Are Humans innately aggressive?
Theory of Knowledge - Are Humans Innately Aggressive?
The Oxford dictionary defines aggression as “feelings of anger or antipathy resulting in hostile or violent behaviour; readiness to attack or confront”1. This standardized definition gives ideas about the act of violence but doesn’t tell us about the root of violence, leading to a large scale debate of nature vs nurture as to whether feelings of aggression are innate or not. This essay will describe all of the sides of the argument2 – from the biological response to behaviourism, in order to reach a conclusion about whether aggression is inherent or not.
The area of knowledge being studied for the approach to innate aggression is human sciences. The biological approach to this is that human genes involve some pattern of DNA that lead to physical characteristics such as hair and eye colour, and so the large scientific debate is that could similar genes lead to innate aggression within humans, and can such characteristics be passed on through generations? Through conducting experiments, scientists use sense perception, imagination, reason and intuition to present their findings to the world that humans are innately aggressive. Many people argue that humans are born with aggressive instincts and a nature embedded in their minds that inevitably leads to violence and war. Our society bases many judgements such as political thinking on this basis without fully considering or contesting this theory. Charles Darwin argued that ‘survival of the fittest’ meant that certain characteristics mutated in order to benefit a species and, “…these adaptations were not limited to physiology (body structure) but also included matters of the mind such as behaviours, memory and emotions”3
The father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud4, believed aggression is instinctual and cannot be eradicated, only let off through vents such as sports and media. He argued that human nature is made up of two basic instincts, Eros, the
The Oxford dictionary defines aggression as “feelings of anger or antipathy resulting in hostile or violent behaviour; readiness to attack or confront”1. This standardized definition gives ideas about the act of violence but doesn’t tell us about the root of violence, leading to a large scale debate of nature vs nurture as to whether feelings of aggression are innate or not. This essay will describe all of the sides of the argument2 – from the biological response to behaviourism, in order to reach a conclusion about whether aggression is inherent or not.
The area of knowledge being studied for the approach to innate aggression is human sciences. The biological approach to this is that human genes involve some pattern of DNA that lead to physical characteristics such as hair and eye colour, and so the large scientific debate is that could similar genes lead to innate aggression within humans, and can such characteristics be passed on through generations? Through conducting experiments, scientists use sense perception, imagination, reason and intuition to present their findings to the world that humans are innately aggressive. Many people argue that humans are born with aggressive instincts and a nature embedded in their minds that inevitably leads to violence and war. Our society bases many judgements such as political thinking on this basis without fully considering or contesting this theory. Charles Darwin argued that ‘survival of the fittest’ meant that certain characteristics mutated in order to benefit a species and, “…these adaptations were not limited to physiology (body structure) but also included matters of the mind such as behaviours, memory and emotions”3
The father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud4, believed aggression is instinctual and cannot be eradicated, only let off through vents such as sports and media. He argued that human nature is made up of two basic instincts, Eros, the