Are humans born with a desire to care or hurt? What causes them to embrace it?

[ZephyrPhantom]

Typically, this question takes the form of "Are humans born inherently good or inherently evil?" However, since good and evil have long been acknowledged as relative terms of morality, I've modified the question to reflect this.

On one hand, we have organizations that constantly strive to create peace and greater understanding throughout the world, whereas on the other, we have groups of people locked in constant war and groups of people that are intolerant to other groups. This even extends to the internet - we have people who work to make various websites a better place, and those who would rather shaprly lower its quality for their own amusement or because they're trying too hard to "follow the rules".

Do you think humans are born to with the inherent desire to care for others or hurt others? What do you think causes us to embrace this desire, if it exists? (If it doesn't, how do we develop it?)

[ARTHANASIOS]

Humans are born with free will, meaning they are neither good nor evil by default.

[ZephyrPhantom]

Humans are born with free will, meaning they are neither good nor evil by default.

As I said before, this debate isn't focused on good vs evil. One can care for another with sinister motives, and one can harm another with good intentions. (Consider: Espionage and military activites. The former can require immersion and a false sense of 'caring' for enemies, and the latter can require you to hurt another human being with the desire to bring peace to a warzone.)

Assuming you wish to tackle this solely from the the free will viewpoint:
What occurs after those first few seconds when they are born with free will, then? We know that imprinting and various other behaviors will immediately cause a baby to start "learning" certain tendencies.

Furthermore, a baby may have free will, but it is not necessarily capable of expressing or utilizing that free will properly yet. One should consider the existence of adaptive memory, which gears a born individual to learn towards certain survival tendencies.

[dawn to dusk]

id think of this topic as a nature/nurture thing.
someone brought up by caring parents would consider that to be the correct manor in which to act. such a person may enter the real life to discover that others are not like that, and that evil does actually exist. such a person could easily be corrupted by this due to their lack of knowledge about that.
the reverse could also be true. someone who is brought up knowing only to hurt, and see themselves in a caring society may be surprised at the reactions of those who are caring. this may make the person in question caring themselves.

of course, there are exceptions to this, and other situations where odd results occur. for instance, someone who is hurtful may repel the attention of those who are caring, which further inflates their desire to hurt.

on the flip side, someone who is brought up to be caring may find themselves with others who are caring. however this may then lead to instances where they deem themselves and their close friends to be better than others and only care for those who are close and scorn those who are not.
 
to be truly caring, you must find the spot amidst those extremes. with a working knowledge of what caring and hurting is, but also be brought up by those who know how to care. from here, one wouldnt be persuaded easily to hurt, as they would know what this does and the consequences to those actions. to compliment this, they would have been brought up knowing how to care for others and would be easier for them to care.

i do not believe it is necessarily a matter of embracing it. though to develop this, i do believe they must have a working knowledge of how the other works. to hurt out of vengeance means they once cared. and for someone to truly care for someone who was hurt by another would mean that they would be able to care on an empathetic level.

empathy brings on another topic, which then brings up more exceptions. see: sociopaths. but to prevent myself from straying too off topic ill stop here lol

[OldTrees]

Humans are born with a plethora of desires and nurture creates many more.

1) Humans are born to develop the ability to model others. The first level of modeling is "if I were in their place". Most develop automatic modeling of this level (although sociopaths are an exception). There are different reactions that rise from this automatic modeling. The second level of modeling is "if I were them and in their place" which is more uncommon and usually not universally automatic.

1a) When we feel the pain another is feeling we would feel if we were in their place their are a variety of reactions humanity has exhibited. Discomfort at feeling another's pain is the most basic. This usually translates to avoiding the suffering through distance or preventing the suffering. However humans also tend to measure things both against an objective standard and against each other. Feeling another's pain can cause positive emotions in that them suffering more than you means you are suffering less than them. This usually translates to inaction but also contributes to pulling others down as a way to feel better about ones self.

[iDaire]

Humans are born completely neutral. From birth, they have no moral values and therefore are born with no desires to embrace or to uphold. Their moral senses and desires come from whoever raises them and parents them. Basically, humans aren't born with a desire to care or hunt, but adopt the desires of their parents (from an early age). Afte that, their parents and their surroundings cause them to embrace it.

[Zyardran]

it depends on their pastlife. if they've been hurt, they tend to hurt others just to make themselves feel better (i'm not like that... no) on the other hand, people that have had a good past, tend to care alot more, or just be snobs to those with a lower quality in their past life. but yes, i believe it depends on the past life or childhood of a person.

[Treldon]

it depends on their pastlife. if they've been hurt, they tend to hurt others just to make themselves feel better (i'm not like that... no) on the other hand, people that have had a good past, tend to care alot more, or just be snobs to those with a lower quality in their past life. but yes, i believe it depends on the past life or childhood of a person.

The contrary can also be true. Someone who had bad experiences might end up working to help others. Or the other way around.

Humans, in general, are complicated. The individual can be a rather complex blend of conflicting traits.
But one should never forget that we are also herd animals. Where one human can be complex, the same is not true for a group.
The larger the group gets, the more its collective intelligence decreases.

Long story short: avoid big groups of people at all costs.


As for original question: individual humans are born mostly neutral, though there are extremes even that early.
But as a whole we tend to slide towards exploiting others.
So humans are neutral, humanity is evil more likely to hurt than to care for

[iancudorinmarian]

The choices people do are what defines them. Of course, this can depend a lot on education,religion etc.

Also, people who experienced pain in the past are more likely to care more about the people around them.