Humans Are Good

1020 Words5 Pages
Human Nature is Pure For thousands of years, philosophers and scientists could never answer the question, are people naturally good or evil? Adrian F. Ward’s article, “Scientists Probe Human Nature—and Discover We Are Good, After All,” describes the different attitudes philosophers had when answering this question. “Augustine’s doctrine of original sin proclaimed that all people were born broken and selfish. Hobbes also argued that humans were savagely self-centered. But on the other hand, philosopher Rousseau argued that people were born good and concerned with the welfare of others”(Ward 1).Currently, scientists are still trying to answer this question. There are many tests and experiments that try to prove if humans are naturally kind or selfish. Human beings are naturally good when they are born, and know when to make the right decisions and show empathy to help others in need. The one thing that philosophers could never get was data. Augustine, Hobbes, and Rousseau all had different ideas about human nature. The arguments meant nothing without experimental data. TV shows like Survivor and the UK’s Golden Balls have also been created to test if humans are naturally selfish or cooperative. Viewers of the shows all have different opinions, but without data, their opinions also mean nothing. Scientists from prestige colleges like Harvard and Yale have been creating experiments to to answer the question; is our first instinct to act cooperatively or selfishly? Human nature has a natural intuition to cooperate with others. A group of researchers (psychologist, moral philosopher, and a biological mathematician) from Harvard and Yale created an experiment that focused on intuition and reflection. Ward’s article focused on this experiment. The researchers focused on first instincts of decision making. “Intuition is often automatic and effortless, leading to
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