Human Nature...Part..3...
If the basic nature of man is fundamentally good, why are there wars? Perhaps the definition of Good varies from culture to culture. Let us define war: War is the result of a conflict between two (or more) opposing or differing ideas. War can involve near-Genocide, the extermination of everybody who holds an opposing view. In fairness it could be said that only a few are Evil and enforce their will upon others. If so, the Good people aren't. They allow the Evil to flourish. Isn't murder Evil? Rape? Theft? All this occurs both during and as a result of war.
A great deal of your argument revolves around the act of ceasing another's life. Speaking from just a modern western viewpoint most would agree killing someone is far from being a good thing, but even so most of the time we'll qualify that sentiment by asking under what circumstances the death is to occur. If I pull out a gun and shoot you dead for no other reason than you were the closest living thing and I laughed with the sheer enjoyment of your destruction, I'm sure we would all agree that to be a pretty evil act. However, if you were threatening my children and the only way of protecting them was to shoot you with said same gun, I doubt anyone would be quick to point the finger. In both cases you have the same result, somebody is dead, but societal views and circumstances are what decide the quality of the act. Evil / Not Evil.
Among the ingredients of human nature are desires (say, appetite and our "spirited part") and capacities of awareness (the senses and the mind). Correlative with these are the ingredients of the human condition: we are given a certain array of happy and unhappy transactions to engage in, a certain array of aspects the world can wear. Taking all of this together as a living whole, we conceive a human project or perhaps a bundle of characteristic projects. What we are up to is surely the crucial revelation of what we are as well as where we are.
The roots of human nature are sunk deep into our history and experiences. When in our own lives we are to find the basis of our human nature, we must look to our early years, the formative years. Now take for example if we placed a newborn in the wild or in a high-class, well-mannered, wealthy family. The human nature of the newborn in the wild will be exactly that, wild and chaotic. While on the other hand the newborn in the well-mannered society will be well mannered and moralistic. Human nature is defined by the values that are taught and the values that society defines, if there are no societal values, human nature is doomed and lessened to that of wolves. Society defines the values and morals for its people to live by, common values. These values affect human nature and affect the way an even slightly self-conscious person behaves. An example of one of these societal values is table manners. Society has defined over hundreds of years of history to eat accompanied by utensils. Society also has set the value and that eating with your bare hands is “un-civilized.” Another example of a moralistic standard is not to steal. This value is taught by our parents and members of the society, the human society. So human nature has a conscience because of social morals and values. The formation and situation of human nature is dependent on these “guidelines...To be Continued....
