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ArgumentNeither angel nor beast
Man is neither good nor evil by nature: he is the malleable animal, who becomes what upbringing and habit make of him.
Supports Moral plasticity
- Both camps rely on the same facts, reversed: one shows saints, the other torturers; one mutual aid, the other war. Yet these opposing facts are equally real.
- For no fixed nature explains them: what is proper to man is to be unfixed, to learn, to contract habits, to be shaped. Virtue comes to him neither by nature nor against nature: he is by nature able to receive it, and habit brings it to completion.
- So the same being becomes gentle or ferocious depending on what, in him, is cultivated or awakened: the question 'good or evil?' is ill-posed; the real question is 'by what is he formed?'.
Therefore So man is neither angel nor beast, but capable of both: his nature is this very plasticity, which makes education decisive and forbids betting either on a given goodness or on a fated wickedness.
How far does this reasoning convince you?
Not at all
Entirely