Ethics: Natural or Learned Behavior

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Ethics: Natural or Learned Behavior Ethics, or the things we should do, can be both a natural and a learned behavior, and can also help us to determine the difference between what is right and what is wrong; what is good and what is bad (Mosser, 2010). On one hand, ethics is a natural behavior in that there are things we are born knowing, such as that to drink we must utilize the sucking mechanism; on the other hand, ethics can be a learned behavior, such as the manners your parents teach you to use when you are speaking to others. In this paper, I will demonstrate how ethics as both a natural and a learned behavior coexist to aid in the differentiation of right and wrong. Peter Kropotkin is one example of a philosopher who believed that humans are naturally born to fight, thus a learned order of behavior can never exist (Padovan, 1999). This theory is contradictory because it suggests that people cannot be good and that only evil can exist, a theory that gains great skepticism, especially from the aspect of ethics and religion. At the same time, Kropotkin suggests that some people wish to live in harmony with others while some wish to live in competition. Philosophers who are in opposition to Kropotkin’s theory may even consider his ideas to be those of an “anarchist ideology,” as stated in an early day War Commentary publication (Bernari, 1942). While people are in fact born with natural tendencies, it is to be debated whether fighting is one of them; however, the senses we are born with can indeed be considered natural ethics. From the moment we are born, we have a sense of fear, closeness, and comfort – things that are not learned as we grow, but instead are a part of our natural intuition as human beings. Another aspect of ethics as a natural behavior that may be explored is the idea that without natural behavior, learned behavior could not exist. In

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