Does Human Nature Exist?

[Traitorfish]

"Human nature" is a concept which seems pretty popular, but I have to wonder, how many people actually adhere to it in any substantial sort of way? All sorts of minor human failings are attributed to it, and even a few major ones, and without a widespread tendency to challenge the essential concept, but these attributions are never all that consistent, so I'm forced to wonder exactly what the concept of "human nature" means to most people. At a base level, it seems to mean a set of essential or universal characteristic, but nobody seems to agree how deeply these effect us, what they are, or where they come from.

So, a poll, and hopefully some discussion on the topic. The options are "Yes (Biological)", if you believe that there is a set of biologically determined characteristics that can be meaningfully described as "human nature"; "Yes (Spiritual)" if you believe that humans are endowed with certain universal characteristics as a result of some spiritual quality or essence; "No", if you don't regard any conception of "human nature" as meaningful, and "Sort Of", if your position is too nuanced to fit into one of my silly little boxes.

So, any thoughts?

 

[Cutlass]

I'm not sure what else you would call it. Few people consistently behave rationally. Not that rational behavior doesn't happen, but it can't explain too many things of what people do. So if you discard the concept that people are consistently rational, what label do you put on many of the aspects of non-rational behavior? Particularly when many actions are common?

 

[Ayatollah So]

Human nature is fuzzy around the edges, but then, so is most everything else. Also, it's in the nature of humans to be extremely flexible, as a species. There are few things so outlandish that you can not find some people somewhere doing them.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I would say human nature is the sum of everything we are and can be as human beings. And as I believe this to be determined by biology, I voted the biology option.
Which would mean two things:
Of course it is no justification because only because one can be something one does not need to be.
And of course nobody knows what this nature actually entails in detail.

However, I see where the OP comes from, because many seem to like to use this term to label their specific view of humanity or to justify a specific action or behavior. Different more accurate words would be more suitable in such cases, but they would miss the simplicity and universal character of "human nature" and by this I suppose would be weakened.

So to put it short: What I believe to be a useful definition of human nature isn't useful to any agenda, so people twist it to suit agendas because of its "powerful" character as a term.

 

[PeteAtoms]

Is there an option for learned characteristics? Human nature is certainly originated from biology, like all things human, but it's hard for me to lump cultural norms and practices into the same category as biology. I'm also a little fuzzy about saying something like "culture is a product of biology." I dunno

 

[Gustave5436]

Yes, as a logical consequence of evolution. Social species have a strong adaptive advantage, but a functioning society requires a sense of empathy and justice. At least, that is what the science implies, as those senses are common to species with high intelligence and sophisticated social structures.

The ironic thing is that usually when people bring up "human nature," it's to support some bourgeois argument that humans are selfish, even outright antisocial, by nature. And I'm just not seeing the evidence for that assertion; in fact, often it seems to rest on a rejection of science. It's that "folk psychology" thing that eliminativism talks about; this conception of human nature is based on "common sense" attitudes about human nature gathered from a person's personal experiences in the severely dysfunctional environment of modern society. Not an actual scientific understanding of psychology.

 

[Traitorfish]

I'm not sure what else you would call it. Few people consistently behave rationally. Not that rational behavior doesn't happen, but it can't explain too many things of what people do. So if you discard the concept that people are consistently rational, what label do you put on many of the aspects of non-rational behavior? Particularly when many actions are common?

Well, "human nature" implies some set of characteristics or tendencies that are both universal and essential, which I'm not sure can be inferred, or at least not as such, from the simple fact of widespread irrationality, even common forms of irrationality.

Is there an option for learned characteristics? Human nature is certainly originated from biology, like all things human, but it's hard for me to lump cultural norms and practices into the same category as biology. I'm also a little fuzzy about saying something like "culture is a product of biology." I dunno

If they're learned characteristics, then, surely, they are by definition not part of any essential "nature"?

 

[Perfection]

Absolutely, there are traits shared by all human societies. Jokes for example are a part of human nature.

http://condor.depaul.edu/mfiddler/hyphen/humunivers.htm

 

[Abegweit]

One characteristic of human nature, at least as it is demonstrated in the words of humans in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, is an utter inability to distinguish between the meanings of the words 'affect' and 'effect'.

The proof of this fact is shown yet again in this very post.

 

[Abegweit]

I'm not sure what else you would call it. Few people consistently behave rationally. Not that rational behavior doesn't happen, but it can't explain too many things of what people do. So if you discard the concept that people are consistently rational, what label do you put on many of the aspects of non-rational behavior? Particularly when many actions are common?

Religious? Statist? Subordinating rational thought to group-think? Make your choice. Could all be true?

 

[Abegweit]

If they're learned characteristics, then, surely, they are by definition non part of any essential "nature"?

This may be splitting hairs but... it seems quite clear to me that the things that people learn are the things that it is in their nature to learn.

 

[Verarde]

I said yes to spiritual.

 

[Traitorfish]

One characteristic of human nature, at least as it is demonstrated in the words of humans in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, is an utter inability to distinguish between the meanings of the words 'affect' and 'effect'.

The proof of this fact is shown yet again in this very post.

This may be splitting hairs but... it seems quite clear to me that the things that people learn are the things that it is in their nature to learn.

Could you expand on this point?

 

[bestrfcplayer]

Absolutely, there are traits shared by all human societies. Jokes for example are a part of human nature.

http://condor.depaul.edu/mfiddler/hyphen/humunivers.htm

As is socializing.

 

[aelf]

As far as I can tell, when pressed, people think of human nature as a set of phenomena or behaviour that are common to all human beings. However, when reasoning for their chosen ideology, they often treat is as something fundamental and immutable. Maybe there are those who don't even see any difference?

 

[LucyDuke]

Without a doubt. We might be super-special animals, but at the end of the day we're still animals. We still evolved behaviors. We still have instinct. I find it very silly when people insist that humans don't have any innate behavioral characteristics.

 

[innonimatu]

I'll simply answer no, because I've never seem the term "human nature" be used to refer only to the biological characteristics of homo sapiens. It's always about behaviors, and we're not talking about biological stuff like "walks on two legs". The term is used about social behaviors and about self-conscious reasoning (itself a social product).

And among those, the worldwide variations are far, far too great to see anything as universal. Many of those behaviors are fairly common and widespread, but none is universal and necessary. The physical and mental possibilities and limitations of humans are also somewhat uniform, but that does not mean that every individual reaches (or fails to reach) the full human potential. In fact that's impossible - time and experience are limiting factors.

I guess that it's the old "acquired. vs. innate" debate all over. What do we get if we were to take human babies and raise them in absolute isolation? Say, in the dark, mechanically fed, with as little sensory input as possible. If we got similar, consistent self-conscious behaviors with all, there was the elusive "human nature" about which so much was written. Obviously no one is going to do such an experiment. But my opinion is that in this absence of input we'd get... nothing! Or rather, just an animal which might even be incapable of reasoning and surviving for itself. If so, what we are depends on out environment. And because that is variable, there can be no "human nature", which is supposed to be universal.
At the most, specific environments, particular eras and places, produce people with similar behaviors. But can this arise from a limited set of hard-coded "action->reaction" behaviors in mankind's genetic code, upon which all other reactions are built? That might also be this "human nature" people talk about. Perhaps, but it's equally valid to suppose that all action-reaction behaviors above the physical instinctive level (breath, eat, avoid pain, etc - biological survival stuff) are learned. Has the "acquired. vs. innate" debate been solved yet?

 

[LucyDuke]

Yes. Some things are acquired and other things are innate.

(There's a lot of both.)

 

[Traitorfish]

Without a doubt. We might be super-special animals, but at the end of the day we're still animals. We still evolved behaviors. We still have instinct. I find it very silly when people insist that humans don't have any innate behavioral characteristics.

Do evolved behavioural characteristics actually constitute "human nature", though, in the sense of a universal human essence? As Innonimatu says, you'd have to establish that all learned behaviour is underpinned by intrinsic behaviour, rather than merely co-existing with it.

 

[Tani Coyote]

I consider human nature to be a mixture of our evolutionary desire for survival(often manifesting as the "dark" voice in our heads - our greed, our selfishness, our vengeance, etc.), with a higher calling of morality and goodwill(kindness, love, etc.). The latter may seem evolutionary in some aspects, but what does being kind to say, a stranger, have upon you, other than an abstract concept of karma?

This human nature exists in us all. There are always two voices speaking to us in our hearts. Anybody who denies that is a liar.

What makes us different is how much we listen to each voice.

To quote Kikaider 01:

"This evil heart has made me stronger. It has made me stronger... because I don't want to give in to it."