(image credit: 9andrew5 https://www.deviantart.com/9andrew5)
Rousseau thought people are inherently good; Jonathan Edwards thought we are inherently wicked. Hobbes famously described life without the constraints of a powerful government as “nasty, brutish and short.”
Christianity avers that we are all sinners, but whether that means we are actually bad, or merely imperfect, seems to be a matter of interpretation.
Most(?) of us seem to operate from a working assumption, even if unarticulated, that there are good people and bad people. Desmond Tutu was good. Child molesters are bad.
So three questions:
- Are there good people and bad people?
- What does your belief system tell you about whether people inherently are good, bad, both or neither?
- What do your guts tell you about whether people inherently are good, bad, both or neither?