Oct 16, 2021 Are we born with an innate moral compass or is it something we develop as we grow? Whether humans are born good or evil has been debated by philosophers for centuries. Aristotle argued that morality is learned, and that we’re born as “amoral creatures” while Sigmund Freud considered new-borns a moral blank slate. Anyone who has read “Lord of the Flies” will expect children to be fully-fledged sociopaths just waiting to be freed from their adult-imposed shackles to (spoiler alert) start a cult and brutally attempt to k--- each other. Maybe the two most famous opposing views on this debate are those of Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Hobbes describes humans as ‘nasty’ and ‘brutish’, needing society and rules to reign in their instincts in order to thrive; later Rousseau openly criticised him, arguing instead that man would be gentle and pure without the corruption of greed and inequality caused by the class system imposed by our society. Recent developmental psychology studies show there may be some natural “good” in humanity (or, to be more technical, that at least kids are capable of passing moral judgements at an earlier age than previously thought). To do this, babies less than a year old were made to watch a puppet show where different coloured shapes acted in ways that were clearly recognisable as morally right or wrong. A red circle is shown struggling to climb a hill while an “evil” blue square tries to push it back down. Meanwhile, “good” yellow triangle attempts to help the red circle by pushing it up. After the play, the babies were asked which shape they wanted to play with: evil blue square or good yellow triangle. As you may have guessed, they all picked the latter, the triangle that exhibited ‘helpful’ and ‘selfless’ behaviour. This applied even for babies as young as seven months. The scene replicates the findings of a 2010 study from the Infant Cognition Center at Yale University, which went further to prove that babies were choosing the puppets because of their actions rather than other variables (for example, an innate preference or familiarity with a certain colour or shape). When the show was replayed with the shapes taking on the opposite role, the infants still mostly chose the shape that had taken on the role of the ‘helper’. A 2017 study from Kyoto University had a similar approach and findings to the puppet study, seemingly confirming these results. Children as young as six months were shown videos featuring three Pacman-like characters, called ‘agents’: a ‘victim’, a ‘bully’ bumping aggressively against the victim and squashing it into a wall, and a ‘third party’ agent. The third-party agent would sometimes intervene to help the victim by putting itself between the victim and the bully, and would sometimes flee instead. After watching the video, children had to choose their preferred character and most chose the intervening third-party agent who had tried to help the victim. Other studies have also shown babies exhibit altruistic behaviour, like the ‘Big Mother Study’ from Harvard, where infants who didn’t know they were being observed still acted kind and were helpful to others, suggesting that this isn’t just a learned behaviour to avoid punishment or scrutiny. While these studies can’t completely disprove Freud and Hobbes’ more pessimistic views on human nature, they do seem to suggest that babies are naturally inclined to prefer altruistic behaviour and that parents can be fairly confident that, while leaving their children on a desert island is probably still not the best idea, they at least won’t try to squash the weakest one with a rock (sorry, William Golding).
Oct 16, 2021 Gustavo joining a potentially solid conversation with copy pasta. f--- off man, have your own opinion. Anyway, I like to think that people are not born evil. Or racist, or sexist, or ageist for that matter. The influential people in their lives have the biggest factor in all of this. But also, how consequences make them feel. If someone doesn't feel bad or even feel anything when they do something bad then chances are they will do it again because they don't have something inside their body telling them not to do it. This I guess comes with time until we are desensitised to bad feelings.
Oct 16, 2021 I think 99.9% of the time it's influenced by events in childhood, but I think there's the odd person here and there that is born basically purely evil.
Oct 16, 2021 The brain is a mysterious and complex thing so who knows. Maybe someone can be born without empathy and remorse because those regions of the brain don't develop for whatever reasons.
Oct 16, 2021 Tough to be definitive here, but I keep it simple and say no. Mostly because I think good and evil are defined by actions rather than a lack of remorse or empathy. If someone who lacks those things doesn't do anything evil, then they can't really be considered as such.
Oct 16, 2021 Literally just finished my master’s thesis on nature vs nurture in regard to violent behaviour. 80 pages later - tl:dr - it’s a mix of both I explored potential genes that act as a precursor for violence, brain chemistry, prenatal smoke exposure, attachment & social learning theory, how a militarised environment can create killers - as well as many more factors …but what I covered is barely the tip of the iceberg. The literature surrounding this is endless. A very interesting topic
Oct 16, 2021 I’ve heard a couple of theories around psychopaths and their relationship to human evolution. Super interesting stuff.
Oct 16, 2021 To be honest, I feel like Evil is just as essential and necessary to this world as Good. One for a balance. After-all, God created everything including Evil..and that alone has its purpose, of course alongside with the fact that us humans were created with our ability to have a free-will. I also believe the power of evil can be used to do something for a good cause. And then you have people out there with diversity of traits/characteristics within themselves...like they have all the good, the bad and evil in one person. To answer your question, I have to agree with Robert. I don't believe any soul out there is born with evilness and hatred, the kind that brings terror and destruction. Unless someone's existence is cursed with such from day one. To truly understand how evil works, it takes a mastermind, an intelligent person, not any ordinary human. Knowledge is power and that power can sometimes unlock gateways to the world of evil. The more you know.
Oct 16, 2021 Lol, best thing I ever did on this forum was put that dude on my ignore list. In my opinion, I don't think anyone is inherently evil. It's all how you're raised. Your habitat is vital in development. I believe it's probably possible to be "born evil" but I'd like to think that's a fraction of a percentage. I have met some literal devil children who seem to have decent surroundings/home lives. The human brain is a crazy thing. Good question
Oct 16, 2021 I mean if your kid is breaking rabbits necks and using them as puppets for his play, im gonna assume hes not gonna be an upstanding guy in 15 years.
Oct 16, 2021 I mean depends because classist and simplist people may consider d--- dealing, theft or g--- violence as evil when its clearly a product of the environment, resources and education: social issues. However, if we talk about a kid with a caring family and friends who ends up being a f---in serial killer... then i dont know lol
Oct 16, 2021 however i will add, that i wonder how many f----- up individuals had "loving parents" who most probably just failed to see that their kid needed mental help
Oct 17, 2021 Evil is evil. Lesser, middling, greater. It's all the same, if I have to choose I'd rather not choose at all