Good vs Bad

This notion was part of my discussion during my tutorial for Introduction to World Religion, in which is human nature good by nature, as advocated by Sun'Tzu or evil by nature as advocated by Chung'Tzu. I still remember during that tutorial i firmly believe that it is the former, but now i start to think that it might be the latter rather than the former.

I argued against the concept of fear in human, in which people will tend to do more extreme measures in time of fear just to survive, which i said it was the basic instinct for all living things, that is to survive. Though it is rather contradictory to the concept of good by nature, but human being, unlike animals are thinking creatures, or rather that is what separate us from animals, that we can differentiate between right and wrong. But come to think of it, the ability to differentiate between right and wrong is more of cultivated throughout our lives, rather we are born with it. One may argue that everyone is born with this kind of ability, that is it is our conscience, that prevent us from doing evil things. But if we are to give a definition to evil things, i believe that it will encompasses a lot of things. Just like the word deviance, which explains how one might think what is deviance in society, and it might just include things like beer, cigar etc. I would say that these kind of issues are more metaphysical in nature, such that if we want to explain it easily, is it all depends on individuals' perception.

Why would i think that human nature is evil by nature, the easier and more practical way to explain is if human nature is good by nature, we would not have spend so much time educating people to be good. Or rather, human nature might be the type where one will want to go against rules and regulations, while society try to force you to conform to the community spirit.