It is a mistake to think that some of our impulses … are good, and others … are bad.
Mere Christianity – C. S. Lewis (1952)
Lewis goes on in this piece to explain that the employment of all instincts is subject to the situation, for example the instinct for love. There are situations where the love perpetrated on another human or pet is likely to do more harm than good. Children that are so mollycoddled that they never learn to stand on their own two feet and continue to rely on their parents throughout their adult lives, or a pet so pampered and protected from everything that does not have any social skills and grown into a neurotic, fearful and sometimes exhibits aggression as a fight reflex to anything it is unfamiliar with.
The impulse to fight is discouraged within society but that is the very instinct that is required during wartime. This was seen all too often when ordinary people, with no intention of ever joining the armed forces were conscripted in to help defend their country against an invasion. Young people that had been brought-up to never lay a hand on anyone else in anger were suddenly expected to not only engage in combat but also to kill another human being. Here the impulse to fight, or die would have been classed as a good one.
Stealing is deemed as social unacceptable, but if taking something that wasn’t yours was the only answer to walking the fine line between death or survival, then it is at least understandable.
Sex is often portrayed, especially religiously as a sin, but procreation is the only way any spices will survive. So, the impulse is a good one for the avoidance of extinction but really depends on the way it is undertaken. Rape is just as likely to result in conception as a consensual encounter.
The keeping animals in captivity for either personal gratification or to as a fund-raising enterprise can be classed as a bad impulse but by then undertaking to breed them to release back into their native environment, although not ideal is not as bad, especially if those animals could no longer survive in the wild. But, the breeding of animals simply for the sake of making money, regardless of welfare is wrong. Profit over well-being is never going to be considered as good except for those that stand to profit.
The word impulse has several different definitions: a sudden strong and unreflective urge or a desire to act or an impetus, but however it is described it is the way in which it is undertaken that is more important.