Submitted by: Dominique S.

Lim Section: 1-B Medical Technology

Submitted to Mr. Ray Ann Cagampang Submission Date: 12/10/11

Philosophy Summary and Reflection on the True Nature of Man Summary The excerpts of the articles in the five pages are basically divided into two main ideas, which are then subdivided into 2 more similar ideas . The first half speaks of the so called evil in humans. The first part of the first half is an excerpt from The Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes, the specific mainly talks about mans thirst for power, in that man takes advantage of his or her peers in order to benefit oneself and oneself alone. The second part of the first which is an selection from The Human Condition by Nina Rosenstand has the main point of Humans are fundamentally selfish It states that no matter how pure ones intentions may seem to be, there will always be an underlying ulterior motive of the doer of the action benefitting from it in one way or another thus eliminating the idea of charity and that those acts would be done to obtain least a feeling of importance or congratulation for the doer. In the second half, which has a main point of humans being good, says that humans are social and tend to work together for the better of not only themselves but for the rest of the members of the tribe or community although humans have gone through terrible wars , and those wars being a result of evil intentions, humans at their basic level are fundamentally good, but of course this is merely my understanding of the given text by Peter Kropotkins Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution as well as a bit from The Human Condition by Nina Rosenstand. Lastly the five page reading assignment ends with statements from a few well known thinkers and philosophers and from my understanding they mostly say that humans cannot do evil unless they dont what theyre doing is evil in Socrates teachings:Only ignorance leads to wrongdoing and there is no such thing as a person who does wrong knowingly and so overall humans are basically good at their core but turn to evil when something can be gained.

Reflection Ill be frank and say that I have two point of views and I am very unbiased in my opinion, My first opinion is that nobody is a saint, nobody does something out of pure good intention humans are fundamentally selfish and the reason they can sometimes be seen as good in their actions are mere misconceptions of their true motives, which is at the very least, an effort to look and feel good about oneself, yes I am cynical in my outlook on humanity so much so that i even doubted my own parents sometimes, dont get me wrong, I do have hope for humanity but that hope is rather slim, people are greedy by nature that is what has kept the human race alive to this present day and is in my opinion has brought about capitalism into this day and age, people exploit others for their own gain and feel it is justified by some petty or faulty reasoning that was only understandable in the spur of the moment. This of course is not my only opinion, I like to have different views when i discuss a topic especially topics of this nature and here is my other view: On the other side of my opinion I believe humans are in fact innocent from birth and will are only evil if they are taught that way, I believe in the Tabula rasa theory in that people are born without any prior knowledge of the world, especially in the differentiation of good and evil. A sense of good and evil must therefore be learnt and it is impossible to learn only good for it is my belief that we cannot know of something and yet be ignorant of the concepts opposite. We cannot know good if we do not know evil for the knowledge of good also brings evil therefore I conclude that people are can be good as well as evil and that neither good nor evil is innate in the human consciousness nor is it in the subconscious and it is instead an active choice made in every action and/or thought in which the individual will know if it is good or evil they are doing. In accordance to the topic I would also like to add that I myself have struggled with this very topic for quite some time now, I am never sure whenever I do something, such as helping random strangers, friends, etc., if Im doing the deed to truly help others or if I just enjoyed the feeling of someones gratitude, and over the years I have felt the line between charity and just

getting a self-confidence boost starting to fade... Thank you for reading and I would like to remind the reader that all the above opinions in the reflection are absolutely unbiased in nature for I take these type of topics rather seriously :D