This is one of the more honest pieces I've read on the subject. Most people flinch at where you go here, and you don't. I agree with your central claim: goodness is not a default, and cultures that pretend otherwise tend to dismantle the structures that keep drift in check.
A few places where I'd push gently:
The piece treats choice as more binary than I think it is. Most human choices aren't between good and bad options. They're between constrained, often bad options within systems the person didn't design. I'd read Milgram and Zimbardo slightly differently from you. I think they demonstrate less about our default nature and more about how completely situational architecture can collapse the range of options a person perceives as available. That may be the more troubling finding.
The combat veteran example is interesting because many of those veterans come home changed in ways they didn't choose and can't fully undo. Those who manage to show up with kindness are often doing enormous, ongoing work to contain what the experience did to them. I don’t see that as clean agency over environment, but the cost of trying through pain.
I'd also push on the implied neutrality of the systems you're citing as evidence. Locks, courts, contracts — those are all necessary, but they weren't designed from outside human nature; they were designed by humans with interests, and they often encode existing power asymmetries as much as they restrain drift. A court system built by a dominant class is itself a human-drift artifact, not simply a correction for one.
On perception, I'd go further than you do. Reality itself isn't fully static or shared. We're each constructing experience through our existing models, which means realities don't always fully overlap between people. That doesn't undermine your point about drift. If anything, it makes the deliberate work of orientation harder and more necessary.
Where I land differently is in the approach, not the conclusion. I don't think people are basically good either. But I tend to meet each individual person as if they could be, until demonstrated otherwise. There's research suggesting that expectations shape behavior, which means that stance isn't just idealism; it might be one of the few structural nudges available to an individual.
The sentence I keep returning to is this one: "The moment people stop seeing others as human beings and begin seeing them only as categories, abstractions, enemies, or moral contaminants, cruelty becomes dramatically easier to rationalize." That's the center of the whole piece for me. Everything else is scaffolding for that.
Excellent comment on an excellent article. Two observations on good and evil in human nature --
1) Very few people are consistently brave and sacrificially virtuous under massive stress. Such virtue exists and should be celebrated in part for its rarity. Symmetrically, very few people are implacably evil and set out to be cruel. We can deal resolutely with monsters (see El Salvador) with huge rewards relative to the costs. A few percentage of a population can cause almost all of the mayhem. A huge group in the center have some situational ethics but rate far better when not tested too hard. Systems and organizations should be structured to not overly test their banded ethics. Don't put average people under a lot of pressure; they'll probably break.
2) We (and I very much include myself in this) like to think of ourselves as decision makers. But the neurological evidence on our active free will is grim (we're pretty much doing things before our brains have engaged on the topic then using our higher brain functions to back fill explanations). Instead we're just knots of habits. I don't like it (doesn't matter) but I know it (matters). So create as much of an environment especially with the people who get access to you that eases good habits and confounds bad ones. Assume that in the moment we'll just do what's easy -- so make telling the truth, being healthy bodily and relationally, and loyalty to those worthy of it as easy as possible. Put in the reps. Live up to the identity you want in small ways. Everything compounds in each direction. White lies darken. But honesty is easier in the company of honest people.
I don't really like either of these. I wish there was a good army of consistent virtuous people out to smite the consistently evil. I wish we were logicians able to come up with Game Theory Optimized choices on all things including ethics. So neither 1 or 2 above is my preference. Neither comes from any philosophical grounding. Both come from repeated observations across many countries and decades.
Both of these land for me, especially point one. The bell-curve framing dissolves many false binaries about human nature, and the practical implication (don't structurally over-test average people) is often undersold in these conversations.
On point two, I'd say the "design for habit" insight holds regardless of where the free will question ultimately lands. My only addition: the environment-design question contains an embedded prior question. Who designs it, and whose interests are encoded? "Make truth-telling easy" is something I write about directly, and I believe in it. But the people with the most structural power to design those environments are also the ones with the most to gain by not doing it and the most to lose by moving toward it. That's not an argument against trying. It's an argument for being clear-eyed about where the resistance lives.
I'd tread carefully with the El Salvador reference. That's a complicated example to use as evidence that resolute action against concentrated evil is clean and low-cost. What it costs downstream rarely shows up in the headline numbers.
All good points and I was flippant re: El Salvador for effect. On easy truths: I think about this one as a Dad and employer. Before asking a hard question, I try to frame it in a way to avoid anyone blurting out lies. Even with consequential things, I say that we can contain something now. But big problems are just small problems that aren't dealt with directly and quickly, so really try to make truth in everyone's interest.
The framing-before-the-hard-question move is underrated, and I think about it the same way, whether as a parent or in managing people.
Creating the conditions for truth before you ask for it is a skill in itself, and most people never develop it because it requires setting your need to know aside long enough to make honesty feel safe. That's harder than it sounds, especially with power differentials in the room.
And yes to small problems. The ones that become catastrophic almost always had a window in which the catastrophe could have been avoided. That window is almost always visible earlier than anyone wants to admit.
"We can handle this" is one of my softening phrases or "we can fix this" so someone isn't thinking about being fired or unloved but can just think about the problem.
I think truth is hard by nature. It's never going to be easy to tell, partly because we have become a society where truth is relative. Everyone gets their own version. I would argue, though, that there IS an objective truth, and we are all operating below that. Some of us are trying to reach it, and some of us aren't.
I see this more as people having to sand down their own integrity lines to survive. Bad behavior is being normalized from the top down, which affects all other layers. I think this is the same idea, just from different angles.
This is a thoughtful response, and I think we actually agree on more than we disagree.
I don’t see human choice as occurring in a vacuum. Environment, trauma, hierarchy, incentives, fear, exhaustion, social pressure, and perceived constraints all radically shape what people believe is possible in a given moment. Milgram and Zimbardo absolutely demonstrate the power of situational architecture. In many ways, that is the warning.
But I also think there’s a tendency in modern discourse to move from “context influences behavior” to “agency is largely dissolved by context,” and I don’t think the evidence supports that leap. Under the same systems, some people still resist, object, defect, refuse, protect others, or absorb personal cost rather than comply.
That distinction is a big deal, because if human beings are only outputs of systems, then concepts like courage, restraint, integrity, betrayal, or moral responsibility start becoming incoherent categories. We can have compassion for constraint without collapsing accountability entirely. Grace, after all, cannot exist without it.
If systems constrain behavior, how much accountability can we meaningfully assign to individuals? Just because I may not be aware of options doesn't mean they don't exist, and if I am actively searching for them, I can find them. This tells me that the choices are NOT binary (so I agree with you), but they ARE existing, and are layered. I must choose to seek options, and I must choose to pursue them. These are the choices I'm talking about.
Sure, reality seems different for each person, but there is a core reality that exists outside of that, and our goal/job is to find it. And I think there is a point where sometimes we cannot see that reality unless someone else posits it, and sometimes even then we don't WANT to believe the reality because it's uncomfortable so we dismiss it and find ways to rationalize the dismissal. Again, that doesn't mean the reality doesn't exist.
I also agree that institutions are not neutral. Courts, laws, bureaucracies, contracts, and social systems are themselves products of human drift, incentives, and power asymmetries. My point wasn’t that these structures are morally pure; they're the most corrupt of all in a lot of cases (which illustrates the concept of drift even more, right?). The existence of corrective structures at all suggests humans have long recognized the need for external constraint because internal calibration alone is unreliable.
And I think your final point is probably the most operationally important one: expectations do shape behavior. Treating people as irredeemable abstractions accelerates the very drift the piece warns about. Once people become categories instead of humans, cruelty scales rapidly.
This means I am advocating for sober realism over cynicism. Assume human beings are capable of tremendous good and tremendous evil under the right conditions, and build the corresponding systems accordingly.
Order -- physical and moral -- requires the decisions, behaviors, habits, and work to establish and maintain it. It is overly flattering to our species to accuse monsters of being "inhuman"; sadly evil is all too human. Savagery is normal. Civilization that pulls us out of a life of violence and poverty is the exception.
This line sums it up beautifully: "The most dangerous people are the ones who believe themselves incapable of becoming evil."
If there were ever a barometer of a civilizations health, it would be what percentage of its ruling class embodies this trait. I think that is proof we are in a phase in which anything can happen.
"If there were ever a barometer of a civilizations health, it would be what percentage of its ruling class embodies this trait."
EXCELLENT. And there is always a segment of the population who agrees with the concept that "their people" are incorruptible...which, of course, makes it that much more likely to happen without repercussions.
Things like this are why I believe in the idea that there IS an objective truth, and we are all operating at some level below it.
Woah, good stuff Kit (pun intended)! I’m thinking of this from a perspective of Stoic philosophy. I see no argument with the premise that humans are not basically good. However, Stoicism asserts that no one willingly chooses to do wrong. They do, for sure. But when they do it’s because of mistaken beliefs about what is truly good. So, a thief values money over honesty, a back stabbing coworker values status over integrity, etc. To me this accounts for what you’re calling “drift.” Everyone has the capacity to be good, but it takes continuous work to get there. And I think it’s an ethical responsibility to do the work. Thoughts?
I agree that we have an ethical responsibility to do the work, but I would argue that we are incapable of fully "getting there," simply because there is a barrier. Is there anyone who truly embodies good? Even the best of us are susceptible to self-interest, selfishness, bad acts, etc. The thought life is a sticky wicket, so to speak; I can engage in "good acts" while being motivated by validation, attention, people-pleasing, etc.
While I value a fair amount of Stoicism, I disagree with the premise that people don't willingly choose to do wrong. I can think of many times in my life that I chose to do wrong, even knowing it wasn't a good choice, because of self-interest or whatever else. While I might be able to rationalize the choice, that's not mistaken belief. I knew full well I was doing wrong and did it anyway. The drift came in the rationalization, but self-deception by default means we are lying to ourselves...which means a part of us knows it's a lie.
Good point about ‘getting there.’ I agree and that was perhaps a careless choice of phrase. The Stoic term for making improvement is prokope, but they also consider virtue (and thus being good) as all or nothing. And only a sage, a theoretical ideal that is likely unattainable, has gotten there.
As far as choosing to do wrong, I look at it this way- the theory is that all of our decisions are based upon what we value. So, we might know that the choice has harmful consequences still choose it because we value the bad thing more, at least in the moment. We may then rationalize or lie to ourselves after the fact to help feel better about it. But, it is the mistaken understanding of where the value lies that leads to bad decisions.
Just reflecting on your comments here and trying to clarify my own thinking. Not meant to come across as preachy! Thanks for the stimulating topic!
I wouldn't care if you DID come off as preachy. It doesn't bother me (but you didn't). :)
I think we agree more than not; I see the sticking point as the definition of "mistaken." To me, mistaken implies good faith. Maybe that's where we differ?
Ooo, good faith is an interesting dynamic that I’m going to have to think on! It’s related to my belief that even if it’s a mistaken belief, ignorance is not an excuse and does not absolve us of the consequences of our choices.
Outstanding article and discussion, Kit. I'll admit, I've thrown around the "humans are inherently good" phrase without truly thinking about the real default tendencies. Reflecting on the post and comments, I now see it more as a human entropy problem. Given your current position, what is the next move? Like everything else in the universe, nature pushes us toward a lower energy state. Often, this is individually motivated or supported by our local tribe. Short term incentives dominate, making it more challenging to return to your previous position without even more effort.
My attempt to combat this is establishing and attempting to maintain a hierarchy of values that looks at the bigger picture, but I recognize the initial and ongoing work required to keep from degrading to the entropy default. It's not that we can't be good, it's a question of whether, in our current situation, we're willing (and able?) to commit the energy to do so.
Hey Jared, welcome to the discussion. :) When you ask what the next move is, that's a whole discussion in itself, isn't it? Obviously my faith informs that decision. Do we refuse to accept that we cannot be fully good and keep trying? Do we accept that we cannot, and give ourselves over to hedonism and full self-interest? I think there's a third option, but I recognize that others don't agree.
I follow a more Sagan-inspired perspective, what if there is only us, then it's our sole responsibility to care for each other? It's like a moral Prisoner's dilemma where defecting to hedonism feels like the best strategy for personal happiness, except when you realize everyone is repeatedly playing the same game, so the optimal approach is cooperation. The world doesn't need to be a zero sum game, but it requires looking at our next action in the context of every choice that follows, and how we impact and influence others.
That would imply that we 1) understand the full context (do we ever?) and 2) are willing to act accordingly.
I used to tell my son that life has many crossroads decisions; in a split second you can make a choice that will permanently change your life's trajectory. Unfortunately we don't always know which choices are that kind until afterwards, so we need to be deliberate about all of them. Was that correct advice? I'd like to think so, but I could be wrong. I'm wrong a lot. :D
Life is really just a collection of decisions in the moment. The value is created by enabling optionality later. That's why I prefer the negative perspective of which of these choices will cause me more regret, or evaluating each option with a "what if I'm wrong?" And especially when interacting with other humans, remembering that they're likely to be completely illogical as well. Looping back to your article, it's keeping in mind that often, decisions default to short-term selfish gains, and using that information to predict the outcome.
The appeal to goodness is that it attempts to absolve our baser tendencies.
A related perspective is our anthropomorphization of animals with that same goodness. Bambi is a great example. In that, the animals were all utopic, but the humans were pure evil. Notwithstanding that, to the Owl, his Squirrel and Chipmunk's friends were actually food. I use that example because we did it all the time with animals, and we turn and do it to ourselves, too. It's the language of 'could,' 'should,' and 'ought.' But that language, ignoring the proclivities, actually makes the evil manifest.
It's interesting that you bring up words like "should" and "ought," because the next logical question is "should, says who?" I think the answer to that question is what dictates whether people listen to it.
I’d like to see the combat veteran subject expanded and examined more closely. Chris Stephen’s reply is excellent and well reasoned. Except… I think from some experience the challenge of combat vets reentering “civilization” has more to do with coming to terms with our confrontation with evil both the enemy and frankly, ourselves. I think most of us were raised to believe that humans are generally good. Maybe that's why our parents never talked about war because they didn't want to shatter our illusions too early. You come home after war and there is a realization that there is a thin veneer between the people we see, good people acting generally in good ways, and what transpires when their survival is at stake and when we're put under enormous stress, the stress day to day, live or die.
To be more frank than I should, I can say that PTSD, from my perspective, is not about what I saw but what I did. Let me qualify that by saying, what I had to do. I'm not suggesting that I'm a war criminal and I am suggesting that if I had to do it all over again, I'd do it all over again.
Nietzsche probably days it best, he warned that if you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
So all of this is a long, convoluted way of saying that Chris & Kit touched on war and combat but I think it's a branch that needs further exploring. Or maybe we should just stick our heads in the sand and try to forget, if only we didn’t dream.
You bring up a visceral point. I think of the book Failure of Civility. Why is it named that? Because that's what a mass survival event becomes first and foremost. Or Selco's work on survival during his time in Bosnia. He talks about how once the civility is gone, and survival is all that's left, the veneer of civility disappears almost instantly. So even 'good people' find themselves engaging in things that would be unthinkable during 'normal' times. (Note that I do not say 'immoral,' because there is a difference, for instance, between murder and killing, even from a Biblical perspective. There are some things that are always objectively wrong; there are others that are contextual or even motive-based.)
The concept of looking into the abyss and it looking back is something I have found to be true over and over. In my work as a profiler, looking at crime scene photos, dealing with the various and horrifying facts of violence against children, analyzing suspect language in statements, etc., and even as a trauma counselor now who hears the filth and the horror of what humans can do to each other, I note that if I am not intentional about centering myself, guarding my body, mind, and soul, the tendrils of evil find their way in. My own dreams get corrupted, my own attitude changes, and I find cynicism to be far easier than caring.
I don't think that forgetting is ever the way. Secret things have far more power than those in the open; I tell my clients that having skeletons in the closet isn't a good thing. It's much better if they're out in the livingroom with you, where you can see what they're doing to you and choose to find ways to stop them. That, of course, brings up lots more questions about the reason why we hide them. Fear of rejection? Fear of them taking control of our daily lives? Fear of not being understood? Lots to talk about there, too.
I certainly wasn't suggesting they should be hidden. I was more suggesting that they can't be hidden because if they don't haunt our days, they haunt our nights. I think the fear is the realization of who we really are. And I think it's not necessarily a bad thing. @Sam Alaimo does a great job of exploring that landscape.
How are you defining good? I am thinking of the Transcendental “Good”, but wanted to confirm if that’s what you had in mind.
In my BS opinion, more humans are good than not, but we have expressions like “one bad apple spoils the bunch” and “this is why we can’t have nice things” because the “bad” (I am thinking of dark triad humans) punch way above their weight class.
So even if we have something like 85% “good” humans by some criteria, we must posture ourselves to deal with/mitigate against the 15%.
I had to chuckle at the visual my mind conjured up of the "bad" people "punching way above their weight class."
You're asking, on some level, if there is an objective standard for good. For me, there is, because I believe there is a God who is good. He is the standard; less than that is not good. Certainly not everyone shares a belief in a God with good attributes, which is how we get things like relative morality, etc. If there is no objective standard, then you get the oft-repeated phrase from the Old Testament, that "every man did what was right in his own eyes." Which, I would point out, never ends well. Once we all do what we believe to be right for ourselves, we get into believing in fairness. But my concept of what's fair for me might be at total odds for what you believe is fair. Now what? Fairness is not only an individually-based concept, but it always requires force to ensure.
I wanted to ask the same question as Adam, and knowing that you're coming at the question of good and bad from a Christian perspective, Kit, I'll share an observation that I'd be happy to get your response to.
I've been struck, lately, by the prevalence of "good" and "bad" framing in our society as opposed to the framing you just referenced, "right" and "wrong". The zeitgeist seems to be that right is whatever you want it to be, your personal truth, and wrong is an outmoded concept. We're not supposed to make moral judgements on actions (note that I'm treating legal as divorced from moral). At the same time, people judge others as good or bad much more readily than in the pre-Internet world.
This is backwards to Christian teaching ("God is Good" "All have fallen short") and it seems to me that permissiveness itself has conditioned people to cast anyone who does manage to offend as bad, inhuman, other. Free people should be happy, right? If they act out it must be pathological.
This paints us in a corner anytime we make a mistake. If I do wrong today I can do right tomorrow, but if my neighbors are good and I break bad, there's no coming back.
"If they act out it must be pathological." Now that's fascinating. After all, the entire system is wired for distraction. As Maximus yelled from the arena: ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?
Most people practice “situational morality” which defines “good” as whatever is in their best interest at the time. This is why the moral arc of our universe does NOT bend toward justice.
I sometimes think about the concept of a two-tiered system, in which I have certain lines I will not cross even unto death, and certain ones that I hold to but will violate in service of the higher ones. Lying, for instance, is something I despise in normal terms, but I would absolutely lie in order to protect someone from violence (typically I think of those who hid Jews during WW2 as an obvious example). To some extent, that is situational morality, but self-interest doesn’t HAVE to factor in; it just usually does.
This is one of the more honest pieces I've read on the subject. Most people flinch at where you go here, and you don't. I agree with your central claim: goodness is not a default, and cultures that pretend otherwise tend to dismantle the structures that keep drift in check.
A few places where I'd push gently:
The piece treats choice as more binary than I think it is. Most human choices aren't between good and bad options. They're between constrained, often bad options within systems the person didn't design. I'd read Milgram and Zimbardo slightly differently from you. I think they demonstrate less about our default nature and more about how completely situational architecture can collapse the range of options a person perceives as available. That may be the more troubling finding.
The combat veteran example is interesting because many of those veterans come home changed in ways they didn't choose and can't fully undo. Those who manage to show up with kindness are often doing enormous, ongoing work to contain what the experience did to them. I don’t see that as clean agency over environment, but the cost of trying through pain.
I'd also push on the implied neutrality of the systems you're citing as evidence. Locks, courts, contracts — those are all necessary, but they weren't designed from outside human nature; they were designed by humans with interests, and they often encode existing power asymmetries as much as they restrain drift. A court system built by a dominant class is itself a human-drift artifact, not simply a correction for one.
On perception, I'd go further than you do. Reality itself isn't fully static or shared. We're each constructing experience through our existing models, which means realities don't always fully overlap between people. That doesn't undermine your point about drift. If anything, it makes the deliberate work of orientation harder and more necessary.
Where I land differently is in the approach, not the conclusion. I don't think people are basically good either. But I tend to meet each individual person as if they could be, until demonstrated otherwise. There's research suggesting that expectations shape behavior, which means that stance isn't just idealism; it might be one of the few structural nudges available to an individual.
The sentence I keep returning to is this one: "The moment people stop seeing others as human beings and begin seeing them only as categories, abstractions, enemies, or moral contaminants, cruelty becomes dramatically easier to rationalize." That's the center of the whole piece for me. Everything else is scaffolding for that.
Great article. Genuinely.
Excellent comment on an excellent article. Two observations on good and evil in human nature --
1) Very few people are consistently brave and sacrificially virtuous under massive stress. Such virtue exists and should be celebrated in part for its rarity. Symmetrically, very few people are implacably evil and set out to be cruel. We can deal resolutely with monsters (see El Salvador) with huge rewards relative to the costs. A few percentage of a population can cause almost all of the mayhem. A huge group in the center have some situational ethics but rate far better when not tested too hard. Systems and organizations should be structured to not overly test their banded ethics. Don't put average people under a lot of pressure; they'll probably break.
2) We (and I very much include myself in this) like to think of ourselves as decision makers. But the neurological evidence on our active free will is grim (we're pretty much doing things before our brains have engaged on the topic then using our higher brain functions to back fill explanations). Instead we're just knots of habits. I don't like it (doesn't matter) but I know it (matters). So create as much of an environment especially with the people who get access to you that eases good habits and confounds bad ones. Assume that in the moment we'll just do what's easy -- so make telling the truth, being healthy bodily and relationally, and loyalty to those worthy of it as easy as possible. Put in the reps. Live up to the identity you want in small ways. Everything compounds in each direction. White lies darken. But honesty is easier in the company of honest people.
I don't really like either of these. I wish there was a good army of consistent virtuous people out to smite the consistently evil. I wish we were logicians able to come up with Game Theory Optimized choices on all things including ethics. So neither 1 or 2 above is my preference. Neither comes from any philosophical grounding. Both come from repeated observations across many countries and decades.
Both of these land for me, especially point one. The bell-curve framing dissolves many false binaries about human nature, and the practical implication (don't structurally over-test average people) is often undersold in these conversations.
On point two, I'd say the "design for habit" insight holds regardless of where the free will question ultimately lands. My only addition: the environment-design question contains an embedded prior question. Who designs it, and whose interests are encoded? "Make truth-telling easy" is something I write about directly, and I believe in it. But the people with the most structural power to design those environments are also the ones with the most to gain by not doing it and the most to lose by moving toward it. That's not an argument against trying. It's an argument for being clear-eyed about where the resistance lives.
I'd tread carefully with the El Salvador reference. That's a complicated example to use as evidence that resolute action against concentrated evil is clean and low-cost. What it costs downstream rarely shows up in the headline numbers.
All good points and I was flippant re: El Salvador for effect. On easy truths: I think about this one as a Dad and employer. Before asking a hard question, I try to frame it in a way to avoid anyone blurting out lies. Even with consequential things, I say that we can contain something now. But big problems are just small problems that aren't dealt with directly and quickly, so really try to make truth in everyone's interest.
The framing-before-the-hard-question move is underrated, and I think about it the same way, whether as a parent or in managing people.
Creating the conditions for truth before you ask for it is a skill in itself, and most people never develop it because it requires setting your need to know aside long enough to make honesty feel safe. That's harder than it sounds, especially with power differentials in the room.
And yes to small problems. The ones that become catastrophic almost always had a window in which the catastrophe could have been avoided. That window is almost always visible earlier than anyone wants to admit.
"We can handle this" is one of my softening phrases or "we can fix this" so someone isn't thinking about being fired or unloved but can just think about the problem.
I think truth is hard by nature. It's never going to be easy to tell, partly because we have become a society where truth is relative. Everyone gets their own version. I would argue, though, that there IS an objective truth, and we are all operating below that. Some of us are trying to reach it, and some of us aren't.
I see this more as people having to sand down their own integrity lines to survive. Bad behavior is being normalized from the top down, which affects all other layers. I think this is the same idea, just from different angles.
This is a thoughtful response, and I think we actually agree on more than we disagree.
I don’t see human choice as occurring in a vacuum. Environment, trauma, hierarchy, incentives, fear, exhaustion, social pressure, and perceived constraints all radically shape what people believe is possible in a given moment. Milgram and Zimbardo absolutely demonstrate the power of situational architecture. In many ways, that is the warning.
But I also think there’s a tendency in modern discourse to move from “context influences behavior” to “agency is largely dissolved by context,” and I don’t think the evidence supports that leap. Under the same systems, some people still resist, object, defect, refuse, protect others, or absorb personal cost rather than comply.
That distinction is a big deal, because if human beings are only outputs of systems, then concepts like courage, restraint, integrity, betrayal, or moral responsibility start becoming incoherent categories. We can have compassion for constraint without collapsing accountability entirely. Grace, after all, cannot exist without it.
If systems constrain behavior, how much accountability can we meaningfully assign to individuals? Just because I may not be aware of options doesn't mean they don't exist, and if I am actively searching for them, I can find them. This tells me that the choices are NOT binary (so I agree with you), but they ARE existing, and are layered. I must choose to seek options, and I must choose to pursue them. These are the choices I'm talking about.
Sure, reality seems different for each person, but there is a core reality that exists outside of that, and our goal/job is to find it. And I think there is a point where sometimes we cannot see that reality unless someone else posits it, and sometimes even then we don't WANT to believe the reality because it's uncomfortable so we dismiss it and find ways to rationalize the dismissal. Again, that doesn't mean the reality doesn't exist.
I also agree that institutions are not neutral. Courts, laws, bureaucracies, contracts, and social systems are themselves products of human drift, incentives, and power asymmetries. My point wasn’t that these structures are morally pure; they're the most corrupt of all in a lot of cases (which illustrates the concept of drift even more, right?). The existence of corrective structures at all suggests humans have long recognized the need for external constraint because internal calibration alone is unreliable.
And I think your final point is probably the most operationally important one: expectations do shape behavior. Treating people as irredeemable abstractions accelerates the very drift the piece warns about. Once people become categories instead of humans, cruelty scales rapidly.
This means I am advocating for sober realism over cynicism. Assume human beings are capable of tremendous good and tremendous evil under the right conditions, and build the corresponding systems accordingly.
The default is chaos.
Order -- physical and moral -- requires the decisions, behaviors, habits, and work to establish and maintain it. It is overly flattering to our species to accuse monsters of being "inhuman"; sadly evil is all too human. Savagery is normal. Civilization that pulls us out of a life of violence and poverty is the exception.
This line sums it up beautifully: "The most dangerous people are the ones who believe themselves incapable of becoming evil."
If there were ever a barometer of a civilizations health, it would be what percentage of its ruling class embodies this trait. I think that is proof we are in a phase in which anything can happen.
Great post.
"If there were ever a barometer of a civilizations health, it would be what percentage of its ruling class embodies this trait."
EXCELLENT. And there is always a segment of the population who agrees with the concept that "their people" are incorruptible...which, of course, makes it that much more likely to happen without repercussions.
Things like this are why I believe in the idea that there IS an objective truth, and we are all operating at some level below it.
Woah, good stuff Kit (pun intended)! I’m thinking of this from a perspective of Stoic philosophy. I see no argument with the premise that humans are not basically good. However, Stoicism asserts that no one willingly chooses to do wrong. They do, for sure. But when they do it’s because of mistaken beliefs about what is truly good. So, a thief values money over honesty, a back stabbing coworker values status over integrity, etc. To me this accounts for what you’re calling “drift.” Everyone has the capacity to be good, but it takes continuous work to get there. And I think it’s an ethical responsibility to do the work. Thoughts?
I agree that we have an ethical responsibility to do the work, but I would argue that we are incapable of fully "getting there," simply because there is a barrier. Is there anyone who truly embodies good? Even the best of us are susceptible to self-interest, selfishness, bad acts, etc. The thought life is a sticky wicket, so to speak; I can engage in "good acts" while being motivated by validation, attention, people-pleasing, etc.
While I value a fair amount of Stoicism, I disagree with the premise that people don't willingly choose to do wrong. I can think of many times in my life that I chose to do wrong, even knowing it wasn't a good choice, because of self-interest or whatever else. While I might be able to rationalize the choice, that's not mistaken belief. I knew full well I was doing wrong and did it anyway. The drift came in the rationalization, but self-deception by default means we are lying to ourselves...which means a part of us knows it's a lie.
Good point about ‘getting there.’ I agree and that was perhaps a careless choice of phrase. The Stoic term for making improvement is prokope, but they also consider virtue (and thus being good) as all or nothing. And only a sage, a theoretical ideal that is likely unattainable, has gotten there.
As far as choosing to do wrong, I look at it this way- the theory is that all of our decisions are based upon what we value. So, we might know that the choice has harmful consequences still choose it because we value the bad thing more, at least in the moment. We may then rationalize or lie to ourselves after the fact to help feel better about it. But, it is the mistaken understanding of where the value lies that leads to bad decisions.
Just reflecting on your comments here and trying to clarify my own thinking. Not meant to come across as preachy! Thanks for the stimulating topic!
I wouldn't care if you DID come off as preachy. It doesn't bother me (but you didn't). :)
I think we agree more than not; I see the sticking point as the definition of "mistaken." To me, mistaken implies good faith. Maybe that's where we differ?
Ooo, good faith is an interesting dynamic that I’m going to have to think on! It’s related to my belief that even if it’s a mistaken belief, ignorance is not an excuse and does not absolve us of the consequences of our choices.
Outstanding article and discussion, Kit. I'll admit, I've thrown around the "humans are inherently good" phrase without truly thinking about the real default tendencies. Reflecting on the post and comments, I now see it more as a human entropy problem. Given your current position, what is the next move? Like everything else in the universe, nature pushes us toward a lower energy state. Often, this is individually motivated or supported by our local tribe. Short term incentives dominate, making it more challenging to return to your previous position without even more effort.
My attempt to combat this is establishing and attempting to maintain a hierarchy of values that looks at the bigger picture, but I recognize the initial and ongoing work required to keep from degrading to the entropy default. It's not that we can't be good, it's a question of whether, in our current situation, we're willing (and able?) to commit the energy to do so.
Hey Jared, welcome to the discussion. :) When you ask what the next move is, that's a whole discussion in itself, isn't it? Obviously my faith informs that decision. Do we refuse to accept that we cannot be fully good and keep trying? Do we accept that we cannot, and give ourselves over to hedonism and full self-interest? I think there's a third option, but I recognize that others don't agree.
I follow a more Sagan-inspired perspective, what if there is only us, then it's our sole responsibility to care for each other? It's like a moral Prisoner's dilemma where defecting to hedonism feels like the best strategy for personal happiness, except when you realize everyone is repeatedly playing the same game, so the optimal approach is cooperation. The world doesn't need to be a zero sum game, but it requires looking at our next action in the context of every choice that follows, and how we impact and influence others.
That would imply that we 1) understand the full context (do we ever?) and 2) are willing to act accordingly.
I used to tell my son that life has many crossroads decisions; in a split second you can make a choice that will permanently change your life's trajectory. Unfortunately we don't always know which choices are that kind until afterwards, so we need to be deliberate about all of them. Was that correct advice? I'd like to think so, but I could be wrong. I'm wrong a lot. :D
Life is really just a collection of decisions in the moment. The value is created by enabling optionality later. That's why I prefer the negative perspective of which of these choices will cause me more regret, or evaluating each option with a "what if I'm wrong?" And especially when interacting with other humans, remembering that they're likely to be completely illogical as well. Looping back to your article, it's keeping in mind that often, decisions default to short-term selfish gains, and using that information to predict the outcome.
The appeal to goodness is that it attempts to absolve our baser tendencies.
A related perspective is our anthropomorphization of animals with that same goodness. Bambi is a great example. In that, the animals were all utopic, but the humans were pure evil. Notwithstanding that, to the Owl, his Squirrel and Chipmunk's friends were actually food. I use that example because we did it all the time with animals, and we turn and do it to ourselves, too. It's the language of 'could,' 'should,' and 'ought.' But that language, ignoring the proclivities, actually makes the evil manifest.
It's interesting that you bring up words like "should" and "ought," because the next logical question is "should, says who?" I think the answer to that question is what dictates whether people listen to it.
Exactly. It also highlights how little they’ve actually studied humanity, history, and nature. They’re bullshit terms with no basis in reality.
I’d like to see the combat veteran subject expanded and examined more closely. Chris Stephen’s reply is excellent and well reasoned. Except… I think from some experience the challenge of combat vets reentering “civilization” has more to do with coming to terms with our confrontation with evil both the enemy and frankly, ourselves. I think most of us were raised to believe that humans are generally good. Maybe that's why our parents never talked about war because they didn't want to shatter our illusions too early. You come home after war and there is a realization that there is a thin veneer between the people we see, good people acting generally in good ways, and what transpires when their survival is at stake and when we're put under enormous stress, the stress day to day, live or die.
To be more frank than I should, I can say that PTSD, from my perspective, is not about what I saw but what I did. Let me qualify that by saying, what I had to do. I'm not suggesting that I'm a war criminal and I am suggesting that if I had to do it all over again, I'd do it all over again.
Nietzsche probably days it best, he warned that if you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
So all of this is a long, convoluted way of saying that Chris & Kit touched on war and combat but I think it's a branch that needs further exploring. Or maybe we should just stick our heads in the sand and try to forget, if only we didn’t dream.
You bring up a visceral point. I think of the book Failure of Civility. Why is it named that? Because that's what a mass survival event becomes first and foremost. Or Selco's work on survival during his time in Bosnia. He talks about how once the civility is gone, and survival is all that's left, the veneer of civility disappears almost instantly. So even 'good people' find themselves engaging in things that would be unthinkable during 'normal' times. (Note that I do not say 'immoral,' because there is a difference, for instance, between murder and killing, even from a Biblical perspective. There are some things that are always objectively wrong; there are others that are contextual or even motive-based.)
The concept of looking into the abyss and it looking back is something I have found to be true over and over. In my work as a profiler, looking at crime scene photos, dealing with the various and horrifying facts of violence against children, analyzing suspect language in statements, etc., and even as a trauma counselor now who hears the filth and the horror of what humans can do to each other, I note that if I am not intentional about centering myself, guarding my body, mind, and soul, the tendrils of evil find their way in. My own dreams get corrupted, my own attitude changes, and I find cynicism to be far easier than caring.
I don't think that forgetting is ever the way. Secret things have far more power than those in the open; I tell my clients that having skeletons in the closet isn't a good thing. It's much better if they're out in the livingroom with you, where you can see what they're doing to you and choose to find ways to stop them. That, of course, brings up lots more questions about the reason why we hide them. Fear of rejection? Fear of them taking control of our daily lives? Fear of not being understood? Lots to talk about there, too.
I certainly wasn't suggesting they should be hidden. I was more suggesting that they can't be hidden because if they don't haunt our days, they haunt our nights. I think the fear is the realization of who we really are. And I think it's not necessarily a bad thing. @Sam Alaimo does a great job of exploring that landscape.
How are you defining good? I am thinking of the Transcendental “Good”, but wanted to confirm if that’s what you had in mind.
In my BS opinion, more humans are good than not, but we have expressions like “one bad apple spoils the bunch” and “this is why we can’t have nice things” because the “bad” (I am thinking of dark triad humans) punch way above their weight class.
So even if we have something like 85% “good” humans by some criteria, we must posture ourselves to deal with/mitigate against the 15%.
I had to chuckle at the visual my mind conjured up of the "bad" people "punching way above their weight class."
You're asking, on some level, if there is an objective standard for good. For me, there is, because I believe there is a God who is good. He is the standard; less than that is not good. Certainly not everyone shares a belief in a God with good attributes, which is how we get things like relative morality, etc. If there is no objective standard, then you get the oft-repeated phrase from the Old Testament, that "every man did what was right in his own eyes." Which, I would point out, never ends well. Once we all do what we believe to be right for ourselves, we get into believing in fairness. But my concept of what's fair for me might be at total odds for what you believe is fair. Now what? Fairness is not only an individually-based concept, but it always requires force to ensure.
...and I will stop before I go full tangent. :D
Yes, I just wanted to you define what you mean by Good, if that is the main thrust of your essay!
Fair point. Probably should have mentioned that. 😀
I wanted to ask the same question as Adam, and knowing that you're coming at the question of good and bad from a Christian perspective, Kit, I'll share an observation that I'd be happy to get your response to.
I've been struck, lately, by the prevalence of "good" and "bad" framing in our society as opposed to the framing you just referenced, "right" and "wrong". The zeitgeist seems to be that right is whatever you want it to be, your personal truth, and wrong is an outmoded concept. We're not supposed to make moral judgements on actions (note that I'm treating legal as divorced from moral). At the same time, people judge others as good or bad much more readily than in the pre-Internet world.
This is backwards to Christian teaching ("God is Good" "All have fallen short") and it seems to me that permissiveness itself has conditioned people to cast anyone who does manage to offend as bad, inhuman, other. Free people should be happy, right? If they act out it must be pathological.
This paints us in a corner anytime we make a mistake. If I do wrong today I can do right tomorrow, but if my neighbors are good and I break bad, there's no coming back.
"If they act out it must be pathological." Now that's fascinating. After all, the entire system is wired for distraction. As Maximus yelled from the arena: ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?
Most people practice “situational morality” which defines “good” as whatever is in their best interest at the time. This is why the moral arc of our universe does NOT bend toward justice.
This.
I sometimes think about the concept of a two-tiered system, in which I have certain lines I will not cross even unto death, and certain ones that I hold to but will violate in service of the higher ones. Lying, for instance, is something I despise in normal terms, but I would absolutely lie in order to protect someone from violence (typically I think of those who hid Jews during WW2 as an obvious example). To some extent, that is situational morality, but self-interest doesn’t HAVE to factor in; it just usually does.
We are born evil not sure why this is not obvious to people.