Human Nature: Are People Born Good Or Evil?

When humans perform an act of kindness, what is really their intention in doing so? Is it perhaps to help someone, to fit in, or feel accepted or is it just a step in achieving their goal of receiving their homework, their money or maybe something valuable that they found to be jealous of? From the past to the present, human nature has always been corrupted. In our everyday life we see people getting murdered, assaulted, and cheated. In the past, Kings were dominant figures, they ruled worth power so they can maintain their position. As time passes from period to period we are still facing the same corruption in our society because people only serve to their benefit and their own status. Human being were never born good, but innocent through lack of knowledge and experience and the world. But corruption can overwhelm the child as it grows up because of the negative influence it would have among society. In discussion to human nature, one controversial issue has even whether humans are naturally inclined towards good or evil. On one hand

Mencius, the author of the essay titled “A Man’s Nature is Good” from the compiled book Reading The World Ideas That Matter argues that human nature is good. On the other hand, Hsun writes in his essay “Man’s Nature is Evil” from the same book that human nature is evil. Others like Master Kao, who is mentioned in Mencius’s essay, believes human nature is neutral. My own view is that human nature is bad because in reality human nature is corrupt through the lack of respect towards each other, countless violent acts, dishonesty, and racial discrimination.
Debates surrounding human nature have been going on for a while on whether human nature is evil or good. According to the philosopher Thomas Hobbes, he believes in the evil nature of humans mentions his opinion in Leviathan. He states that laws were “devised” for the purpose of keeping our evil nature in check. (95). By him making this statement Hobbes was in favor of authoritarian governments trying to keep society under control. In other words, Hobbes believes we should be protected from the evil. For example, he explains how in war countries, people kill and steal from each other in order to survive. That's why people are so dishonest and selfish because most of human nature will do anything to survive. Hobbes makes an important question in his novel, to be the people who believe human nature is good. He asks that if human are so” benevolent in nature, then why do we lock our doors at night”?(97). By him asking this, he is basically saying the evil of humans nature. Hobbes viewed human nature as the state of nature where men have a tendency to be selfish and will step over any obstacle in order to be successful. That is why many people around the world live in everyday fear that they are at risk of being attacked, robbed or murdered.

Hsun Tzu also mentions that man’s nature is evil. He believed that humans are born evil and that it is a teacher's responsibility to educate them and guide them away from those evil instincts. Hsun Tzu believed that man's nature is always selfish. He said that every man is born with evil in them "The gentleman is by birth no different from any other man; it is lust that he is good at making use of things”(6). I agree with Hsun because he makes a good point by mentioning that if humans indulge their nature their lives will be difficult and any who do so will inevitably become a criminals.
Even though many people may oppose to what Hobbes and Hsun have to say about humans being naturally good, they both pose strong ideas to counter the argument and state humans are naturally evil. The philosopher Meniscus states that “humans are naturally good and that one's circumstances influences their nature”(79). I disagree with Meniscus because people just try to make the person feel bad for their bad behavior we are all born evil . A person may say that people born into less situations that are bad, are most likely to overcome them. Some people may become careless by the situation but no matter we are all born evil but Meniscus agrees that we are born with a naturally good intention in life. But I disagree with his actions because we don't grow up to be good we might be taught to be good but many kids may be curious and something bad and that just how they might be turned into a evil person.
Naturally human nature is evil because another author Jimmy Santiago Baca also implies human nature is evil. In his novel “ A Place to Stand” he says “ After what seemed a long silence he said, I run this place. I own your ass. You understand that? You fuck with me” he stuck his pissed off face in mine again “ and you don't know what I can put you through”(158). Baca is saying how corrupt the jail system is, this is another way that shows how evil and violent the world is. Baca’s point is that by the security yelling at baca he thinks he can get more power. In other words in this world people want more and more power, and baca is also saying how the security can get a away from everything this quote relates back to hobbies how he talks about the government
All throughout life we are educated on what it is to be good and derailed from how to be evil.

Through this, it shows that from birth we act without knowledge and awareness because many will agree that we are born with original sin which was inherited from the ancient times of Adam and Eve, according to The Bible. The book of Genesis states “You will not certainly die, the serpent said to the woman. For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” therefore this original sin is derived from the moment they fell into temptation and thus life continued to grow from that moment on. According Christian based practices, humans are all sinners who develop and grow from these sins to become aware of what it is to be good. From there they are able to choose whether they want to live a life of good practice or follow in the path of the wrongdoings of evil

practice.
A number of philosophers have shown that human nature is good Eliza Veretilo wrote in her artilce for thephiosophytakeaway.com “Human Nature Is Good” she states “Fear has become conditioning and we have not yet learnt to drop it. Underneath it all, the human spirit is good, it’s undeniable that we strive for goodness as a whole. That’s why things like universal peace are so appealing, because we are creatures that thrive in peace. We have created war out of fear, but that doesn’t make us bad.” I think Veretilo is mistaken because she overlooks human nature as essentially being good. I disagree with her because we just don't create war out of fear we do it because we are protecting ourselves from all those evil which is a trait of human nature. We don't all strive for goodness as a whole and we certainly don't thrive for peace in this world because everything in this world is chaotic; all these violence in the world shootings and on a regular base.
From early history it is noted that historic representations of evil such as Hitler, Stalin… etc are personifications of Lucifer as the superior force of evil of their time. A Psychologist from Stanford University, Philip Zimbardo ,writes in his piece titled “The Psychology of Evil” “My modest task is to outline some of the psychological processes that I believe are involved in human evil, more specifically, to share with you some ideas I have about the social psychological strategies and tactics that can facilitate the
transformation of good,or at least ordinary, people into monsters, who are perpetrators of evil.” The essence of Philip Zimbardo argument is that human nature is evil as he states that even though those evil men are dead evil still continues in today's world. There is still evil out there and a lot of violence,killing, stealing. Also in education many people may be corrupted and be mindless and turn evil, because the states controls what students and teachers have to say about human nature .

Ultimately as a result of history, previous christian beliefs, and personal believes humans are naturally evil. we are born with nature rights and how we choose to act upon them is a result of the way we were born. human being were never born good, but innocent through lack of knowledge and experience and the world. But corruption would overwhelm the child as it grows up because of the negative influence it would have among society. That's why my own view is that human nature is bad because in reality human nature is corrupt through the lack of respect towards each other, countless violent acts, dishonesty, and racial discrimination.