- You've said that evil in society arises from institutions, not inherently from our nature. Do you think most human beings are good, they have good intent, or do most have the capacity for intentional evil that depends on their upbringing, depends on their environment, on context? - I wouldn't say that they don't arise from our nature.

Anything we do arises from our nature. And the fact that we have certain institutions, not others, is one mode in which human nature has expressed itself. But as far as we know, human nature could yield many different kinds of institutions. The particular ones that have developed have to do with historical contingency, the who conquered whom, and that sort of thing.

They're not rooted in our nature in the sense that they're essential to our nature. So it's commonly argued that these days that something like market systems is just part of our nature. But we know from a huge amount of evidence that that's not true. There's all kinds of other structures.

It's a particular fact about a moment of modern history. Others have argued that the roots of classical liberalism actually argue that what's called sometimes an instinct for freedom, an instinct to be free of domination by illegitimate authority is the core of our nature. That would be the opposite of this.

And we don't know. We just know that human nature can accommodate both kinds. (silence) (silence) (silence) (silence) (silence) (silence) (silence)