Ethics And Ethics: Are Humans Ethical By Nature?

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There has been a huge debate throughout generations of whether humans are ethical by nature or not. Despite Christian Keyser’s research evidence that humans are ethical by nature, the evidence from the Milgram experiment shows that we are not ethical by nature. Humans learn to be ethical through genetic disposition environmental factors such as culture, parenting, and socialization. Many people believe that being moral and ethical are the same thing, but these two terms are very different. “Morality is primarily about making correct choices, while ethics is about proper reasoning” (Philosopher, web). Morality is more about being right or wrong but being ethical is more about understanding the consequences of an action and interpreting the situation. Culture has a huge impact on our environment. Humans learn to be ethical through culture and family. For example, the racism culture has been brought up through many generations. If our parents or grandparents have a certain belief towards different kinds of people and you are accustomed to that …show more content…

In the 1960’s the Milgram obedience experiment tested whether a person would obey an order from authority even if there were deadly consequences. If a person gave a wrong answer, or didn’t give an answer then the participant would have to give the other an electric shock. The electric current could be set off at a deadly electricity level if they had given a wrong answer too many times. It may seem as if the participants would object to such an act but “65% of the participants in Milgram’s study delivered the maximum shocks” (Cherry, pg. 2). This shows that people have been reinforced from a young age to obey orders from authority even if there are horrible consequences to such actions. Adolph “Eichmann’s defense that he was merely following instructions when he ordered the deaths of millions of Jews” (Cherry, pg. 1). He

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