Ethics In my personal opinion I think that human beings are combination of good and bad with many factors in hand. What I may think is bad can be good to others and what I think may be good could be horrible to others. In other cases something may be wrong morally. Something may be wrong because society says so. It’s a matter of opinion. Here are a few examples to justify my argument. A child for instance can be brought up with a family that society sees as near perfect and still turn in the complete opposite direction in life going down a path of violence or bad decision making.

Maybe they looked up to the wrong role model, got involved in social networks that left a negative influence or maybe their family life has dark secrets that nobody knows about or even joins a religious cult which causes them to rebel in inappropriate acts. Most of the time when this happens they tend to dwell the fact that they want to be opposite of what they were “suppose” to turn out to be. I don’t think this makes them bad because in some cases it can be “fixed”. This child could have common sense to do the right things in life but continually goes the wrong path.

The complete opposite of that, there could be a child with a horrible childhood, poor, no family and decided that they want a better life. So what this child does is realize they don’t want the path of violence and failure, they want to better themselves. There are many cases that this happens so where the “good” child grew up to be bad leads to my next example which could be a chemical imbalance. You can have an adult that has always done right or a child for that matter and one day just snaps.

This could also be from a triggered childhood or even a chemical imbalance which can sometimes be corrected by therapy or sometimes even surgery. This neurological problem often goes un-noticed. There have been serial killers that lead a very driven “perfect” life but can’t control the inner demons that have overtaken their ability to control it. Does this make them bad? I don’t think so. It’s something that can’t be tamed. Someone who makes these decisions willingly fully knowing what they are doing, not that’s when I see humans as bad.

In some cultures, like China, they are killing baby girls for population control. They think that these girls will grow up and move onto another family upon marriage and in return they will have no one to care for them. They don’t believe that they can pass on inheritance to girls either in fear that they will not keep up with what is to be expected. Does this make the government bad people? To us, the USA, yes. We see it as morally wrong but to them it is normal. I don’t believe for one minute that every person in that country agrees with this tragedy that goes on every day.

In Congo, women are being raped and killed by troops. They think they have the authority to do this. That is it accepted to torture these young and elderly women. Again, do they think they are bad? No, but we do here in America. As much as we see people doing unacceptable acts in other countries they think the very same things about us. In Italy there is no death penalty law. The government doesn’t believe in it so when they hear about the USA doing it they think it is inhuman to do. Then again there are people that live here and still think it is not right.

Who determines and “eye for an eye” is acceptable? In our society we also have war. Our troops are killing innocent people. Does this make them bad? No. Not to me. They are fighting for our country. They are not being malicious so I think in most cases they are good. Not all but most. They are fighting for our freedom, not fighting because they want to be in a real life video game. Peace makers want to stop the war. They consider themselves “good people”. Well, if they are such good people why does their protest end up in violence almost 100 % of the time.

I believe their intentions are good but anything beyond that I am uncertain about. Life is made up of so many decisions, emotions and rules. It almost seems that society is constantly judging which alters out thoughts and opinions. Morally we know the difference. We know that pushing someone down a flight of stairs is bad. We know that killing someone is bad. We also know helping people is good. My morality is very grey on these issues because I have compassion for most. I do believe people can change. I do believe people can scientifically change it as well but not all of the time.

When people get out of prison for a bank robbery and go back in for a smaller burglary does that mean they are prone to crime which is bad. I don’t think so. I think that they have been incarcerated for so long that when they get out and are thrown on the streets that they have no idea how to survive so they commit a smaller crime to go back to their comfort zone. I mean, don’t get me wrong, that is def an exception. Not all people are like that. But how could they be better people when society doesn’t give them a chance to survive. It’s almost like they are being punished your whole life.

Who is to say they haven’t changed into a better person? To conclude my opinion on whether people are good or bad the answer is both. There are people that are born bad and there are people that turn into bad. There are also people that do good and live by good. I think there is good and bad in almost everyone and unfortunately it doesn’t balance out to the way we all would like it to be. People like I said before who are has a chemical imbalance has no control over the situation. People who are good typically stay good. So, we all are both, it just depends on if you allow one to take over more than the other in most circumstances.