Is Evil Born or Made?

It is a very arguable subject on whether or not people are born with good intentions, and therefore taught by others the ‘evil’ side of their personality. Whether it is the absence of ethical conduct in human nature, or just the way one perceives a situation, evil seems to be prominent in our everyday lives. Humans seem to have a moral code that follows them with every decision they make, yet despite the laws of morality and society, people of this world still seem to behave inhumanely because of the act of self-preservation, human interest, and who exactly the authority figure is at the time.

No one is born good or evil; it is one's environment and the people they encounter in life which makes them good or evil. A lot of time it is not the individual's fault of the way they are, they might have seen so many bad doings that, they are use to it and might think that it is right. One is not born with a vision of knowing what is wrong and what is right in life, but learns when something happens to

Evil can be categorized into two forms, moral evil and natural evil. Moral evil is brought about by bad choices that stem from our free will. Natural evil is bad things that happen to people, whether they deserve them or not. The problem with evil is,

There are many theories why people could do evil things. Is it because they were abused or had a rough childhood? What if the society isn’t to blame at all for their behavior? (Olivia Goldhill “Are Some Humans born evil?”) People say people are born evil or people who are born good turn evil. This topic has been studied for many years and many people have different opinions about it. A person may say they don’t believe that people are born evil. Another person may think that people are born evil or good people turn evil. An example is babies aren’t born evil. Their minds are wonderful. Their minds are innocent and they don’t know much. A person can’t possibly be born evil. It really depends sometimes how a person is raised or what that person experiences in life.

To understand evil we must first understand the concept that good and evil are term or words referring to what one given individuals believes to be the right and wrong thing to do. Good, many times

Would these people be considered evil and if so how did they become this way? Were they born this was or was it some sort of external forces that led them to become evil? Well according to Hsun Tao, another Chinese philosopher, humans were born of an evil nature and with some sort of guidance from a teacher could learn to become good. He believed that what is natural to human beings is desire and desire inevitably leads to conflict; since this is evil then so is the nature the results within. Yet referring back to the young child and well example, why would most people do the right thing? Is it because they are taught to be good again is it something that is deeper? However, another Chinese philosopher, Kao Tzu, beleived that human nature is neither inherently good nor inherently evil but rather a "blank slate" that could be conditioned in both directions. When an individual is born he/she has no ideas or preexisting behaviors but that through life experiences and external forces, such as family and friends, that influence ones human nature. Or according to John Locke "the mind at birth is a blank white sheet of paper on which experience writes."

I do believe pure evil exists, some people were born to be evil. Most times it isn’t the evil persons fault, it is what they are used to and what they have been taught their whole life. In the memoir A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah pure evil does exist. The infamous rebels murder little kids and rape women and they don’t see anything wrong with it. It is their job. The rebels are taught to be evil people. “The rebels were still in my village, angrily cursing and shooting their guns. At some point they pretended to be gone, and someone escaped and went back to the village. They captured him and I could hear them beating him. A few minutes later, gunshots were heard, followed by thick smoke that rose toward the sky. The forest was lit up by the fire that was set in the village” (Beah 35).

People are always getting into situations that have two possible ways to go. That person can choose the right thing to do or the worse. There have been numerous amounts of people asking the question “what is good and evil?” Many have tried conducting experiments to try and find the roots of what makes people good/evil? Evil acts and evil itself can be shown through the social, economic, and mental environment.

Since the beginning of time there has been confusion about every aspect of life and with confusion comes a number of questions we cannot completely answer or forget. How did we transform from one creature to another? Why are people so violent? Are we inherently good or evil? These are questions that have been asked for centuries, and have taken ever longer to possibly answer. It might be numerous decades from now before they finally answer these questions but, nevertheless many people are trying by using evidence, theories, faith, and science to answer these questions as accurately as possible. Mainly the question about whether we are innately innocent or not. Most people, say humans are inherently evil, that there is evil in all of us. That could be the reason why kids enjoy watching ants succumb when they burn them with reflected rays of sunlight. However, many believe that we are born good with a clean slate and that it is society of whom changes that. I believe that we are born sinful/evil and that society influence us to be good. The facts have proven humans to be innately evil through genetics, control, and mistreatment.

What is evil? Is it characterized by a desire to cause hurt or harm, “an evil mood”? What causes people to do evil? The strong feelings of hatred and dislike that builds up in all of us or simply that all our emotions are constantly on the dark side for such a long period of time. What is right from wrong when the hate in our hearts makes us all make terrible mistakes and commit evil. The writings of Confucius say, “There is no light without darkness, no positive without negative, no good without evil.” Throughout the history of humanity, humans have committed inconceivable and unthinkable acts of cruelty towards one another. From the brutal wars during the times of the ancient Greeks and Romans, to the modern

life that turn them into evil. We are all born a blank slate and we pick up after what we

A person is not born evil. In an article by Romig about why people are evil, he states that “Evil requires agency; one can’t be born with it. Terry Eagleton writes in “On Evil,” his rather flippant 2010 consideration of the dark side, “If some people really are born evil … they are no more responsible for this condition than being born with cystic fibrosis.”(Romig, Rollo). Evil is not a genetic disease. It does not get passed down through the DNA. When a child is born their brain is not developed enough to differentiate between good and bad. Therefore no one is born evil.

In today’s society, it’s incredibly easy to find bad news. Reports of the wrongdoings of humanity are constantly circling through the media. “Three women were kidnapped and held captive for ten years, a teenager shot up an elementary school, and a teenage girl was shot for wanting to go to school.” Many believe that mankind is born with a special form of evil and we do what we please with it. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible says otherwise.

Some speculate that the people who commit extremely appalling acts as adults were raised to commit these ghastly crimes, while others believe that everyone is born with an evil already inside of them. In William Golding’s psychological fiction Lord of the Flies, the idea of being born innately evil is recurrently alluded to. The novel is about a group of young British boys who crash land on a remote island. They are left with no laws to tell them what they can or cannot do, and are extremely frightened of a so called “Beast” that they expect lives on the island. In the Lord of the Flies, “The Beast” symbolizes the evil and devilish proclivity inside of all humans. Through the use of “The Beast”, William Golding illustrates how the novel is

It would appear that evil exists in our world. Millions of people are starving across the world, nations are constantly at war, natural disasters take countless innocent lives, and the hand of man has bestowed great injustice unto his brothers throughout history, from the Inquisition to the Holocaust. Evil seems rampant and senseless.