Human Nature Essay

Human Nature Essay

Samuel Carver

Are people naturally good or evil? That question sat in my mind for a while. I would switch from answer to answer figuring out how i thought. When I thought about it wouldn’t it be neither. In this case, naturally means originally, which when you say “a person is originally”, you might think of birth. That baby is a blank slate. So i will explain why I believe that a person is neither naturally good nor evil. I will also pull some examples from two novels titled Night and Lord of the flies.

Back to what I said about a baby being a blank slate. Everything and everyone that person comes into contact with will “write” on the blank slate. A baby has done one thing when it is born, and that is be innocent. If you have done nothing good nor bad, how can you be described as good or evil. Innocence means not guilty. You can guilty for good or bad things (it is just used mostly as a bad thing). If you are not guilty of doing anything in your life then you are not good or bad. Let’s take an example from Lord of the Flies. There was a guy named Piggy (don’t make fun of it, just don’t)  who I thought represented innocence. Think of Piggy as a baby. There were two sides/groups, one leader was Jack and the other, Ralph. Ralph represented good, or you could say a Democracy. Jack was evil, or staying with world leaderships, A Dictatorship. Piggy has a “a blank slate”. Both Jack and Ralph wrote on his blank slate and the he chose a side. Then Roger came up and decided to affect the slate by breaking in (killing Piggy). Piggy was neither good nor evil until she chose a side. All three of those boys wrote on Piggy’s slate and effect his life. So at birth there is a great portion (the greatest you will have) of innocence which makes you not good, not bad, but neutral until you make decisions.

There is also what you are taught. Like me, I was born into a family with love, caring, and fun. There was religion, there were traditions (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, and Birthday parties every year whether I’m one year old or 16 years). So that’s what I followed. I love all the traditions, I followed the same religion, and i believe in love and care for other people. That is what my family has wrote on my slate. Then i met a friend in second grade who is my closest friend today. She showed me friendship and hopefulness. But if I’m born to a woman who is swore at and beaten by her husband, that is what i would think is right because that is all I remember my dad doing. The parent or adult in your family is your number one role model. If I am born to a nice family (like i was), If I don’t know anything else then i will do what they do. I am following the good that was taught to me. It is when I first learn evil and what evil does, when I choose a path to go down. My surroundings will affect how I make a life.

If you are religious, you will get this. “You can eat any fruit from any tree except the tree in the center. For if you eat the fruit from that tree, then you will be cursed and die.” That was said by God to Adam and Eve in the bible. They were not allowed to eat that fruit or they would die. God never said that they never had a choice to eat it, he just gave a warning. So they decided to eat it because they had free will. Free will is what is called a choice. Like for example, when Jack had to watch for the boat, in Lord of the flies, he went hunting because camp needed food. He had free will to choose to do his job. But he decided to go hunt. The camp hated him after this which sort of struck his anger. Everyone one has free will, like choosing what your going to eat. Even the worst people in the world like Hitler had free will. He chose his beliefs over millions of lives.

So I know this was about me choosing a side over if people are naturally good or bad. But if I had to choose it would be neither. I believe people are neutral.