en, humans are born with free will, and are lose or diminish the power of that will only if they themselves chose to give it up.
The pessimistic side of this question is taken by Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche believed that humans instinctively were in touch with themselves, but that through socialization, and giving up their power, they were in a situation where they did not know themselves. Thus, man is "necessarily [a] stranger to [him]self, [he does] not comprehend [him]self," and must naturally misunderstand and limit his actions away from himself, removing any free will and transferring it to societal power (Nietzsche 15).
The conception of good and evil has been with humankind since recorded history. The ancient societies dealt with the issue, as did one of the predominant documents of western philosophy, the Holy Bible. For Kant, goodness is the predominant law of the universe and is embodied by the divine. Humans have an option, though, to reject good, and like Augustine before him, evil is more the absence of good than an entity into itself. "A perfectly good will would thus stand quite as much under objective laws (laws of the good) . . ." (Kant 81).
Goodness according to Locke is the state in which men live together in congruence and cooperation. Since man is born into a state of perfect goodness, only man can refuse that goodness and enter into a state of uncooperativeness. Therefore, evil is applicable only when one "attempts to get another Man into his Absolute Power, does thereby put himself into a State of War with him" (Locke 297). In this way, the will of man acts as the buffer between the two, and choice is available.
Nietzsche's ideas on good and evil are more complex, and delve into human nature. In The Anti Christ Nietzsche explains that
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