People are naturally good and evil is just a reaction to circumstances and environment. No person is born with an evil mindset. All are born with pure soul and what makes people bad is how they are raised. If people are raised in an environment that offers the survival of the fittest, they tend to do evil just to survive. The slums for example in the third world countries are inhabited by people who just want their family to survive daily so they engage in illegal activities most of the time like stealing among others. The lifestyle is not their own choosing. It is what life has to offer. They do not have the resources to move out of the slums. They do not have the money to send their children to school. They live in a hand-to-mouth existence and they are happy about it. Simon Whelan in an article entitled “One third of the world’s urban population lives in a slum” stated, “Slum life consists of insecure employment, state persecution and extreme poverty.” In this situation, every day, they dream for a better life where they will live as normal citizens of the country to be able to evade the evil doings.
Mencius in the Confucian school of thought mentioned that naturally, people are born good and they became evil when their wishes are not fulfilled. Mencius used the famous situation where a child is about to fall into the well. During the of Mencius up to this day, the immediate reaction or instinct of people is to save the child. That instinct is a proof that people are indeed naturally good. In the premise of Mencius that people become evil when their wishes are not granted, an example is when a person is in a crossroad like when a family member is on the death bed because of the lack of money for the person to be treated. Family members in this situation most likely will encourage even the evil choices like engaging in illegal activities to get an easy money. But then again, those kinds of thinking are brought about by the environment. The good nature of mankind would always tell them to pray and find other ways to get their family member treated. However, evil wins when a person is tied with the negative feelings of helplessness and separation. These feelings would compel the person to get the family member treated by hook or by crook.
Work Cited
Chan, C.W. “Good and Evil in Chinese Philosophy.” The Philosopher, 84. 1996. Web. 20 May 2016.
Whelan, Simon. “One third of the world’s urban population lives in a slum.” World Socialist Website. Web. 20 May 2016.
