
Why we disagree about human nature - ehudla
http://www.histhum.com/what-common-nature-can-exist/
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Barrin92
I agree mostly with the sceptic takes on human nature. One thing that rubs me
the wrong way, and I think is increasingly common when 'human nature' and also
evolution is utilised, is a very hard determinism, increasingly popular in
some political circles. Such as "if science discovers this or that about human
nature, we'll have a much better grip on how humans behave or ought to
behave".

But this disregards the dynamism that is central to acquiring knowledge. Once
we understand "human nature" if it at all meaningfully exists, this also opens
the door to manipulation, which destabilizes the whole enterprise to begin
with.

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jhbadger
"is implies ought" is indeed a fallacy, and even learning that biological
instincts, say, support conflict, doesn't mean conflict is good. On the other
hand, it is a good thing that we understand that humans and their underlying
instincts have been more or less unchanged since the dawn of humanity as
evolution works on very long time scales. "Cavemen" had as much internal life
as we do ourselves -- they just didn't have as much technology.

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cryptica
There is no single true 'human nature'. It depends on social circles.
Different environments attract people with different values and
characteristics.

It's easy to get caught up in your own social environment and to confuse the
nature of the people around you as being representative of human nature in
general.

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devoply
Edge cases like serial killers and murderous world leaders prove there is no
such thing as human nature. Human nature is as diverse as all the other life
on this planet willing to play any game it can only contained by its
technological, social, and political limits. We have figurative dung beetles
in terms of people willing to jump into sewers to clean them. We have
carnivores and herbivores. and so on...

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woodandsteel
I think it is best if we look at these issues in terms of human psychology and
how it is important for political philosophy.

In order to decide what is the best society, we need to know what is good for
human beings, and this depends in part on human psychology. Furthermore in
order to have such a good society, we need to get people to behave well, and
in order to decide how to most effectively attempt to do that we need to
understand why people behave in good or bad ways, and again this depends in
part on human psychology.

The question then is what is human psychology, including what is universal
about it and in what ways it varies, as from person to person or culture to
culture, all as relevant to the questions of what is good for human beings and
why they behave as they do, good or bad.

These are complicated matters, but I think they are considerably answered by
looking at basic human needs, such as Maslow's need theory, and also basic
human cognitive abilities.

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XaoDaoCaoCao
A big factor is "human nature in nature" and "human nature in high density
agrarian societies".

Civilization (so far) depends on the principle of a monopolizable surplus
which allows an elite to mobilize lower ranking elements for games of war and
power across geographical distances and temporal distances that would be
impossible for HnG societies (bound by the non-monopolizable bounty of the
land and the lifestyles possible in such lands)+.

An "evil" or "megalomaniac and sociopathic" society in HnG can only extend as
far as their adaptive mode of production. Who can gather all the wild fruits
of the earth and deny his brother the bounty?

An "evil" agarian society can mobilize the monopoly surplus to cajole and
punish societal elements far beyond the "natural" borders any HnG tribe
would've been able to maintain and into torturous decades and centuries.

\+ - I've read about a few HnG societies where class structures arose because
they had some sort of natural monopoly position; crossroads of a regional
trading route or salmon run bottlenecks. But the important part is that
monopolizable resources "alter" human nature and society.

~~~
undershirt
These are arguments made by some, notably Derrick Jensen, and my new favorite,
Helga Vierich.[1]

I’d say I agree that human nature will play out differently when fitted into
different systems—so much that I started thinking about the artificial
component of our nature as separate:

human artifiture (ar-'TI-fi-ture) human nature refitted to and re-emergent
from its own artificial systems

[1] [https://anthroecologycom.wordpress.com/2017/10/09/human-
natu...](https://anthroecologycom.wordpress.com/2017/10/09/human-nature-is-
shaped-by-culture-heres-how/)

