Authors' Conceptions of Human Nature Essay

In attempting to reveal insight upon the first part of this two-fold question, one must first discern the meaning of human nature. According to the authoritative opinion of The Random House College Dictionary human nature is defined as; "the psychological and social qualities that characterize mankind." In assessing the psychological and social qualities of mankind, it was easy to find oneself consumed within the vastness of characteristical qualities for which humanity has been endowed. These qualities range from ignorance to knowledge; grief to joy; from incontinence to self-restraint; lust to perseverance; injustice to

As time goes by one would think the world is evolving in a positive manner. With all the new technology and new resources, we would assume to be better people than the generation before us. Many would argue that we are better because we are always well informed by the tabloids and social media of what is happening in the world. Unfortunately, we as humans are evolving in a negative manner. Our human nature since generations before us show how cruel we are. In the book, Maus written by Art Spiegelman shows us how malicious and inhuman people can treat each other. The novel illuminates our understanding of human nature as being evil as well as deceiving individuals, who do not act to better the world as time goes on.

Athena resolves the conflicts of the Oresteia with an ambiguous judgment that seems to satisfy all parties involved. However, in any conflict, at least one party must make sacrifices to work toward a resolution. Athena achieves her paradoxical result by misleading Apollo to think that he has received total victory in judgment and by offering compensatory powers to the Erinyes, thus creating an illusion of satisfaction for all amidst a reality of compromise.

The understanding of human nature is the concept that there is a set of inherent distinguishing characteristics, including ways of thinking, feeling, and acting that all humans tend to possess (Winkler, 1996). My basic view of human nature correlates with

Orestes is the first person who is trying to change the system and realizes it must be changed for the gods and the Furies to spare his life. Revenge as justice has one major problem,

Have you ever acted out in retribution for something done to you? Some examples could be if you punched someone for intentionally kicking you, or if someone deliberately hurt the feelings of someone you love and you retaliated in kind. You probably thought the punishment you received for your actions was too harsh or lenient. Many factors went into the decision of what discipline you received for this act and some were fair while others probably were not. This is true for the actions of many people in Aeschylus’s Oresteia. In each of the three plays, someone is seeking vengeance for a wrong done unto them, someone they know/love, or both. For this paper, I will be focusing on the vengeance enacted by Clytemnestra, Orestes, and the Fates. The vengeance that each person enacted was deemed just or unjust depending on many factors including the people who were doing the judging. Vengeance in Aeschylus’s Oresteia is viewed through the social lens of the society that it was enacted in. This lens is made up of the popular values, beliefs, and social conventions of the period as well as the judge’s personal views and/or experiences. These factors (such as gender and relation to the victim, as well as the presence or absence of transgressions on the characters part) lead to different opinions about the guilt of the accused individual and the individual themselves. The view of vengeance in Aeschylus’s Oresteia is very subjective.

Vengeance and justice was very important to Greek everyday life. It was believed that people will get revenge for their actions.

would they not experience a natural feeling of injustice? This argument alike can be used to refute another of Thrasymachus’ primary claims that “justice is really the good of another […] and harmful to the one who obeys and serves.”3

For centuries many philosophers, as well as most individuals, have pondered on the question what is good and what is evil. More-so philosophers of all ages have also stumbled upon a more in depth question which is if the intuitive knowledge of man's nature is good, or if it is evil. Many have claimed to have an answer to these puzzling questions yet most of their answers were found to be incomplete and inadequate at a later date. Religion also tried to provide a solution but to my understanding only caused more of an entanglement if anything.

Human beings are part of the animal kingdom, and therefore part of nature. If that is true, then everything they create or destroy is by default "natural". I agree with the statement.

She addresses her own inclinations when she says, “I do so because there is no mother who gave me birth, and I approve the male in everything” (Eum. 736-37). Despite Athena’s intentions of bringing peace by “resolv[ing] this matter in the truth” (Eum. 499), she pardons Orestes when making the deciding vote: “I will set higher value on the death of a woman who killed her husband, a house’s guardian” (Eum. 739-40). Athena’s confession of her own bias goes uncriticized, further legitimizing the systematic marginalization of

Justice is essential, for with a lack of justice, chaos would be brought about in society. In The Eumenides, the Furies value justice without truly being just. Throughout the play, the Furies, protectors of the law, pursue Orestes because of the crime he has committed. They yearn to "trace him by his

Apollo sends Orestes to visit the goddess Athena for judgment in the case of him murdering his mother because the furies continue to

In a world of fire and brimstone, humanity was born. There was no peace, no goodness, no compassion, a trial by fire. Within this debauched world seeped in chaos, we established order. With it, we created society and bound the very nature to our will, yet, just as our order binds others, it ensnares us. In this society of our own creation “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains,” as Rousseau once said. These chains, the shackles of justice, were forged by us to be weapons against ourselves. And so we decide when to use that weapon, to decide once and for all what is justice and what is not. Tales from Ovid, a strong sense of what is right and what is wrong is both essential and worthless, and the spirit of the stories, embodied in

Athens functions as the polis or the pinnacle city-state of the time, and in Eumenides, it takes on the role as the birthplace of modern civic justice, leading the progression of humanity’s ability to determine morality in contrast to past models of vengeance in order to avoid anarchy and tyranny. However, Aeschylus’ story of the trial of Orestes implicates many of the imperfections of the Athenian justice system. In Eumenides, Aeschylus uses the Furies, persuasive language, and dark and light imagery to critique the polis, or the pinnacle city state of Athens, through the emphasis its flaws of sexual bias, the illusion of justice tied to the illusion of free will, and the continued presence of political absolutism.