what is the things??

Humans are by nature social animals and cooperate for their mutual survival.

Enlightened self interest is the principal where we sometimes help our group or clan at the expense of ourselves because we recognise that in the long run we will be better off if their group does well.

Emotionally healthy individuals avoid hurting other people because their empathy causes them to vicariously feel the pain they cause others.

Beth_liveyourlife and Jazlovestoskate: are you telling me the only reason you don’t kill, rape and steal is because there are laws against doing these things?

? you mean if the law didnt exist and people could do whatever they wanted? if that heppend wed all killl each other pretty quicky rape, crime and violence would increase untill people go out killing people for no reason, and it becomes and “every man for himself” kind of war people would kill each other, and destroy this planet and everything else that lives on it

I suggest you read the book “Lord of the flies” and that sums up everyting you need to know about if there was not any laws. Basically, people would kill freely, deathwould be okay, starvation, greed- all the bad parts of people would come out.

sameeisbored: if your theory was correct than people would commit any crime they thought they could get away with. Over the years I’ve been in many situations where I could have personally benefitted by a crime where I knew the odds of my being caught were tiny to non-existent. I still did the right thing because I wanted to be able to look myself in the mirror and not see a criminal. Except for sociopaths and psychopaths most people are like this. Do we sometimes do dishonest and hurtful things, of course we do because we are human and don’t always even live up to our own standards let alone anyone else’s. In the end most people want to be good people. The masses would not become hoards of killers and rapists just because they knew they could get away with it.