Who said the nature of man is evil

Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau represent the most famous, opposing views. Hobbes described humans as nasty and brutish. He believed society and rules improve our bad nature. Rousseau argued instead that we are gentle and pure. He blamed society for corrupting our innate good nature. Aristotle argued that morality is something we learn. Sigmund Freud considered new-borns a moral blank slate. Research by Yale University shows that they are born with a sense of morality.

As part of the experiment, kids watched a short play where one shape tried to climb a hill. A second shape wanted to help the climber, while a third one tried to prevent it from succeeding. After the show, babies were asked to choose one figure. The study revealed our basic instinct to prefer friendly behaviors over malicious ones.

As Boom explains, their sense of justice is limited. Parents and society must further develop the innate moral beliefs. Most people say they would return it to the original owner. They believe people are not as honest as them. To put this assumption to test, a team of scientists conducted a large scale experiment.

They planted 17, lost wallets in 40 countries. The results of the study published in Science busted long-standing economic model. Experts expected people to keep the wallets with money. They were all caught by surprise. Regardless of country, the majority of people returned the wallets. And they were more likely to do so when the wallets had more money.

In reality, their self-image as an honest person is more important to them than a short-term monetary gain. Researchers posed as people who had found wallets, dropping them in public places.

Your Email Address. Vices of the Mind. Does Consciousness Come in Degrees? The precarious case for being good. Is morality a fashion statement? The hypocrisy of the good. Nature's memory. The corruption of science. Robin Douglass Issue 72, 19th March Want to continue reading? Continue Reading Already a subscriber? Latest Releases. New theories of the universe. The new artistic revolution. The power of apocalypse. The scene replicates the findings of a study from the Infant Cognition Center at Yale University , which went further to prove that babies were choosing the puppets because of their actions rather than other variables for example, an innate preference or familiarity with a certain colour or shape.

A study from Kyoto University had a similar approach and findings to the puppet study, seemingly confirming these results. The third-party agent would sometimes intervene to help the victim by putting itself between the victim and the bully, and would sometimes flee instead.

After watching the video, children had to choose their preferred character and most chose the intervening third-party agent who had tried to help the victim. Wei-Bin Zhang 1 1. Personalised recommendations. Cite chapter How to cite? ENW EndNote.

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