One of the good and evil distinctions in human nature: what is attribute, what is human nature, what is evil, what is good?

The question of the good and evil of human nature has been discussed by mankind since around 500 BC at the latest, and it is still being discussed. This situation illustrates at least two of the following issues. First, human good and evil are important to human beings. Second, the issue of good and evil in human nature is still not clearly understood. From ancient times to the present, the reason why there are many schools of thought and opinions on the discussion of the good and evil of human nature is that there are many reasons, but the main reasons are only two: First, the concept of human nature and human nature's good and evil is not clear. Second, to this day, people still do not really recognize what a person is. Therefore, this article mainly focuses on the following three questions: First, what is human nature? What is the good and evil of human nature? Second, what is a person? How did man become human? Third, is human nature good or evil?

First, what is the good and evil of human nature

Let's start by discussing what human nature is. Human nature is short for human nature, so in order to figure out what human nature is, we must first figure out what attributes (attributes of things). After my careful examination and reflection, it is certain that until now, no one has ever given a precise definition of the concept of attributes. Properties are a concept in formal logic, whereas in formal logic, no precise definition of properties is found. For example, a good book of Formal Logic defines attributes in this way: "We call the properties and relations of a thing the properties of things. (1) A philosophical dictionary also defines attributes in this way: attributes "logically refer to the nature of objects and the relationships between objects, including states, actions, and so on." (2) Defining attributes in this way, from the point of view of formal logic, is called a circular definition, which is a logical error. The reason is that nature is interpreted in dictionaries as the fundamental property of one thing that distinguishes it from others. Formal logic is a discipline that has developed for more than 2,500 years, and there should be no such low-level errors, so I think it is not the mistake of logicians, but the helplessness of logicians, that is, the attributes that have been until now, are still a blind spot of human cognition. Whether I'm right or not, you can discuss it. In fact, logicians already know this embarrassment, so some logicians call this definition of attributes in logic the extended definition of attributes. Of course, this does not solve the fundamental problem, and the epitaxial definition cannot replace the connotation definition. For example, someone asks you what a person is? You replied: People include white people, yellow people, black people, etc., will people be satisfied with your answer?

Like the properties of things, the attributes of man are of course a blind spot of knowledge. However, some people will say that all the sons and hundreds of families in ancient China have defined human nature, how to explain it? The answer is yes, none of their definitions are intrinsic definitions of human nature. For example, the confessor says, "The word of life is sex." (3) Xun Zi said, "He who is born is called sex." (4) Dong Zhongshu said: "As the natural resources of his birth are nature." (5) Liu Xiang said: "Sex, those who are born are also." (6) These statements have similar meanings, in modern parlance, that human nature is a natural attribute of man. Mencius said: "Man is different from the beast" (7) is called nature, but he believes that the person who is different from the beast is unlearned and can be known without concern, so although the human nature he talks about is different from the above, the human nature he talks about is also the natural attribute of man. None of the above statements really define human nature, but in fact they are all partial generalizations. Later, Cheng Yi, Zhu Xi, and others put forward the idea of sex as reason, trying to explore the relationship between human nature and the origin of the universe. The idea is good, but because their philosophical theory is not scientific, their concept of human nature is just an empty fantasy. In recent years, many experts and scholars have not been satisfied with these definitions of the ancients, and there are also some different definitions of human nature. I think the better one is the definition of human nature in the "Principles of Anthropology" edited by Chen Shangzhi. Chen Shangzhi believes: "All the elements of a person are the attributes of a person. (8) I say that this definition is better, but that it is a small step forward than the ancients, and although it is still an empty abstract definition, it is a better abstraction. Marxism holds that truth is concrete. However, it is not the concreteness of feeling, but the concreteness of understanding. Dialectical logic also holds that only the concept of moving from the concrete to the abstract and then from the abstract to the concrete is a scientific concept. According to these views, it can be concluded that Chen Shangzhi's definition is not yet a complete scientific understanding, he has only abstracted the concrete that can be felt, and has not yet raised this abstraction to the concrete that can be understood, so Chen Shangzhi's definition is still not an accurate definition of human attributes.

I think that the properties of things are the general term for the characteristics of all the relative movements and interactions between the parts of things and between the parts of things and between the whole of things and other things. Therefore, there are two reasons for defining attributes in this way: One is that people in their daily lives originally regard the attributes of matter as characteristics of the relative movement and interaction inside and outside of matter. For example, in the discipline of physics and chemistry, whether it is talking about the physical properties of matter or the chemical properties of matter, it is about the relative movement and interaction characteristics of the inside and outside of matter. For example, the color of the object is the color of the light wave reflected by the sun at a certain frequency; the conductivity of the object is the quality of the flow of electrons in the object; the weight of the object is the size of the mutual attraction between the object and the earth; the temperature of the object is the speed of the movement of the particles inside the object; the chemical property of the substance is that the original matter splits into atoms or atomic groups and then recombines into new matter. The second is that this definition is fully consistent with the basic principles of dialectical materialism. Dialectical materialism holds that the world is material, matter is in motion, motion is the result of the interaction of matter, and motion is the fundamental property of matter. According to these principles, it is all the more reasonable to define the properties of things as characteristics of relative motion and interactions inside and outside things. I have given me two reasons for the definition above, and these two reasons are actually reasoning and proof of this definition using induction and deduction methods. So, my definition is valid.

The relative movement and interaction of man's internal and external activities is the physical activity, mental activity and unconscious, conscious external activity of man, so the attributes of man (human nature) are the general term for the characteristics of all physical activities, mental activities and unconscious, conscious external activities of man. For example, people's digestive activities, respiratory activities, blood circulation activities, nerve conduction activities and other physiological activities have their own characteristics, and these characteristics are all attributes of people. People's cognition, emotion, will and other psychological activities also have their own characteristics, and these characteristics are also human attributes. There are also various activities of human beings such as enjoyment, production, possession, education, and politics, which also have their own characteristics, and these characteristics are also human attributes. Of course, people certainly have general properties such as shape, weight, temperature, color, and other inanimate objects. However, these attributes are contained in the characteristics of physical, mental, and external activities. For example, the color of human hair and skin is characterized by the reflection and absorption of light waves. Human weight is a gravitational feature of the earth. These are all characteristics of human external activities. Human body temperature is a characteristic of human physiological activity. In short, the various characteristics of relative movement and interaction that a person has are all human attributes. These specific characteristics of man's relative movement and interaction are all the elements of man. When you read Chen Shangzhi's definition of human nature, if you don't know the elements, now you will suddenly realize it.

The attributes of people are diverse, and people can classify them differently for different needs. We define it into three categories: physical, psychological, and external. Usually people divide human nature into two categories: natural attributes and social attributes. The attributes of man are a vast system, and the good and evil of human nature that we will discuss in this article is only one feature of this huge system, that is, the characteristic of good and evil in human activity.

The following is a discussion of what is good and evil in human nature. Since the good and evil of human nature are only an activity characteristic that occurs in the relationship between human interests, the good and evil of human nature are only the external activity characteristics of human beings. Man's mere physical and mental activities do not care about good or evil. People are accustomed to using behavior to refer to people's external activities, whether they are conscious external activities or unconscious external activities, which are human behaviors. It is not correct to refer to the dictionary only as the conscious external activity of man as human behavior. For example, in criminal law, it is always said that the harm caused by mentally ill people when they cannot recognize or control their own behavior is not criminally responsible. That is to say, in criminal law, the unconscious external activities of man are called human acts. Human activities and human life are the birthplace of word meaning, and the role of dictionaries is only to collect word meaning, not to create word meaning. Therefore, in this article, human behavior not only represents man's conscious external activity, but also his unconscious external activity. Therefore, the so-called good and evil of human nature is the good and evil of human behavior. Of course, this does not mean that the good and evil of human nature have nothing to do with human physical and psychological activities. First of all, all human behavior is based on human physiological activity. Second, people's conscious behavior is accompanied by people's mental activity. Therefore, although on the whole, the good and evil of human nature are the good and evil of human behavior, when making specific analysis, we must not forget the factors and roles of physiological and mental activities at any time.

So, what is the good and evil of human behavior? Good and evil have so far been considered categories in a pair of ethics (in fact, they should be categories in the philosophy of value). Therefore, the definition of good and evil can only be found in ethics, and it is not found elsewhere. Ethics holds that "goodness is an affirmative evaluation of behavior that conforms to the moral principles and norms of a certain society or class; evil is a negative evaluation of the moral principles and norms that violate a certain society or class." It is epochal, national and class. (9) With regard to this definition of good and evil in ethics, what I would like to say is: First, this definition is a definition that is widely recognized by both ancient and modern China and foreign countries. Second, this definition is not appropriate for discussing the good and evil of human nature in this article. Since the moral principles and norms of different times and different countries are different, the acts of good and evil judged according to this definition are also different in different times and in different countries, so Engels said: "The concepts of good and evil have changed so much from one nation to another, from one era to another, that they are often directly contradictory to each other. (10) That is to say, if this definition is used to discuss the good and evil of human behavior, there is no objective law of good and evil in human nature, and good and evil are merely appendages of morality and law. But this is not the case, and it is what it is because this definition confuses good and evil in value relations with right and wrong in political positions. The simple fact is that in someone's social interaction with others, if there is an exchange of benefits, benefits gain or loss, people generally make two judgments about someone's behavior. One is whether someone's behavior is good or evil for others, which is a value judgment. Second, whether someone's behavior conforms to moral and legal norms, or does not conform to moral and legal norms, this is a judgment of the right and wrong of someone's political position. These are two different judgments. Two different criteria should be used. The good or evil of someone's behavior should be judged by the value standard of good and evil, and the right or wrong of the political position of someone's behavior should be measured by moral and legal principles. Only in this way can we truly make scientific judgments about the good or evil, right or wrong, of someone's behavior. But this definition of good and evil in ethics is to first use morality, legal principles and norms to judge the right or wrong of the political position of human behavior, and then use the right or wrong of the political position to determine the good or evil of human behavior. The belief that the rightness of the political position is the goodness of the value action, and the fault of the political position is the evil of the value action, thus completely regarding the right or wrong of the political position and the good or evil of the value action as the same thing, thus creating a chaotic phenomenon like engels said. Therefore, this article must find out the value standard of good and evil of human behavior, and only by using this standard can we truly solve the age-old mystery of whether human nature is good or evil, and can we truly discover the objective law of good and evil in human behavior.

Now we will discuss the value standard of good and evil in human behavior, that is, the scientific connotation of the good and evil characteristics of human behavior. Discussing this concept requires three problems. The first is the need to clarify within what framework the connotations of good and evil in human behavior should be discussed. It is not right that ethics defines good and evil within moral and legal principles and norms. So, what's right? I believe that the good and evil of human behavior is a matter of interest and interest, so the connotation of good and evil in human behavior should be discussed in the relationship of human interests. Moreover, good and evil are very common problems of daily life, and of course they should be solved in connection with the reality of daily life. So, in daily life, how do ordinary people view good and evil? In fact, in daily life, ordinary people have always had a consensus on how people's behavior is good and how it is evil, and it is judged according to the gains and losses of interests. For example, in the interaction of interests between A and B, if A's behavior is good for B, people say that A's behavior is good for B, and if A's behavior is bad for B, people say that A's behavior is evil for B. This is common sense. On this issue, the common people have never considered any moral principles or legal norms. This shows that there is a value standard of good and evil in human behavior in life. Of course, we cannot violate this criterion, and we must define the connotations of good and evil according to this principle. The second is to solve the problem of the scientific method of defining good and evil. We know that relationships are very complex. The relationship between two people is a bilateral relationship; the relationship between a person and two people at the same time is a trilateral relationship; the relationship between one person and multiple people at the same time is a multilateral relationship. In the face of such complex interpersonal relationships, it is not feasible to think about value standards in general. The general method of science is to dissolve complex things and complex relationships into simple things and simple relationships, and to achieve the purpose of understanding complex things and complex relationships by revealing the nature and law of simple things and simple relationships. Therefore, we can only establish the value standard of good and evil in bilateral relations, and define the connotations of good and evil. Third, we must also note that human nature is good and evil is a conscious act, and that it is impossible to discuss good and evil in the case of unconscious behavior. This, whether in ordinary life situations or solemn legal situations, is a theory of good and evil only in conscious behavior. This is also common sense. Based on the above discussions, we can define good and evil, and I think that the category of good and evil is an evaluation of the subject's behavior in a single bilateral interpersonal relationship that is conscious and has benefits and losses, and the subject's behavior of self-denial is good, and the subject's behavior of harming others and benefiting others is evil.

For this definition of good and evil, note the following points.

First, good and evil are the evaluation of the effects of human behavior, good and evil are human values, the meaning and role of people to others or society, and the benefits or disasters brought by human behavior to others or society. Good is a positive value, that is, a good, and evil is a negative value, that is, a scourge. When making judgments, it must be pointed out that good and evil are the good or evil of the actor to the object of the behavior, and cannot be generalized. For example, Zhang San gave Li Siwu ten thousand yuan to let Li Si see a doctor, and in this behavioral relationship, it was Zhang San's kindness to Li Si. Li Si is the object of this relationship, and it cannot be said in reverse that Li Si has gained benefits and Zhang San has suffered losses, which is also Li Si's evil. Why? First of all, the subject of this good and evil act is Zhang San, and the direction of value judgment can only be Zhang San, not Li Si. There is no good or evil argument in the definition of good and evil about the object of value action. Secondly, if you want to reverse the narrative of this behavior, let Li Si as the subject and Zhang San as the object, say that Li Si accepted the Wu Qianyuan yuan given by Zhang San to go to the doctor. That can't judge whether Li Si is evil. Because the money was given to Li Si by Zhang San on his own initiative, such a narrative still cannot change the facts, and Li Si still cannot be considered as a loss. This shows that my definition is very rigorous. Lei Feng has done so many good things for others and for the society, and it cannot be said that those who accept Lei Feng's benefits are evil. In theory, this cannot be said, nor can it be said in life, who said that accepting the benefits of Lei Feng is evil?

Second, complex interest relationships should be decomposed into simple relationships for evaluation. Multilateral interest relations can generally be broken down into bilateral relations or trilateral relations, and trilateral relations can be regarded as two bilateral relations. For example, the act of killing the enemy by a soldier on the battlefield is a three-sided relationship, and the three sides are the soldier, the enemy, and the motherland. This relationship is really two bilateral relations. The first is the relationship between soldiers and the enemy, and the second is the relationship between soldiers and the motherland. In the first relationship, the warrior kills the enemy, and the warrior's behavior is judged to be evil to the enemy. In the second relationship, the warrior defends the fatherland, and the warrior's actions are judged to be good to the motherland. Of course, killing the enemy on the battlefield is also a political act, and it is the soldier who is fulfilling the legal responsibility of defending the motherland, so the soldier's act of killing the enemy is also a political act that is both correct and honorable. Some people are uncomfortable with the assessment of the warrior's behavior as evil to the enemy in the relationship of interest. I don't think that's necessary. What kind of occasion is the battlefield? Only by defeating the enemy can we defend the people and defend the motherland; only by being cruel to the enemy and being evil to the enemy can we be kind to the people and the motherland? Therefore, evil against the enemy cannot be regarded as a pejorative meaning. The judgment of good and evil is a judgment of the gain or loss of interests, not a judgment of the right or wrong of a political position, nor a praise or depreciation of political honor. I remember lei Feng said that we should be as warm to the people as the spring wind, and as cold to the enemy as the autumn wind sweeping away the fallen leaves. This is the feeling of a warrior. Another example is the peasant movement led by Mao Zedong in Hunan in the last century. At that time, some people said that the peasant movement was very good, and some people said that the peasant movement was very bad, and there was no end to the debate. In many treatises on value and evaluation, many scholars and experts often cite this example, and there are many different opinions and disagreements. The Hunan peasant movement is a trilateral relationship like a warrior killing the enemy on the battlefield. The first is the relationship between the peasant movement and the interests of the broad masses of peasants, and the second is the relationship between the interests of the peasant movement and the local tycoons and inferior gentry. In the first relation, the peasant movement gave the broad masses of peasants a share of the land and brought benefits, so the behavior of the peasant movement was good for the broad masses of peasants. In the second relationship, the peasant movement deprived the local tycoons of their land and made the local gentry suffer losses, so the behavior of the peasant movement was evil to the local gentry. As for saying "very good" and "very bad", that is a judgment of the right or wrong political position and political attitude of the peasant movement. Many scholars have described this as a value judgment, which is wrong. The local tyrants and gentry judge the peasant movement by using the legal principles of the Kuomintang reactionary government, saying that the peasant movement is illegal and very bad, and that the broad masses of the peasants oppose the Kuomintang reactionary government, judge the peasant movement with their ideal and new legal principles that are about to be born, and say that the peasant movement is legal and very good. Unlike the general trilateral relationship, there are two judgments based on two completely different political positions, because the peasant movement in Hunan is in the period of the Great Revolution, and the vast number of peasants and local tycoons and gentry are using different legal principles to make political judgments, which is a special case. Because of these special cases, some ethicists have revised the definition of improvement and evil in this way: "Any act that conforms to the moral principles and norms of a certain society is good; Anything that contributes to social progress or contributes to the development of history is good; (11) The second half of the definition complements the definition of good and evil in general ethics to address the judgment of certain special cases, which, of course, does not change the practice of merging the right or wrong of political positions with the good or evil of value judgments.

Third, some friends have said that my definition of good and evil only makes judgments on the two kinds of behaviors of harming others and self-denial, and has no following on acts such as not giving oneself to be a person, harming others and harming oneself, and harming others and harming oneself, as if to say that the subject of the definition is not comprehensive. This is a misconception. In a single bilateral relationship, there are only two situations in which interests are gained or lost, namely, self-denial and self-interest, and the behavior is deliberate. As for not giving up oneself as a person, harming others and harming oneself, harming others and harming oneself, those are all the result of the superposition of various interest behaviors. For example, the United States is fighting a trade war and increasing tariffs on Chinese exports to the United States. This kind of behavior of the United States is certainly harmful to others and self-interest, so why do we all say that the United States is harming others and harming itself, or even harming others and harming itself? That's because after the United States increases tariffs on Chinese goods, China will definitely fight back and increase tariffs on U.S. exports to China, and the final result will only be that the United States can only harm others and harm itself, or even harm others and harm itself. That is to say, for the superimposed interest relationship, it is also necessary to decompose and judge.