Orcseys - always Evil?

[Glaurung]

Interesting question. Probably it would have some orcish features like a human orphaned to a wolf's family would have some features of a human(this was an extremely stupid example, but anyway). BUT I think we all know how much a person's upbringing can affect to his/her behaviour and opinions. For example, I know one person who seems to have picked all his (conservative) ideas and ways of thinking straight from his dad...
But still, when thinking about orcs, it would sound quite weird that ALL the evil in them would just depend on their upbringing... So I don't know. My guess is that the result would be an orc having the ideas and thoughts of a human. On a more basic level, I'd guess the orc would still have the instincts and (on some level) the nature of an orc, because they are things you can't change by a good upbringing.
Further on, I wonder how would the orc survive in a human community where (at least hopefully) intelligence is needed to succeed in life...

[Thinlómien]

I agree with you at some points. I think the orc would be less "evil" than normal orcs, but more "evil" than a human. He would still have an orcish temper.

[Findegil]

An orkish temper he might posses, but I would even think that he would not look like an normal Ork. I believe that the treatment that the Orks did to their children during childhood did effect their physical look very much. That is not to say that nobody would mark him as alien to the society in which he grow up, but that would very much depend on the country in which he would be fostered.
I am even not sure about temper, intelligence and "higher tendency to evil" (if such a thing could exist at all). If such things were seen as inherent in Orkish societies that could also be a result of selection in early childhood and not inherited by birth.

Respectfully
Findegil

[Eldar14]

I hate to disagree with everyone so far, but I don't think that an orc could be non-evil, no matter how he was raised, unless someone of equal power to Morgoth were to spend generations upon generations trying to undo the work that Morgoth had done.

During the entire war of the ring, who was the only race that fought on the side of good that didn't fight on the side of evil (excepting Hobbits, who are an oddity)? The elves. The men fought on both sides, and the dwarves fought on both sides. And why was is that the elves only fought on one side? Because there is something inherrent to their being which causes evil to be abhorrent to them.

And, the orcs being a pervesion of the elves created by Morgoth, wouldn't it be considered possible that they may share the tendency to be predisposed towards a certain alignment.

Silmarillion:

And deep in their dark hearts the Orcs loathed the Master whom they served in fear, the maker only of their misery.

It states in Sil that the orcs hated Morgoth, the "maker only of their misery." So, an inherent trait of orcs is their misery. They are miserable as a by-product of their very existance. And, hand-in-hand with this misery comes hate. As the nature of their being, they feel both misery and hate. I wouldn't be possible for a creature based on misery and hate to grow up to become good, no matter how well they were treated. Their inborn hate would fester and grow, until they were evil.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

That quotation doesn't mean that the misery is inherent. They are placed in this dark, desolate life; and the misery springs forth very quickly from this arrangement. That line is there to show that the Orcs were slaves and not willing workers. The hatred is deep inside and has been since the start of their lives; but it doesn't suggest that the Orcs themselves are based on the hatred.

[Son of Númenor]

I did a search on this topic and found this excellent response to the question at hand:

Originally Posted by Sharkû

"They [sc. orcs] would at least 'be' real physical realities in the physical world, however evil they might prove, even 'mocking' the Children of God. They would be Morgoth's greatest Sins, abuses of his highest privilege, and would be creatures begotten of Sin, and naturally bad. (I nearly wrote 'irredeemably bad'; but that would be going too far. Because by accepting or tolerating their making – necessary to their actual existence – even Orcs would become part of the World, which is God's and ultimately good.)" (Letter 153)

"I actually intended it to be consonant with Christian thought and belief, which is asserted somewhere, Book Five, page 190,1 where Frodo asserts that the orcs are not evil in origin." (Letter 269)

What else is there to say?
I believe we have had this discussion at least once before, but for this thread's sake, let me add that while the notion of orcs being corrupted Elves may have been the idea at the time of Tolkien's writing of LotR, later theories should be given more importance here.

What the quotes tell us is that there is of course perfection, but it lies solely with the Creator (and one might say therefore in creation as a whole). Because of the gravity of the origin of orcs, which does not change with a different idea of their beginnings, they are indeed "naturally bad".
Furthermore, it is stated somewhere that orcs in fact loathed their own existance.

(From Inherent Evil)

[narfforc]

Please allow me to put a twist on this. In The Silmarillion, Tolkien writes: For the Orcs had life and multiplied after the manner of the Children of Iluvatar. This could mean Elves or Men, however it probably means Elves. So when they die what happens to their spirit, does it go to Mandos as an Elf?, for the lifeforce within is given by Eru not Melkor. Is that lifeforce then cleansed of evil by Eru, and given back what was stolen from it ie: It's true form? What would become of The Half-Orcs of Saruman or The Uruk-hai of Sauron, surely they are just another form of Peredhil, what choice are they given. In Tolkiens world there is no hell, and no-one to govern it, Morgoth has been banished, so are the spirits of those corrupted by birth, beyond help, where do they go. Morgoth, Sauron, Saruman and maybe other renegade Ainur, have been placed in the void, they chose their path, the Orcs of The Third Age did not, are all the spirits of the Orcs with Morgoth?. Someone has to fight The Dagor Dagorath, IF Tolkien is saying that by accident of birth your spirit is damned, then yes Orcs are always evil, yet nothing is born evil, not even Sauron, so say's Gandalf. Then is it Nature or Nurture. My own view is that most of the corruption was genetic, then some brain-washing. Our own recent past tells us that the indocrinated Nazi's could be re-educated, and as for what the Orcs looked like, no-one in our politically correct world, would like to tell me that looks count, would they?

[Morsul the Dark]

Originally Posted by Glaurung

Interesting question. Probably it would have some orcish features like a human orphaned to a wolf's family would have some features of a human(this was an extremely stupid example, but anyway). BUT I think we all know how much a person's upbringing can affect to his/her behaviour and opinions. For example, I know one person who seems to have picked all his (conservative) ideas and ways of thinking straight from his dad...
But still, when thinking about orcs, it would sound quite weird that ALL the evil in them would just depend on their upbringing... So I don't know. My guess is that the result would be an orc having the ideas and thoughts of a human. On a more basic level, I'd guess the orc would still have the instincts and (on some level) the nature of an orc, because they are things you can't change by a good upbringing.
Further on, I wonder how would the orc survive in a human community where (at least hopefully) intelligence is needed to succeed in life...

however humans are cruel and more than likely the orc would be picked on and most likely grow up all the meaner for it