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James Anderson
Professor Plasek
SCLA 102
10/15/2024
Good and Evil
We’ve talked about a lot of things this semester in our readings and class discussions. The one that
stood out to me the most was Frankenstein and the concept of if people are naturally good or evil. The
reason this is so interesting is because there isn’t a definitive answer to this question. While conducting a
little research on this topic, there are different types of views such as a philosophical, scientific, and
religious. Aristotle argued that morality is learned and we’re born as amoral creatures. Sigmund Freud
considered new borns as a moral blank slate. The most famous difference of opinions come from Thomas
Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Hobbes definition of humans was one of a more negative perspective,
he described humans as nasty and brutish. Hobbes thought that humans need society and rules in order to
control their instincts, however Rousseau came out and criticized him by saying humans would be gentle
creatures without the potential of greed, corruption, and inequality that’s caused by the class system. When it
comes to some religions like Christianity, they believe people are inherently good because they were created
in gods image and likeness.
I believe that we’re all amoral creatures, it’s our environment that makes us the way we are.
Naturally if you’re born into a family who’s poor, there morals would be to do whatever it takes to live. For
example they might take stuff and their kids will grow up thinking that this is okay to do. Our minds are
easily molded at a young age and what we see is what we learn. This makes it important to teach kids the
difference between right and wrong, so that way kids get an understanding of the concept of good and evil.
While it’s important to teach these concepts, it’s up to them to make the right choices. This is where I
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believe environmental factors come into play. While we are taught the difference between good and evil, if
we grow up in a rough environment naturally we are going to conform to what we know no matter what we
were taught. While the concept of good vs evil is tricky, it’s important to realize that it’ll always be a up for
debate.
