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Human Nature - Good and Evil

 

            When you strip away all the layers that have been influenced by society, family, friends and self-interests, what do we find at the core of human nature? That is, are we naturally inclined to act cooperatively towards other people or do we only act in our self-interests, even if that includes undermining another person's self-worth. This age old enigmatic question has baffled the minds of philosophers and scientists since the Pre-Socratic era (6th c. – 5th c. BCE). Most people can agree that most of us are born pure and then sometimes the weight of the world can crush that fragile spirit and turn people "bad." However that purity is carried only by those who have not had any sort of influence whatsoever – infants. As humans grow and form opinions, there are times when we are faced with a situation in which our instincts must kick in. Those intuitions are raw instincts which lead people to take the high road as opposed to the selfish, inconsiderate and uncooperative road. Considering that society's interpretation of good varies from person to person, we cannot deem people's actions to be bad when their motives are to promote greater good for themselves nor can we label the actions of babies without examining their mental processes; however we can witness historical evidence which repeatedly demonstrate that human's actions to result in more good than bad.
             Even the vilest crimes committed by people belonging to our society cannot be categorized as evil and certainly cannot ascertain that human nature has immoral roots. As humans, we have a natural desire to obtain pleasure, regardless of the means that is required to achieve such joy. It is not human nature that drives people to commit crimes, but the passion for achieving the greater good that the individual strives to attain. However there are certain exceptions to this claim; take Ed Gein and Michael Hamilton for example.


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