What Makes Humans Bad? {Introduction}

Good, Bad, or Grey Zone?

What Makes Humans "Bad"?

To get an understanding of how studies in different knowledge domains impart knowledge, I will be participating in a six-part blog series for the next ten weeks.  The purpose of each post is to measure if some types of knowledge are more significant than others.  The knowledge domains I will be focusing on are the humanities, social and natural sciences.  I will be applying my understanding of these knowledge domains to the theme, “What makes humans bad?”  By the end of the blog series I hope to have a better understanding of what it means to be a “bad” human.     

Why “Bad”?

 The question, “What makes humans bad?” may sound odd at first.  Shouldn’t we be asking, “What makes humans good?”  After all, in a world that’s full of so much hatred and violence, it makes sense to question how people can still be good.  Questioning the “bad” in humans, however, seems to be asking a deeper question.  The implication is that all humans are bad, but is this true?  I hope to find out. 

What is Knowledge?

To better understand the theme, I will be analyzing the theories of knowledge—also known as epistemology—and reviewing different methods of obtaining knowledge.  I have learned that there are two types of knowledge: propositional and ability knowledge.  Propositions knowledge is a proposition that is asserted in a sentence to claim something is true.  Ability knowledge deals with the type of knowledge that is gained through experience, or know-how (Prichard, 2013).  In Duncan Prichard’s “What is knowledge?” readers further find out knowledge can be broken down even further.  If I were to say that there is a rainbow outside, and by sheer luck there actually was a rainbow, would that mean I have some type of weird rainbow knowledge or would it be merely true?  Similarly, if I were to really believe that leprechauns exist, so much so that I somehow knew this to be true, would I be correct?  The answer to both questions is no.  One cannot gain knowledge by chance or by only believing; instead, we call this mere true belief.  It is likely that nearly everyone has held a mere true belief at one point in his or her lifetime.     

What if My Mere True Beliefs Are Wrong???

Through the process of blogging I will likely make several errors and will have to adapt to an optimistic model of wrongness. According to Kathryn Schulz a person that exhibits an optimistic model of wrongness welcomes mistakes and eventually, through discovery, arrives at an answer.  A pessimistic model of error, on the other hand, does not welcome errors or failure.  By having a pessimistic model of error, I can deprive myself from gaining knowledge (Schulz, 2011).

To get the most out of this experience I should also remember to have a growth mindset.  When someone has a growth mindset, it means that they are willing to continue learning, despite not understanding the content (Dweck, 2006).  One must be able to come out of his or her comfort zone and explore new ideas.  In the following video, Carol Dweck discusses “the power of yet.”  She argues that instead of looking at a situation as a failure, we should look it as “not yet.”  By this, she means that just because you did not succeed the first time, does not mean you will never succeed.  She also gives further insight on what it means to have fixed (not being comfortable embracing a challenge) and growth mindsets.  At 5:02 Dweck discusses the benefits having a growth mindset can have on the brain:

What I Currently Know About What Makes Humans “Bad”

The notion that all humans are bad strikes me as highly pessimistic.  As someone who tries to see the good in any situation, my perspective has always leaned more towards the idea that everyone has a little good in them.  While I pride myself in being optimistic, I can see that humanity cannot be viewed in these black and white terms.  What I once held to be true may actually be a mere true belief; I have no evidence that humans are good to their core, rather than bad.  Perhaps, human characteristics, such as good and evil, fall under a "grey zone."  

The morals that we value also play a role on our "goodness" or "badness."  Judging other's morality has commonly been the way humans have gauged the character of others.  The problem with this, however, is that every individual person has a different perspective on what is morally right or wrong.  My opinion of what qualifies someone as being a bad human, for example, may be very different from the opinions of my protestant neighbor or my atheist brother.  Another way to look at it is to think of this age-old question: is it morally wrong to steal a loaf of bread if it is intended to feed your family?  This question has been debated in many college campuses for some time, and while I do not claim to know the answer, it may show us that there is not one true measure of “badness.”           

 

I do not know if I can answer the question “what makes humans bad?”  I am not sure that this question is intended to be answered, but rather to open our minds to the possibility that humanity cannot be defined as good or bad.  I believe that we posses these traits—along with others—to different degrees.  Human morality may be similar to the ying and yang: we have both good and bad in us, however some of us possess more or less of either.

Perhaps Sirius Black said it best:  

https://www.scribd.com/doc/285267209/Personal-Knowledge-Inventory-LS-301-WM-docx

References 

10 Bad SEO practices that will destroy your Google Rankings. (2014, June 30). Retrieved December 8, 2015, from https://www.reliablesoft.net/10-bad-seo-practices-that-will-destroy-your-google-rankings/

Dweck, C. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York: Random House.

Pritchard, D. (2013). What is Knowledge? In What is this thing called knowledge? London: Routledge.

Rowling, J. (2003). Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (p. 302). New York, NY: Arthur A. Levine Books.

Schulz, K. (2011). Two Models of Wrongness. In Being Wrong Adventures in the Margin of Error (Paperback ed.). London: Portobello.

Shades of Gray. (2010, October 7). Retrieved December 8, 2015, from https://digitalcomposting.wordpress.com/2010/10/07/shades-of-gray/

Stanford Alumni. (2014, October 9). Carol Dweck, “Developing a Growth Mindset.” [Video File]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/hiiEeMN7vbQ