Are humans essentially good or bad?

Is it good or bad that moral sense differs from humans to other animals?

• So let me define Moral Sense as the ability to distinguish between right and wrong. (definition from google) I'd like to use this quote from the Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain to explain my question "Not since he did that brutal thing, you know." (...) "No, it was a human thing. You should not insult the brutes by such a misuse of the word; they have not deserved it . . . It is like your paltry race--always lying, always claiming virtues which it hasn't got, always denying them to the higher animals, which alone posses them. No brute ever does a cruel thing--that is the monopoly of those with the Moral Sense. When a brute inflicts pain he does it innocently; it is not wrong; for him there is no such thing as wrong. And he does not inflict pain for the pleasure of inflicting it--only man does that. Inspired by that mongrel Morel Sense of his! A sense whose function is to distinguish between right and wrong, with liberty to choose which of them he will do. Now what advantage can he get out of that? He is always choosing, and in nine time out of ten he prefers the wrong. There shouldn't be any wrong; and without the Moral Sense there couldn't be any. And yet he is such an unreasoning creature that he is not able to perceive that the Moral Sense degrades him to the bottom layer of animated beings and is a shameful possession. " Moral sense makes human knows what's right and what's wrong. Sounds good? But they don't always follow it. This is what the problem is. When you know something is wrong but you still do that, this means you're doing something bad. We know it is bad. e.g. We all know murder is a wrong thing. So this makes murder a crime for any sober person, cause a sober person knows it is bad to kill someone, but he did it anyway. However, for a person with mental illness killing someone; or a person kills someone by negligence, the punishment wouldn't be so severe. It is because they may not know that they're doing anything wrong. And similar for animals without moral sense. For example, a cat eats a chicken alive. It doesn't have any feeling over it except it's doing what it wants or needs to stay alive. They never know, so they never do anything wrong. So does moral sense really make human better than animals? If we have it but we cannot always follow it, what's the meaning of having it? Doesn't it just make we feel bad about ourselves? (or it is already a good thing that we can feel bad?) I guess, what makes human better in developing stuffs then other animals should be intelligence but not moral sense? Intelligence and the desire of knowledge. that's how science and civilization develops? Moral sense is like a guidance about what's right and what's wrong, which we all know but we might find it hard to follow at times. Moral sense is why we developed laws and rules and also why we have wars and hope to promote world peace. It sure contributes a lot to human but it's also a great weakness of ourselves? Sorry if my question doesnt make much sense. Please comment to let me know! I'm pretty confused right now and sorry for my english! it's not my native language. Welcome to correct any grammatical mistakes :) Thanks!

• Answer:

  It must be a good thing as it seems to be working for the survival of the human race till now. Higher (in evolution) animals also exhibit some degree of basic morality like some apes do not attempt to woo females who have already mated for the season.