The most widely accepted origin of man is the story of Eve and Adam from the Bible, particularly in the book of Genesis chapter one. The story says that God created humans in his resemblance. They were innocent that they didn’t even know what was good or bad. But, since they were in the image of God, they were pure and good in the first place. However, they violated what God commanded them not to eat which was the fruit that could make them wise.
Consequently, man now is considered to be sinful and corrupted by the worldly knowledge. If man didn’t really know that bad deeds exist, they wouldn’t be curious to experience it. Likewise, some known philosophers made their own definition of the nature of man and by deducing their views, we could come up with a conclusion that man is naturally good.
Hence, this paper tries to present arguments from the ideas of Niccolò Machiavelli (1469 –1527), Thomas Hobbes (1588 –1679), John Locke (1632-1704), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 –1778) that would establish a strong definition of man as naturally good, but not necessarily good all through-out his life.
To fully understand the nature of man and the notion of corruption, it is best to consider first their definitions. According to Answers.com (http://www.answers.com/topic/man), one of the most concise definition of man is “a human regardless of sex or gender; a person”. Meanwhile, corrupt (adj.) is defined as “marked by immorality and perversion” (http://www.answers.com/topic/corrupt). It is then clear that what we will be talking about is a man as the biological human and an animal of corruption as , in a mere sense, evil.
Many people think that Niccolò Machiavelli described man as naturally corrupt or evil. However, let us reckon what he mentioned about a man desiring for something that forced him to be bad. According to his work The Prince, a man who wants to act virtuously come to sorrow among those who are not virtuous. In addition, if a prince wants to remain in power, he must learn not to be so good. Therefore, Machiavelli pointed out that man, at first, was not an animal of corruption; rather, he was only forced to be bad by the nature of the world he was into.
Similarly, Thomas Hobbes is being positioned by many in the belief that man is an animal of corruption. Perhaps, his work The Leviathan creates a bad image of man as it states that man was egocentric. Nonetheless, it is also mentioned that man, being egocentric, is just seeking things that are not tangible; he is searching for peace and preservation of his life. Why shouldn’t a man seek peace if he lives in a place where they are all equal but without order? A man is going against another man because they don’t know how their freedom should set them equal. Thus, it doesn’t necessarily mean that man is naturally corrupt because he doesn’t even know how he comes to that state with no civil law guiding him, only the Law of Nature and the Right of Nature that tell him to preserve his life and, by the latter, in any means. These are the only laws that man can obey; thereby, nothing can prove that they are doing anything bad in that pre-societal stage.
John Locke, in his write-up The Second Treatise of Civil Government, is very notable in his idea of the State of Nature. According to him, the State of Nature is an environment with no common law but man is free equal and independent. Man is good but this nature of man still has inconveniences. As a solution, people tend to enter the Social Contract where laws are made to keep things in order. From these, we can say that man is naturally good and free but because they all have these freedom to do anything, they don’t know how to settle things if they are together. This is why others think that man is evil whenever he interferes on other’s matters which is, actually, unintended and just accidentally. It is like parking in a space without any sign of prohibition, and then somebody would simply come in to tell you that you are evil for doing that.
To further strengthen these arguments, Jean-Jacques Rousseau made the best proof for man being naturally good. In his work The Social Contract, Rousseau quoted that man was once in a State of Nature and once good in nature, however, in his entering into the society, he became corrupted by the materialistic approaches of civilization or, indeed, by the contribution of the worldly knowledge produced by the arts and sciences. It is then clear that man’s downfall is all because of the new things he encounters along his way. Like, in the allegory of science, a baby, once born, is innocent and just wants to be happy and play with his hands. But, as he grows up, he acquires the worldly knowledge that corrupts his mind and encourages him to deviate from his nature and desire something better to be considered as nobler.
These philosophers, apart from Machiavelli, suggested man to enter the Social Contract to be bounded by the law and so, live in order. However, it is just sad to say that we live in a society which changes every time new things sprout. There are evil things beneath the materialistic perspective of this world so, it is our duty to carefully use our reason to obey the good alone and to consistently maintain the purity of our soul.
As a conclusion, man is, naturally, a man of goodness. He is only lured to be an animal of corruption because of the knowledge that this strange world offers.
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