Are People Naturally Good?

Send us Fan Mail Episode 25 - Are people naturally good? We would like to think of humans as being at some sort of moral pinnacle. This assumption generally underlies a LOT of conversations that are being had in a LOT of spaces (though almost no one mentions it). We might well ask: is this really true? Are humans naturally "good"? The area of our brain (frontal lobe) that contributes most to our moral decisions isn't fully developed until late in our development. Sources vary about the exact age at which this development is complete but they pretty much all agree that it is finished at some point between ages 20-25. Greater disagreement is found for how much empathy one should expect to find in a child of various ages. I dare you to google search for "how much empathy does a 6 year old have?" Children need to be taught to be good. Children can (and have, in the past) develop a very strange set of ideas about what is "right" and what is "wrong". This is part of the problem with developing an objective set of "good" moral values in philosophy. Thought experiment: if we "reset the world" (performed the inhuman experiment of raising children via robots and having them learn everything again all on their own with no role models to copy), what would the new humans do or not do. Would they talk? Would they create art? Would they still become bullies? Would they be kind? Would they be selfish? Would they cooperate and, if so, under what conditions? Related question: are dogs useful for determining which humans are "good"? (spoiler alert: they are NOT) Links https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_nativism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innatism