Jurado 1

Kaylee Jurado
Mr. Buescher
Philosophy
13 December 2015
Are Humans Inherently Good?
The question, are humans inherently good? has been discussed and argued by
numerous philosophers and educators for hundreds of years. Inherently means belonging by
nature or by habit. Good means what is morally right. Therefore, inherently good means being
morally correct by nature. People are inherently good for many different reasons, Humans are
inherently good because we naturally crave love and affection, not everyone is completely and
totally good, and humans function better when happy.
Humans are not born with feelings of greed. People are more naturally inclined to feel
love and compassion. Babies minds are the most innocent minds as a mind can get. Babies have
the smallest amount of cultural influences. Babies cannot read or speak our language, nor have
they ever been to school or faced any real problems. Yet babies still show that humans are
inherently good. Babies have yet to experience much in life, but they do prefer helping
motivations to obstructing ones. A study done at the Infant Cognition Center at Yale University
shows that humans come into the world already equipped with a sense of what is what is right
and wrong. A baby boy was shown a puppet show where one puppet would take a ball away
from the other two puppets and would not give it back. After the puppet show all of the puppets
were set out with the same treats next to them. The baby was asked to take a treat from one of the
puppets and it took it from the bad puppet that had been taking the ball away. This shows that

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babies are born with a sense of morality. Humans crave love and affection and without it suffer
greatly.
There are some problems with believing that human beings are inherently good. One
issue with believing that people are inherently good is trying to understand and find a reason for
all of the bad and evil things in the world. Not everyone is perfect or angel, but overall people
are inherently good. Sometimes by events that have occurred in ones life some people will not
always be good because they have been greatly affected in such a negative way by these events.
There are children, typically ones that have been brought up in orphanages in other countries,
that have failed to receive a sufficient enough of love and affection that they need to go through
all of the necessary fundamental stages one needs to go through while growing up. This can
result in many of these humans developing a mental illness, an increased risk of behavioral and
psychological problems. A young girl who was adopted from Russia at a young age was put into
a mental institution after she began killing small animals, finding pleasure in doing so, along
with other things. Without the necessary love and affection humans need to properly develop,
Humans overall just function better when they are happy. When people are helping
others, expressing thankfulness, talking about a positive experience, and being with other
positive people all help in boosting the dopamine in one's brain. When doing things that are
morally wrong most humans experience guilt and feel that the decision or action they made was
wrong. By being a good person, humans are happy and function properly.
Humans are inherently good because we naturally crave love and affection, not everyone
is completely and totally good, and humans function better when happy. Humans are born
inherently good, some of people just dont stay that way. Whether that be due to the fact that one
has experienced traumatic life changing things or another cause that is unknown. Humans

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naturally crave love and affection, without it they are unable to develop correctly. Humans
function better when they are happy, the dopamine in their brain is increased when they
experience positive things. By experiencing positive things and being a good person, one can
truly be happy.

Works Cited

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Bloom, Paul. "The Moral Life of Babies." The New York Times. The New York Times, 08
May 2010. Web. 15 Dec. 2015.
E.A.M. "Are Humans Inherently Good or Evil?" Missouri Web. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Dec.
2015.