(1) Question:
Do human beings have a natural tendency to good, a natural tendency to evil, or some combination of tendencies? What are the implications of the answer for ethics?
(2) Conceptual Clarifications:
"Good" can be described as morally righteous. Good is to describe one's morality as excellent; to do goodwill.
"Natural" is to be based on the state of things in nature. To do something naturally, it is done purely and without compromise.
"Tendency" is the prevailing disposition to move, or act in a direction or toward some result.
"Evil" is described as morally wrong, and can be done neglecting the greater good.
(3) Answer:
I believe that humans have some combination of tendencies both good and evil. My reasoning is that when an situation arises, the natural tendency is to do what is best for you or for the majority of people. That is not always good, but it is not always evil. Good is always the morally virtuous result. I believe the natural tendency is to always do what is "best for me", but only after weighing the outcomes do humans find the greater good in the result. Each situation's result should be for the greater good, and provide the person with goodwill, but the natural tendency upon first glance will always be "looking out for number one", and depending of the situation that can be either good or evil. In ethics, the greater good always outweighs the evil. When you have two outcomes, both with good, then the ethical choice would be the outcome with the lesser evil. Our tendencies will ultimately give us some good, and out final choice should give us the greatest good with the lesser evil.
(4) Example:
One example of our natural tendency was shown in a enormous scale with the ending of WWII. To end the war with Japan President Harry S. Trueman ordered that two Nuclear bombs to be dropped on two major Japanese cities. The reasoning behind his order was to quickly end the war with Japan by showing deadly power, and demoralize the opposition. He had already ordered non-nuclear bombing on 67 other cities, but Japan refused to surrender. The idea was that countless amounts of American lives would be lost if the war would have continued, and by destroying entire cities, Japan would have no choice but to surrender. The bombings killed over 220,000 Innocent lives combined. The natural tendency was to make sure that our soldiers lives were taken into account before anything else, and President Trueman believed that the greater good (saving several hundred thousands of soldiers for both the U.S. and Japan) out weighed the evil (killing 220,000 Japanese in a matter of minutes). Whether his actions are ethically correct, he was acting with his natural tendency (I have to do what is best for MY country first). To put the evil into perspective, in both cities the majority of its population was dead within minutes and since then thousands if not more have died of cancer from the bombs radiation. Japan did surrender six days after the second bombing, and no more lives would be lost in WWII. In this instance President Trueman's natural tendency was to do good, but it produced quite a bit of evil that he was well aware of from the time that he made his judgement.
(5) Word Count:
522 Words
(6) Image:
(7) References:
Ruggiero. (2008). Thinking Critically About Ethical Issues. McGraw Hill. pg. 140-147.
The National Security Archive On-line. The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II. Updated April 27, 2007.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/index.htm
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