Why Is Human Nature Good?

Abstract

Mencius’s judgment that “human nature is good” is not only a metaphysical statement but also an anthropological one. The purpose of this article is to support such a judgment by applying anthropology. In the first part, I with some research results of anthropologists show that humans have “good sprouts” that are different from apes. In the second part, I discuss that the good sprouts came from the random adventure for cooperative behavior of common ancestors of humans and apes, and an accidental “just” distribution of the tribal leader. This led to tribal and individual gains, such as large-scale hunting, grandma effect. In the third part, I discuss first-order morality and second-order morality. In the fourth part, I argue that the gains of cooperative behavior in turn strengthened cooperative behavior, making it a custom within the tribe that leads them to outcompete other tribes. In the fifth part, I consider more complicated situations. In the sixth part, I discuss that a series of small changes in good behavior gradually accumulate to form a more obvious goodness. After a long period of evolution, the changes in behavior cause changes in body structure and are finally internalized into genes, which distinguished the species from the common ancestor of humans and apes, making them humans. Therefore, human nature is good. In the seventh part, I discuss the moral competition and elimination. Finally, in the eighth part, I argue that because goodness not only brings about the development of wealth but also depends on cooperation between people, it brings room for greed and easily crossed gaps to evil, so evil and goodness are always inseparable. Ultimately, evil is secondary, and goodness always prevails in human nature.