Human Nature Good Or Evil

Throughout the years of human advancement people have suffered and lives have been stolen in the pursuit of personal gain. Although it does make me question if it is always for someone’s personal gain or if there are other factors that are involved. The human mind and soul has been shown to be inherently evil one generation after another. I

The understanding that some people are good or bad widespread all over the world.” The evil comes from human history and continue until today” and even today this statement has existed. Moreover, when people want to explain why people do some evil acts, the discussion often end with words like “people initially are born evil”. However, some other people argued that people are born good. Because of these many critics has debates such as: are people born bad, good or just like naked board without any morality.

In the 18th century, Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau influenced the French Revolution through his ideas and principals. In his book, The Social Contract, Rousseau said that every man is born good until corrupted by society. Rousseau was correct in saying that people were born good, people were naturally born with a pure heart because God made us that way. However, one could argue that man is born evil based off of the perspective of society’s moral laws, which Rousseau may not have considered. Man is born evil because every human being is born with a desire for possession and a hunger for power.

“Do good and avoid evil” is a result of the differing educational, religious and cultural influences on man in the various times and places of his historical development. Thomas Aquinas contended that general principles of the natural law cannot be applied to all men in the same way on the great variety of human affairs, thus arises the diversity of positive laws among various people. Human laws deal with changing and contingent matters and often with singulars, do not have the certitude that belongs to the speculative sciences. Each has its own realm of operation and is sufficient that each have the certitude proper to its own realm. [ Ibid. ]

Edmund Burke once stated, "the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." As long as society exists the concept of good and evil will always be a central conflict. However, it is dangerous to simply believe that some people are innately good or bad. When talking about good and evil, good is the idea that people have the ability to empathize with other people, to feel compassion for them, and to put other people 's needs before their owns. In contrast, evil takes over when a good person is no longer able to empathize or care about another human being.

For an extreme example, a terrorist thinks he is doing the right thing by setting off a bomb. Many situations in life can put into action inherent good, and many people will channel this good. Inherent good can be difficult to explain, but many examples can explain it in great detail. Nobody is born with the intention of being a bad person. Sometimes people believe that the evil people in the world have always been bad, but that is incorrect.

Humans are powerful creatures. They can adapt quickly to any environment they surround themselves with. Not only this, but it creates a large amount of curiosity towards humans with what they do and why. People may want to help others and themselves or would want to bring others down and create pain. There will always be someone with a mindset of corrupt actions. Let’s face it, individuals are brought to the decision each day to be good or evil. A person's actions can affect others in several different ways. I believe that any person can be good, evil and that the environment around us shape us to be either good or evil. Therefore, humans are not born evil, their evil choices determine who they are as a person and here is why.

Those who commit wicked acts because they can not see what is truly good have a skewed point of view for a reason.  Their character is tainted by vice because they have habitually committed vicious acts in the past.  Since they originally had a conscience, they must have willingly committed wrongdoing to warp their perception of what is good.   Therefore, those who pursue an apparent good but commit wrong acts, due to a skewed appearance of what is good, are still responsible for their

The world we live in is filled with crime, evil, and injustice, but do people have the desire to do bad things knowing that they are bad, or do they do them thinking that they are good? In this essay, I examine Socrates argument, found in Plato’s Meno, that no one knowingly desires bad things. If Socrates were right, it would mean that it is impossible for someone to perform a bad action based on their desire for that bad thing. Instead, all bad desires result from the ignorance of the person performing the action in falsely believing that the action is good. Though Socrates presents a compelling argument, I argue that it is possible for someone to act badly, all the while knowing that what they desire is bad.

Through out history evil has been best depicted as the absence of goodness and goodness as the absence of evil. With goodness being comprehended as the direct opposite of evil. It is under speculation that maybe there can 't exist only one general meaning of good vs. evil. I trust this, in light of the fact that any one individual 's perception of good or evil is without a doubt directed by one 's social comprehension of certain qualities and ethics within their culture, i.e. the power of social conformity (Muncaster-Social Psychology Lecture, 2016). Yes, there can be cases of evil that is seen as malevolent all over the world but due to the ethnocentric component of the perception of cultural morals and values, one is unable to categorize another individual as evil or good based upon their own cultural understanding of this notion. As they have been socially and culturally influenced to believe contrary to the fact.

Good and bad, two small words that have so much meaning. What makes people react the way they do? Are people born to be good or bad, or do they have any control over what they will become? Can personal experience impact a person’s values by changing their views on life? The truth is that all people are born with both, good and bad tendencies.

Whether working with a co-worker, learning with a classmate or hanging out with a friend, the thought of any of them having the potential to be evil does not cross the mind. Everyday people are not typically evil beings, but if people are not evil beings then why do they commit actions like torture, killing and genocide? Could it be that the certain people committing the acts are just monsters deep inside, or could the actions be mere products of circumstance? In his article "The Genocidal Killer in the Mirror", Crispin Sartwell, a journalist and philosopher, advises his audience to take a look at the heinous acts people have committed throughout history as a way to show us how anyone could commit evil acts, including ourselves. Marianne Szegedy-Maszak,

But although humans do contain this goodness, it is usually not strong enough to overpower the evil. Forty years after writing “Lord of the Flies” the author explains this exact concept. He states, “We are born with evil in us and cruelty is part of this. Though there is also a capacity for selflessness and love: otherwise we are denying part of our human nature” (Golding, “Why”).

Human nature is naturally good but influence compels us to commit deeds we never would have considered. For example, Eve picking the forbidden fruit . Now as I’m sure many know this story. It could be argued that Eve knowingly opened Pandora's box and exiled humans to be less than perfect. But in truth Eve shows humanity was innocent from the very beginning.

In Man’s Nature Is Good and Man’s Nature Is Evil, Mencius and Hsun Tzu argue about the true meaning of human nature. Mencius believed that humans are inherently good and Hsun Tzu believed that humans are naturally evil. Is it possible humans can be both good and evil? When it comes to whether human nature is good or evil, most people will choose one or the other.