GOOD VS. EVIL What does nature dictate

BEFORE any chaotic external forces begin to

shape us?

In other words, when humans are born, are they

more predisposed to be good or to be evil?

Consider:• Does the way we are raised (our environment) dictate

how evil we do or don't become?

• Are we inherently good until we are pushed (via nurture) to the extent we become evil?

• Are we naturally programmed to survive at any cost? Survival of the fittest?

• It's obvious that our human intelligence allows us to see the difference between good and evil, but intelligence is nurtured, not natured.  Without intelligence, would we be predestined to be good or evil?

Come up with at least 3 reasons why you chose the side you did and 3 examples of people to support it.

We are GOODJacques Rousseau (1750s-70s)• “Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. One

thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they.”

(People are innately good. The “cultured” man learns to be degenerate by constraints of society.)

John Locke (1600s)• “TABULA RASA” – People are born as blank slates.

Humans in the state of nature have perfect freedom to order their actions according to the laws of nature, without having to ask permission to act from any other person. Everyone is BORN equal.

1. Buddha 2. Baha'u'llah 3. Dalai Lama 4. Jesus Christ5. Moses6. Mother Teresa7. Abraham Lincoln8. Martin Luther King Jr.9. Ghandi

Number 10 is debatable, but it was given to Carl Djerassi who is considered to be the "father of the birth control pill." Because of his discovery, millions of unwanted children were not produced and countless sufferings have been abolished (including decreases in crime, child abuse, and ecological nightmares).

Thomas Hobbes (1600s)• Humans in the state of nature are inherently in a

"war of all against all," and life in that state is ultimately "nasty, brutish, and short." (We are naturally evil creatures and this state of nature is remedied by good government.)

Bernard Russell (early 1900s)• Moral evil or sin is derived from the instincts that

have been transmitted to us from our ancestry of beasts of prey. *The simple fact that we humans must eat other life or else starve is probably the contemporary and historical moral evil.

We are Evil

1. Tomas de Torquemada 2. Vlad Tepes 3. Adolph Hitler 4. Ivan the Terrible5. Adolph Eichmann 6. Pol Pot 7. Mao Tse-tung 8. Idi Amin 9. Joseph Stalin 10.Genghis Khan

*NOTABLE RUNNER-UPS:H.H Holmes: Gilles de Rais Nicolae Ceausescu

Pelagius (4th century)• Humans in the state of nature are not

tainted by “original sin,” but instead fully capable of choosing good or evil.

Plato (ancient Greece)• There is an “intellectual soul” in our head to tame the

“appetitive beast” resident in the belly and the genitals. We should welcome death as an escape from this uncomfortable co-habitation.

(Our mind helps us sort out temptations and desires.)

Karl Marx (mid 1800s)• “Who a person is, is determined by where and when

he is…the beast is the past and its burdens, while the mind awaits in the future.”

We are Neutral

“The Science of Evil”

“Primetime” recreated an experiment to see if people would follow orders even if they knew it would cause harm to someone else.

The original experiment was conducted by Stanley Milgrim in 1961 after hearing testimony from Nazi Adloph Eichman denying responsibility for his actions by saying he was simply doing what his superiors told him to do.

http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=2765416&page=1 

Primetime’s Results:

Out of 18 men, 65 percent agreed to administer increasingly painful electric shocks when ordered by an authority figure.

Out of 22 women a surprising 73 percent yielded to the orders of the experimenter even though majority of the public believed women would be less likely to do so.

Out of the 30 people we tested with an additional accomplice acting as a moral guide, 63 percent still inflicted electric shocks, even though the accomplice refused to go on.

Our subjects had an unusually high level of education.22.9 percent had some college, 40 percent had bachelor's degrees 20 percent had master's degrees.

The group was also ethnically diverse:54.3 percent white18.6 percent Asian12.9 percent Latin/Hispanic8.6 percent Indian-Asian 4.3 percent African -American

• Stanford Prison Experiment: http://www.prisonexp.org/

• Discovery Magazine – Lucifer Experiment Article:http://www.prisonexp.org/pdf/discovermagazine.pdf

• List of related articles: http://www.prisonexp.org/links.htm#lucifer

The Scorpion and the Frog• “Let me ride across the pond on your back,” pleads

the scorpion.• “No,” replies the frog, “for if I let you on my back your

sting will prove fatal.”• “Listen to reason,” cries the scorpion. “If I sting you,

you’ll sink to the bottom of the pond, and I’ll drown.”• So the frog takes the scorpion on his back and begins

swimming. Midway across the pond, he feels the scorpion’s fatal sting.

• “How could you,” grasps the frog with his dying breath. “Now you’ll drown.”

• ”I couldn’t help it,” sighs the scorpion. “It’s my nature.”