Assignment 5: Thoreau sees bravery, intelligence and spiritual depth in the instinctual behavior of animals. Can it be that some of the character traits we most admire in other persons are also matters of instinct, as with the animals in this passage? If character is a matter of insouciant instinct, can we condemn those who don't have it? Cf. Menand, “We think that sucking it up, mastering our fears is a sign of character. But do we think that people who are naturally fearless lack character? We usually think the opposite. Yet those people are just born lucky.”

What is it what we like or even love on other people, especially on our friends? Is it their look or their character? Actually, what is character und where does it comes from? I character an instinct? To find out all this things, character should be defined.   

Certainly, this is not easy, because character isn't something tangible. One can't identify character of a person so quick, because one have to become acquainted with the person before judging and  people can disguise their characters. One can identify the real character of a person in exceptional circumstances like a conflict.  In addition, character is subjective, because every single person has a different conception of a good and a bad character.

Generally speaking character is the inner conditioning of a person. More precisely it's the special attributes, pattern of behavior and personal competences, which form moral behavior.
Briefly speaking  character is the disposition, the individuality and the personality.  
If the character is a summary of all human characteristics of a person, the question is, what does the character exist of actually? And how far do we form, compose and influence the character? Moreover where does a good character ends and a bad one begins?

The character is formed, composed and influenced especially in the childhood. Parents, friends, and all the surrounding field influence the character extremely. Words and acts of our surroundings have a major impact on our characters. If the persons children look up to ( best example are parents), have ethical values, it's probable that the children will have ethical values, too. When parents convey to their children, that they should act ethical, the children will try it. However character is not only education and influence, it's also development and acquisition. As mentioned above character building mainly happens in childhood and teenage. After that, it's mostly amelioration of the character.

Now, what is a positive and what is a negative character? One can say rough and briefly:
A positive character is the human ideals in relation to values in certain society like love, charity, affability, openness, helpfulness and pity.
A negative character defines the contrary mode of behavior like hate, animosity, egoism and casualness.
Which character traits one approves depends on the mediated, learned and developed values and ideals, as I mentioned before.
And that's exactly what we like on other people. We like their character either because it's alike to ours, or it's so different than ours so that it's inspiring and bonding us.
Besides, every single person has a character, no matter if one is brave or fearful, egoistic or helpful and so on. The only difference one can make, is between a good and a bad character.
If you learn to be brave, you don't have less character than a person, which is brave from a child. In my opinion the person, which learned to be brave has a strong character.

Is character an instinct?
On the one hand character is the personality which is formed and influenced by the surrounding and on the other hand character is a instinctive behavior, which is in us by birth and comes out in special situation. It's only the inner feeling, which tells us what to do.
Actually, it don't matter if it's an instinct or character, because the important thing is that everyone is happy and there is a successful living together.