Human Nature on the Battlefield: Man or Monster? Essay by Sam I Am

This paper is a critical and historiographical examination of the nature of warfare and the natures of the men who wage it. It analyzes the fundamental moral prohibitions against warfare and violence and the circumstances and situations in which the human responses of sympathy and morality can be broken down. It looks at how philosophers and scholars have long debated the fundamental tenets of human nature and how some, including Thomas Hobbes, argue that man is naturally barbaric and that social constraints are necessary to restrain these violent tendencies. Others, such as Immanuel Kant, contend that man is inherently benevolent and that the group dynamics of society should seek to harness these altruistic forces.