Are people born morally evil, neutral, or good?

Question

Evil - see Thomas Hobbes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes
Neutral - see John Locke http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke
Good - see Jean-Jacques Rousseau http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau

Answer 1

It is not birth that does it, but life.

Answer 2

I believe we are neither
Simply because when we are at that stage of new life we can not differentiate what we believe to be evil or good.
What I believe we posses is the potential to be "evil"or"good"
Our environment does play an important role in our decisions and the way we are raised but certain people react in certain ways even if they had the exact same environment there is always difference because although we are all created equal we are all born with a different set of emotions that can drastically change our opinions regardless of environment.
One thing is for sure.....we are all born with the destiny to sin...it is in human nature and no amount of unexposure can change that. Simply because we HAVE the power to CHOOSE we are stuck with being "good"or "bad" although good and evil are just perceptions of man

Answer 3

I believe we are born as neutral as can be . Our minds are a empty slate, we are taught and our minds are shaped by people and the stimuli that surrounds us. Man has such a narrow viewpoint about good and evil because we only see it being trapped on this plane of reality. The reality is there is no good and evil there just is. Everything in our lives or existance is choice. If someone hurts us in someway it really is our choice how we react or respond to it. If you choose to let it hurt you that is your choice. I will take it one step further, if you can imagine that this time and place is something that you have chosen to experience long before you were born again through the birth canal. Everything you experience , you have chosen to long before it came to pass. And if someone were to kill you they really are only killing the body which allows you to exist on this plane. You could choose to have another body in an instance if you like.
Choice is everything, people choose to be good or evil. And people choose how to react to it.

Answer 4

the belief of being morally impartial the place morality is set by skill of being in God's will or outdoors God's will is absurd. it is, in spite of the shown fact that, between the underpinnings of a relativistic worldwide view. until such time as they are able to growing to be judgements to bypass away the choose of God, they could be considered morally good. as quickly as that determination making technique starts, they are going to make judgements that are outdoors which will. That starts at an extremely youthful age, it is why between the 1st words they learn is "no". the thought slightly one is a sparkling slate of a few type isn't basically degrading to little ones, yet shows an entire loss of information of childrens in many circumstances.

Answer 5

I don't know that we can frame the question as you ask it.

Our human nature demands that our lives have worth so that our lives are worth living. But finding worth that may take the form of conquering as easily as helping.

Our human nature also includes the capacity for sympathy and empathy. But we may just as easily dull (or pervert) our sense of sympathy as to sharpen it.

So we were born with the capacity to be moral and the capacity to be immoral. If that's neutral, I vote for neutral.

Answer 6

Neutral, Locke has the most sound argument

But with that having been said, it's the people we surround ourselves with and the environment that shape how we will respond to situations and how we will make moral/ethical decisions.

Answer 7

I think that we have the potetion to be ether evil or good. I's the people that surrounds that make you what you are, our taechers our parent's and most of all is the knowlege that make us different. You know what is evil but you have the knowlege to choose good.

Answer 8

That depends on how you personally define the word "evil." Personally, I believe that we learn to be good people, that all humans are borne to be selfish for reasons of survival, and that good behaviour is a learned, not instinctive. As much as society wishes to condemn those persons whom are guilty of crimes through righteous behaviour, it remains to be fact that we are all capable of the "unthinkable" if we have cognitive abilities that are not limited.

Answer 9

it's interesting to me that rousseau, the great humanist was actually a miserable human being, fathering children whom he didn't care for and generally acting in direct opposition to the philosophy he was espousing. therefore i would scratch him off the list of purveyors of moral truth. sometimes you have to read beyond the souce to find the truth.

Answer 10

People are born good, evil and bad you chose because all the people in the world are all people and you really can not say if they are good or evil.

Answer 11

No body is born with evil mind, neutral mind, or good mind. It is obviously the people around him or her that make, what he/she is. The GOD has no discrimination in his creation. He created everybody equal. Every person on this planet has been created in the same form, with equal anatomy, with equal emotions, equal biological needs, It is we who have made this planet filthy. It is we, who divided the people in good and bad, made good into bad, bad into worse. We human beings forget that we are HUMAN BEINGS and are blessed with the power to think. We have immense power to think and get to know what is good and what not. OH GOD SAVE THIS PLANET.