Human beings are bad by default

They're set selfish, which isn't bad, so much as not good.

Selfishness IS bad. A selfish person always goes for his own good, not someone else's.

While kids may seem innocent and all, it's partly because they just don't know how to exploit things in their favor. Part of this can be seen in bullying and such. So going by conventional norms of morality, I'd say we aren't very noble by default.

http://phoneticlight.myopenid.com/ :Kids? Innocent? Are you crazy? They're sociopaths!

http://mijnopenid.nl/is/erikvenema :Perhaps we should better define "bad" for this claim. I'm choosing to see "bad" as a conscious choice to do something harmful to others. My argument is that that selfishness can be separate from this definition of bad.

Christ, I sound as though I like Ayn Rand, I need to go soak my brain in soapy water.

I concede that selfishness can lead to bad acts, but maintain that there is an important distinction between selfish and bad.

I'm going to disagree with this one on the grounds that there's no way both scientific and moral to study this long enough to validate it for either side without learning from external forces interfering with the "default" state of people.

Though for those that agree, I have to say, most of the humans I've met suck. Glad I'm not one of them (^_^)

How come humans are 'beings'. We never say dog beings, cat beings, flower beings, bacteria beings.

Humans are neither good nor evil. And neither are any other known forms of life.
But humans ARE arrogant by default.

How come humans are 'beings'. We never say dog beings, cat beings, flower beings, bacteria beings.

Probably because they are inexcusably aware that they are in a constant state of "being", or existence.

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2008/november5/tanner-110508.html