Are human beings natually moral?

by Jiin, Lee

How do you think about human being’s nature? Are human beings good innately? Are human beings bad innately? Or are human beings neither good nor bad when they are born? Some people say humans are naturally good because they have sympathy, so when they see something that needs their hands, they are willing to help. However, other people maintain that people are born with vice due to the fact that on account of the selfish gene inside human beings, when people hear the news that other people succeed, they feel jealous and sometimes they wish that other people fail. Also, as we can see in our history, there have been many terrible accidents such as wars and genocide. On the other hand, the others claim that human beings are not born with either virtue or vice and their goodness and badness are created by the environment. It means that how their parents raise them and what they learn from the society contributes to build their characters.

Based on the recent research which was conducted by the Yale university, human beings are good innately. However, they are affected by the environment a lot. Researchers did an experiment that they showed 3 months olds babies that one doll which helped its friend doll and the other doll which interrupted its friend doll. And then researchers let the babies choose a doll to pay with. The result was that over 80% of the babies preferred the kind doll.

However, sadly, there was a limitation when it comes to rewards. Researchers showed the same situation to the babies but when they let the babies choose the preferable doll, they gave some snacks with the dolls. At first, they put 2 crackers with the mean doll and 1 cracker with the nice doll, and they let the babies choose the doll. In this situation, 80% of the babies chose the nice doll with 1 cracker. However, when they put 10 crackers with the bad doll, but with the good doll, they put 1 cracker than those with the bad doll, the result was reversed. Most of the babies chose the bad doll with 10 crackers. In other words, the environment is important to build human beings’ characters.

To put this issue into perspective, this experiment points out that human beings are naturally good but according to the environment, they can become moral or immoral. From my opinion, as a proponent of the idea that people are naturally moral, I believe that human beings are innately good but because they are easily subjected by the environment, it is important to make a good environment. In fact, this research gives us very hopeful message that if we educate children well, there could be more moral people in our future society. Therefore, we should more focus on the way to educate children.      

 

 

Do babies know right from wrong? By Paul Bloom (02/14/14)

http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/12/opinion/bloom-babies-right-rong/index.html?hpt=li_c2