Fate or Free Will

One of the longest debates in history is whether genetics or the environment has a larger influence on human behavior or the nature-nurture debate as it is often called. During the seventeenth century, John Locke had a theory that the environment has a stronger influence over human behavior than that of genetics. I will have to agree with him. We're all born with a clean slate which means we are taught and learn by experience and not by genetics.

Locke believed if you'd take a homeless person off the street, you can teach him to become a prosperous person therefore proving his theory of environmental influence. An excellent example of this is Ted Williams, the homeless man with the nice "golden voice". When he was discovered, he was cleaned up and now he's a voice-over artist, which proves you can teach a homeless person to be prosperous. Another example of Locke's theory would be if a family adopted a newborn, which is born with a clean slate. The adopted family molds this child to act and behave in the way they want them to behave, thus being taught and learning from environmental influence. Another example of this theory would be some alcoholics or drug addicts. Neither of my grandparents drank or used drugs, but four out of five of their children became alcoholics and drug addicts along with their friends, thus further proving the theory of environmental influence. Therefore, I take the empiricist approach along with Locke since experience not only includes an external sense of perception, it also encompasses introspection as well as reflection which allows us to develop more ideas, which in turn can always be traced back to experience. In other words, we mainly learn from those around us and from genetics.

In conclusion, we're all are born with free will. We have the choice to choose right from wrong and which influences we choose to follow. We don't have to smoke because our friends smoke, nor do we have to be a thug because kids in our neighborhood may be thugs.