I believe humans are inherently evil.
-Alexys Perry

I believe humans are inherently evil.

As Thomas Hobbes said, “Humans are driven primarily by self-interest and the need for self-preservation.”

As James Madison said, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

This could not be more evident in the modern world. There are endless examples, some of which I will share with you.

From the moment we are born, we are evil. Children have to be disciplined, however you likely often see kids misbehaving out in public. If we were born good, wouldn’t we naturally know what is right and wrong? No. We have to be taught morals and ethics. Everyone has their own “moral compass” based on how they are raised and their experiences. No one is born knowing how to be good and do good things, because human nature is inherently bad.

To start with a simple example, I recently started watching a new show, and there was a scene that piqued my interest. A man had been accused of committing a crime that he did not commit, and he even had an alibi. However, he could not reveal this alibi because he had been cheating on his wife and would rather be in jail than admit it. This led me to think that, if human nature was not evil, everyone would be honest. We would not even need a government because no one would commit crimes, and no one would be wrongly accused of doing so. If people were just honest with each other, no one would have trust issues or anything like that and everyone would be so much happier.

There are many examples of good things that have turned bad simply because of human behavior. Artificial intelligence is likely the most obvious one. Things like ChatGPT and different forms of AI have been used to help students and workers, but they are also taken advantage of. Using ChatGPT to create an outline for a presentation (like my dad often does) is okay, but students use it to write every essay and do all of their homework, which is not okay. AI can help in jobs that are difficult to do, however it is being overused and even stealing jobs from people. This is because people are selfish and always want more, instead of just settling on what they should. Humans are self-centered and self-absorbed so they use what they can to get ahead, regardless of how it is going to affect others and even themselves.

Since I started taking AP Psychology this year, I have been shocked by the things I did not know about human nature. One thing that angered me is how most people only have extrinsic motivation. Let me give you some background. You’ve likely heard of B.F. Skinner and his box; he was the lead scientist in the concept of operant conditioning, which is when someone learns to associate their own behavior with a reward or a punishment. To study this, Skinner would put a rat in a box and when the rat pushed a lever it would receive food. Normally, this rat would have no need to push the lever but since it is rewarded each time, it continues to do it. This is a very simple concept that you experience in your life all the time without even knowing it. Have you ever gotten sick from eating food and now can not eat that food anymore? That is operant conditioning.

How extrinsic motivation fits into all of this is the fact that, most of the time, people need to be motivated by a reward or fear of punishment to do something. Maybe you get a cookie every time you do the dishes. However, you would have no reason to do the dishes unless you got something out of it. The joy of your mother at seeing she does not have to do more work is never enough, and that is sad. Or, maybe you know you will get a bad grade if you do not turn your homework in on time. Otherwise, would you have still turned it in? Probably not. This supports the theory that humans are selfish and are driven by self-interest, just like Hobbes said.

Dystopian fiction highlights just how horrible humans truly are. Mrs. D showed the AP Lang classes a short film last year about a dystopian society where you could report people for doing crimes, even ones as small as littering. If you took a picture and sent it to the government the person would get fined and you would get a small profit. One person in the class brought up a good point: what if no one fined anyone else and everyone was basically just nice to each other. Mrs. D replied by saying that there would always be someone who would take advantage of that. That relates back to my point earlier about how good things almost always turn bad simply because of how humans abuse them.

Last year I read the novel A Clockwork Orange. In this story, scientists are trying out a new method to turn a criminal into a good person. This method is essentially classical conditioning (similar to operant conditioning, but not the same). The researchers give the main character medicine to make him feel sick as they are showing him violent movies. After days of this, whenever he has a violent thought he starts to feel sick. He ultimately has no choice but to stop committing acts of violence when he is released. However, as the novel highlights, nothing about him has changed. He still has a desire to be violent, he just physically can’t follow through. This novel supports my theory for two reasons. The first is that if human nature was not evil, we would not even have criminals in the first place, because no one would do bad things. The second reason is that despite the fact that we can change ourselves to become better people through psychology and things like classical conditioning, that does not mean we are actually changing.

Our nature is evil and even though we can fight against it, every new person born will have to start that fight all over again.