What makes someone evil? Are we born evil, or does our environment shape us? The official definition of evil is someone or something that is “profoundly immoral and malevolent”. People are not born particularly good or evil; they are still undecided, and most will stay that way until they die. However, someone could be more evil than good through the way they are raised and taught. There are people that we label as the corruption and the bad apples of society and to humankind, but there are other sides to that person as well. The way they were raised and the situations they have been through shaped and molded the way they are.
Without a doubt, people believe a murderer is evil and a psychopath, but what makes them evil? People will say that
…show more content…
However, people are not born evil or good; the environment is what shaped and changes the person. Our personality, our beliefs, and almost our whole life is usually decided through environmental factors. As Monica Tan from the Guardian wrote, “…eating disorders was found to be 40% genetic and 60% environmental, whereas the risk for mental and behavioral disorders due to use of alcohol was 41% genetic and 59% environmental.” Tan explains how most of the disorders we develop in our lifetime is usually related to your surroundings and the things around you. For instance, if you live in a safe and predominantly wealthy neighborhood, the children there would most likely be disciplined and be more reliant. However, in a dangerous and poor neighborhood, there would be crime and killings every second that it would be normal to most living there. Babies are born without knowledge of anything; they are not of either side because they were not taught anything yet. If someone was evil when they are born, it would be demonstrated and prominent; the child wont just be evil because they started to cry or wanted more than one cookie. Everyone has the ability to become evil and to redeem
There are two kinds of evil, moral and natural. Moral evil is things like murder, rape, stealing, terrorism, etc. Natural evil is things like suffering and unpleasantness typically as a result of moral evil. Evil is that which has no power of its own. Evil is darkness, a negation of light. Its power is in us, in our fear of it, in that we consider it a "something" worth responding to.
Good and evil make the world we are living in today. However evil stands out more than good and people tend to focus on the evil behavior of humans more often. Human nature tends to decide that if someone looks evil they will be evil. The good and the bad make up the goodness in life. It is impossible to always be good or evil but there are things that can make us better or worse as a person. For one to be free, one must live in a world of evil and good.
The question of nature vs. nurture has been the focus of many debates, especially within the discipline of psychological sciences. This paper will examine the views that exist regarding the importance of contributions to the risk of addiction, specifically, genetic (nature) vs. environmental (nurture) contributions through a review of the existing literature.
In the world of the living, evil is not inherent and can change or influence a person’s aspect of the world based on the community they are in. Evil is the force of things that are morally wrong and the matter of suffering, wrongdoing and misfortune (Merriam Webster). Evil is not inherent because an evil community can change or influence a person’s way of thinking, can consume people the more they are relinquished to it, and can mold a person when a person has power or feel a certain way. Furthermore, evil can be claim as not inherent from reading about Josef Mengele, Stanley Milgram, and the Stanford Prison Experiment.
Instead the environment we are raised in will change who we are and how we act. In the short story “The Half-Husky” by Margaret Laurence, Harvey is a prime example of this - as a child, he was very innocent and lacked a suitable understanding of the environment he was in, but as he grew up his aunt began to complain about how much of a nuisance he was in her life (complaining about no one wanting to date her because she already had a child). Growing up knowing that you are not wanted must be extremely difficult, because your life may seem without a purpose. Harvey - being raised by an aunt who does not want him - began to not want anything to do with other people. He began to model what his aunt did to him to other people, eventually reaching Nanuk and Vanessa. Nanuk is a dog, but not much different from Harvey as a pup Nanuk was very innocent, but once Harvey started torturing Nanuk by poking him with a stick, getting pepper in his eyes, and even setting him on fire! Nanuk became very cautious and aggressive around other people, the environment he was originally raised in with Vanessa was one with a lot of care, but once he was introduced to Harvey he went from extremely innocent to overly aggressive. Humans are not inherently good or evil, but are susceptible to change through their experiences in their
The lines that define good and evil are not written in black and white; these lines tend to blur into many shades of grey allowing good and evil to intermingle with each another in a single human being. Man is not inherently good or evil but they are born innocent without any values or sense of morality until people impart their philosophies of life to them. In the words of John Locke:
Nature vs. nurture has been one of the oldest and most debated topics among psychologists over the years. This concept discusses whether a child is born into this world with their developmental work cut out for them or if a child is a “blank slate” and their experiences are what shape them into who they are. Over the years and plenty of research, psychologists have all mostly come to agree that it’s a little bit of both. Children are both born with some genetic predispositions while other aspects of the child’s development are strongly influenced by their surrounding environment. This plays into the criminal justice system when discussing where criminal behavior stems from. Is a criminal’s anti-social behavior just part of their DNA or is it a result of their upbringing? The answer to this question is not definite. Looking at research a strong argument can be made that criminals developed their anti-social patterns through the atmosphere in which they were raise, not their DNA.
Evil is everywhere. Some people do not mean to hurt others, and do not mean to be careless about others. Some people can convince others to make the wrong choice or to make a big mistake. Sometimes people do not know what position to take or what decision to make. That is why there are people who can convince others to do something bad, such as murder.
The conception that a persons body is priority is everything else is simply basic nature, not even human at that. This goes into basic Biological Study. A person’s, or animal 's nervous system, is the source of pain but functions that way so that a persons body does not come into too far contact with something that might endanger the conceptor. In nature ,this basically means that a person’s pain is a signal that danger, or a threat to their life, is iminent. Personal Evil is basically this, anything damaging to the body or mind of the individual is, in a sense, Evil, even in nature. To mankind, and the physical man, there is an addition to this sense. Not only is something damaging to the body Evil, but also to the mind. This now changes
The environment that we are exposed to has a bigger impact on our behavior than our DNA. People aren't just born evil or automatically born good, a person's personality is molded by what they are taught and exposed to while growing up. A person's way of being is based on the way they are raised and who they are surrounded by during the process. For example, I grew up in what many people call the “hood”, where I saw kids get beat up, bullied, robbery, people get killed, heard gunshots, seen people sell drugs, and all types of things a child shouldn't be exposed to at such a young age. Even though, I grew up in a bad neighborhood my family did their best to keep me and cousins on the right path.
Everyone is born to be good, but as we grow up the society or the environment around us influences us. Things we see and do everyday changes our way to act from good to evil. In the society we are living today; crimes are happening everywhere. An example would be in the article, The Reckoning, written by Andrew Solomon interviews the father of the Sandy Hook Elementary killer, Adam Lanza who was 20 years old when he fatally shot his own mother in their home, twenty-six people at his former elementary school, and himself. This article is good example because it shows from my perspective that being absent in your child’s life can lead to horrib...
Are some people inherently evil? It could go without saying that most people are generally honest and law abiding, invested in their lives and setting realistic goals within the norms of society without hampering others’. A person who is guided by moral values shared amongst his/her peers, whose mind reacts to situations in a way as to achieve the best outcome within the moral and legal laws that they are accustomed to follow; could not truly understand the complexities within the minds of those who go against what is thought to be right and takes unjustifiable means to achieve a goal despite the harm that can be set upon others. Yet William Shakespeare is able to personify evil with his characters in a way as to look within ourselves to find
If a child is raised in a good neighborhood they are likely to be raised well. Children in a good environment are likely to have a better attitude and behavior. Especially when it comes to schooling. They will do well in school and those school systems are likely to have a higher rate of graduating children and children who actually take their education seriously. Better neighborhoods are known to lead to higher test scores. Making sure that a child has a safe, clean, peaceful and comforting environment is necessary and important for your child’s development. Growing up in a bad neighborhood where children aren’t putting school as a main priority and concerned about getting a good education may rub off on a child as they follow one another not put there education first. If a child is raised in a bad neighborhood where there area has a lot of criminal activity and gangs it may influence the child towards joining ...
The distinction between nature versus nurture or even environment versus heredity leads to the question of: does the direct environment or the nature surrounding an adolescent directly influence acts of delinquency, later progressing further into more radical crimes such as murder or psychotic manifestation, or is it directly linked to the hereditary traits and genes passed down from that individual adolescent’s biological parents? To answer this question one must first understand the difference between nature, nurture, environment, and heredity. Nurture, broken down further into environment, is defined as various external or environmental factors one is exposed to which can be more specifically broken down into social and physical aspects. Nature, itself broken down into heredity, is defined as the genetics and the individual characteristics in one’s personality or even human nature.
There are different types of people in the world, as they all have different behavior, personality, and culture. Everyone has a different view of what makes good people do bad things. It is amazing how such calm and nice people turn into such a bad people. There must be a psychology reason in order for them to turn like this. There are some factors I would like to know and also discuss of why people behave this way. Therefore, a person with different behavior makes them act different and hence, that impacts on a person’s personality which makes them turn from good person to bad person.