Is empathy an innate characteristic of human beings, or is it a learned response?

It is my opinion, after many years and much reading, that the vast majority do have such a sense - and they are born with it. It can be modified by environment IF it is present to begin with. That said, there exist people who are born with NO innate sense of morality or right/wrong - and this sense cannot be taught or instilled by environment.

These folks are called sociopaths and many of them become chronic criminals. Yes, I know this view is currently not politically correct. It is not a new or unsubstantiated view - medical studies exist in support of this notion.

The view that all people are "inherently good" is a nice notion that, in my view, is completely false - our society spends a huge amount of money on wasted rehab programs fueled by this idea. Given this innate "program", if you like, which serves as a substrate for further moral learning, the society in which the individual lives will supplement these basic templates with its own requirements.

I think they do. Richard Dawkins spoke about a genetic morality. He said something like that humans, as social animals, evolved a behaviour that made us want to help each other because humans (and our ancestors from millions of years ago) had to rely on each other in a group to survive against the hardships of life.

So basically we evolved to have a predisposition to help those close to us. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XtvWkRRx... I think all humans can feel a sense of justice especially if we are wronged. I don't think you even need to be taught that.

However, as a nihilist, I can't say that morality extends much further than what Dawkins said. To me morality is a learned behaviour and there are thousands of versions of it. Religions, cultures, political ideologies, philosophies all have their own and the one thing they all have in common is that they can't prove the one is right and the counter-morality is wrong.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.