Fallacy of 'Human Nature'?

[Hermes]

Sorry for the incredibly stupid question, but could someone explain why the concept of human nature is false?

I understand that a lot of it has to do with reasoning, but I always thought that the reasoning worked off of a base of instinct, and the reason itself was effected by cultural/social environment?

Again, stupid question.

[Prinskaj]

This is not stupid question at all.
Human nature is an irrelevant concept because it changes accordingly to the material conditions present. Selfishness, egotism and individualism are relatively recent developments in the history of humanity, so they are, per definition, not a part of human nature. Yet this is what is so typically argued, but is blatantly wrong. In hunter-gatherer societies, human nature was sharing of almost all resources, and conforming to a collective. The exact opposite of the current mentality, this is because the term adapts to the current mode of production.

[Manic Impressive]

It's a very good question not in the least bit stupid.

First I'd say human nature is a lousy excuse as it's never defined, what is human nature? No-one ever answers the same way. Everything has a nature be it a rock or a tree or an animal. A human's nature is made up of basic needs which are required for survival, what we are physically and mentally capable of and what we are made of. Now this is obviously not what people are talking about when they use the human nature argument.

What they are talking about is human behavior, why people act a certain way. Their opinion is that humans are naturally violent, nasty and evil. I would attribute a lot of this opinion to Christianity where God made us all sinful.

I think you already answered why it's a false argument yourself. We have base needs which we try to meet, when those needs are not met we attempt desperate measures in order to meet those needs. How we react to certain scenarios is dictated by our previous knowledge and experience. Where as the human nature people would say that people are prone to violence because we're born that way. It's just ridiculous, with no real basis in science.

[wsg1991]

This is not stupid question at all.
Human nature is an irrelevant concept because it changes accordingly to the material conditions present. Selfishness, egotism and individualism are relatively recent developments in the history of humanity, so they are, per definition, not a part of human nature. Yet this is what is so typically argued, but is blatantly wrong. In hunter-gatherer societies, human nature was sharing of almost all resources, and conforming to a collective. The exact opposite of the current mentality, this is because the term adapts to the current mode of production.

individualism character is a part of mental development , the thing is the system \ conditions you live in can emphasis that character ( capitalism ) or better use it . the example you talk about , the self interest of that hunter is to live and share with his group , as he is unable to survive on it's own

[jookyle]

This is not stupid question at all.
Human nature is an irrelevant concept because it changes accordingly to the material conditions present. Selfishness, egotism and individualism are relatively recent developments in the history of humanity, so they are, per definition, not a part of human nature. Yet this is what is so typically argued, but is blatantly wrong. In hunter-gatherer societies, human nature was sharing of almost all resources, and conforming to a collective. The exact opposite of the current mentality, this is because the term adapts to the current mode of production.

Basically just to add to this, a majority, a vast majority, of human history has been spent in collectives in things like hunter-gatherer societies and other unstratified collectives that formed with newer technologies. The human nature argument for things like selfishness, egotism and individualism came about extremely recently(relative to how long the species has existed) when agriculture intensive societies began to arise.

[wsg1991]

It's a very good question not in the least bit stupid.

First I'd say human nature is a lousy excuse as it's never defined, what is human nature? No-one ever answers the same way. Everything has a nature be it a rock or a tree or an animal. A human's nature is made up of basic needs which are required for survival, what we are physically and mentally capable of and what we are made of. Now this is obviously not what people are talking about when they use the human nature argument.

What they are talking about is human behavior, why people act a certain way. Their opinion is that humans are naturally violent, nasty and evil. I would attribute a lot of this opinion to Christianity where God made us all sinful.

I think you already answered why it's a false argument yourself. We have base needs which we try to meet, when those needs are not met we attempt desperate measures in order to meet those needs. How we react to certain scenarios is dictated by our previous knowledge and experience. Where as the human nature people would say that people are prone to violence because we're born that way. It's just ridiculous, with no real basis in science.

if you know Freud psychoanalysis which is still used today , you will that human are violent by nature , and act to satisfy his needs , it's a part of the limbic system , but unlike animals we have a high developed frontal Lobe of cortex which allows them to restraint such behaviors .
medically speaking the destruction of the frontal lobe can literally turn a human to an aggressive animal .


my opinion is that human nature do exist , but it's negligible if we compare it to the importance of social conditions . Humans anatomically are pretty close to each other , but if you see the diversity of their behavior you will know that such 'human nature argument' has no real value


as for the hunter example , the individualist character will be probably take the best parts for his use and give away the rest for his group . this is no way comparable to what we live in Individualist capitalist society
$

[Raskolnikov]

That - and you're completely forgetting about the socialization of mankind, teaching of the 'do nots' and 'allows' within Society. What basically creates the Ego and Super-Ego to counter-act the Id. (More so with the Super-Ego)

Honestly with Human nature - just ask what it is.

What is human nature? Then let's say it is to be selfish or greedy or anything else. Ask why, and how come you are not participating in the event at the moment.

Since as 'Human Nature' if you 'are' then you 'must'. And if you 'must' then why aren't you 'acting' in accordance?

Or you could go with Devil's Advocate - but then deconstruct the contradictions with Communism as Human Nature is a 'construct' of previous societies. Of Slaver, Feudalist and Capitalist societies which enlarge the sense of 'Ego' and 'Human Nature'.

And if that 'Human Nature' was created when communities bonded together and the contradictions of that society arose - then one can deconstruct and eliminate those contradictions.

Or just state its bullshit, ask them to give you a definition (respectfully) and if they can't then re-iterate that human nature is just a concept people make up.

[Manic Impressive]

if you know Freud psychoanalysis which is still used today , you will that human are violent by nature , and act to satisfy his needs , it's a part of the limbic system , but unlike animals we have a high developed frontal Lobe of cortex which allows them to restraint such behaviors .
medically speaking the destruction of the frontal lobe can literally turn a human to an aggressive animal .
I've not read Freud. Humans are capable of violence but only when they find it necessary. It's extremely rare that someone behaves violently without a reason, whether you like that reason or not.

OP thought you might like this


[speaking about human nature]

The proper answer, it seems to me, is that this argument belongs to the Stone Age. It presupposes that material goods will always be desperately scarce...but there is no reason for thinking that the greed for mere wealth is a permanent human characteristic. We are selfish in economic matters because we all live in terror of poverty but when a commodity is not scarce, no one tries to grab more than his fair share of it. No one tries to make a corner in air, for instance. The millionaire as well as the beggar is content with just so much air as he can breathe.

[X5N]

What some call "human nature" is just the result of culture and upbringing. Humans, as sapient beings, don't really have a "nature."

[Hexen]

The Human Nature argument is a secular version of the "Divine Right of Kings" (again it shows how the west is deeply rooted in Christianity) which is used to justify the capitalist system of "How Things are".

It's also another way for capitalists to escape responsibility for their own actions by saying that "it's my nature I can't help it" not to mention it also reflects the alienation of capitalists developing a misanthropist mindset to also justify their selfishness & greed.

[wsg1991]

I've not read Freud. Humans are capable of violence but only when they find it necessary. It's extremely rare that someone behaves violently without a reason, whether you like that reason or not.

OP thought you might like this


neither do i , just few stuff i passed by , it's a part of my education ,

[Thirsty Crow]

First I'd say human nature is a lousy excuse as it's never defined, what is human nature? No-one ever answers the same way. Everything has a nature be it a rock or a tree or an animal. A human's nature is made up of basic needs which are required for survival, what we are physically and mentally capable of and what we are made of. Now this is obviously not what people are talking about when they use the human nature argument.

Absolutely this.
The fundamental problem with the argument is that its object is very rarely defined in a coherent way. Thus, all sorts of behaviour might be included in what is called human nature (and ths solidified as the ideal projection of the true human nature), and even that is contrary to what can be termed as natural determinations of the human species as species.

[Kenco Smooth]

As has been covered the argument in favour of the status quo because 'human nature can't exist healthily in other societies' is bunk that when pushed rarely goes beyond "people are selfish therefore my favourite system is the only on that can possibly work". It's probably the laziest non sequitur out there.

That said, the weakness of the argument does not in anyway mean that there are not cross-cultural features which could be used to construct a very vague notion of human nature. This notion in itself is nowhere near precise enough to found political principles on exclusively nor does it manifest through behaviour in such a way that it's of any strong rhetorical use. That doesn't mean that constants can't be found throughout most, if not all, human societies.


if you know Freud psychoanalysis which is still used today , you will that human are violent by nature , and act to satisfy his needs


Freudian psychoanalysis really is not used much today outside of small and increasingly isolated groups of practitioners. Richard Feynman hit the nail on the head comparing it to medicine practiced by witchdoctors in that it may sometimes produce positive results but we can be pretty sure it's not for the reasons the practitioners provide.

There's no evidence humans have an innate drive to violence. An innate set of cognitions which weigh them towards violent encounters in specific situations yes. But lacking those situations humans won't become uncomfortable due to a lack of cathartic release.

[Rafiq]

Both renegades of this Idealist current.... Mutualism and Bourgeois misanthropy, are false.

There is no human nature.

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[Thirsty Crow]

Both renegades of this Idealist current.... Mutualism and Bourgeois misanthropy, are false.

There is no human nature.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2
Then we must be some immaterial lifeforms, products of the pure Idea, or maybe the angelic offspring, or more familiarly, children of God.

That is, exactly this is a possible implication of such a facile, one-sided dismissal of the notion of human nature.

[Yugo45]

"Human nature" is a social construct, as it does not really exist as an evolutionary part of us. Human nature differs from society to society. Someone in undeveloped part of Africa has a different "human nature" then someone in Europe. It is the society that defines what the "human nature" is, and in a capitalist society, yes, "human nature" does involve a lot of greed and egoism.

Compare the "human nature" of a human in a tribal society to one of a post-industrialized society. Our consciousness and our behavior reflect our society conditioning, our "social norms" which always change with time.

[wsg1991]

we desperately need some psychiatric or some psychologist opinion here ,

[Kenco Smooth]

Compare the "human nature" of a human in a tribal society to one of a post-industrialized society. Our consciousness and our behavior reflect our society conditioning, our "social norms" which always change with time.

Well lets see. The same perceptual cues for depth, motion, object-consistency and the like are all universally present (with some interesting exceptions which in no way disprove the rules), reported emotions from facial expressions also consistently show cross-cultural consistency even in papers purporting to show otherwise, certain psychological illnesses are found across near all societies (Anorexia being a good example), the consensus so far in psycho-linguistics is that certain syntactic features such as recursion are universal (Dan Everett has got a lot of coverage for his challenge of this lately but it nonetheless remains the consensus), in differential psychology the 5-factor model of personality has shown remarkable cross-cultural consistency and the notion of a 'cheater-detection module' has so far stood up to cross cultural attempts to falsify it. These are simply what I can pull off the top of my head.

The human nature question is often couched in such a way to ignore all the above. The issue invariably becomes one of "selfish or altruistic" which is absolutely a false dichotomy and, even if it could be formulated properly, would only make up for a minuscule iota of overall human psychology and behaviour.

[Rafiq]

Then we must be some immaterial lifeforms, products of the pure Idea, or maybe the angelic offspring, or more familiarly, children of God.

That is, exactly this is a possible implication of such a facile, one-sided dismissal of the notion of human nature.

Don't be a fool. You know what I meant.

A "human nature" that is really just an ideological reassurance: "Humans have always been this way(poverty, genocide, capitalist relations, sexism, etc), and will continue to do so"

"Humans are naturally kind and altruistic beings, it's just some bad capitalists (who are not human?) who ruinz it!"

Of course humans have general tendancies. But they are, as a whole, defined by their material surroundings (mode of production).


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[Azraella]

we desperately need some psychiatric or some psychologist opinion here ,


You rang? :lol:

Well...

To be honest, no, there really isn't an overarching human nature. People are results of socialization and biology and given the diversity of humans you can see the idea of an overarching human nature to be ridiculous. As a species, we have tendencies, some of which have been noted. For example humans experience emotion before we ever have the ability to make a judgement on anything, like I am disgusted by violence so I have a hard time discussing violence rationally.

I would actually argue that institutions create this thing we call "human nature" drawing from the work of Hofstede and Schein in organizational psychology. Different institutions do this differently and it's not always the same. Capitalism, the state, some institutionalized religions will make claims about human psychology and it almost invariably creates a sort of self-fufilling prophecy.

In simple terms, the more humans accept a huge power difference or some other characteristic as inherent in humanity, the more likely it is true in as far as it expresses itself.

[Yugo45]

Well lets see. The same perceptual cues for depth, motion, object-consistency and the like are all universally present (with some interesting exceptions which in no way disprove the rules), reported emotions from facial expressions also consistently show cross-cultural consistency even in papers purporting to show otherwise, certain psychological illnesses are found across near all societies (Anorexia being a good example), the consensus so far in psycho-linguistics is that certain syntactic features such as recursion are universal (Dan Everett has got a lot of coverage for his challenge of this lately but it nonetheless remains the consensus), in differential psychology the 5-factor model of personality has shown remarkable cross-cultural consistency and the notion of a 'cheater-detection module' has so far stood up to cross cultural attempts to falsify it. These are simply what I can pull off the top of my head.

That's really strecthing the "human nature" theory, at least the capitalist "human nature" theory. We all know what anti-communists mean when they say "Communism/Anarchy can't work because of human nature". They want to say that greed is planted into every human being since birth. I don't see how facial expressions would stop Communism. When anti-leftist say "human nature" they don't think of emotions, illnesses and facial expressions. They say that humans, as a species, are naturally more competitive than cooperative. They think of social norms. And, if we're all Marxist here, I think we can agree that social norms, and this "human nature" is a social construct.

[Kenco Smooth]

That's really strecthing the "human nature" theory, at least the capitalist "human nature" theory. We all know what anti-communists mean when they say "Communism/Anarchy can't work because of human nature". They want to say that greed is planted into every human being since birth. I don't see how facial expressions would stop Communism. When anti-leftist say "human nature" they don't think of emotions, illnesses and facial expressions. They say that humans, as a species, are naturally more competitive than cooperative. They think of social norms. And, if we're all Marxist here, I think we can agree that social norms, and this "human nature" is a social construct.

....Seriously? Did you even read that second paragraph? or the bit before where I said that idealogical claims built upon a notion of human nature were bunk? You asked to compare 'human nature' between a capitalist nation and in hunter-gatherer groups. I did exactly that to try and highlight that there's more to the human nature question than simply an extremely dull and at the end of the day stupid back and forth between the "hurrr human nature therefore capitalism" and the "durrr material forces I ain't got to explain shit" groups.

[Yugo45]

....Seriously? Did you even read that second paragraph? or the bit before where I said that idealogical claims built upon a notion of human nature were bunk? You asked to compare 'human nature' between a capitalist nation and in hunter-gatherer groups. I did exactly that to try and highlight that there's more to the human nature question than simply an extremely dull and at the end of the day stupid back and forth between the "hurrr human nature therefore capitalism" and the "durrr material forces I ain't got to explain shit" groups.

Like I said, when "human nature" is used as an argument against communism, it is exactly the "extremely dull and stupid", as you call it, side of the story. It has nothing to do with the actual 'human nature' which you talk about, the illnesses, emotions and facial expresses that you pointed out.

[MotherCossack]

Both renegades of this Idealist current.... Mutualism and Bourgeois misanthropy, are false.

There is no human nature.

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rafiq .... you are so cute... it is reassuring ... knowing that you are always gonna be there saying your thing.... revleft would not be the same without you.........

anyway... human nature.... this most contentious issue ....well its a head thing.... a brain thing.... we have not finished mapping that area .... as far as i know... anyway...
you know what let me explain ... currently i have a murderous 13 year old.... screaming abuse at me.... it is severe even for her.... oh good....... she seems to have stopped.....

human nature... we dont quite actually know..... do we.... science has not disproved it.... politically and ideaologically.... i would rather put my eggs in the .... human conditioning... basket. the idea that we are taught by experience or by watching others 'how to be and how to do.....' is a fairer and more palatable notion

[ she is at it again..... pyscho-daughter on the rampage....]

but there is more to us than that.... genes...... maybe..
got to go.

[Firebrand]

If human nature does exist its a lot more complicated than anti-leftists seem to think. Any behaviour that humans are capable of exhibiting is an aspect of human nature. So both altruism and greed, both empathy and cruelty, all the things that people do are a part of human nature. Which aspects of human nature are exhibited is dependent on the situation the person finds themself in and the prior experience of that person.

Having said that I do think that there is probably an instinctive drive towards some form of co-operation given that we are social animals and have spent most of our history in co-operative groups. Not to say that co-operation is inevitable, just that a lot of people probably have some desire to work with other people for the benefit of a group. After all isn't that the basis of the family unit

[MotherCossack]

Sorry for the incredibly stupid question, but could someone explain why the concept of human nature is false?

I understand that a lot of it has to do with reasoning, but I always thought that the reasoning worked off of a base of instinct, and the reason itself was effected by cultural/social environment?

Again, stupid question.

like i was saying....... we are so unversed in the art of brain awareness...... it is the most mysterious bit of us.... and is as strange and unfathomable as the outer reaches of the milky way.... almost.
maybe one day humans will aquire a broader understanding of the brain which controls them.... things like the unconscious part of our selves... are, as yet, largely under-valued and clearly not really understood....
one thing i have learnt , in my 44 years, is that there is a lot more to our behaviour than we would ever realize.
we have so little self-awareness about what it is that makes us tick..... many people never even question their own motives, far less have any control over them....and as for understanding other people.... we continually project our own hang-ups and fears onto those around us..... mis-reading others because what we see is not what really is.... rather it is what we think it is.....
so we all end up surrounded by people who we do not really know.... who do not know us....and it is doubly confused because we do not know ourselves either.
so basically ... we all need therapy!
or maybe.... we just need less free time.... machines are increasingly taking over the tedious, time-consuming tasks/labour..... freeing us.... to do what....
oops... i am off topic [i think?]
human nature is like the biggest umbrella term for our collective personality.....it is monumental..... terrifically complex and, as yet largely unchartered.....
some things are obvious..... we are all different....humans with similar life experiences might have aquired a similar mechanism for coping with life....
i am too tired to go on....... and my little brain is trembling.... too much imput... must consolidate and take stock.....