Human Nature: Good or Evil?

To understand what human Nature is it is important to first understand what the natural instincts of a human being are. The most important one is survival. Humans live to satisfy their physical and emotional needs. This theory however can lead to several conclusions. Since humans are naturally self-centered, everything they do is to satisfy them. Like the famous Philosopher from the seventeenth century John Locke believed, human beings learn and form their ideas based on personal experiences. Sometimes, even when someone does good deeds for someone else, it may be because their experiences have led them to the conclusion that it is the correct thing to do, therefore making them feel better about themselves. So basically, humans cant be essentially good when it comes to giving, because everything that is given is to satisfy ones own beliefs of what is right or wrong. A way to exemplify this theory is by analyzing the behaviors of an experimental group of students in Ms. Mcbains second period class. The class played a game called Win the Most Money which was basically about trust and character. Many different behaviors were exposed in the classroom; for example, one of the students gave up all his money and even went to the negative digits for his partner.  And another one betrayed his partner several times to win more money. In a superficial and general view, it would seem as if the first person were nicer or better than the second one. How can one know who the better person is? The answer according to this theory would be that neither or both would be the correct ones depending on ones point of view. If the situations are analyzed deeply one can see that they both couldve done what they did to satisfy their own needs to fit in society. The first person may have grown up learning that doing good for others is the better thing to do, so essentially this first person is satisfying their own needs to fit in. However, the second person only listened to their instinct of survival even if it seems a little selfish.   So now that there is a deeper analysis one can see that both participants did the exact same thingwhat they thought was best for themselves. Even though humans are self-centered they cannot be considered evil because they are only listening to their instincts, but they cant be considered good either because everything that they do is to satisfy themselves, and if it does either good or bad to someone else then it will be a second hand effect on their main goal.