This is the concept that people are inherently evil. If people were left alone without controls they would all tend to violence, selfishness, etc, etc.

As a result of this belief, adherents believe that it is necessary to apply controls on people at all times to prevent this natural tendency from coming out. As we are all born evil, education (or at least societal normalisation and assimilation) is a particular priority

Possible arguments against this position

If people really are born evil then it can be argued that the race would have died out:
Although the history of societies and the human race is relatively recent compared to our evolutionary climb, it seems likely that the inherently evil trait might have evolved before societies existed to protect us from ourselves. Thus, how did the born-evil humans manage to reproduce themselves without a society to stop them from killing each other?



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