inal conduct is tolerated. Human beings will engage in criminal behavior if the context or their environment sends a signal repercussion will be limited or not forthcoming. Therefore, civilization needs to curb these tendencies toward destructive acts in human beings by controlling the environment through extensive rules and vigilant law enforcement. Gladwell (139) argues, "Epidemics are sensitive to the conditions and circumstances of the times and places in which they occur." The New York City experiment proves that context is a powerful motivator of human behavior, but it does not necessarily prove that human beings have to be controlled to extend kindness toward others.
While the New York City experiment may prove that imposing external controls via civilization do undermine negative aspects of human behavior, the actual existence of civilization demonstrates the essential goodness that exists in human beings. De Waal (689) argues that human beings readily recognize "helping tendencies" in animals because they are so "prominent in our own species." All of us know of others who have selflessly sacrificed for the benefit of another or others. Essentially, people forge civil society in order to extend acts of goodness and cooperation toward one another f
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