7 ms·

Human nature matters

67 points by kawera 9y ago

danharaj 9y ago
One must distinguish human nature, the shared phenomena of our being, and "human nature", the rhetorical bludgeon that ends productive discussion.
- scythe 9y ago
  The proposition "there are inherent psychological desires of humans" -- and I must say desires to distinguish from more flexible characteristics like rationality or sociality -- is supported by a variety of good heuristics such as the evolutionary origin of people, the existence of significant similarity in social structures across cultures (with stronger similarities in literate cultures), and observed failures in many attempts to manipulate desires (most notably David Reimer). However, the prospect of determining what these are is difficult, the justifications behind the best theories of inherent desires are usually both complex and epistemologically imperfect, and the game of telephone that relays scientific information to a popular audience tends to oversimplify the findings, overestimate the appropriate confidence level, and distort the conclusions to better comport with the preconceptions of the audience. As a result, colloquial discussions of how human nature impacts our lives are a huge minefield of pseudoscience, narcissism and utopianism that rarely support better understanding of any situation. Most useful applications of psychology depend on the application of empirical data describing some settings to other closely related settings, rather than the great theoretical leaps in the reasoning applied in the natural sciences. As such, when a thinker is prone to making such leaps (eg Jordan Peterson) it's a red flag that they're a charlatan, or (eg "Dr. Phil") are willing to distort what they do know scientifically in order to gain notoriety.
mantas 9y ago
It's funny how the more we know about human nature, the less it is regarded by philosophy... Antique philosophy, at least what survived to nowadays, seems much more down-to-earth than today's popular thinkers.
- kadenshep 9y ago
  What does this even mean?
  - camdenlock 9y ago
    It’s currently fashionable to reject the idea that the functioning of the human mind is influenced at all by genetics. Some famous philosophers of the past, despite lacking the wealth of scientific data we have today, managed to conclude more or less the opposite, which (we now know) is correct: our minds are both programmed by our environment AND come pre-populated with a wide array of firmware modules thanks to the phenotypic expression of our genes. For a really great in-depth exploration of these facts, check out Steven Pinker’s 2002 book “The Blank Slate”.
    - kadenshep 9y ago
      >It’s currently fashionable to reject the idea that the functioning of the human mind is influenced at all by genetics. I was unaware of this fashion in either the philosophical or scientific communities.
      - dominotw 9y ago
        Are those the only communities that define what is 'currently fashionable'?
      - ILikeConemowk 9y ago
        The "scientific and philosophical" communities are, it turns out, embedded in academia. Therefore, they cannot escape the trends that are born in those circles whether they are based on facts or emotions and thus pseudoscience.
        kadenshep 9y ago
        They're pretty large and varied circles. 99% of it definitely isn't based on emotion
woodruffw 9y ago
The claim that the contemporary analytic tradition has "rejected the very idea of human nature" is a little strange, given the emphasis that many in the tradition place on rational capacity or rationality[1] being the distinguishing and essential characteristic of humanity. Many analyticists might have a generally deflationary view of human nature, but outright skepticism towards it is not dominant. Even Locke, who the authors mention for his tabula rasa, thought that children were born rational and had to be reasoned with (instead of trained or dictated to, as Rousseau suggests in Emile). [1]: These being not dissimilar to Aristotle's claim that reasoning is man's function, and that man's virtue is reasoning well.
SCHiM 9y ago
There's an interesting snippet in the beginning of the article: > A prominent example is our colleague Jesse Prinz at the City University of New York, who argues forcefully for what is referred to as a ‘nurturist’ (as opposed to a ‘naturist’) position in his book Beyond Human Nature: How Culture and Experience Shape the Human Mind I've read a bunch of books on prehistory, one thing that always stood out to me as very telling is that for a long time, homo sapiens were just like all the other humans on the planet. Reasonably smart, we had tools, rudimentary language and brains equipped to maintain reasonably stable social contacts on a small scale. Then 70k years ago things suddenly changed, sapiens left Africa and rapidly spread to the other continents. There's not much evidence of actual warfare, but the arrival of sapiens in all cases coincided with the extinction of other humans and mega fauna. The author of "Sapiens" argues that this happened because of sapiens' massively increased ability to cooperate. When and why did this happen 70k years ago? Because, so argues "Sapiens", a sudden mutation (or gradual crossing of a certain threshold) enabled our ancestors to construct 'culture'. Our increased mastery of language and our evolved social modules allowed a more robust societal framework to come into existence. Enabling rapid buildup and accumulation of technology and tradition. And that was ultimately what made us 'different' from the other humans on the planet. I found it a very compelling argument (even though, ultimately, it's only a thought experiment). Maybe we do inherit a 'spray-painted wall of human nature'. But our culture and history seem to fill a function too.
- resu_nimda 9y ago
  I've long felt that intelligence is a property of the group rather than the individual. Language is inextricably linked to our conception of intelligence, and having someone to talk to is a prerequisite. I feel like this is very important and seems to be missed in modern AI research. I think of most of today's systems as monoliths, lone individuals raised in isolation (receiving training data does not constitute communication/language development), forever stunted in all of the more "humanist" facets of intelligence. Is there research going into more "social" systems of multiple "actors" that are able to interact/communicate with each other? Perhaps even develop their own language, one that we might not be able to understand? (How would we even identify such a thing? Think of dolphins - we know something is going on there, but we haven't been able to translate it.)
bobhansen128 9y ago
It's good to start with definitions. The author says, "Human nature is best conceived of as a cluster of homeostatic properties, ie of traits that are dynamically changing and yet sufficiently stable over evolutionary time to be statistically clearly recognisable." I'm not sure what the author is talking about. Our bodies are constantly out of stasis. Cells are constantly being repaired or replaced. Skin cells, muscle cells, cells of your internal organs. If you don't stay warm enough, you die. If you don't stay hydrated, you die. If you don't stress your muscles (ie, exercise) they atrophy. And all of these circumstances involve our internal bodies making transactions with the external world. Has the author controlled for these variables or are they just simply declaring that they don't exist?
- fjsolwmv 9y ago
  Homeostasis means that the system is stable even though is varies slightly. It doesn't mean that the system is completely frozen like a rock.
  - eli_gottlieb 9y ago
    Eh, the critique is pretty accurate. A lot of us favor the allostatic model over the homeostatic one for biological regulation.
alexashka 9y ago
Can somebody explain the fascination with taking different schools of philosophy and talking about who thought what? I just don't understand why anyone should care what 'existentialists' think, or John Locke, or anybody else. There is a goal, and there are strategies with various pros/cons for achieving that goal. Differences in opinion spring from having different goals, and/or disagreeing about the ways to get there. What is talking endlessly about other people's opinions accomplishing? Is it about creating a 'robust philosophy'? Throws up in his mouth
- Barrin92 9y ago
  It's a way to structure a discussion. Because philosophy is a pretty wide field, clarifying that you're talking about Rousseau's concept of human nature is simply a way to indicate that you're talking about a particular school or flavour of thought, without having to recite the entire body of work. Classification is always useful, not just in philosophy. It's no different from classifying mathematical fields as 'number theory' or 'algebra', just to indicate what frame of mind you're in when you talk about a problem.
  - alexashka 9y ago
    Structure is needed to accomplish something. You're thoroughly missing my point, let me try an analogy: I am going to gather 100 fools, and ask each, what they imagine life on mars must be like. I am then going to structure their opinions, write them down in books, and so on. Replace 'life on mars' with 'human nature'. I fail to see the difference between my example and the presented article. Now if someone were to go study physics, invent a rocket, get into the rocket, fly to Mars, and have the ability to report back their findings - that'd be discovering life on mars. I'd listen to his/her take on life on mars with great interest. I'd call that a scientist with an informed opinion.
    - hangtwenty 9y ago
      Name dropping can be counter productive, sure, but at best it is shorthand. If one had to re hash every prior argument one would never get around to original discussion.
erikpukinskis 9y ago
The introduction piqued my interest but the author doesn’t seem to follow through on any claims. “Something something we’re genetically different so we have a different nature”
lkrubner 9y ago
There is a lot in this essay that is problematic. I'll offer just two examples: "What exactly does science tell us about the idea of a human nature?" Science can't tell you anything until you have a philosophy of knowledge which defines a thing called "science". So the argument becomes a bit circular here. This is worse: "If we take evolutionary biology seriously, then we certainly should reject any essentialist conception of it, such as Aristotle’s." That is a large if. Here are some unsolved problems in evolutionary biology: 1. Why do people become gay? 2. Why do people adopt children who are unrelated to them? 3. Why does such a large percentage of the population suffer mental illness? 4. Why do people engage in acts of altruism, helping those they are not related to? 5. Why do people believe in gods, and why do they make sacrifices to these gods? A famous argument against evolutionary biology was made by Richard Dawkins back in 1976, in his book The Selfish Gene. As Dawkins says in that book: "We can rise above our genes; indeed, we do every time we use contraceptives." Before we "take evolutionary biology seriously" we need to carefully consider all of the arguments against it. And since so much of this article depends on "take evolutionary biology seriously", the whole article is weak. Mind you, I believe a strong case can be made for a human nature. But I wouldn't build that case on evolutionary biology, without first addressing the known limits of evolutionary biology. A stronger case could be built if one first argued for independent agency in the processes arising from genes. This is the "ghost in the machine" argument. But that argument would have something in common with the philosophers who are being criticized in this article.

67 points by kawera 9y ago

One must distinguish human nature, the shared phenomena of our being, and "human nature", the rhetorical bludgeon that ends productive discussion.

scythe 9y ago
The proposition "there are inherent psychological desires of humans" -- and I must say desires to distinguish from more flexible characteristics like rationality or sociality -- is supported by a variety of good heuristics such as the evolutionary origin of people, the existence of significant similarity in social structures across cultures (with stronger similarities in literate cultures), and observed failures in many attempts to manipulate desires (most notably David Reimer). However, the prospect of determining what these are is difficult, the justifications behind the best theories of inherent desires are usually both complex and epistemologically imperfect, and the game of telephone that relays scientific information to a popular audience tends to oversimplify the findings, overestimate the appropriate confidence level, and distort the conclusions to better comport with the preconceptions of the audience. As a result, colloquial discussions of how human nature impacts our lives are a huge minefield of pseudoscience, narcissism and utopianism that rarely support better understanding of any situation. Most useful applications of psychology depend on the application of empirical data describing some settings to other closely related settings, rather than the great theoretical leaps in the reasoning applied in the natural sciences. As such, when a thinker is prone to making such leaps (eg Jordan Peterson) it's a red flag that they're a charlatan, or (eg "Dr. Phil") are willing to distort what they do know scientifically in order to gain notoriety.

mantas 9y ago

It's funny how the more we know about human nature, the less it is regarded by philosophy... Antique philosophy, at least what survived to nowadays, seems much more down-to-earth than today's popular thinkers.

kadenshep 9y ago
What does this even mean?
- camdenlock 9y ago
  It’s currently fashionable to reject the idea that the functioning of the human mind is influenced at all by genetics. Some famous philosophers of the past, despite lacking the wealth of scientific data we have today, managed to conclude more or less the opposite, which (we now know) is correct: our minds are both programmed by our environment AND come pre-populated with a wide array of firmware modules thanks to the phenotypic expression of our genes. For a really great in-depth exploration of these facts, check out Steven Pinker’s 2002 book “The Blank Slate”.
  - kadenshep 9y ago
    >It’s currently fashionable to reject the idea that the functioning of the human mind is influenced at all by genetics. I was unaware of this fashion in either the philosophical or scientific communities.
    - dominotw 9y ago
      Are those the only communities that define what is 'currently fashionable'?
    - ILikeConemowk 9y ago
      The "scientific and philosophical" communities are, it turns out, embedded in academia. Therefore, they cannot escape the trends that are born in those circles whether they are based on facts or emotions and thus pseudoscience.
      - kadenshep 9y ago
        They're pretty large and varied circles. 99% of it definitely isn't based on emotion

woodruffw 9y ago

The claim that the contemporary analytic tradition has "rejected the very idea of human nature" is a little strange, given the emphasis that many in the tradition place on rational capacity or rationality[1] being the distinguishing and essential characteristic of humanity. Many analyticists might have a generally deflationary view of human nature, but outright skepticism towards it is not dominant. Even Locke, who the authors mention for his tabula rasa, thought that children were born rational and had to be reasoned with (instead of trained or dictated to, as Rousseau suggests in Emile). [1]: These being not dissimilar to Aristotle's claim that reasoning is man's function, and that man's virtue is reasoning well.

SCHiM 9y ago

There's an interesting snippet in the beginning of the article: > A prominent example is our colleague Jesse Prinz at the City University of New York, who argues forcefully for what is referred to as a ‘nurturist’ (as opposed to a ‘naturist’) position in his book Beyond Human Nature: How Culture and Experience Shape the Human Mind I've read a bunch of books on prehistory, one thing that always stood out to me as very telling is that for a long time, homo sapiens were just like all the other humans on the planet. Reasonably smart, we had tools, rudimentary language and brains equipped to maintain reasonably stable social contacts on a small scale. Then 70k years ago things suddenly changed, sapiens left Africa and rapidly spread to the other continents. There's not much evidence of actual warfare, but the arrival of sapiens in all cases coincided with the extinction of other humans and mega fauna. The author of "Sapiens" argues that this happened because of sapiens' massively increased ability to cooperate. When and why did this happen 70k years ago? Because, so argues "Sapiens", a sudden mutation (or gradual crossing of a certain threshold) enabled our ancestors to construct 'culture'. Our increased mastery of language and our evolved social modules allowed a more robust societal framework to come into existence. Enabling rapid buildup and accumulation of technology and tradition. And that was ultimately what made us 'different' from the other humans on the planet. I found it a very compelling argument (even though, ultimately, it's only a thought experiment). Maybe we do inherit a 'spray-painted wall of human nature'. But our culture and history seem to fill a function too.

resu_nimda 9y ago
I've long felt that intelligence is a property of the group rather than the individual. Language is inextricably linked to our conception of intelligence, and having someone to talk to is a prerequisite. I feel like this is very important and seems to be missed in modern AI research. I think of most of today's systems as monoliths, lone individuals raised in isolation (receiving training data does not constitute communication/language development), forever stunted in all of the more "humanist" facets of intelligence. Is there research going into more "social" systems of multiple "actors" that are able to interact/communicate with each other? Perhaps even develop their own language, one that we might not be able to understand? (How would we even identify such a thing? Think of dolphins - we know something is going on there, but we haven't been able to translate it.)

bobhansen128 9y ago

It's good to start with definitions. The author says, "Human nature is best conceived of as a cluster of homeostatic properties, ie of traits that are dynamically changing and yet sufficiently stable over evolutionary time to be statistically clearly recognisable." I'm not sure what the author is talking about. Our bodies are constantly out of stasis. Cells are constantly being repaired or replaced. Skin cells, muscle cells, cells of your internal organs. If you don't stay warm enough, you die. If you don't stay hydrated, you die. If you don't stress your muscles (ie, exercise) they atrophy. And all of these circumstances involve our internal bodies making transactions with the external world. Has the author controlled for these variables or are they just simply declaring that they don't exist?

fjsolwmv 9y ago
Homeostasis means that the system is stable even though is varies slightly. It doesn't mean that the system is completely frozen like a rock.
- eli_gottlieb 9y ago
  Eh, the critique is pretty accurate. A lot of us favor the allostatic model over the homeostatic one for biological regulation.

alexashka 9y ago

Can somebody explain the fascination with taking different schools of philosophy and talking about who thought what? I just don't understand why anyone should care what 'existentialists' think, or John Locke, or anybody else. There is a goal, and there are strategies with various pros/cons for achieving that goal. Differences in opinion spring from having different goals, and/or disagreeing about the ways to get there. What is talking endlessly about other people's opinions accomplishing? Is it about creating a 'robust philosophy'? Throws up in his mouth

Barrin92 9y ago
It's a way to structure a discussion. Because philosophy is a pretty wide field, clarifying that you're talking about Rousseau's concept of human nature is simply a way to indicate that you're talking about a particular school or flavour of thought, without having to recite the entire body of work. Classification is always useful, not just in philosophy. It's no different from classifying mathematical fields as 'number theory' or 'algebra', just to indicate what frame of mind you're in when you talk about a problem.
- alexashka 9y ago
  Structure is needed to accomplish something. You're thoroughly missing my point, let me try an analogy: I am going to gather 100 fools, and ask each, what they imagine life on mars must be like. I am then going to structure their opinions, write them down in books, and so on. Replace 'life on mars' with 'human nature'. I fail to see the difference between my example and the presented article. Now if someone were to go study physics, invent a rocket, get into the rocket, fly to Mars, and have the ability to report back their findings - that'd be discovering life on mars. I'd listen to his/her take on life on mars with great interest. I'd call that a scientist with an informed opinion.
  - hangtwenty 9y ago
    Name dropping can be counter productive, sure, but at best it is shorthand. If one had to re hash every prior argument one would never get around to original discussion.

erikpukinskis 9y ago

The introduction piqued my interest but the author doesn’t seem to follow through on any claims. “Something something we’re genetically different so we have a different nature”

lkrubner 9y ago

There is a lot in this essay that is problematic. I'll offer just two examples: "What exactly does science tell us about the idea of a human nature?" Science can't tell you anything until you have a philosophy of knowledge which defines a thing called "science". So the argument becomes a bit circular here. This is worse: "If we take evolutionary biology seriously, then we certainly should reject any essentialist conception of it, such as Aristotle’s." That is a large if. Here are some unsolved problems in evolutionary biology: 1. Why do people become gay? 2. Why do people adopt children who are unrelated to them? 3. Why does such a large percentage of the population suffer mental illness? 4. Why do people engage in acts of altruism, helping those they are not related to? 5. Why do people believe in gods, and why do they make sacrifices to these gods? A famous argument against evolutionary biology was made by Richard Dawkins back in 1976, in his book The Selfish Gene. As Dawkins says in that book: "We can rise above our genes; indeed, we do every time we use contraceptives." Before we "take evolutionary biology seriously" we need to carefully consider all of the arguments against it. And since so much of this article depends on "take evolutionary biology seriously", the whole article is weak. Mind you, I believe a strong case can be made for a human nature. But I wouldn't build that case on evolutionary biology, without first addressing the known limits of evolutionary biology. A stronger case could be built if one first argued for independent agency in the processes arising from genes. This is the "ghost in the machine" argument. But that argument would have something in common with the philosophers who are being criticized in this article.