authors:
- Hannon, Elizabeth
- Lewens, Tim
content: 'This is an anthology. It is, unsurprisingly, a mixed bag. That said, the
various contributions do make up a fairly diverse and well-presented set of viewpoints.
What does the idea of human nature mean? What is it supposed to do? Is it meaningful
in light of the combined influence of nature and culture on human existence?
Tim Lewens writes a nice introduction to both the debate in general, and the contributions
in this volume.
Edouard Machery defends his nomological account of human nature: It characterizes
human nature as a set of traits that human beings tend to possess as a result of
the evolution of their species. The traits need not be distinctive of humans, nor
need they be shared by all humans; they merely need to be typical. I have some sympathy
with this view, but there are problems, for instance with the trait of sex: is being
male of female typical? Clearly that trait, having two possible values (yes, that
is another debate) should be included, but it appears that the nomological account
does not do that.
Grant Ramsey offers an alternative in the shape of a trait bin and trait cluster
account. Here, traits come in a limited set of possible combinations, that may vary
over a human being''s life. It can therefore handle the development of a human being.
This approach also seems able to handle the influence of culture, broadly construed,
over a human being''s life. My own views are closest to this account, although I
would present it differently.
Karola Stots and Paul Griffiths emphasises the developmental trajectory of a human
being, and how various influences overtime mould the human being. They argue that
human nature is not embodied in one input to development, such as the genome. Organisms
are fundamentally processes, they say, and therefore a developmental systems account
is most appropriate. I sympathize, but I am not entirely clear what it means in
concrete terms.
Cecilia Heyes thinks the idea of human nature should be patched up rather than eliminated.
She discusses the idea of natural pedagogy as a concrete example of how one could
discuss one facet of human nature. Natural pedagogy proposes that human infants
genetically inherit a well-organised package of biases, tendencies and skills making
them receptive to deliberate attempts by adults to convey information. She analyses
the evidence for the genetic basis and finds it to be weak. She suggests that a
hybrid of the nomological view and what she refers to as "evolutionary causal essentialism"
might be fruitful. She thinks "Mother Culture" does a lot of the hard work in preparing
children to be taught. I am not fully convinced by her arguments, but they require
some serious thought.
John Dupré wants to view humans as processes. He says that seeing human behaviour
as a uniquely developed capacity for flexible response to the environment makes
it unsurprising that it is difficult to provide a definite account of human behaviour.
Even though he says that humans are neither blank slates, nor machines with a predetermined
programme, he ends up saying that since the notion of human nature is commonly associated
with a set of fixed properties, it is safest to dispense with its use altogether.
I find this conclusion fundamentally dissatisfying. If humans have a uniquely developed
capacity for flexible responses, then that is part of human nature.
Kim Sterelny says that a kind of field guide description of humans is possible,
but that that would not be the same as a theory of human nature. He thinks the idea
of an evolutionary "key innovation" that set humans apart from their immediate ancestors
is mistaken. Human evolution is based on positive feedback between multiple factors
and capabilities. The idea of human nature masks this complicated evolutionary history.
Sterelny''s discussion is multifaceted and highly interesting and goes on to culture
and cooperation as essential parts of the story. But as for the other human-nature-skeptical
essays, I am not convinced that it shows that there is no place for an empirical
description of human nature.
Kevin Laland and Gillian Brown are on the war path against the idea of a human nature,
and demolish three different conceptions of it. Either they are untenable, or they
do not do any real work. They emphasize the plastic nature of human development.
They concede that certain aspects of behavioural development exhibit consistency
and stability over space and time, but their focus is on plasticity and gene-culture
coevolution. At the end of the day, their argument seems to boil down to the statement
that the idea of human nature is somehow dangerous. My point: that does not invalidate
it.
Peter Richerson thinks that whether one is for or against the idea of human nature
is correlated with how strongly one commits to the tenets of the Modern Synthesis.
He argues as if the coevolution of genes and culture is forbidden by, or at least
not handled by the Modern Synthesis. I do not see that he makes that case. He discusses
the ideas of a number of thinkers in brief sketches, and makes the case that the
gene-culture coevolution idea is an alternative to human nature. I appreciated the
many insights that his text contains, but I am not fully convinced. I do not quite
see why accepting the fundamental influence of culture on human evolution in and
by itself invalidates the idea of a human nature.
Christina Toren attempts to provide an anthropological point of view. Unfortunately,
this text evinces excruciating verbiage. That is, it excels in using many difficult
words and convoluted sentences. I find it hard to distil anything of interest out
of it. The main point seems to be that one should study human ontogeny as a microhistorical
process. Ok? She says we need a unified model of human being. The distinction between
nature and culture must go. At the end, she displays her woke credentials in a garbled
sentence that says: "It seems obvious to me that an acknowledgement that ontogeny
is through and through a historical process would put paid to ideas of ''culture''
and ''human nature'' and, in so doing, provide for a proper understanding of how
certainly we condemn future generations to a deepening of the inequalities and injustices
that we are failing to address." I find the latter part incomprehensible. It reads
as if her proposal would deepen inequalities, which is obviously not her intent.
But what have inequalities do to with any of this, anyway?
Maria Kronenfeldner describes seven reasons why there is disagreement about human
nature. She points out that nature and culture are almost always used in a dualistic,
antithetical pair, but that reference to nature has usually been done as a move
to impose a certain kind of authoritative understanding. She reviews the use of
the concept of nature from the Greeks via the Enlightenment and the early days of
Darwinism with Francis Galton as a central figure. She goes on to the development
of cultural anthropology by Alfred Kroeber. She concludes that the former essentialist
idea of nature has been replaced by three scientific concepts: a classificatory,
a descriptive, and an explanatory nature. This is an interesting historical review.
Its goal is not to propose a particular view of human nature.
And there concludes the book.'
date: '2023-09-20'
edition:
published: '2018'
publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
goodreads: '40196227'
html: '<p>This is an anthology. It is, unsurprisingly, a mixed bag. That said, the
various contributions do make up a fairly diverse and well-presented set of viewpoints.
What does the idea of human nature mean? What is it supposed to do? Is it meaningful
in light of the combined influence of nature and culture on human existence?</p>
<p>Tim Lewens writes a nice introduction to both the debate in general, and the
contributions in this volume.</p>
<p>Edouard Machery defends his nomological account of human nature: It characterizes
human nature as a set of traits that human beings tend to possess as a result of
the evolution of their species. The traits need not be distinctive of humans, nor
need they be shared by all humans; they merely need to be typical. I have some sympathy
with this view, but there are problems, for instance with the trait of sex: is being
male of female typical? Clearly that trait, having two possible values (yes, that
is another debate) should be included, but it appears that the nomological account
does not do that.</p>
<p>Grant Ramsey offers an alternative in the shape of a trait bin and trait cluster
account. Here, traits come in a limited set of possible combinations, that may vary
over a human being''s life. It can therefore handle the development of a human being.
This approach also seems able to handle the influence of culture, broadly construed,
over a human being''s life. My own views are closest to this account, although I
would present it differently.</p>
<p>Karola Stots and Paul Griffiths emphasises the developmental trajectory of a
human being, and how various influences overtime mould the human being. They argue
that human nature is not embodied in one input to development, such as the genome.
Organisms are fundamentally processes, they say, and therefore a developmental systems
account is most appropriate. I sympathize, but I am not entirely clear what it means
in concrete terms.</p>
<p>Cecilia Heyes thinks the idea of human nature should be patched up rather than
eliminated. She discusses the idea of natural pedagogy as a concrete example of
how one could discuss one facet of human nature. Natural pedagogy proposes that
human infants genetically inherit a well-organised package of biases, tendencies
and skills making them receptive to deliberate attempts by adults to convey information.
She analyses the evidence for the genetic basis and finds it to be weak. She suggests
that a hybrid of the nomological view and what she refers to as "evolutionary
causal essentialism" might be fruitful. She thinks "Mother Culture"
does a lot of the hard work in preparing children to be taught. I am not fully convinced
by her arguments, but they require some serious thought.</p>
<p>John Dupré wants to view humans as processes. He says that seeing human behaviour
as a uniquely developed capacity for flexible response to the environment makes
it unsurprising that it is difficult to provide a definite account of human behaviour.
Even though he says that humans are neither blank slates, nor machines with a predetermined
programme, he ends up saying that since the notion of human nature is commonly associated
with a set of fixed properties, it is safest to dispense with its use altogether.
I find this conclusion fundamentally dissatisfying. If humans have a uniquely developed
capacity for flexible responses, then that is part of human nature.</p>
<p>Kim Sterelny says that a kind of field guide description of humans is possible,
but that that would not be the same as a theory of human nature. He thinks the idea
of an evolutionary "key innovation" that set humans apart from their immediate
ancestors is mistaken. Human evolution is based on positive feedback between multiple
factors and capabilities. The idea of human nature masks this complicated evolutionary
history. Sterelny''s discussion is multifaceted and highly interesting and goes
on to culture and cooperation as essential parts of the story. But as for the other
human-nature-skeptical essays, I am not convinced that it shows that there is no
place for an empirical description of human nature.</p>
<p>Kevin Laland and Gillian Brown are on the war path against the idea of a human
nature, and demolish three different conceptions of it. Either they are untenable,
or they do not do any real work. They emphasize the plastic nature of human development.
They concede that certain aspects of behavioural development exhibit consistency
and stability over space and time, but their focus is on plasticity and gene-culture
coevolution. At the end of the day, their argument seems to boil down to the statement
that the idea of human nature is somehow dangerous. My point: that does not invalidate
it.</p>
<p>Peter Richerson thinks that whether one is for or against the idea of human nature
is correlated with how strongly one commits to the tenets of the Modern Synthesis.
He argues as if the coevolution of genes and culture is forbidden by, or at least
not handled by the Modern Synthesis. I do not see that he makes that case. He discusses
the ideas of a number of thinkers in brief sketches, and makes the case that the
gene-culture coevolution idea is an alternative to human nature. I appreciated the
many insights that his text contains, but I am not fully convinced. I do not quite
see why accepting the fundamental influence of culture on human evolution in and
by itself invalidates the idea of a human nature.</p>
<p>Christina Toren attempts to provide an anthropological point of view. Unfortunately,
this text evinces excruciating verbiage. That is, it excels in using many difficult
words and convoluted sentences. I find it hard to distil anything of interest out
of it. The main point seems to be that one should study human ontogeny as a microhistorical
process. Ok? She says we need a unified model of human being. The distinction between
nature and culture must go. At the end, she displays her woke credentials in a garbled
sentence that says: "It seems obvious to me that an acknowledgement that ontogeny
is through and through a historical process would put paid to ideas of ''culture''
and ''human nature'' and, in so doing, provide for a proper understanding of how
certainly we condemn future generations to a deepening of the inequalities and injustices
that we are failing to address." I find the latter part incomprehensible. It
reads as if her proposal would deepen inequalities, which is obviously not her intent.
But what have inequalities do to with any of this, anyway?</p>
<p>Maria Kronenfeldner describes seven reasons why there is disagreement about human
nature. She points out that nature and culture are almost always used in a dualistic,
antithetical pair, but that reference to nature has usually been done as a move
to impose a certain kind of authoritative understanding. She reviews the use of
the concept of nature from the Greeks via the Enlightenment and the early days of
Darwinism with Francis Galton as a central figure. She goes on to the development
of cultural anthropology by Alfred Kroeber. She concludes that the former essentialist
idea of nature has been replaced by three scientific concepts: a classificatory,
a descriptive, and an explanatory nature. This is an interesting historical review.
Its goal is not to propose a particular view of human nature.</p>
<p>And there concludes the book.</p>
'
isbn: '9780198823650'
language: en
lastmod: '2023-09-20'
path: /library/hannon-2018.html
published: '2018'
rating: 4
reference: Hannon 2018
reviewed: '2023-09-20'
subjects:
- human-evolution
- philosophy
- science
title: Why We Disagree about Human Nature
type: book
year: 2018