All these problematic aspects of human behavior come not as a result of some innate perversion that corrupts men and women from birth but rather as that of existing in a social environment with others. It is the alien demands of that environment—to be better than this other person, to be more beautiful than that one—that corrupt individuals and alienate them from who they really are. In this context, conscience (as we will see) acts as a means of reminding the individual of the fact that his best interests are served by empathizing with others and treating them as he would wish to be treated
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Rousseau on how humans are corrupted. Based on argument that humans are driven by self love.
