Does human really born good ?

  By now, I still have a confusion of Rousseau’s “nature”, and that he defines that human “nature” is the best, and what make us who we are today, is all because of the bad social structure.

In the article he mentioned: ”I dare almost affirm that a state of reflection is a state against nature, and that the man who meditates is a degenerate animal.” Which, in my understanding, means that once we start meditate, we are already not at the “natural” state.

However, he also mentioned that,” that nature alone operates in all the operations of the beast, whereas man, as a free agent, has a share in his. One chooses by instinct; the other by an act of liberty.” To act liberally, we need to think, and make decisions, and thus, to have wisdom is the difference between us and animal.

But I think it is paradoxical. If we start thinking, then we are not at the state of “nature”, however, if we don’t think, then there are no differences between us and animals? So is the state of nature really exist?

Perhaps I have some misunderstanding!?

Rousseau considers that man are born good. This concept make me thinks of the ancient Chinese philosopher, Zeng Zhi(曾子) and Xun Zhi(荀子). The former one consider that human were born good; whereas the latter one consider human were born bad. This is still an ongoing debate.

Even though Zeng Zhi has the same opinion as Rousseau (they both think human were born good), there are still differences between them, which I think is quite interesting. Zeng Zhi thinks that there’s a moral status born in human, and the moral we had is the main differences between human and animal. And to prove it, he gave an example of a kid be pushed into a well, we will feel sad for him, and will want to save him(which I think is the pitie that Rousseau mentioned). This is the classic example he gives to show that human is born good.

As for the Xun Zhi, he thinks that people were born to care only about his own benefits, and if we let this “bad”, selfish nature goes on, then we will turn out to perish. “Goodness” is something we work hard to learn and to achieve. Therefore, to have moral rules to obey is what we need, and we need to control ourselves to be a “good” person.

This is by far what I understand, and might not be absolutely right, however, I think its quite interesting to think about it.

But I think that perhaps, there’s no “good” or “bad ” in our natural state, we just change as the environment changes. Like water, it changes its shape considering which kind of glasses we put them into.