Beyond Good and Evil?

Is Man Inherently Good or Inherently Evil? Do we naturally go out of our way to help our fellow man, or help ourselves?

About a year ago, I was enrolled in a Philosophy class at the college I attend. The class was very interactive by nature, which is probably the best way to conduct a philosophy class. We'd start class with a bizarre breathing exercise and then dive into topics that would involve the entire class. Going toward the end of the semester we had a major debate that was easily the most intense discussion I've ever had in a classroom. The topic was one such that hasn't and probably will never be solved. And the question is this: Are people born good natured or evil in nature? Meaning, would Stalin have grown up to be just as evil in heart if he had grown up in a different time period, or place? Is that good will inside of us, put there from the start? or is it society that shapes and changes us into the people that we are?

The first argument goes a something like this:

We are born with good intentions and pure qualities but learn evil as we grow.
The first and easiest argument to this is that people are made in God's image, so that makes us automatically good. While this makes sense, I'm in no way, shape or form, religious, so I'll pass on this argument for now.
Carl Rogers believed that people are innately good natured, and if left to their own devices would bond together, work together and act together to achieve common goals. This way of thinking suggest that cultural things like money, prejudice, and bad up bringing, leads to evil in the hearts of men. If all that was stripped away, and people where born and raised in tribal villages with very little amenities, society was advance far quicker than more advanced societies where so many factors in human emotions can hold it back.
Some examples is that people leave money for bums and vagrants that they don't know. People always are eager to help with problems, tipping waitresses, helping an older lady who fell, carrying your neighbors trash inside, the list goes on and on to what human beings do that is good in heart. 


We are born with evil intentions and malicious qualities but learn to be virtuous as we grow

Sigmund Freud believed that people are innately evil, selfish and can only be counted if it benefited them somehow. If it wasn't for society and the rules that govern us, our world was literally collapse. Rape, murder, and violence would reign and humanity would kill itself. More to the fact, is that we are born with the most basic, core instinct of self preservation. And that instinct will allow us to take from others if it benefits are needs to survive. Therefore we are born with a selfishness that could be conceived as being 'evil'. Without the framework of our laws, and norms, we'd revert back to our primal instincts in which we only look out for ourselves. The examples of this are blatant, dictatorships, serial killers, rapists, theft etc...

Of course the third argument to all of this, is that being born 'good' or 'bad' is all relative. If every single person who was born was evil then it wouldn't be bad to be evil, and we wouldn't be having this discussion! Same goes for being good. The terms good and evil, are something that humans made, and a baby can't be born with either really.

Your thoughts and opinions on the matter? Are we inherently good or evil?

PS. A great loopy picture I found on Deviant Art!