Are humans inherently good or evil?

When it comes to humans, there is that initial gray area as to what is considered good and what is
considered evil. Well, humans are blank canvases, they start from being good, innocent, but through
influences and what that person learns as it grows, it depends. There are cases that murderers have
mental illnesses which is, for example, an article by ABC news reports, ‘Mom of Teen Charged in ‘Slender
Man’ Stabbing Claims Daughter Has Mental Illnesses’, the killer is a teen with schizophrenia. The girl was
diagnosed with schizophrenia and was influenced by her mental illness and the internet which drove her
to stab an innocent girl. The girl, Morgan Geyser, can be argued that she has fallen victim to her mental
illness. Without her schizophrenia, Geyser most likely would have never even thought of the idea of a
sacrifice. Can she really be evil when she wasn’t in the right state of mind?
Now, people may argue that some murderers might not have mental illness, while there are
good arguments on that ordeal, the article, ‘Are All Murderers Mentally Ill?’ by Lane Wallace talks about
how murderers are on some sort of the mental illness spectrum. In Wallace’s piece, she quotes a
defense attorney of 20 years, Elaine Whitfield, who said, “You see, I truly believe that murderers are
mentally ill. Their brains don't work like the rest of ours do. To deliberately kill someone requires
crossing a profound boundary. Most of us couldn't do it. We couldn't even think about it. But they can.
They do. Why? Because they're mentally ill." Murderers usually do not feel remorse, things that would
sound reasonable to them may seem insane to us, and that, is mental illness. According to the dictionary
mental illness disrupts normal thinking, feeling, behavior, all things that can make a murderer. Now if
there were no mental illness in play, people’s normal thinking would not be disrupted and there would
be almost no murders.
Like previously stated, humans are a blank canvas, that is until they develop their way of
thinking through other people’s influences. Babies are often viewed as the innocent, the blank canvas,
waiting to learn and be filled with color. And so, in a psychology experiment, reported by Tom Stafford
from BBC Future, psychologists try to find if babies, has that good morality or not in their very core. The
infants were to react to a bad action made by a block and a good action made by another. When placed
in front of the two blocks, the majority of the babies chose the good block. This shows how the concept
of ‘good’ is engraved with babies in from the very beginning. Sure, it might just be babies acting to a
positive and negative action, but isn’t that how the concept of good or evil was built on?
In the Lord of the Flies by William Golding, one character was specifically shown from being an
innocent boy to become a savage, Jack. In the beginning of the book, the character Jack loved the idea
of hunting but when the opportunity arises, he hesitated, “There came a pause, a hiatus, the pig
continued to scream and the creepers to jerk, and the blade continued to flash at the end of a bony
arm,” (Golding 31). There is still that sanity, there is still that innocence in that boy. The unwillingness to
end a life proves that there was good in him. Later on, through the need to prove himself, and as his
sanity escapes him, he become this savage, ruthless hunter, he’s is influenced by his surrounding, the
fact that the boys had no meat, influenced him to become this evil, savage person.
Near the end, almost all of the boys have turned to savages, willing to kill, especially Jack, who
wants to hunt Ralph, another character. Jack’s judgement has been clouded and influenced by the
environment around him. Two characters tries to warn Ralph of his impending doom, “‘They hate you,
Ralph. They’re going to do you’ ‘They’re going to hunt you tomorrow’,” (Golding 188). The very fact that
they implied ‘hunt’ means that they have become these savages, hunting animals and killing them. The
boys in the beginning were kids, more or less innocent, and now, they have lost this humanity and want
to hunt. People all have that initial good in them, but people can be influenced into being evil and due to
environment or mental.
 Works Cited

Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. The Berkley Publishing Group, 1954.

"Mom of Teen Charged in 'Slender Man' Stabbing Claims Daughter Has Mental Illness." ABC, 27
June 2016, abcnews.go.com/US/mom-teen-charged-slender-man-stabbing-claims-
daughter/story?id=40151966. Accessed 18 Mar. 2019.

Stafford, Tom. "Are We Naturally Good or Bad." BBC Future,

www.bbc.com/future/story/20130114-are-we-naturally-good-or-bad. Accessed 18 Mar. 2019.

Wallace, Lane. "Are All Murderers Mentally Ill?" The Atlantic, 3 Dec. 2010,
www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/12/are-all-murderers-mentally-ill/67295/.