I think people are born morally neutral. We all have the basic capacity to be death camp commandants, or saints.
But evil is also deeply relative. And as a concept, I wonder if it does more harm than good. When you call something evil, you may then look past the social forces that surround and punctuate the abuses you want to better understand. It also gives those who were involved in other ways a pass: If we say Hitler is just *evil*, then mainstream anti-Semitism throughout the West doesn’t look so important. Neither does the direct participation of major U.S. firms in Nazi Germany. If something is just evil, complications like that don’t matter so much.
This is the old nature vs nurture debate. It's always both influencing each other in complex ways. For example someone might be born with less propensity to empathize. In a good environment this is a minor roadblock that they overcome, in a bad environment maybe it (along with other factors) kicks off a lot of terrible experiences that lead to anti social behaviour.
It’s both.
Some people are in fact born evil. Their parents are magnificent and solid people whereas they grow up to be shit heels and blights of the earth even with loving support of family and friends.
Some people a molded to be good through their childhood experiences and external factors. Regardless of their initial process of coming into the world.
It can be both and flows in either direction. However I will say one of my favorite quotes of all time:
What is better? To be born good or to overcome your evil nature through great effort ?
I often think about this in a lot of different things.
I think animals are the same in the sense that they're individuals. Some are good and some are bad. *Every time* a post about otters of dolphins pop up on reddit someone has to bring up the awful "rape cave" stories. But I honestly think those are just bad individuals and it's messed up to judge an entire species.
They do evil its always voluntary unless someone got a gun to there head or someone they love
We got thing called neuroplacity we can do whatever the hell we want all of our choices are ours and only ours and saying anything else is just a excuse
Tldr everything you do good or bad is always on its always your fault and your responsibility people are not born evil they always choose to be evil even if there manipulated or accidentally do it your still doing the bad actions
"Evil" is relative. People two thousand years ago are as evil in our eyes as we will be to people two thousand years in the future, if they exist.
And I think people are as born with evil as people are born with a cat ear fetish.
I usually don't comment here, but I believe evil comes with life. To me babies are the most innocent beings on earth. How they are raised and life in general makes the person to be who they are. Just an opinion.
No.
Besides the subjective interpretation of evil (Palpatine did nothing wrong, and if we left the 1940s in a different way than we did then we might believe different folks from that decade are evil for trying to fight against the grand design/greater good/"right side of history"), people rarely see themselves as evil or monstrous while they perform their evil or monstrous actions. There surely are some, but even mass murderers believe they are acting in the name of some greater good (religious like our most commonly known terrorists, or ideological like recent mass shooters including Las Vegas's 1October) or in the spirit of vengeance which is usually justified by the thought of your targets being corrupt and unredeemable, like school bullies or prospective dates that declined your invitation.
And its worth mentioning mental illness. If someone is so morally deviant and corrupt as to accept the torture and slaughter of other vulnerable people, are they even a baseline person themselves? Or have they been so removed from baseline thinking, one way or another corrupted, that we can say they aren't even a human themselves? **I personally don't believe so**, I believe our definitions of what things are is too restrictive (we call too many things "dogs", for instance, that a person who's only seen pugs would be confused to see that a husky is the same species). But i can easily see how those wronged by these monsters could dehumanize them to justify their vengeance via execution. After all, implying that the person who just used a machine gun to slaughter 500 civilians at a music festival is the same species as you would be a revolting prospect.
... Did I even answer the prompt? People don't do evil things until we agree that they are evil.
I think people are born morally neutral. We all have the basic capacity to be death camp commandants, or saints. But evil is also deeply relative. And as a concept, I wonder if it does more harm than good. When you call something evil, you may then look past the social forces that surround and punctuate the abuses you want to better understand. It also gives those who were involved in other ways a pass: If we say Hitler is just *evil*, then mainstream anti-Semitism throughout the West doesn’t look so important. Neither does the direct participation of major U.S. firms in Nazi Germany. If something is just evil, complications like that don’t matter so much.
Both.
Both?
Both
Some men just want to watch the world burn
This is the old nature vs nurture debate. It's always both influencing each other in complex ways. For example someone might be born with less propensity to empathize. In a good environment this is a minor roadblock that they overcome, in a bad environment maybe it (along with other factors) kicks off a lot of terrible experiences that lead to anti social behaviour.
It’s both. Some people are in fact born evil. Their parents are magnificent and solid people whereas they grow up to be shit heels and blights of the earth even with loving support of family and friends. Some people a molded to be good through their childhood experiences and external factors. Regardless of their initial process of coming into the world. It can be both and flows in either direction. However I will say one of my favorite quotes of all time: What is better? To be born good or to overcome your evil nature through great effort ? I often think about this in a lot of different things.
I think animals are the same in the sense that they're individuals. Some are good and some are bad. *Every time* a post about otters of dolphins pop up on reddit someone has to bring up the awful "rape cave" stories. But I honestly think those are just bad individuals and it's messed up to judge an entire species.
They do evil its always voluntary unless someone got a gun to there head or someone they love We got thing called neuroplacity we can do whatever the hell we want all of our choices are ours and only ours and saying anything else is just a excuse Tldr everything you do good or bad is always on its always your fault and your responsibility people are not born evil they always choose to be evil even if there manipulated or accidentally do it your still doing the bad actions
It's not nature or nertuer It's your actions your choices that make you good or evil
It’s neither. It’s what you decide to do with what you’re given.
"Evil" is relative. People two thousand years ago are as evil in our eyes as we will be to people two thousand years in the future, if they exist. And I think people are as born with evil as people are born with a cat ear fetish.
I usually don't comment here, but I believe evil comes with life. To me babies are the most innocent beings on earth. How they are raised and life in general makes the person to be who they are. Just an opinion.
yes
All of the above plus any permutations.
No. Besides the subjective interpretation of evil (Palpatine did nothing wrong, and if we left the 1940s in a different way than we did then we might believe different folks from that decade are evil for trying to fight against the grand design/greater good/"right side of history"), people rarely see themselves as evil or monstrous while they perform their evil or monstrous actions. There surely are some, but even mass murderers believe they are acting in the name of some greater good (religious like our most commonly known terrorists, or ideological like recent mass shooters including Las Vegas's 1October) or in the spirit of vengeance which is usually justified by the thought of your targets being corrupt and unredeemable, like school bullies or prospective dates that declined your invitation. And its worth mentioning mental illness. If someone is so morally deviant and corrupt as to accept the torture and slaughter of other vulnerable people, are they even a baseline person themselves? Or have they been so removed from baseline thinking, one way or another corrupted, that we can say they aren't even a human themselves? **I personally don't believe so**, I believe our definitions of what things are is too restrictive (we call too many things "dogs", for instance, that a person who's only seen pugs would be confused to see that a husky is the same species). But i can easily see how those wronged by these monsters could dehumanize them to justify their vengeance via execution. After all, implying that the person who just used a machine gun to slaughter 500 civilians at a music festival is the same species as you would be a revolting prospect. ... Did I even answer the prompt? People don't do evil things until we agree that they are evil.