Are Humans Inherently Good

In philosophy and ethics, an ancient debate has raged on for centuries. A seemingly simple question has led some of the greatest philosophers ever to lock horns. Are humans inherently good or evil? I believe we are good, however we have different ideas of what “good” is, or circumstance forces us to turn evil. First of all, to debate this we must understand what “good” is. Is “good” fairness, or being kind to other? One interesting definition is Aristotle’s, who proposed that how good something is depends on how well it performs it’s function. For example, since knives are meant to cut and sharp knives cut well, a sharp knife is a good knife. In reality, we all have different concepts of what good is. If you look at people like Hitler, you

However, a study by Stanford University found that many career criminals, rapists, drug users, etc. were abused as children, had a rough childhood, or had traumatic experiences. And, there have been many incidents of mothers having to resort to stealing small amounts of food to feed their children and save them from starving. In these cases, these people were inherently good, it’s just that their experiences or the circumstances they were in shaped or forced them to do some morally wrong things. If you provide them access to therapy and new opportunities, they can be good. But even if most people are inherently good, not all are. Many serial killers or rapists are just purely evil people. This just comes down to the majority over the minority. As actor Patton Oswalt said, “If it’s one person or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a percent of the population on this planet [...] The vast majority stand against that darkness [..] We would not be here if humanity was inherently evil. We’d have eaten ourselves long ago.” We cannot judge everybody because of the actions of a minority, so as a majority, we are