather good. Human instincts are part of God’s design, and it is when they begin to think and reflect that they deviate from this design. So human beings are inherently good, and it is reason that corrupts us. What is right and what is wrong is given to us instinctively, and we ought only to follow our own instincts without the intrusion of thoughts.

The other line of thought is that to be a human being does not really have an essence or nature; identity is not something fixed but made up. To be human is to be malleable, but they do not have to be true to any nature, or rather, this nature is a human construct.

Against the former, it should be pointed out that if human beings did know what is right and what is wrong instinctively, then there never should have been a deviation from this. If reflection causes a schism, then it implies that one’s goodness was a matter of contingency or chance, and hence, ‘instincts’ do not determine what one’s nature is. Instincts are indifferent to whether their content is good or bad. Metaphorically, if heaven were really perfect, then no fall from it must have been possible. The fall indicates a lack of perfection. This standpoint tries to show that it is religious, but it is anything but religious, because religion demands the negation of one’s independent sensuous existence and to find one’s goodness and freedom in God.

Against the latter, it may be pointed out that one can become only what one already is. This can be illustrated through an example — an amateur soccer player can become a good player through practice and discipline. The amateur player had interest and talent, but these are not sufficient for becoming an adept player. Without, however, the interest or talent, there would be no material to build on. The process of becoming would then be empty, out of nothing, nothing comes.

The first standpoint assumed that the process of becoming is false because one becomes something other than oneself. A person has to take a negative attitude towards oneself to become oneself, and so becoming is a distortion of who one really is. One’s essence or identity is fixed, and no deviation from this is possible. The second standpoint became entrenched in this negative attitude, and for them, the fact of change implied that nothing corresponds to ‘who one truly is’. It is, however, not the case that someone who was bad in mathematics but became good after practice did so as a deviation from one’s nature or that it is possible to become good in mathematics without any talent or interest in it. Such a student manifested an inner aptitude that did not show itself till it was cultivated.

As explained above, an amateur soccer player has the potential to become a good player, but this potential has to be actualised through practice. The adept soccer player is free, not the amateur, because his inner nature is not merely ‘inner’ but has externalised itself through the process of becoming. Freedom is the fulfilment of one’s inner nature, and this freedom cannot be dissociated from goodness. To relate this to the question, are human beings inherently good or evil? If human beings were inherently good, then they would never commit evil and vice versa. The answer lies in this possibility of becoming oneself, which depends on the possibility of deviating from one’s own nature and returning to it. Human beings are evil, but this is a deviation from their essence, and one can become what one essentially is, but for this inner aptitude to show itself requires practice and cultivation of virtue.