"Good and Evil are not inherited, they're nurtured." Discuss the statement.
I would like to explore the age old argument: Nature verse nurture. With a focus on the propensity towards crime, wrongdoing and malice as well as virtuosity, charity and outstanding citizenship.
Some ideas to get started. What would the implications of either case be for historical conflicts between different ethnic groups: the holocaust and slavery for example.
What would the implications of either case be for the capacity to feel genuine remorse/regret and also genuine forgiveness etc.
How many of you would propose it is down to one thing: that people are really born bad or good eggs, or that really there is only conditioning and interpersonal influence at work. Who would propose that it is in fact an obligatory combination. That both are neccesary to give rise to certain outcomes. Please support your arguments with examples.
How many of you would propose it is only one
Some ideas to get started. What would the implications of either case be for historical conflicts between different ethnic groups: the holocaust and slavery for example.
What would the implications of either case be for the capacity to feel genuine remorse/regret and also genuine forgiveness etc.
How many of you would propose it is down to one thing: that people are really born bad or good eggs, or that really there is only conditioning and interpersonal influence at work. Who would propose that it is in fact an obligatory combination. That both are neccesary to give rise to certain outcomes. Please support your arguments with examples.
How many of you would propose it is only one
Comments (46)
These two options fail to take into account the issue of intelligibility, that interpersonal influence isnt blind or arbitrary conditioning, but is instead oriented around a reciprocally created pragmatic way of making sense of the world.
Ken Gergen explains:
None of this happens in a social vacuum. Right- and wrong-doing is judged, indeed, defined, by the requirements of a community. Crime is defined by its laws. Charity is dictated by the needs of its membership. Citizenship is both a given and a demanded role of the individual. How that role is elaborated, empowered and delimited by the society is a major component in the individual's ability and willingness to carry it out well.
Society, too, plays an active part in the nurture of the individual who grow up in it. The prosperity, solidarity, values and expectations of the society are transmitted to the young subliminally, as a normal part of their environment. The father may tell a child, over and over, "Always tell the truth." and even punish him for lying, if that child then hears the father call in sick to work and then go golfing, he knows that what he's told is not what's really expected. If the child sees constant warring and fisticuffs on television, it's no use telling him that fighting is not the solve problems. He may be exhorted to work hard in order to succeed, if he sees that the hardest-working people are the least respected, he will understand: he will repeat the covering lies and do whatever is actually required to reach his goals.
We are all born with the entire spectrum of human traits and capabilities - in different proportions. Competent parents and teachers recognize each child's character and respond according to the dictates of their society, in their attempt to guide each child to whatever kind of adulthood the society assigns to him or her. Not all parents and teachers are competent; not all societies are clear or honest about the roles they assign to their citizens; not all children are willing to be molded to their assigned role.
Not sure if it "fails to account" for intelligibility. I feel that is nurture no? One is nurtured based on the paradigm (culture and form of education) of the surrounding people.
Quoting Benj96
Its nurture but not blind conditioning, not a one-way shaping from culture to individual. Cultural meanings are formed and reformed in a reciprocally participatory manner in specific contexts of interaction.
People are born either bad or good -- so nature. I apologize in advance to those who disagree. When we apply intelligence to behavior, i.e. learning, experiment, results, we are turning to nurture to modify bad behaviors. Look at recidivism of criminals (although it's not confined to those who went to prison as we do have other bad people at large also).
Interesting. I'm not sure if I agree but all views are welcome. How might one look at a baby and say this is definitely a bad person. Do you suggest genes dictate antisocial behaviour? That there may be "crime" gene so to speak or a collection of genes that makes someone well civil.
I would find it hard to believe for the simple reason as it could be argued then that people should be imprisoned or stripped of rights from birth because they are fundamentally bad.
A person is the product of both nature AND nurture. Nature may be stronger than nurture for some characteristics, but nurture may be stronger than nature for others.
Quoting Benj96
Good, bad, crime, wrongdoing, malice, virtuosity, charity, and outstanding citizenship are all subjective. Is stealing a loaf of bread to feed your hungry children a good thing or a bad thing? It depends on your point of view. Often it is a combination of both good and bad.
You must not have heard the joke about the thought police. No, we don't imprison people just cause they were born bad. We wait until there's evidence. There was a research done on some murderers whose ancestors were once murderers as well. Generations of families did not wipe out the traces of evil in them.
But we don't have to go to the most heinous criminals. Just your everyday functioning, employed sociopaths will do as an observational experiment.
Some people are predisposed to sociopathic behavior because they have it in them something similar to what gets them high. Some people have the alcoholic predisposition, some phobic predisposition.
Quoting Agree-to-Disagree
I thought we're talking about the evil here? Obviously, we can ignore those.
Why imprison them, if they're only going to re-offend anyway? Why not kill them as soon as the evil gene is detected?
Nature has been shaping animal behavior for a long time, and all present-day animals, including humans, are the beneficiaries of this long process. We inherited a catalog of potentials--like the ability to fly into a rage or carefully plot revenge--and we also developed this uniquely large brain. We should not crow too much about the size of our brains; they have been a quite mixed blessing.
Emotions were invented long before we came along, but we have this big blob of grey matter than can act in fiendishly clever and unfortunate ways to express our emotions, or punish whoever/whatever set us off. A lion might literally bite your head off if you are too annoying, but then it's over. Humans can bear a grudge for decades, declare war, and wipe out millions, if they feel too irritated.
So, I say a lot of the good and bad stuff is from Nature, who doesn't have a long range plan.
Nurture is necessary because we don't hatch out of the egg ready to become a noble saint or a major crook. We're helpless helpless helpless for years, and if we are not taught well, we really aren't good for much. A lot of our nurture is aimed at controlling our nature -- because if we don't, we're likely to end up dead PDQ.
We spend a lot of time thinking about nurture, because at birth, nature has largely finished blessing us or screwing us over, and there may not be much we can do about it. Then society comes along and either blesses us or screws us over some more.
Life is a bitch and then we die, but many of us have nature and nurture on our side and we'll probably live a long time. Or so some of us think. Whether living a long time is a good thing or not is an open question.
Maybe they should be out stealing birth control pills and condoms so they don't have the problem of not being able to feed their children?
(I give money periodically to help feed the poor's children, but there are times when I look at some people and think "Oh, PLEASE don't reproduce -- you can't take care of yourself, let alone others!")
:100:
But that decision - or event, because they don't always intend to reproduce - is also greatly influenced by society. How they're trained to think of their body and its functions, how much they're taught about reproduction, how strongly they're warned against thwarting God's Will, how much information and access they have to birth control, what the roles, rights and prerogatives society assigns to sexes and classes.
In addition to genetic mental conditions that affect things such as impulsivity, lack of long term planning and consequences, emotional cognition and recognition, etc, etc. Along the lines of medical research implying some people can be "born" or otherwise prone to psychopathy or sociopathic tendencies.
There's also something known as the crucial development phase (1-5 years or so) or otherwise where the person's "comfort zone" is strife, conflict, and what an otherwise "normal" person would call unease. In simple terms they don't feel normal or "at home" unless people are fighting. It's normal for them. So it can go both ways. See the movie (Cycle?) or History of Violence, one of the two or something along those lines I forget.
In my previous posts I avoided saying the "mental conditions" because I don't want to turn this into a mental health issues. When the OP asked if good and evil are born or nurtured, my response is they are born (nature). And we only turn to nurture to modify bad behaviors (and foster good ones). So, continuing on, the reason why I don't want to bring in the emotional or mental health issues is because most people have those conditions, short term or long term. There are many bipolar individuals who are not evil, let alone mean, for example. So, I hope this is clear.
I'm talking about people who have good command of their emotions and mental conditions but whose constitution-- the whole of their personhood-- predisposed them to be bad.
I'm very interested in this topic because I'm currently observing an individual who I shared an office with recently and whom I got to know closely for over a year. I have moved to another office now, but to continue with this point: this individual is just your ordinary person who has held her job for a long time. I believe it's only me who got to know her dark side, though. Not even the boss knows her well, at least not what I've discovered. I won't go into the deep dark secrets, but the example I'd use is she revels in "playing tricks" on others: manipulation, compulsive lies, and dramas to get her "wins" no matter how small that is.
She has been doing this from infancy, in spite of all attempts by her caregivers and teachers to modify the behaviour?
Thats probably why she has been doing it so long. Because the people around her are more interested in modifying her behavior than understanding her point of view. Her dark side, her evil and manipulations are how her behaviors appear to us when we fail to see the world through her eyes , and instead try to force our perspective on her.
That doesn't sound like close observation of a "bad seed"; it sounds like a child in the wrong environment.
I dont believe there is such a thing a bad seed, just bad psychological models.
Pretending otherwise has profound political implications, always along the lines of "our" genetics being good and "their" genetics being bad. There should be no need to list examples.
Shite begets shite.
But good and bad are subjective. What you see as a good action I may see as a bad action. This makes the topic of this discussion even more difficult to answer.
What could that mean?
Quoting Agree-to-Disagree
And if you did, you would presumably be wrong.
Quoting Agree-to-Disagree
Then perhaps you need to think about it differently.
Nor do I. I was responding to someone who apparently does.
Some concepts of good and bad may be subjective; most concepts of good and bad may be cultural, but the most basic test of good and bad is whether something causes harm, suffering and destruction or benefit, wellness and improvement.
Quoting Agree-to-Disagree
In some contexts, that is true. When we imagine possible, probable and desired outcomes to an action, we may have opposing ideas of which is the right action. But this does not transcribe accurately to human character. Good persons may take some actions that result in harm and bad persons may take some actions that inadvertently benefit someone, but the aggregate of their actions will show a strong tendency to one side or the other.
But that doesn't mean they began life as good and bad people; it only shows that they somehow ended up acting in these ways.
If you are seeing actions that benefit someone without harming someone else as 'bad', you should probably re-examine your basic principles before you become a bad person.
Are you saying that you are the ultimate authority on what is good or bad. Were you born with this godlike ability or did you acquire it later?
Are you saying I should take your word for it rather than trust my own view?
I am not claiming that I have ultimate authority on what is good or bad. Some things can have both good points and bad points. It doesn't have to be totally good or totally bad.
I am not saying that you should take my word for something rather than trust your own view. I am saying that different people can hold different opinions about whether something is good or bad without one of them being "wrong". The question of good or bad depends on your point of view. In other words, it is subjective.
And I'm saying that, for example, if someone says that it is fine to kick puppies for fun, they are wrong.
Mine seems a more useable approach. I have grounds for a reprimand, perhaps even a sanction, while you only have grounds for expressing your disapproval.
I agree with you that kicking puppies for fun is wrong. That is my subjective opinion and your subjective opinion is the same as mine. I think that the vast majority of people also have the same subjective opinion.
How do you feel about pulling the wings off flies?
How do you feel about killing mosquitoes?
How do you feel about eating meat?
I do believe that truths exist. However, they are understood subjectively.
My point might be seen as that the word "subjective" makes the situation more problematic rather than clearing anything up. There is, after all, a truth abut the elephant, that it's tail is like a rope, it's ear like a fan, and so on. It's not that there is no truth as to the description of the elephant; and that truth is not subjective.
The word "subjective" makes the situation more complex but it also makes the situation more realistic. The reality is that people do disagree. I agree that the situation being more complex can make the situation more problematic. But a situation should not be oversimplified.
Quoting Banno
Your approach is certainly more usable. It has been used historically and in recent times to justify starting wars, burning people at the stake, threatening people with eternal damnation, separating children from their parents, persecuting people for having different beliefs, etc.
My approach would hopefully result in more tolerance. But I agree with you that my approach may result in people not taking united action because they disagree (e.g. climate-change/global-warming).
One situation that I find interesting is the question of whether we should eat beef. In the west most people feel that it is okay to eat beef. But most people in India are probably horrified that we eat an animal that is sacred to them, and which they think should be protected and venerated. Who is right and who is wrong?
Quoting Vera Mont
I like Gergens social constructionist take on good and bad. Focusing on the origin of good and bad as specifically moral concepts justifying praise or blame, he connects these affective determinations to the ability of one group to understand another intelligibility within the scope of their traditions. The suffering other can only be acknowledged if they can first be identified and made sense of as a suffering other. What matters to us, what we care about, whose suffering we empathize with, is dependent in the first place on what is intelligible to us from our vantage as nodes within a larger relational matrix.
How about the matrix of all life? I can as well understand the suffering of a fly in a spider's web or the distress of a swallow whose nest is threatened as the fear of an unknown human prisoner in a Turkish prison. Sop, in fact, can humans generally - or there would be no art or literature, and certainly no animated motion pictures featuring mice in trousers. As living entities, having descended through all of evolution from the first plankton, we are capable of experiencing the feelings and of all sensate creatures. This is evident in the mythology of pre-civilized peoples the world over: they did consider themselves kin to all species. Even though they accepted the fact of predation and that they themselves were predators, they did not objectify their prey or their human enemies.
A feral cat probably doesn't know the distress of a mouse: he is simply playing with his food, whether it's dead or alive. Pets, however, under the auspices of a caring human, show a far greater range of sensitivity to the feelings of other species in the same household: witness the solicitude of dogs toward their feline companions. Whether we care, whether we express sympathy, whether we consider the suffering of another being good or bad, depends partly on our innate proclivities and partly on how we have been taught to regard the world.
Quoting Vera Mont
The capability of experiencing others feelings is no
more straightforward than experiencing their thinking, since it relies on culturally embedded interpretation. If one examines carefully, in a genealogical manner , the epistemic basis of cultural treatment of other animals throughout human history, one finds much variation. For instance, in the modern era , the notion that other species have feelings , emotions and cognitions was not accepted widely until recently. The brutal treatment of animals on farms , by pet owners and in laboratories attests to the fact that we didnt really believe our anthropomorphizing cartoons. Mickey the emoting mouse was no more real than the talking moon and sun behind him.
Do fish feel pain? Many today would say yes, unlike a century ago. But what about insects? Do they have feelings? Or plants? Our schemes of intelligibility are constantly changing. Future cultures may have very different views about such matters.
In human affairs, disagreement generally takes place not over whether the other can be seen as suffering , but what the significance of that suffering is. When Southern slave owners claimed their slaves were happy, was this merely a rationalization to protect their way of life, or the manifestation of a tradition of intelligibility common in the West that viewed certain cultures as simple-minded and incapable of the deeper human feeling that their own cultures supposedly possessed?
When certain gendered categories are labeled pathological or immoral, is this a failure to see the others suffering, or a failure to interpret the significance of the suffering as constituting an injustice?
Not in my experience. From body language and facial expression, I can only guess what someone may be thinking (dogs are easier to read than people), but I have no doubt what they're feeling. Our sensations are very much more similar than our thoughts, simply because the human brain is built up of evolutionary layers: the more primitive the brain function, the more life-forms have that function in common. Sensations of heat, cold, pain and hunger are on the most primitive level. The mirror neurons in the cerebrum of more developed brains don't require an interpreter: when we see an expression or gesture, we can feel that expression or gesture or posture - and often imitate it unconsciously. I know how the other feels, not because anyone told me, but because that's how I would feel in their place.
Quoting Joshs
Denied, you mean. No soul = no feeling; it's okay to treat them like objects created for our use. Yes, objectification of other species and other people has certainly been widespread in human civilizations. It's an entirely self-serving and artificial position: even while vivisection was generally accepted, people had relationships with their pets and working animals, much as we do now. Nor would a bullfight or dog-fight be any fun to watch if the combatants were automata - it is precisely the awareness of the pain, rage and fear that makes these sadistic entertainments pleasurable to some humans. It is the absolute certainty of fear and pain that makes torture a tactic of choice for achieving certain ends.
It's not unawareness that makes us behave cruelly, it's cruelty. That is the cultural component: whether the cruel, domineering impulses are fostered in children or the kind, empathic ones.
Quoting Joshs
Ever disturb a wasp nest? Wanna try it?
Insects have quite rudimentary brains, but they do have pain receptors and basic emotions.
Plants don't have individual brains, but they are linked by a sensory network
So, that question is still pending.
Quoting Joshs
Of course. They had no problem mating with these 'savages' , or, as in Jefferson's case, keeping a mistress with false promises (a common enough ploy among people of the same 'high' cultural standard). And if they actually believed the cover-story, why would they expect the standard intimidation tactics to keep the slaves compliant? Why would they make it illegal to teach a slave to read? According to that logic, they should have assumed the Africans were incapable of being educated - just as women were banned from university. (See how ignorant they are? How could they be allowed to vote and drive cars?) Why, after abolition, did they feel it necessary to enact miscegenation and segregation laws?
Hypocrisy is also a very human trait that can be fostered or discouraged in early childhood.
Quoting Joshs
It's a rejection, suppression or outright persecution of any minority (their suffering doesn't signify) that threatens a carefully built and maintained structure of power. Part of what holds up the power-structure is an imposed belief-system, such as organized religion, tradition and nationalism.
Quoting Vera Mont
Quoting Vera Mont
From a social constructionist perspective, you and I are coming from different traditions of intelligibility. The tradition of thought that you participate in is a form of realism in which real biological and social phenomena can be distinguished from , and act as constraints on, discursively constructed meanings. This allows you to believe
that you have no doubt what they're feeling, The mirror neurons in the cerebrum of more developed brains don't require an interpreter. If the real, non-discursively constructed basis of understanding feeling allows everyone across cultures access to the true facts of feeling and suffering, then according to this tradition of intelligibility the failure of some to care for and empathize with others the way your tradition assumes they should is a function of bad intentions and motives ( hypocrisy , manipulation, power, sadism, self-serving).
By contrast, according to the tradition of radical social constructionism, what you assume as universal, objective or common knowledge belongs to a multiplicity of competing traditions. So it is not a question of bad intent , but a different system of intelligible within which the other believes themselves to be as justified from a moral perspective as you feel.
Sure, if that makes you feel good about exploitation and harm....
From the sound of it, she developed this not as a child, but as a teen.
Quoting Banno
So, we can eliminate people and let actions happen? lol.
Quoting Joshs
You can say all the right things, but suffice it to say that her employer and colleagues had always been supportive of her. That did not stop her from taking advantage of them. Like I said, I haven't talked about the really serious issues. But I will no longer talk about it. I just used it as an example that you could stumble upon people who are just truly evil even if no one has harmed them.
Search for Robert Tulloch and James Parker murder of two professors.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/03/the-apocalypse-of-adolescence/302449/
I think this formulation works for me reasonably well. Over the years, in jail and outside, I have met a lot of people conveniently called 'bad'. This to me seems a metaphysical or theological statement. What I generally see is people behaving in a way which makes sense to them, given experiences and the way the world seems to work to them.
conveniently
Not out of ignorance that they feel and think like other people. Not from a cultural assumption that people only do illegal things if they are bad people. Not because they were given all the same advantages, opportunities and choices as 'good' people, but because they're assigned to a convenient social role.
We know - but it just doesn't suit our current purpose.
In a broader sense of the terms used it is clear to me that we are all capable of good and evil. Some are inevitably more likely to fall into one more than the other because life is like that - due luck/circumstance/experience/opportunity or whatever you wish to frame it as.
Nature vs Nurture is a simplistic means of categorising two different perspectives of human life. They really just the same thing but useful as abstractions to investigate our existence further and open new avenues of investigation. Much like someone claiming to be conservative or liberal, no one is truly a pure form of one or the other because they are organs within the same body of thought.
Good and evil are landmarks on a vast landscape that allows us to navigate better. That is all.
:up:
Their capabilities depend on both, nature and nurture: Youre born with a set of features that is then forged by experience. I like the image of a high dimensional vector space where every dimension represents different feature and you start with a certain vector. This vector is altered by experience but some dimensions are more likely to change than others. Thus, were wandering through this space as life advances. If youre lucky you manage to stay in an area that is compatible with the culture in which you live, if not, well
Since this space is so vast Im sure theres a way for any initial vector to be shaped to a social compatible one, even if its prone to lead to psychopathy or else. Of cause this way is easier for some than for others and might be close to impossible when the environment is already destructive.
I dislike using the terms good and bad or evil as they are judgemental and I dont dare to judge most things. Ive been looking for alternative terms for a while now and consider constructive and destructive in a global sense. By thinking of it, would these terms meet the requirements for a definition of good and evil?
Be careful not to confuse 'nurtured' with merely learning to express what is already inherent.