Is Human Nature Inherently Violent Without Societal Laws and Systems?

[Eric DMC]

Are we no more than animals, I know we separate our selves from the animals because we can manipulate our environment, shape and mold things out of steal. I think we are a truly violent race; if you would put 30 people in a room with no way out, the people would divide themselves and invertible there would be a conflict. But how would we handle that conflict?
If you would to take away all laws, and have no governing system would we tare each other apart? I can see both ways, us being human I would like to think we could be logical and work conflicts out, but again we are human and I can see us turning into the animals we truly are.

What is all of your thoughts?

 

[mikelepore]

I think human nature is different for each person. I know that my own brain doesn't operate like the brain of a serial killer, so what else could be the conclusion? When people speak of human nature as though its something uniform among the species, that's where an error begins. Question: is human nature violent or peaceful? Answer: it depends on which individual you're talking about. Charles Manson is violent. I'm peaceful.

If you took away all the laws, the violent individuals would rule by default. The whole point of establishing a society that has formal codes and written protocols is so that the issue of what human nature is will be more irrelevant. We will act much less frequently out of our nature, and much more frequently by habitually following procedures that the political and economic institutions have adopted. Now we don't go to war because we are angry, but because the sentence that sends us to war has been written in a certain place. A corporation doesn't hoard wealth because the participants are greedy, but because the charter of the organization places that behavior into its structure.

 

[Lord Ping]

What is a "nature"? Let me suggest two criteria:

1. Something possessed by all humans and only humans.
2. Something that explains some features of humans.

So is there any such thing? I think their probably is - common ancestry. Our evolutionary history is unique to us and may explain features of ourselves.

This probably doesn't directly address your concerns.