Essay on On the Genealogy of Morality

* The Conscience- consists of details about things that are thought of being bad by parents and society. These sorts of behaviours are regularly not allowed and lead to bad consequences, punishments or feelings of guilt and remorse.

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.

God created mankind with the ability to make choices based on our own wants; this is known as free will. If free will did not exist, the world would be a very boring place. Imagine never being able to make your own decisions. God did not want this so he gave us the power to think on our own. We are rational beings and mostly make good decisions, but the bad decisions are what lead to evil. Consciences act like a moral compass in our heads, trying to steer us away from the evil choices and towards the good. Our consciences could be part of that small incorruptible good that is inside of us. Sometimes a conscience is not enough to guide us, though, and evil choices stem from our free will.

Almost every choice a character makes weighs their conscience against possible unjust consequences. And even though all the characters go through an experience that would be emotionally painful many characters remain evil because experiencing pain does not automatically make the character great. They become nobel when they choose to “see feelingly” (4.6.164). And those devoid of conscience remain evil because in the hard times they choose not to see and not to feel. The suffering and the pain cannot change a person, it can only bring about the choice between morality and comfort, between a conscience and a guilt free

Over generations, the theme of morality plays an important role in multiple events. Morality is the concept that distinguishes between justice and injustice, and is applicable in the daily lives of many people. Despite the fact that each culture has a different perception of morality, everyone has to face the decision between what is moral and what is not. This is due to reason that the concept of morality was created and agreed upon by the people. According to Lee Strobel, moral evil is the immorality and pain and suffering and tragedy that come because we choose to be selfish, arrogant, and uncaring, hateful and abusive. The witch trials, red scare, and the contemporary society have all demonstrated the destructive nature of humans and

Throughout history, philosophers have debated the nature of man as good or evil, and the texts To Kill a Mockingbird, James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931), and Vietnam War memoir The Things They Carried all detail this philosophical debate. It is argued that man is inherently of one moral fiber or another, predispositioned towards one nature or another. However, this argument is shallow and does not address what forms evil in the first place. As shown in To Kill a Mockingbird, James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931), and The Things They Carried, man is not born a monster. The surrounding

While standing over the recently departed body of his inventor, Victor Frankenstein’s creature reflects that he “had cast off all feeling, subdued all anguish, to riot in the excess of [his] despair.” The creature uses his anger to dispel the pain of his rejection from society to purge himself of morals, finishing that “evil thenceforth became [his] good” (220). What constitutes “good” and “evil” for the creature, however, is rather hazy, and what constitutes good and evil for the rest of humanity is even less clear. Nonetheless, through Frankenstein, Mary Shelley implies that humans are predisposed to strive for goodness, which is defined by health and compassion, but that despite this, humans are inclined to act in self-interest.

Based on his findings, Zimbardo explains,“There are times when external circumstances can overwhelm us, and we do things we never thought. If you’re not aware that this can happen, you can be seduced by evil. We need inoculations against our own potential for evil. We have to acknowledge it. Then we can change it” (Dreifus 1). It is important to understand the factors that may lead a person to commit acts of evil, but still hold perpetrators accountable for their actions. Because of the lack of individuality among prisoners and absence of supervision of the guards, ordinary men became perpetrators of evil in the Holocaust and Stanford Prison Experiment.

Natural depravity makes evil a second nature, for it is unchallenging to sin. Roy W. Perrett describes the natural depravity of humanity: “Others hold that agents sometimes do choose evil for its own sake, with a familiar theological version of this line explaining that this occurs because people have a fallen nature such that they will inevitably choose evil unless prevented” (306). The untaught principles of evil are visible in all ages of life, especially in children. Although naïve to the world, children constantly disobey parents and destroy countless items. Angrily and obnoxiously, children scream at the top of their lungs and chuck anything available at walls. Even though children demonstrate the knowledge of right and wrong, they

In his second essay of the Geneaology of Morals, Nietzsche attempts to identify and explain the origin of the conscience. He does not adopt the view of the conscience that is accepted by the “English Psychologists”, such as Bentham, J. Mill, J.S. Mill and Hume, as the result of an innate moral feeling. Rather, it is his belief that the moral content of our conscience is formed during childhood under the influence of society. Nietzsche defines the conscience as an introspective phenomenon brought about by a feeling of responsibility, in which one analyzes their own morality due to the internalization of the values of society. This definition holds the position that the conscience is not something innate to

This essay supports that only humans are capable of being truly evil. Men have the potential to be evil when not told what is right and what is wrong. An example is when Jack and the hunters try to kill the swine.this is shown when they scream”Kill the pig,spill her guts, bash her head !” .This shows how people become evil even violent when not given a code or rules to live by. This also shows how people can turn into animals

Throughout human intellectual history, mankind has debated the question: “are humans good by nature?” Do humans do good out of only self-centered motivations, or is there an internal built-in sense of morality? Today, we face this problem more than ever. For example, if a lawyer argues a killer’s intentions for committing heinous crimes originate from the fact that he has a tendency towards naturally incompetency, or if outside influences turned a naturally well-to-do individual into a ill-willed murderer. Mencius and Xunzi are among the most notable Confucian scholars, yet their differing views on this philosophical conundrum set them apart. Mencius maintained an

Reverend Thomas V Berg author of “What is Moral Conscience?,” published on January 1, 2012 in the Homiletic and Pastoral Review Magazine, defines moral conscience. Within Berg’s article he talks about multiple amount of people being misinformed on moral conscience, especially Catholics. Berg breaks down the misconceptions of conscience into four different notions: conscience as emotive response, conscience as built in moral guidance system, conscience as moral sense, and conscience as moral opinion. Within each notion defines each one and explain why it is incorrect. After explaining each misconception he then gives the definition of moral conscience. Berg explains that conscience must be formulated within one’s lifetime basing it on their

What is considered evil depends upon each individual’s view of morality, which constantly changes through the course of that person’s life. Roy Perrett’s “Evil and Human Nature” explains this by elaborating on the customary interpretation of moral evil. This evil, caused by an intentional bad action or harm, opposes another type of evil, natural evil, which occurs without

From the moment they are born, humans have a naturally evil predisposition. Although the term ‘evil’ is difficult to define, there are various views on morality. The most commonly referenced one, Moral Objectivism, holds that moral standards are universally transcendent, and that certain acts are right or wrong independent of human subjectivity. It is by this unspoken moral code that humanity’s acts are judged. There is some debate whether a fundamental human nature exists, as social and environmental influences are present from the moment someone is born. But if we can define human nature, it is beyond doubt, naturally evil. The English philosopher Thomas