You are born either good or evil

I think it depends on what you class as good, evil and neutral to decide whether you were born as one of the three., although I do find it hard to believe that anybody was born with sinister intentions(Stewie doesn't count) A persons morals aren't really something they're born with, but rather something that they pick up through life, cobbling together their own ideas of right and wrong from the views of surrounding people, with the end result being totally unique to that person. And because of this, it's up to that person to decide if they're good or evil. In my case, I see myself as being born neutral, but due to how I was brought up, I have a high sense of morality, or at least in my view anyways. For all I know, I'm seen as a total prick to other people because they've grown up to perceive my actions as that of a prick, but they weren't born to believe I'm a prick, so yeah, people are born neutral but how they perceive good and evil decides on what they and others around them become.

 

From what i understand of humans, humans are born neutral, but can HAVE tendency to good or evil by trait. Some kid start behaving differently as soon as their brains develop to certain stage. Also humans are gray. NEVER black and white.

 

You haven't met my father then. His parents abused him, yet he turned out to be a good person.

 

I'm of the mind that people can, just by their personality, be inclined towards postivity and negativity, but I don't necessarily think anyone is good or evil upon birth. Their personalities may make it easier for them to choose one way or another, but that's not quite the same as being born that way in my opinion.

 

In a way, there is no good or evil. Humans are born neutral, but some have greater potential within their thought process to inch toward different tendencies. In stories and fairy tales, good and evil are great elements of story, and really, there's nothing I like more than the conflict of good versus evil, but in real life it's a thousand times more complicated, and there are a thousand different shades of "good or evil" personality that makes up each person. It's very rare for someone to be all good or all evil, and no human would in normal circumstances admit that they are "evil".

So that's my opinion. Of course everyone here has a certain amount of truth in their beliefs, as it's all what makes part of humanity.

 

I'm with just about everyone else here. I believe humans are born neither. Although, like Madness, I disagree with YH on humans never being black and white. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc. wouldn't be people I label with havin any good in them.

 

I halfway agree with the consensus here, that humans are born neutral. I disagree in that we all have unique brain chemistries and anatomies and those can affect our behavior in ways that may influence our behavior in 'good' or 'evil' ways (I have a hard time using those two words as if they're a universal idea, since the concept hardly existed before Zoroastrianism came around, but anyhow). I'm just saying they influence us, not predetermine or predestine us.

Here's a historic example of what I'm saying: Charles Whitman, the Texas tower shooter, mass murderer who killed 16 people and wounded dozens others in a single day in the '60s (I'm taking the radical stance that he's a bad dude because of this). Prior to his mass-killing, he knew something was up, so in his I-know-I'm-going-to-die-soon note, he requested an autopsy of his brain to determine if there was a biological/anatomical cause for his actions (and even requested part of his life insurance policy money to be donated anonymously to a mental health clinic, so there's that too). It turns out he had a brain tumor near one of his amygdalae, brain structures responsible for emotional and panic responses.

This says there was something abnormal with his body that influenced his actions in a way that can easily be called evil. Did he choose to harm several dozen people? Perhaps. Was the influence coming from a source beyond his deliberate control? Sure looks that way. Was his weird-shaped brain at least partly responsible for spreading pain and misery in the world, and if someone else was born with a similarly weird-shaped brain, could they also be influenced to spread pain and misery in the world? I don't see why not. Whether this is called being born 'evil' or not, I can't say for sure, but I will say his actions were influenced by factors other than his conscious decision-making.

 

I like to think we are just born, and how we turn out is a bit of our genes but also how we're reared. Like just because someone's parents were assholes doesn't mean they have to be, they can break that chain, people have free will too.

 

In my opinion, there is no such a thing as "good and evil". Of course, we created these terms in a social way to tell if something hurts our feelings either as an individual, or as a collective. But if you think about it: Is there good or evil in the nature? There isn't. There are only things they have to do in order to survive and to be part of the same cycle. The problem is, and why we actually created good and evil, is that humanity is now out of nature's eternal cycle (or circle, if you prefer that term) and we had to create somehow a "rule" in order to be in the balance. As soon as the first societies had been created, there were no such thing as fight for survival. The first towns were able to feed everyone in a way that they had to no worry about such a thing. But as human nature get used to this kind of life, some people wanted more, and sometimes from others. That's why good and evil had been created - good for the community, and good for the individual. Same goes for evil.

I actually believe in something completely different. In my opinion, all the "good" things goes by the way being in harmony and balance with no one else but nature. Not only the world outside, but the flow of the world. Some "evil" people, or bad things could also easily determined by disharmony and imbalance, and while it is still a subjective term, it works both for the individual and the community at the same time, unlike "good and evil", which are sometimes so abstract that usually the bad things are just bad for the society itself, or vice versa.

 

nurture over nature, all humans are born neutral however depending on how you were nurtured, what was your environment and even your own human willpower that will be what determines who you will be.

 

I'm going to preface this by saying I am not making a religious commentary, rather using some key concepts of some religions to exemplify my assertions.

One of the cornerstones Christianity, according to my own opinion, is that humans by nature are inherently going to do wrong. A strong example of this is the fact that sexual activity before marriage is explicitly forbidden, as with Islam, and divorce is slightly less offensive to the core religious beliefs (at least in Lutheranism and Catholicism). Humans by nature have a need to engage in sexual acts, and Christianity severely limits the freedom to do so (and many other religions do as well). The Bible often depicts humans as weak, as with the story of Adam and Eve, when both Adam and Eve succumbed to the enticement of the serpent (which could be interpreted as either the "evil" side of humans, or as a representation of Satan). Even the story of Jesus shows the weakness of man more consistently than the good of man.

On the other hand, religions such as Shintoism and Buddhism often depict humans as beings that strive to do good, with some being misguided to do wrong by circumstance. Shintoism and Buddhism both place emphasis on giving thanks to the powers that be, no matter what powers may or may not exist. The idea that humans do wrong is largely conceptualized as misguidance by unfortunate circumstance to make them stronger, though this idea is roughly similar in Christianity where hardship makes humans stronger and more thankful in many cases.

I would like to bring attention to the difference in the two above ideas; Christianity, which often believe humans to be "sinful," is strictly constructed as a belief system compared to Shintoism and Buddhism, which largely believe humans as hopeful and "good" beings. Interestingly enough, I find that not one single person made an absolute claim that humans are inherently good or inherently bad as a species. Everyone seems to find that "nurture over nature" is the theme with humanity's faithful tendencies. @[member="8542Madness"] notes that personality (which is widely considered a result of both "nature" and "nurture") presents inclination one way or the other though nurture and social conditioning as the human develops play a large role in their individual tendencies.

I think the idea that everyone is born neutral to "good" or "evil" is honestly unfounded for the reason that whether you believe people are good by nature or bad by nature, there are exceptions. There are exceptions to what we define as "good," "evil," and "neutral." Something I would equate a personal version of this is to say that no one is perfectly neutral, even at birth. Social conditioning and cultural circumstance play a large role in defining "good" and "evil" to a developing human, though disregarding genetic makeup as a factor in how a human acts is not, in my opinion, something that should be done.

As @[member="Sanctuary"] suggested with poor nurturing, humans can conform to the tendencies of their nurturer(s), and as @[member="Almiraj"] suggested with his father's tendencies, humans may not conform to this. Exceptions to the "nurture over nature" theory show that human psychology and "nature" also play roles in humans "good" and/or "evil" tendencies.

I believe what @[member="Sheodon"] suggested (that there is no objective and universal "good" or "evil") is also something to shed further light and emphasis on. This is very important in understanding what the original question asks. "Good" and "evil" are certainly terms that humans created, as are all words that are spoken, read, written, and understood in any humanistic language (i.e. English, Japanese, French, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, etc). For the sake of providing a basis of further discussion, let's accept the idea that "good" means "beneficial to one's species or society" and "evil" means "detrimental to one's species or society," which is slightly different to the ideas discussed with religion earlier. Such ideas assume "good" to be "beneficial to very specific individuals other than the perpetrator" and "evil" to be the opposite.

Please note that this concept is extensively discussed in the Theory of Knowledge, Way of Knowing: Language - Denotation Theory. You can read about the entire Way of Knowing: Language by clicking here. For recognition that this is not a perfect argument, understand that the major weakness of the Denotation Theory is the difference in denotations among different humans; this touches back upon my claim that cultural circumstance plays a role in molding human tendencies.

If you are under the impression that nature is completely neutral to human understanding of "good and evil," I will direct your attention to the notion of self-preservation. Species in general have an innate desire to preserve themselves and their species (with absolutely no exceptions to this--animals such as mules are not classified as species since they are infertile 100% of the time). Even primates (including humans), that have evil tendencies other species do not have--such as war and murder--have a strong desire to continue their species. Humans are the most overt example, as our population has boomed to extremes in many areas of the world despite war, homicide, and suicide.

Because of this, I'm going to actually make the claim that most humans are born "good" and others are born "evil," for the basis of "good" and "evil" is largely attributed to the outcome of human action on human society and all humanity. Answering the initial question, I do believe humans are born "good" or "evil."

 

To me there shouldn't be an argument of nature vs. nurture. They both play into how we are raised. Certain chemical and genetic patterns affect us at birth, but our experiences may mold us further.

Some people are born with a natural tendency towards violence, but they're environment assisted them into being less aggressive. Other people can grow i in a hostile one, but come out of it just fine. It's a matter of both aspects

 

Right, it varies a lot, and the human psyche is weird.
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CHAOTIC NEUTRAL
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//leaves

 

Yes, you are, in a sense of it. If it is your upbringing that molds your character and if it is your birth that molds your upbringing, by relation, your birth molds your character. A baby born to a loving family that will teach him/her good values is essentially "born good" and likewise, a baby born to Kanye West a bad family who will teach him/her bad values is "born evil". This of course, is based on the concept of destiny. It is developed upon the idea that once you are born, the path you take is absolute and any and all "descisions" you make were in fact meant to be made the way they were. In fact, following this logic, one could say that a human is good/evil the moment an embryo is formed. That embryo will, according to it's destiny, follow a path that leads it to being good or being evil, regardless of what anyone does to intervene as that intervention would actually be a part of it's destiny as well.

tl;dr - Yes, you are born either good or evil.

 

The argument of "nature vs nurture" is actually extremely relevant to this discussion. The degree of which we argue/perceive each to effect and affect humankind is the basis of the entire debate.

That's an interesting take on the matter. From what do you declare destiny/fate to be so important in deciding who humans are as individuals?

 

Its deduced from the concepts of spacetime. It's a rather long explanation and this video does it rather well. Some terms used in it are a bit complex, if you have no background in it, but it should be easy enough to grasp it, I hope! I urge you to watch the entire video, it's very interesting.

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YycAzdtUIko

 

That's honestly what I was hoping you'd say. That video is perhaps one of the best I've seen to describe causality, and I'm extremely glad you brought it to this discussion. I'm glad that someone else agrees with me that humans are born good or evil, even if our initial arguments for such claim are different!

 

every baby is born ''normal''​

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it just depends on wether you will get a mental disease / personality disorder or something​

people that are psychopaths or so, they sure can be evil id say​

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but not just that, its also how you grow up​

and what choices you make​

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you can grow up in a bad neighbourhood and all that and blame your childhood....​

but why.... its about all the choices YOU made ​

and you always have a choice​

 

Being good or evil is based both on nature and nurture. There's a third factor that might influence it though: epigenetics

..I guess I'll spare you the explanation. I could literally rant hours about genes and epigenetics, but let's just say that the decisions you make with your life can alter your genes and ultimately your offspring (if you decide to have kids, of course). For example, if you are addicted to alcohol, then your offspring will have a much higher chance of getting addicted to alcohol too.

So, my opinion on this is that you might be born with certain settings "pre-set" for you, but what you will encounter in life will ultimately decide whether those pre-set things will become reality or not.