ShmoopTube

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Shmoop, it's what's for dinner. Which word could fill in the blank so that

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the sentence below makes sense?

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Researchers and philosophers have studied the influence of nature versus nurture for

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years to determine whether humans are indeed born with a(n) blank sense of right and wrong.

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And here are the potential answers...

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The word "born" tells us that we're looking

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for a word that helps get across the theory that humans come into the world with certain

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characteristics...

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It would be very unfortunate if (B) and (C) were the right answer, because "flawed"

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and "questionable" imply that we're all born with serious moral issues.

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In some cases this might be true, but we're going to cross out this one as we look for

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a word that jibes with born. Sure, a lot of people have "inconsistent"

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moral codes...

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But again, we're looking for a word that zeroes in on the "nature" side of the

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debate. "Acquired" is kind of the opposite of

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what we're looking for, because it implies that we learn our moral codes rather than

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being born with them.

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"Innate" means natural or inborn, so (A) is the correct answer.

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Here's hoping that for every baby who's innately born a super villain, there's also

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one who's a super hero. Ah the balance.

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