Are we born good and bad and everything in between?

Most people appear to believe babies aren't born good, or nasty, or anything in between. This implies they are blank slates at birth. How nice or nasty a person is as an adult is then determined entirely by how they are brought up, and more generally everything they have ever experienced. I can't say I agree with this. If that were so, then what ultimately grounded justification could there ever be for praise or blame? Everything we ever think or do would be down to what we have experienced.  So none at all.



This also presumably applies to other aspects of personality too. So, whether shy and introverted, or gregarious and outgoing, or bad-tempered, or mild-tempered, this is all simply determined by everything a person has ever experienced. And what about our interests? Would it truly be the case that if I had been brought up into a different environment, I perhaps wouldn't be interested in the ultimate philosophical questions such as what the world is, what we're doing here etc, but rather perhaps be interested in collecting stamps or coach/bus spotting, or -- heaven forbid -- celebrities?

I'm afraid I think this is all complete nonsense.

Hobbes and Rousseau on human nature

An article regarding the contrasting views of Hobbes and Rousseau on whether human beings are innately wicked.

Science shows Thomas Hobbes was right – which is why the Right-wing rule the Earth

In the Right-wing corner we have Thomas Hobbes, founding father of
political philosophy, who argued that man is born wicked and must be
civilised"

And on the Left we have Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the
original romantic, whose gist was that humans start out innocent and get
corrupted by society.

The author says that science shows Hobbes was right.  From my own personal experience and thoughts, it seems to me Rousseau was certainly wrong. Society doesn't make us
nasty -- peoples' nastiness is innate. But it teaches the innately
nasty people to put on an act so they are accepted by others. 



However,
I do not believe Hobbes is entirely correct either. In my opinion, not everyone is
born nasty. Others are not quite so nasty, and a minority actually nice.
However, the nasty people -- the callous, the unfeeling, those
indifferent to others -- set the agenda. They bring everyone down
to the lowest common denominator. The innately nasty individuals will take advantage of others if given the chance and if it doesn't reflect badly on them.
As a consequence, many people tend and should distrust others -- at least until we get to know them and can judge whether they are trustworthy or not





More generally I find the idea that we are born "blank slates" and all differences can
be explained by “nurture” and “class” to be preposterous.  However, this emphatically does not justify the gross inequality we find in modern western societies, especially in the USA (I live in the UK).