Causes of Evil and Their Nature - Term Paper Example

? Causes of Evil Over the years, it is has always been said that conception of evil is controversial. The definitions of evil are explained differently by both ordinary and in particular fields for example ethics. The main questions we mostly concerns about are whether there are actually evil people and how they look like or the reasons that make them become evil people. In this essay, there will be discussions of the main causes of evil in different people for example the nature and the environment, the biological theories that explain the causes of evil. It will also consist of the main factors that will include circumstances and luck that are concerned as has important influences on people’s behavior and attitude so that they can perform evil actions. The essay will also entail of different examples of the different causes of evil and the nature or environment they happen. Introduction The conception that some people are good and others are evil is widespread. This notion of evil has been spread throughout the human history and will continue to happen for years. First, it important to understand what evil people and evil actions are in different accounts. In this case, there is a relationship between evil people and evil actions, but what makes an evil person is because of evil actions. According to psychological thin account, the evil actions are considered as evil if it is culpable wrong and connect to the extreme harm, on the other hand, psychological thick account adds another point to, is evil action also encounter with the combination of psychological conditions Kekes (2005). Besides the aggregative accounts of evil, people say a subject performs more than specified number of evil accounts or responsible for more than a specified number of undeserved harm is evil. However, this account is rejected by the basic dispositional account that suggests that evil people are the one who are disposed to perform evil actions only. Circumstance Therefore, the term of circumstances has had a huge influence of people and in other cases; people are considered as evil when they perform evil actions. First, evil actions are evident in circumstances when they are put in such situations, for example, in circumstances where people are under the threat of a powerful society. This means that, under someone or something powerful, people may seem to think in a way that he is frightened and appreciated, then he or she must follow anything they say by doing such actions, hence, those actions lead them to become evil people. The second example is the Milgram’s experiment where subjects were under the instructor’s instruction to obey the evil actions by pressing the button with the high or extreme voltage in order to kill the learner (Foldager, Schultz, St?hr, Hansen, Franck, & Misimovic, 2013). On the other hand, according to Kekes (2005), the clear finding that most subjects in experimental will cause severe harm on other people by following the instructions of an authority. Consequently, the evil actions of the subjects in the experiments would lead them to become evil people. In addition, though someone do not prefer to perform or cause harm to other people, but when they are forced to do this harm regularly, it is said that they would not feel pain or sorry for the suffering they are inflicting on others thus still carry out those actions repeatedly. This is because their actions are seen as more severe harm on other people thus developing to be evil people (Foldager, Schultz, St?hr, Hansen, Franck, & Misimovic, 2013). The other example where circumstances force a person to be evil is when people are programmed to torture prisoners. When they start doing the act, they feel bad or really hate doing the actions, but when they continue for some time torturing the prisoners they finally become familiar with those actions, thus they are considered as evil people. Moreover, people will find other people evil they sometimes do some things seen as go over the limit for example, violating other people will such as in the prisons. Some of these examples therefore remind us back the previous perception that it is possible to be an evil person by doing evil actions. In addition, it is said often that people carrying out evil actions regularly tend to misunderstand on the wrongness that can influence their thinking about themselves. This means that wrong reflection can cause wrong actions that influences their self-image and whenever that have this kind of wrongness, it usually seems that their disposition to perform the evil actions is greater thus the evil actions leads them to becoming evil people (Kekes, 2005). From this point of view, it is therefore clear that evil people are like that because of performing evil actions, especially and noticeably when they are under different circumstances as highlighted above. Stanford prison experiment Stanford prison experiment of the year 1971 was undertaken to discuss how the environment can change someone and stir the evil out of people, with the subjects being college students to test the power of the social situation to determine behavior. The experiment’s findings highlighted that a person-centered analysis of human behavior, attributes most behavior change, in negative and positive directions to the internal dispositional features of people. The findings showed that factors that direct behavior in different people include genes, personality traits, temperaments, personal pathologies, and virtues. However, although the human behavior is usually a function of the interaction of a person and situation, social psychologists have called attention to the attribution biases in much of psychology and among the general public that overestimates the importance of dispositional factors while understanding situational factors (Carnahan, & McFarland, 2007). In addition, the experiment expands the analysis to display the surprisingly profound impact of institutional forces on the behavior of normal healthy subjects. Through their experiment, the research team designed a study that related to correctional facilities what prisons brings out in people confounded by what people bring into prison. The research concluded that healthy mock prisoners suffered an intense emotional stress reaction, whereas most of the other prisoners acted robots who obeyed every order by the guards. Consequently, the distress of the prisoners resulted from the guard’s cruelty, and the sense of feeling powerless. This experiment did not generally end since the subjects were subjected to degrading actions used by the guards against them in duration of one week. This experiment is important since it illustrates clearly how good people can easily be transformed to evil people thus healthy people can begin experiencing pathological reactions traced back to the situational forces (Carnahan, & McFarland, 2007). Nature On the other hand, circumstance is not the only factor that is concerned as the influence on the behavior of people. Along this aspect, luck can also be seen as another factor along with the aspect of circumstances in order to sway people to becoming evil people or good people. According to Staub (2003), some evil people cannot carry out their evil actions because the disposition in their behavior fails to show due to the luck. Moreover, evil people might not be able to involve and perform the evil actions because of luck, this means that, supposed that they dwell in a strict society that people are jailed easily if they commit evil actions against other people. Nonetheless, there are people who are concerned as unlucky to be brought up in a outrageous conditions that the subjects has fundamental influence from other members of the society that lead them to become evil people (Staub, 2003). It is said that when people are unlucky living in such difficult circumstances, may have performed evil actions that make them become evil people. In accordance to Staub (2003), our blame on the evil people can fail if the idea of circumstances occurs. This means that, if a person is born and brought up into a violent home or family for example through genetic mutation, they would not be blamed on for doing evil actions, this is because it is not their fault to be born like that thus they are unlucky. On the other hand, if people with unusual characteristics causes evil actions, it seems that their actions are said to be extremely harmful therefore evil. Moreover, if a person performs evil actions, they should not be under the moral criticism according to the dispositional account (Staub, 2003). Ignorance To other popular groups and beliefs, evil is also caused by people’s unawareness thus; the only method eliminating evil in the world is eliminating ignorance. This means that, one people are intelligent, educated, free of superstitious minds, and have the need to devote themselves and their time to fulfilling their basic needs, people will eventually have a healthy society with harmony and happiness. However, people have very indistinct and different understanding of the human nature and their history. Ignorant is said therefore to be the cause of evil in some people, this is because they do not comprehend the most noticeable things that may vary with a people’s best intentions. Intellectual nature of person is not related necessarily to evil actions since intelligent people are sometimes rude and responsive as well thus said to commit evil actions (Kekes, 2005). Sometimes the reality is different, where intelligence serves as the foundation of people to consider themselves above immoral or evil actions. Examples such as, the Nazi’s death camps; they were clever and intelligence people, but they treated people like cattle, which can be considered by the society as evil actions against others. The other example is Khmer Rouge’s leader who by then led his own people to genocide considering that he was intelligent and a well-educated person. Primarily, an intelligent person or well-educated person rogue is a much worse than another person just for the reason of greater knowledge. Therefore, the ignorance that people possesses contributes to the way people carry out evil actions without the consideration of the level of knowledge a person have, which just increases the number of methods that a person can interrelate with the world (Kekes, 2005). Biological Theory Do genes make people evil, makes it one of the most asked questions by several scientific researchers. According to different neuroscientist, scientists research to find the root cause of evil behavior: is evil behavior a product of our gene or the environment. Over the years, psychologists have discovered that children subject to abuse and neglect in their early age are likely to commit evil actions later in their life. However, researchers also discovered that several youngsters mistreated do not grow to carry out evil actions. Therefore, the gene comes into the bigger picture; in past research, it was discovered that variation of a gene predicated antisocial behavior in men who mostly were subjected to mistreatment during their early age. This gene controls if we produce an enzyme called Monoamine Oxidase A that in its low levels is linked to aggression in the test subject. In addition, they also found out that boys neglected and possessed a variation of the gene producing MAOA, developed antisocial personality disorder thus committed evils and grew up to have a violent disposition (Staub, 2003). However, those who lived in a similar environment and produced more of the enzymes rarely developed these issues. On the other hand, psychopaths are said to be the evilest, this is according to the study undertaken that looked at psychopathic propensities in teenagers who had low socioeconomic resources. The findings of the research showed that the adolescents with a variation of another gene that contributes to how fast serotonin is recycled in the brain linked to harsh behavior in children, were mostly likely to show signs of a psychopath. Both the findings have strong proof that evil behaviors no matter how small it is might be a cause of the right set of genes interrelating in the wrong environment (Staub, 2003). Money is the root of all evils Over the years, money has been said to root of all evil, though this argument has been met with a lot of disagreement saying money is just the root of all-evils. This phrase generally is true in some cases; after fully analyzing the environment, evil actions are actually happening everyday where people are letting money destroy everything around them. Generally, a crime is the name to give to all those evil actions brought about by money. Millions of people will always do wrong every day in order to earn extra cash thus bringing about to several cycles of events. For example, some powerful and rich people will take advantage of their financial power to manipulate other people to doing actions that might be contrary to what they believe in. Therefore, by people’s greed for extra money, they will find themselves carrying out evil actions all in the name of having extra cash in their pockets (Tang, Sutarso, Ansari, Lim, Teo, Arias-Galicia, & Manganelli, 2011). In addition, financial power will also manipulate people see things according to their perspective. They will introduce to them doctrines that will manipulate their brain or change thinking and making them believe what they are doing is the right thing. For example, some terrorist’s leaders are powerful people with money thus they tend to manipulate people with money and making them think that other rich people are the cause to their suffering, thus making them commit crimes in the name of writing the wrongs (Tang, Sutarso, Ansari, Lim, Teo, Arias-Galicia, & Manganelli, 2011). In addition, with the evolution of the world’s economy and technological infrastructure such as the evolution of communication channels for example the internet, people are finding themselves spending much time than expected in the internet trying to communicate with the outside environment they are in. Therefore, one find them committing evil actions, in this case, actions observed wrong by the community without their knowledge, just because they have been brainwashed by the internet mostly by the internet community (Tang, Sutarso, Ansari, Lim, Teo, Arias-Galicia, & Manganelli, 2011). Conclusion Conclusively, the essay was out to find out the underlying causes of people or generally, why people commit evil actions. The paper has perceived these issues from different perspective that is from biological causes, the nature of human, and the environmental causes that lead people to carrying out evil actions. The paper has answered the question can anyone commit evil actions? According to the research carried out over the years, I have to believe that anyone one can commit both evil and good actions. Some people might do such actions because of their genes, their character traits, or their experience in their childhood. However, it is in my opinion that, disposition is not the same as determinations in some cases, people do have free will to do anything, although some people might have more capability to control their actions. Another conclusion is how different people use the word evil, primarily; the word evil is a dangerous term and should be used carefully. When people perceive others as evil, they seem to be protectors of good. If we do not realize that we have the capacity to commit evil actions, we cannot be prepared to protect ourselves from powerful situational and systematic forces. In addition, we sometimes must try our best to understand the perpetrators, and immediately naming evil is not at all wise. However, we all must be prepared to become deviants, for in some situations the rights thing is to breach the norms of a society or a group. Lastly, I believe that we must not find comfort in calling others evil; this is because any person can commit evil. References Carnahan, T., & McFarland, S. (2007). Revisiting the Stanford Prison Experiment: Could participant self-selection have led to the cruelty?. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33(5), 603-614. Foldager, A., Schultz, I. O., St?hr, O., Hansen, M. F., Franck, J., & Misimovic, E. (2013). Evil in a Social Context (Doctoral dissertation). Kekes, J. (2005). The roots of evil. Cornell University Press. Staub, E. (2003). The psychology of good and evil: Why children, adults, and groups help and harm others. Cambridge University Press. Tang, T. L. P., Sutarso, T., Ansari, M. A., Lim, V. K., Teo, T. S., Arias-Galicia, F., ... & Manganelli, A. M. (2011). The love of money is the root of all evil: Pay satisfaction and CPI as moderators. In Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2011, No. 1, pp. 1-6). Academy of Management. Read More