Without doubt man is a being susceptible to moral instruction. He performs a part of his actions out of his own free will, and voluntarily refrains from certain acts. Such a being is necessarily endowed with free will, otherwise it would be futile to admonish and instruct a creature whose actions are completely determined and which has no will of its own and no control over its own destiny. Competent thinkers consider man to be free in his actions and responsible for them.
Teachers of morality and ethics base their moral teachings and educative efforts meant to bring welfare to man on the same approach that is on a prescription consisting of certain do and don'ts and bidding one to learn certain points and to abstain from certain actions in order to achieve his personal welfare.
If one were to study the plight of juvenile delinquents in reformatories, prisons and mental hospitals, it would be found that they are those who have grown up in morally polluted or negligent families and had no personal experience of moral rectitude and purity.
As to the group of criminals who feel no restraint against committing any kind of crime or offence, most of them are those who opened their eyes in families devoid of emotional warmth and moral virtues and polluted with various sorts of vices and indecencies, or they are those who have lived in a decadent social environment. It was family and social factors that caused them to choose crime and vice rather than rectitude and purity.
The Worthiest Duty of Man
The most important, as well as the worthiest, of man's duties is education. Man discovered the value of education at the very dawn of his existence. For the same reason, he laid down certain principles and objectives commensurate with the development of his human environment and in proportion to his perception of his real duties and mission in life, though these objectives were sometimes correct and at times misconceived.
We clearly witness the amazing changes brought about in the course of human history by the various schools of thought that totally altered the features of life. Our study of the world's realities makes us arrive at the conclusion that man has not been created evil and satanic by nature. Were we to accept that man is inherently evil, all the efforts to educate him would be fruitless and futile and the endeavours and efforts of all the divine prophets and world's educators would be an exercise in futility. Had crime, murder and destructiveness been inherent in the nature of the people of the Arabian peninsula, would it have been possible for the Prophet of Islam, may God bless him and his Household, to bring about such a comprehensive revolution in the spirit of individual Arabs and transform their essential nature?
It is true that man is confronted with physical forces and urges at the first stages of his life. From the moment that he opens his eyes on this world, his faculties are realized gradually one after another and thus he begins his activities. However, at the same time, by the side of physical faculties he possesses an immense capacity and potentiality for spiritual development and growth. There are capacities and aspirations more sublime than needs that are latent in his being, and his energies, while they are being utilized, may take various forms and flow in different channels, although the phase of spiritual development generally commences later than the phases of physical growth.
But in any case it is a natural process and man's higher aspirations are capable of taking over and employing his other energies for their own purposes. However, for this objective he stands in need of effective external assistance, care and guidance. Because in the absence of such assistance these aspirations may suffer deviation or misguide.
Of course, such external assistance is not something unnatural or imposed but a part of the human nature. It is similar to helping a child to learn speech although it possesses the natural capacity for speech since the day of its birth. The principle of human development and man's destiny as the noblest of creatures is described in the Holy Qur'an in these words:
O man! Thou art labouring unto thy Lord laboriously, and thou shalt encounter Him. (84:6) And that the final end is unto thy Lord. (53:42)
Man, in the course of his flight on the horizons of being and towards the infinite, must draw inspiration from the teachings of divine prophets, which constitute a genuine and comprehensive program of education. This is necessary in order to release the divine energies latent, in his being and which he needs in order to be able to attain to the ultimate end of his development, success and deliverance.
Gustave Lebon writes:
It was after relentless endeavours that philosophy realised that it cannot make a way to the supernatural. Hence we are forced to follow the prescriptions of the physicians of the spirit who have insight into the peculiarities of the human soul and can be entrusted to take care of his spiritual development. These spiritual physicians are God-sent prophets and seers who propose prescriptions for man's welfare received from the source of revelation and inspiration and aimed to achieve an inner discipline, by means of which they can assist him to attain the perfection of which he is worthy.
The Holy Qur'an refers to both the aspects of man's nature while describing human nature.6 It points out that should man fail to acquire the basic training, the tempestuous urges within him will begin to advance, weakening the forces of reason and conscience and subjugating other impulses within the soul, employing them for their own purposes and ends. The greatest marvel of man's creation is that he possesses a two-sided nature. Therefore, one must not ignore his capacity for taking on different colours and the need to guide him in a definite direction.
The Qur'an declares:
Prosperous is he who purifies the soul and failed has he who soils it with sin and impurity. (91:9-10)
The very concept of punishment is based on man's innate power of discrimination between good and evil, and exoneration from responsibility requires the presence of some physical or mental deficiency in a person. The viewpoint maintained by some modern trends of thought that exonerate the criminal as a victim of social evils or decadent and deviant training and consider the individual, despite his possession of an innate power of discrimination, as a powerless and negative being, cannot be considered as a scientific truth.
Of course, no one can deny the great role of upbringing and training or ignore the momentous responsibility borne by society and environment; for the various factors related to commission of crime share the responsibility for it. But nevertheless it does not mean that the culprit is devoid of responsibility for his act.
There is no doubt that a group of offenders consists of those who can be reformed through a little guidance and direction. They are victims of spiritual illnesses and their crime is a product of certain psychic disorders and afflictions which are not deeply rooted. Or it is a result of company and association with wayward and immoral persons. This kind of sick persons should be identified and treated at the earliest opportunity. On the whole, severity of reaction and intensity of campaign against crime cannot by itself root out criminal conduct.
The punishment meted out to the criminal for the sake of safeguarding social and individual welfare is necessary, because the sanctions against him are a natural result and product of his own conduct and essential for the maintenance of justice and equilibrium in society and security of social life. However, punishment alone is not sufficient and that which is more significant is the re-education of criminals, so that their unhealthy approach to life can be altered through fruitful instruction and so that their unlawful and aggressive spirit does not infect other individuals in society.
Are There Any Born Criminals?
Today the theory of Lombroso and his followers who believed in the existence of born criminals has been rejected by experts in the field. While serving as a doctor in the Italian army, Lombroso had noticed that tattooing was very common among criminals. This led him to conclude that criminals had a lower level of physical sensitivity than normal people and that their lack of moral sensitivity was also a product of the lack of physical sensitivity.
Later on, while dissecting the brain of a robber he noted that it resembled in certain features the brains of lower vertebrae. Those observations formed a prelude to the theory of the appearance of hidden hereditary traits. Lombroso considered certain characteristics as being indicative of a criminal temperament, some of them being: curly hair, slanting eyes, a protruding chin, arching eyebrows, and abnormally big or small head, protruding cheekbones, big ears, a disproportionate relationship between the size of the skull and the face, and a long-drawn forehead.
When several of these characteristics are present in a person, one could ascertain with certainty his criminal nature, he believed. He named these characteristics, 'the marks of decadence.' Dr. Alexis Carrel, a French scholar, says:
The born criminal, invented by Lombroso, does not exist. But there are born defectives who become criminals. In reality, many criminals are normal. They are often more clever than policemen and judges. Sociologists and social workers do not meet them during their survey of prisons. The gangsters and crooks, heroes of the cinema and the daily papers, sometimes display normal and even high mental, affective, and aesthetic activities. But their moral sense has not developed. This disharmony in the world of consciousness is a phenomenon characteristic of our time.
We have succeeded in giving organic health to the inhabitants of the modern city. But, despite the immense sums spent on education, we have failed to develop completely their intellectual and moral activities. Even in the elite of the population, consciousness often lacks harmony and strength. The elementary functions are dispersed, of poor quality, and of low intensity. Some of them may be quite deficient.
The happiest and most useful men consist of a well-integrated whole of intellectual, moral, and organic activities. The quality of these activities, and their equilibrium, gives to such a type its superiority over the others. Their intensity determines the social level of a given individual. It makes of him a tradesman or a bank president, a little physician or a celebrated professor, a village mayor or a president of the United States. The development of complete human beings must be the aim of our efforts. It is only with such thoroughly developed individuals that a real civilization can be constructed.8
A contemporary psychologist writes:
Today it has been conclusively established, scientifically as well as philosophically and beyond any doubt, that there does not exist an 'evil' human being; there exist only sick human beings. The realisation of this matter is so significant that it may be said without any exaggeration that no discovery or invention in the world since the emergence of man until the present has had, not will ever have, an equal impact on human welfare. That is, the day that people truly realise this fact and the organisation of society and its regulating institutions is based on this established truth the major part of human suffering, wretchedness, enmities, conflicts and punishments will undergo a moderation. Why?
Because when everybody comes to know, for instance, that stinginess, envy, fear, cunning, prejudice, capriciousness, injustice and hundreds of other vices of this kind are logical outcomes of spiritual illnesses that are susceptible to treatment exactly like the common cold, sore throat, indigestion and so on, that will yield two definite important and useful results.
Firstly, the sick persons themselves, who are today regarded as 'evil'* will turn to treatment with a full hope and become healthy and good human beings. Secondly, the people will not view them with hostility and resentment as 'evil' persons, but will look upon them as sick human beings deserving sympathy. And it goes without saying that there is a great difference between these two outlooks and their results.
Right now this is the principle that is implemented in most schools in civilised countries, and even in prisons, and this approach is gradually coming to be used with very beneficial results. It is the duty of humanist writers to make all efforts to propagate these extremely beneficial truths, so that all societies throughout the world are benefited by them.9
This scientific and philosophical theory, whose discovery has been ascribed here to the world of modern science, is one which has a history of fourteen centuries in the religious texts of Islam. The Holy Qur'an refers to the hypocrites as sick persons suffering from two-facedness and malice:
There is a sickness in their hearts. (2:10)
Some moralists and adherents of certain faiths consider man's inner nature as evil and sinful. John Dewey writes:
"Give a dog a bad name and hang him." Human nature has been the dog of professional moralists, and consequences accord with the proverb. Man's nature has been regarded with suspicion, with fear, with sour looks, sometimes with enthusiasm for its possibilities but only when these were placed in contrast with its actualities. It has appeared to be so evilly disposed that the business of morality was to prune and curb it; it would be thought better of if it could be replaced by something else.
It has been supposed that morality would be quite superfluous were it not for the inherent weakness, bordering on depravity, of human nature. Some writers with a more genial conception have attributed the current blackening to theologians who have thought to honour the divine by disparaging the human. Theologians have doubtless taken a gloomier view of man than have pagans and secularists. But this explanation doesn't take us far. For after all these theologians are themselves human, and they would have been without influence if the human audience had not somehow responded to them.10
