Human Nature is Evil
Have you ever tried to imagine that living in the world without civilizations, without society and without laws. About the existence of society, some people believe that it is not significant and some believe that humans will become savage if there is not a society. Based on Leviathan written by Tomas Hobbes, Stanford prison experiment and the theories of philosophers, we can prove that human nature is evil.
In Leviathan, Tomas Hobbes explained clearly that human nature is evil. Tomas Hobbes wrote that “Self-preservation’ is our most fundamental desire; and if there is no law or authority to override our acting on this desire, no one to tell us how or how not we may try to stay alive.”(from leviathan, esp. Ch. 10-14.). He acknowledges that when there’s no laws or authority to limit human, the benefit for ourselves will be the first deal we considered. That means our mind and behaviors would probably change into primitive and selfish. And also, Hobbes states that humans are greedy and they have to find ways to achieve their desires. His thoughts about
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According to the professor who was in charge of this experiment, Philip Zimbardo, “The line between good and evil is permeable and almost anyone can be induced to cross it when pressured by situational forces.” When huge pressure of emergencies suddenly comes, human’s mind may cross that permeable line. Somehow, they may turn into bad. And this experiment also shows how the environmental changes can have a huge effect on people. Zimbardo split the volunteers into two groups, the prisoners and the guards. And as time goes on, the guards became enjoying torturing the prisoners. When the enironment changes, people start to adapt the new place and get used to it. In this situation, without laws and society, the seamy mind inside of humans’ heart was stimulated and it shows cruelly and
Many people have different views on the moral subject of good and evil or human nature. It is the contention of this paper that humans are born neutral, and if we are raised to be good, we will mature into good human beings. Once the element of evil is introduced into our minds, through socialization and the media, we then have the potential to do bad things. As a person grows up, they are ideally taught to be good and to do good things, but it is possible that the concept of evil can be presented to us. When this happens, we subconsciously choose whether or not to accept this evil. This where the theories of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke become interesting as both men differed in the way they believed human nature to be. Hobbes and Locke both picture a different scene when they express human nature.
Human nature has been debated for centuries, everyone coming up with their own theories, pulling their sources from religious texts, wars, experiments, or daily life. William Golding and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, born in very different times and countries were very opposite in their views compared to one another. William Golding believed that human nature was immoral and evil, and there has been evidence of this all the way to the beginning of human society. Without laws or moral boundaries, humans would plunder, steal, and murder to their hearts content, delighting in their new found freedom to let go of social philosophies imposed upon them. Rousseau, however, believed that human nature was naturally just and moral, and it was society’s laws that made them immoral. Social norms and laws create limitation and superfluous need, and it is within those boundaries that humans become enslaved to “moral inequality.” Without laws and social norms, humans will revert back to their natural goodness. It is the polar opposite of Golding’s belief. Golding’s philosophy, however, is more in line to my own, as in my opinion, Rousseau’s belief is a rather naïve outlook on life.
We will give Hobbes’ view of human nature as he describes it in Chapter 13 of Leviathan. We will then give an argument for placing a clarifying layer above the Hobbesian view in order to account for acts of altruism. Hobbes views human nature as the war of each man against each man. For Hobbes, the essence of human nature can be found when we consider how man acts apart from any government or order. Hobbes describes the world as “a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man.”
In Abu Ghraib, the prisoners’ faces were covered with hoods and the prison was covered up with walls that made the prison an island where morality was no longer there due to the three traits that the soldier went through. To understand how individuals can kill innocent children, women, men, and elders, Philip G. Zimbardo did The Stanford prison experiment. In the book, Zimbardo highlighted three psychological truths. The first is that the world is full of both evil and good, the barrier between the two is absorbent, and angels and devils can switch.
Thomas Hobbes begins The Leviathan by establishing the idea that all men are created equal, although every man perceives himself as smarter than the next. As Hobbes says: "[men] will hardly believe there are many so wise as themselves; for they see their own wit at hand, and other men's at a distance" (25). He then argues for psychological egoism, describing mankind as driven by self-interest and, ultimately, only self-interest. This leads mankind to a constant state of war where human beings will pit themselves against each other in competition because "if any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies: (25). Hobbes explains that in a natural state of war, chaos ensues and man will do whatever is necessary to preserve their own lives and genetics, even if it means lying, stealing, murder, or rape. He also approves of such actions in a state of war, because, according to Hobbes, it is every human being's Right of Nature to seek self-preservation. The only thing that prevents people from going about doing these things are the Laws of Nature. A Law of Nature is a general rule discovered by mankind through reason that forbids a person from doing anything self-destructive and gives them the right to self-preservation. Hobbes' Laws of Natures are the means by which, in a state of chaos, order can be established, giving each person their best chance at survival.
When put into an authoritative position over others, is it possible to claim that with this new power individual(s) would be fair and ethical or could it be said that ones true colors would show? A group of researchers, headed by Stanford University psychologist Philip G. Zimbardo, designed and executed an unusual experiment that used a mock prison setting, with college students role-playing either as prisoners or guards to test the power of the social situation to determine psychological effects and behavior (1971). The experiment simulated a real life scenario of William Golding’s novel, “Lord of the Flies” showing a decay and failure of traditional rules and morals; distracting exactly how people should behave toward one another. This research, known more commonly now as the Stanford prison experiment, has become a classic demonstration of situational power to influence individualistic perspectives, ethics, and behavior. Later it is discovered that the results presented from the research became so extreme, instantaneous and unanticipated were the transformations of character in many of the subjects that this study, planned originally to last two-weeks, had to be discontinued by the sixth day. The results of this experiment were far more cataclysmic and startling than anyone involved could have imagined. The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the discoveries from Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment and of Burrhus Frederic “B.F.” Skinner’s study regarding the importance of environment.
One inmate suffered from a physical and emotional breakdown. The conditions became so severe that he was released. Zimbardo later stated that, “we did so reluctantly because we believed that he was trying to ‘con’ us.” Clearly Zimbardo was overreacting and should have seen that his actions and choice of experimentation caused the man to spiral out of control. By day 4, a rumor was going around that they newly sprung inmate was planning another revolt. As a result, they moved the entire experiment to another floor of the psychology building, and yet again another inmate suffered a breakdown. Soon after, he was released, and over the next two days, two more inmates would do the likewise. A final example of the effects of this experiment is shown when a fifth inmate is released. This time, the man developed a psychosomatic rash over is entire body. These are usually caused or aggravated by a mental factor such as internal conflict or stress, similar to all of the conditions faced inside the mock prison. After the fifth grueling day, Zimbardo finally thought his experiment was a success. The events inside the prison walls were occurring just as Zimbardo had planned. He was finding success and joy in these grown men’s emotional breakdown, and many thought this experiment could be considered ethically
Human nature is the most debated topic to date. Many people think that mankind is programmed to be evil; on the other hand people argue that it is naturally good. Nathaniel Hawthorne gave his argument with the novel, The Scarlet Letter. The Scarlet Letter showed that mankind is innately good by Chillingworth’s measures, Hester’s capitulates and Dimmesdale’s noble qualities.
P. Alvarez (2015), more ethical issues have been displayed. Primarily, professor Zimbardo was supposed to intervene once the situation degenerated, but he did not in order to analyse the developments of the events. He allowed guards and prisoners to establish a conflictual environment which led to distress. Secondarily, although prisoners had the chance to meet their relatives during the imprisonment, they were strictly forbidden to divulge any information about their life in prison. To encourage them not to complain about the way the experiment was carried on, Zimbardo and his team, previously to the visit, made the prison environment seem pleasant and benign.
How exactly does the human brain work? Are humans evil by nature or are they good samaritans most, if not all, the time? As studies throughout history have shown, this is not the case. Humans are inherently evil because they are always seeking as much power as they can, revert to challenging authority and selfishness in times of peril, and become intimidated easily by “authority” figures egging them on, which is reflected in The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, as well as The Zimbardo Experiment conducted by Psychologist Phillip Zimbardo.
The concept of human nature has been theorized and debated repeatedly by philosophers throughout history; contrasting arguments regarding whether or not human beings are intrinsically competitive, or compassionate have been put forth by Thomas Hobbes and Peter Kropotkin. Understanding human nature is important in order to properly understand why human beings behave in the manner that they do, and whether or not all people instinctively are made to think similarly. Being equipped with this knowledge can allow for one to better understand events in history and different aspects of life, such as politics.
In Leviathan, Hobbes seems to underestimate the motives of mankind. His pessimistic view of human nature sheds no light on the goods that men do. While human nature may create a sense of personal survival, it does not imply that human nature will lead towards violent behavior. When left to provide for themselves, mankind will work toward a peace that benefits them all. There will always be evil in the world which will disrupt the peace, but in the end the strength of men should triumph.
This experiment gathered twenty-one young men and assigned half of them to be “prisoners” and the other half to be “guards”. Simply put, the point of the experiment was to simulate a prison and observe how the setting and the given roles affected the behavior of the young men. The men who were given the roles of guard were given a position of authority and acted accordingly. This alone strongly influenced the behavior of both the guards and the prisoners. The guards had a sense of entitlement, control, and power, while the prisoners had a feeling of resentment and rebellion. Social pressure also played a crucial role in the experiment. Many of the guards began to exploit their power by abusing, brutalizing, and dehumanizing the prisoners. Some of the other guards felt wrong about this abuse, but did nothing to put an end to it. Finally, the situation and setting of the experiment immensely altered the conduct of both the prisoners and guards. The setting of being in a prison caused many of the volunteers to act in ways that they may have normally not. Even though the setting of being in a prison was essentially pretend, the volunteers accepted the roles they were given and acted as if it was all a reality. The prisoners genuinely behaved as if they were indeed real prisoners, and the guards treated them likewise. The situation these volunteers
(Hobbes, p. 1). Man’s desire, like Hobbes believed, is never satisfied, but what man pursues is a mix of sustenance, security and community, which fundamentally changes the way he would act in the state of nature. When looking at Hobbes’s writings, it becomes clear that to him, the state of nature was a very negative point in time. He compares the state of nature to a state of constant war, where long term community is impossible. (Hobbes p. 3)
In conclusion, human nature is self- preservation and reproduction, which is neither good nor evil. We are later developed by nurture and diverged to behave good or evil. The essence of all human behavior is the desire to survive and pass genes. Self- preservation can also be applied to people around us. As a result, we learn to cooperate and sometimes we sacrifice ourselves to fulfill survival of the species. On the other hand, to survive is not necessarily harming or getting larger share of resources than others. Self- preservation and reproduction as human nature are neutral, without biasing to good or evil.