How do you believe a person becomes a bad person?

a lack of discipline, both internal and external.

Speaking from personal experience it’s become my opinion most bad people become bad due to letdowns, deliberate hurt, deprivation, feelings of powerlessness and a feeling of losing hope. Something occurs to you one day to taste the bad for yourself to hurt and corrupt back.

@VzzBzz great answer. took the words right out of my mouth.

@ABoyNamedBoobs03: I saw you crafting an answer and sped up! Ha, take that world!

I think a bad person is someone who knows what they’re doing is wrong and does it anyway. A person who hasn’t been taught right from wrong, or hasn’t been given examples of morality is excluded from that group. What makes the bad person behave that way? Hmmm… I think it’s probably a combination of retaliation for past pain or hurt, and selfishness or greed. Egocentrism comes to mind when I think of a bad person. But then, where does the selfishness, or egocentrism stem from? I really don’t know.

Damn Daloon, you have me thinking in circles!

I think more times than not a person is labeled as bad and is never able to shrug it off. “Bad” is such a subjective term that it should only be used to describe a piece of fish that has turned.

When they become bad to the bone!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Djj7jW6ny2M

I don’t believe anyone is a bad person. People often make bad decisions, and commit bad acts, but very few are damaged to the point they actually become bad.

Making bad choices comes from the inability to see beyond the moment, and the lack of experience with how to make good choices. When a young child makes a bad choice, we can either hurt him, to make him stop doing it, or help him make a better choice.

Actual damage occurs when a person abuses his body with chemicals, or when physical damage, such as beatings, have occurred.

What a great answer, yarnlady! I completely agree. Life is about choices. Good or bad, the choices that you make now affect you the rest of your life.

I don’t feel I have reason to believe that good and evil exist at all. That being the case, I don’t believe anyone actually is “bad” or “good.”

People are animals. As such, I believe that they have a hierarchy of preferences in their heads and they are incapable of acting against their highest rated preferences at any given time.

For example:
a – Mom prefers to protect her life.
b – Mom prefers to protect the life of her child.
c – Mom prefers to protect her child’s life rather than her own.

Preference C is the highest rated preference which is what forces a mother to save her child even at the risk of violating preference A.

People who prefer to do harm to some others are people who really believe that harming those others is best in that moment. For example, soldiers in Hitler’s Army. Later, they may be otherwise convinced and hence stop doing the bad things they were doing. But not until they really learn other, “better” seeming options will they cease to pursue the ones that they currently consider “best” and sound and rational and right for their circumstance, all things considered.

@ninjacolin…GA—I never realized that ethics was multiple choice.

technically.. there was no choice involved.

I see your reasoning to mean that it is a chemical multiple choice governed by whatever OS was preloaded into our brains at birth.

gestation is formatting and download

lol. Well, I think that genetics only accounts for the hardware that will ultimately process the equations. So, maybe the individual’s brain genetically comes with certain learning abilities or disabilities.. or perhaps the brain is susceptible to sexual arousal.. or to addiction… but only those kind of things.

The individual’s unique history is the pertinent software, however and is ultimately what future decisions will be based on.. filtered through the limitations of the hardware of course.

Lack or loss of empathy.

@ninjacolin….lol I believe our argument is about to become 90% semantic.

Tell me something. Do you truly view the world in such a cut and dried fashion as your answers indicate? I can appreciate your logic skills and your ability to communicate what you want to say is impressive. I just wonder why you allow no “grey” into your thinking.

I agree with @Yarnlady on this. There are no bad people. I could expand on that philosophy, but I couldn’t have said any better than she already did.

I’m not sure what you mean by “cut and dry”... Is that a bad thing?
I mean, i only believe it because it makes “perfect” sense.. to me. I swear I would allow for “gray” if I could see where gray could possibly seep in.

It seems so simple and clear to me. Yes, I could be way wrong.. I just can’t see where I might be.
—

@AstroChuck, yarnlady’s the best, huh? I can’t wait til I disagree with her about something.

I guess I mean that you only leave yourself the options of being right or wrong. That kind of rigid outlook is supposed to be for old codgers like myself.

the stunning cockiness is very age appropriate

lol, i want to be proved wrong. i try to make it easy.
my reliance on absolutes is a tactic to help others identify the flaws in my logic IF they can.

I know bad people. Why would a 6’2” 200# man kill a 2 year old boy? Stupidity or impulse, maybe. But why would this same man make a shank and try to kill corrections officers? Stupidity again? No, I don’t buy that. He was trying to get some street cred hoping his future cellmates would overlook that he’s a baby killer. Trying to cover his ass, literally

Why would another man hold down his girlfriend, pour toilet bowl cleaner all over her face, and watch as she burned and became horribly disfigured? Why would a 48 year old woman tie her 70 year old mother to a chair and work her over for two days with a cast iron frying pan? Why would a woman set fire to an estranged boyfriend’s house with people inside, serve years in prison, and get out on parole and try again?

Mental illness may play a part in some people behaving badly, but all the above are “normal”. They have supportive friends and family that write and visit. They attend classes and religious services (all religions are offered). But when they’re paroled out, here they come again! Most within 2 months of release.

I think badness could be in the genes of some people. We have entire families in custody at a time. Parents, children, cousins, and in-laws. The way they were raised and nurtured (or not) may have something to do with it, but other family members that have never been in trouble come to spend the whole day visiting nephews, nieces, and siblings. They most likely had the same upbringing as their incarcerated sibling.

Some are opportunists, or just plain lazy. We have a regular who is a CPA, but gets arrested for fraud. This person could be earning good money, but chooses a life of crime. We get a lot of disabled people that make money from identity theft.

And we get the truly stupid, like the 700# guy in for domestic battery. Why abuse the person that’s bringing you food and wiping your nasty butt? (And why get within reach of an immobile bully?) Stupidity on both sides

I have met good people who have done bad things.
I have met bad people who have done good things.
Therefore I have learned there is good and bad in all of us.

I think it has a lot to do with how someone was treated, loved, and/or unloved during their early childhood. My dad has said (and I’ve seen evidence to the same) that if you love and provide for a child during their first three years, then he/she will be able to handle whatever life throws at them.

It’s not quite as simple as this, I’m sure, but without a strong bond between child and parent, it must be hard for the child to grow up with any sense of security or reason to be a “good” person.

All this is so humbling as a parent.

@Divalicious I seriously doubt the people in your example are ‘normal’. They may appear normal, but I’m convinced that with the proper examination, you would find they are not. Brain damage and chemical imbalance are not observable without special equipment.

@Divalicious: I have this idea that you are a corrections officer, but maybe I’m mistaking you for someone else?

@daloon She is.

@Yarnlady They get proper examination by professionals. Their attorneys insist on it, because if they’re found unfit to stand trial, the attorney’s job is that much easier.

@daloon Yes indeed, I am a CO. I see a lot of man’s inhumanity to man.

@Divalicious Yes, a cursory exam is required, but the indepth, experimental search for brain damage and chemical imbalance is still in the scientific research realm. There is no consensus or proven results. I am personally convinced.

I think my list of driving forces would look pretty much like this:

Lust
Gluttony
Greed
Sloth
Wrath
Envy
Pride

How they become drivers for a particular person varies widely, from having too little of something (food, love, privilege, education, opportunity, etc.) to having too much. Why different people subjected to the same stresses and pressures turn out so differently is a great mystery to which there is no one answer—not upbringing, not inherent traits, not deterrents, and not rewards.

@Divalicious, correct me if i’m wrong (pun intended.. sorry) but in all those truly tragic cases, I submit that the offender was merely trying to satisfy their perceived needs of the moment in the most logical way they could imagine as being possible.

i don’t feel that brain damage is even necessary for that. Always remember cases of genocide. Recognize that people who believe the wrong thing can commit atrocious acts without being “idiots” without being “mentally challenged”.. without any excuse except that they believed something… something that is ultimately untenable but still something very real to them in the moment.

^ i imagine this must sound somewhat dismissive, but it’s not. on the contrary, i’m theorizing on an exact cause for each of those bad acts.

@ninjacolin I’ll be happy to correct you, and I have just the tools to do it right. ~

hit me. :)

what do you disagree with exactly?

Some are born to be aggressive, some others aren’t. This alone doesn’t decide if a person is good or bad. Nurture is at least as important, if not more important than nature in determining a person’s eventual dispositions.

I don’t disagree with anything, you said ‘correct me’.

@ninjacolin I agree with what you’re saying. The person is following what they believe to be true. Unfortunately, they put themselves before others and have little or no conscience to follow.

After reading other posters’ beliefs that there are no bad people, I simply stated that I know some. Hopefully none of you will ever come across any in your life, but they do exist. Most of my “guests” in custody are everyday people that have made incorrect decisions or struggle with addictions. We talk and joke, and if I see them out in the world, I speak to them and emphasize the positive – like how they’re improving, and I encourage them not to come back to see me inside. But there are a handful that are what I consider bad. The bad rarely get out, and if they manage to make it to parole, they aren’t free long. Some don’t even make it 24 hours without another murder or heinous battery charge.

I don’t know if it’s nature, nurture, or genetics, but they’re predators that can’t function in society. Thankfully, they’re the exception rather than the rule.

“they put themselves before others and have little or no conscience to follow.”

i guess the power in the idea comes when you realize that they aren’t CHOOSING to put themselves ahead of others. they are simply CONVINCED that they ought to. And as long as there isn’t some form of brain damage or deformity, the potential exists that these people can simply be TAUGHT to act differently. They really just need to learn that their current behaviors are unacceptable.. to them.

You would call it: “growing a conscience”.. I would call it changing their opinions, beliefs and worldview.

“I don’t know if it’s nature, nurture, or genetics, but they’re predators that can’t function in society”

See, I’m trying to give you the answer. They only act according to what they’ve learned is possible and best for them from their past experience. You never see one of these guys shoot lazer beams from their eyes to fry someone. You never see these guys going to priests and making them go crazy via philosophical puzzles. They stick to basic basic weaponry according to what they’ve learned. Fists, knives, guns, bottles..

They’re working with what has been put into their heads.

If you put something ELSE in there.. they will be forced to act according to that instead.

@ninjacolin While I agree with what you are saying, I also believe that it is not simply a matter of teaching the hardcore offenders what is right. Usually their brain is broken, either by chemical imbalance, or brain damage, and they cannot “learn” new ways. My brother suffers with schizophrenia so I have some actual experience with mental disorders.

I, too, believe that people are not bad, only their actions are. However, scientists have not yet found a way to fix the damage these unfortunate people have sustained.

@Yarnlady I agree.. for the record, I did say: as long as there isn’t some form of brain damage or deformity and yes, i should have thrown in “disorder” as well.

@ninjacolin My bad; when will I learn to read the whole answer?

lol, i’m guilty of that too haha! :)

The genes might have some influence (Ken Follett explores this topic in his book ‘The Third Twin’). But when looking at the overall nature vs. nurture balance sheet, I think there are only a few key factors related to the environment, above all humiliation and rejection. The feeling of being treated unfairly. A complete feeling of hopelessness and failure. One of the extreme examples are suicide bombers or people who go on a shooting spree.