For millennia, what has been a dilemma to philosophy has also relentlessly threatened Christian theology and affects the daily lives of human beings. People are regularly faced with questions of morality that may resonate with the strict guidelines of laws or religious doctrine. A majority of individuals align with their respective traditional societal norms. Others, however, may commit acts that are not in accordance with the rest of society. Contingent upon the severity of the deed, it may be considered immoral, sinful, or outright evil. This raises questions such as: what drives humans to do wrong? Are they innately bad, or is it learned? If they are naturally good, what was their undoing?
Countless theodicies have been established in attempt to explain these moral turmoils and to reveal the underlying truths
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He is often compared in contrast to that of Thomas Hobbes, who wrote that life in the state of nature is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” and argued that humans are intrinsically selfish, inevitably competing for food, land, and all other resources . On the contrary, Rousseau was far more idealistic in his thinking, arguing that life in the state of nature was composed of a basic, almost animal-like happiness. It was peaceful, simple and all of mankind had natural freedom. He strongly believed in the essential goodness of human nature. What Rousseau referred to as “pitié”, translated to pity in English, is what he believed to be the most natural and fundamental virtue of the state of nature. It would be unnatural for humanity to not act in accordance with their innate empathy, or to experience schadenfreude—the pleasure derived from another person’s misfortune. Rousseau contended that when man listens to his natural inclination to act with compassion without the influence of society, only then does he discover where empathetic action and goodness