I would question the premise:
IMHO people aren’t either good or evil, but can commit good or evil acts.
Their propensity to commit either depends on the conditions to which they are exposed, and their strength of character.
I think you may need to revise your numbers upward somewhat. Prisons are filled with many people just like this re lack of empathy & poor impulse control.
Here is an example I read somewhere – sorry I forget where – but think it was Steven Pinker. ----
We have a flock of birds infested with ticks. No bird can pull the ticks off their own backs but the two birds, working together, can remove all of the ticks off of each other. Assume there is no advantage to either bird other than this. The disadvantage to each bird is the energy expended in pulling off the ticks of the other bird. Energy that will have to be replaced. Birds take turns pulling off ticks. Now if ‘Bird 1’ expends the energy to pull ticks off ‘Bird 2’ but ‘Bird 2’ does not reciprocate – it seems that ‘Bird 2’ is ahead of the game. All of ‘Bird 2’s’ ticks are gone without expending energy. Having no advantage ‘Bird 1’ will not pull ticks from ‘Bird 2’s’ back again. Others who witnessed this ‘injustice’ will recall ‘Bird 2’s’ behavior when their turn comes since it is in their self-interest to do so. Now, if this behavior is repeated too many times by ‘Bird 2’ – he will die due to tick infestation. So – if with a calculating, cunning ‘Bird 2,’ a bird who wants to cheat, he had still better either be secretive or selective when doing so – or his calculating, cunning genes will stop with his tick infested death.
So ------ Back to the humans in your example. - IMO your reaction depends on the genetic ‘give and take’ that we’ve inherited. Generally, it is in our interest to help those around us who we know. Our ‘social group.’ The social group who also helps us. With this it is probably also in our self-interest to be distrustful of those who are not members of our social group. Genetically, it is probably not in our interest to help a member from another tribe that has come into our territory. In fact, where the evolution of our genetic response is concerned, it is probably in our genetic interest to encourage their absence since we will have to compete for available resources with those folks. It is also to our genetic advantage to ‘desire’ resources that better our position and our chances to pass on our genetic inheritance to another generation. Since our evolution took place in social groups than the above seems reasonable IMO.
So ---- as described above, an individual’s genes are passed on, based in part on the answer to this question – ‘Is it better to act in ‘group-interest’ or ‘self-interest?’ ---- This might translate into modern cultures as a ‘Is this person living in a small town or in a large city?’ question. That is, do we know this person AND do others know us? Will others in our clan recognize our behavior has good for the group or totally selfish? It is one thing to be a habitual traitor in a small town, and hide that fact, and quite another to blend in with that behavior in a large city. That would make a difference, I think, in the instinctual reaction. And is still an instinctual reaction IMO.
You might say “good for me” but that doesn’t mean you have not recognized the firing as ‘unjust’ - and it doesn’t mean you are going to have neural feelings toward the person who you know just committed the “unjust” action. In fact, you probably recognize him as a person who does not play by the rules.
See the bird example in the post above. 
I guess I’m talking about the bona fide “endogenous” sociopath/psychopath. Prisions are filled with people who do antisocial things, but I think a relatively small number are actually psychopathological in nature; rather, they are products of their upbringing and environment, primarily, and aren’t beyond reform, at least in theory. My understanding is that the true psychopath is really just wired differently (some even show abnormal EEGs), and no postnatal trauma is adequate to explain their behavior and mindset.
Granted, it’s a hard thing to define, and the nature/nurture issues are difficult to tease apart. It’s hardly surprising, if these individuals are genetically predispositioned, that their parents might also display antisocial tendancies, and that complicates things considerably when one considers childhood upbringing. Is Saddam Hussein a true psychopath? His childhood was sufficiently brutal that endogenous factors may not have dominated the development of his decidedly antisocial character; but I doubt it. If half the things they say about the guy are true, he seems to me to be a truly pityless bully posessed of a uniquely cruel and violent disposition that manifested at an early age. He displayed equal parts sadism, ambition, and paranoia throughout his life. His relationship with his children certainly speaks volumes about the man’s “values”: When his son Q’say attempted to assasinate his other son, Uday, Saddam was flattered by their rivalry for his favor. This is a truly sick individual. They don’t make 'em like that very often.
Odd that these guys somehow manage to rise to the top every so often. Hitler, Saddam, Stalin, Idi Amin, etc. It’s rather frightening to think that the unfettered will to dominate others by any and all means available, one of the very qualities that makes the sociopath/psychopath so potentially destructive, also wins them the admiration and devotion of their peers.
Of course; most behaviours aren’t manifest immediately after birth, but you’ll notice that I was talking about it seeming to be a learned behaviour - that something happens later in life is neither evidence for or against it being innate.
There’s a difference between ‘learning’ and ‘being taught’ - in this particular case, that difference is quite significant.
I can’t speak for Christians, but Judaism has no such tradition. We do not teach that people are born evil.
Zev Steinhardt
Then the question becomes, if we’re not predisposed to a social morality, what is the organizing / directing mechanism that causes us to ‘learn’ empathy or shame? That it’s in our genetic self-interest to feel both is the point I want to make.
I suppose the line starts to blur though; I’d not dispute that we have an innate ability to learn, but I doubt we could learn to empathise in a social vacuum, however, this also wouldn’t prove anything one way or the other, since existence in a social background might simply ‘not trigger’ certain (hypothetically)innate attributes, or might suppress others.
But perhaps the same argument can be made that we have an innate ability to read books; all we need is the right environment to trigger it.
But the agrument I’m making is that, as human social animals, there is a real self-interest in empatizing and feeling shame. A self-interest in the sense that those behaviors tend to spread the genes that cause those behaviours. Predispositions that cause the individual to modify his short term self-interest behavior into behavior that creates a better chance at long term success. And, if genetically programed, it causes this behavior without having to figure out all of the rules – or why it is in your interest to act this way.
Hmmm…
It’s been a while since I read * Without Conscience*, (can’t recall the name of the author, but it’s a very interesting study of psychopathy- right now I’m too tired to do a search) but, IIRC the author estimated that between 3 and 5 percent of men, and about half that number of women, are psychopaths.
The author contended that psychopaths are born without the ability to empathize with others. Levels of psychopathy can vary. Basically, according to the book is that psychopaths are born without a conscience (or, if you will, the ability to form a conscience), but most don’t end up serial killers. By and large, a psychopath who was physically abused as a child ends up a serial killer, one who was not becomes a con man, perenially dishonest business person, or just a general sleazebag.
Also, if you take the time to Google psychopaty or sociopathy, there seems to be a consensus that psychopaths are born, sociopaths are made through environmental factors. Sociopaths do have the ability to empathize with others, but confine their empathy to a very small circle of friends and family. Anyone outside that circle is considered “fair game.”
But, yes, according to a particular set of criteria, a person can be “born evil”.
Fair enough; I think I should probably add though, that I would define ‘learning’ in this context as something much broader than conscious, logical, academic-type processes.