A persuasive speech on the Good of Man

George L. Settlemier

March 8th, 2023


Persuasive Outline


General Purpose: A Persuasive speech about good and evil, the duality of man, and the psychology of nature vs nurture.

Specific Purpose: To argue that people are born inherently good, immoral things are a choice, and bad things are learned from our environments.


Introduction: Your security and stability is second nature, selfishness that we have adapted to learn and survive. We are naturally concerned with our own needs and desires. But there's evidence in philosophy and science that tells us much more. That we are not only concerned with our own selfish needs but the good welfare of everyone around us. We are naturally empathetic by nature, and LEARN the bad from which we know to be right. 


  1. Defining good vs. bad in moral standards is like grasping the oxygen around you. You know it’s there, its meaning, and while you may not see it, somehow breathing becomes natural.

  2. A 16th-century philosopher named Thomas Hobbes, says in Leviathan, “the condition of man . . . is a condition of war of everyone against everyone, in which case every one is governed by his own reason,”

  1. He developed quite an unsavory view of humanity, and I can agree that yes we decide what is good and bad ourselves… But how we apply that knowledge, with empathy, with charity, with stability and security, THAT is which we know is good.

  1. Not all philosophers are so bleak. In fact, Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote in the The Social Contract, “Each of us puts (their) person...under the supreme direction of the general will.” 

  1. The General Will is the will of the people.

  2. So do we not naturally want what is best for the commonwealth if we preside inside of it?

  1. He also states “Laws are always useful to those with possessions and harmful to those who have nothing;” so EVEN the law doesn’t determine what is good, we each decide the moral path but know the good for society.


Transition: The philosophy is debated and will continue to be, but science can give us answers to the existential questions that still preside.

  1. A study was released in 2007 called “Social evaluation by preverbal infants.” by Hamlin, Wynn and Bloom.

  1. This was part of a much larger project that looked to explore the inner workings of babies' minds, more specifically how we understand things early on.

  1. To set the scene (DRAW PUPPET SHOW HILL, RED CIRCLE, BLUE SQUARE, GREEN TRIANGLE) they began a puppet show with Helpers and Hinderers.

  1. The red circle climbs the hill, and they're having trouble! They can’t quite make it themselves. A blue square runs down the hill and pushes them to the bottom.

  2. But wait, what’s this? The triangle comes to save the day! It helps the red circle up the hill despite the squares intention

  3. The friendly triangle and mean square puppets were then presented to the babies on a platter for them to choose. The results were remarkable: it showed infants as young as 6 months old preferring helpers over the hinderers every time.

  1. In the BBC’s version of this study, Babies their wonderful world, they concluded the same results and mentioned that knowing right and wrong is either, “...innate or very early developing.”


Transition: There is evidence of our understanding of good from an early age… and there’s something about the positive actions that make us detest the negative.


  1. Aristotle argued at length in, “Nicomachean Ethics,” that man is a creature of amoral instincts, that things are only reasonable because we say they are, and bad only because we say it is. That the only reason anyone does good is to further their own security.

  2. But he also goes on to say, “Bad people...are in conflict with themselves; they desire one thing and will another, like the incontinent who choose harmful pleasures instead of what they themselves believe to be good.”

  1. Sympathy is a trait we have shown to exert before we can speak, and what is altruistic behavior if not the epitome of good? To share and protect, nurture and support. We desire these things and learn from how they are seen.

  1. By deduction we learn the bad from things we are deprived of. We are not BORN with intent to do bad at all, but the fabric of immoral clothing at times is all we are given to wear.

  2. To be unethical or opt to harmful pleasures is a CONSCIOUS decision, while morality can become instinctual. And if we decide what is good based on reason, we do not learn to be evil but choose to disregard what we know is just.


Transition to conclusion: Benevolence is a gift to our intellect. We look beyond survival, more than what Aristotle called us, "rational animals."


5. Nevermind the cynics, I have always wanted a sense of community, wanted to be a piece of the general will and I am concerned with the welfare of others. Perhaps even from birth, I could understand the difference between good and bad. 

  1. There is an inherent nature to the wellbeing of our fellow human that we understand from the beginning. That goodness helps us understand a plain fact: the things that we want are generally good, the things we detest are generally bad. 

  2. Whatever perspective you may hold on how we perceive it, help me pass along the legacy of good nature, practice not rational decisions but empathetic ones, because the universe gifted us with goodness at heart.

Bibliography


Aristotle. (2000). The Internet Classics Archive: Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle. The Internet Classics Archive. Retrieved March 12, 2023, from http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.1.i.html 

BBC. (2018). Babies: Their Wonderful World. Becoming Social. Retrieved March 13, 2023, from https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bvfwpj. 

Hamlin, J. K. (2014, December 17). The case for social evaluation in preverbal infants... Frontiers. Retrieved March 13, 2023, from https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01563/full 

Hamlin, J., Wynn, K. & Bloom, P. Social evaluation by preverbal infants. Nature 450, 557–559 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature06288

Hobbes, Thomas. The Project Gutenberg EBook of Leviathan, by Thomas Hobbes, 2002, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3207/3207-h/3207-h.htm. 

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Social Contract & Discourses, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 20 Feb. 2023, https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/46333/pg46333-images.html. 

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