Being Human

Psychological Perspectives on Human Nature

Richard Gross

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429619762
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

While there may be no one single characteristic that differentiates humans as a species, it is the combination of differences from other species that makes us unique. The new edition of Being Human examines the psychology of being human through exploring different psychological traditions alongside philosophy and evolutionary theory, covering themes such as culture, cognition, language, morality, and society.

Our nature – or 'essence' – is something that has preoccupied human beings throughout our history, beginning with philosophy and religion, and continuing through the biological, social, and psychological sciences. Being Human begins by describing some of the major philosophical accounts of human nature, from Ancient Greek philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle, to major British and Continental philosophers, such as Locke and Nietzsche. The book considers religious accounts of human nature, with their focus on the nature of good and evil, and scientific accounts of genetics and the brain, which underpin the distinctively human cognitive ability of language. Attention then turns to the ideas of the behaviourists, such as Skinner, Freud, and other psychodynamic psychologists, and humanistic-phenomenological psychologists, such as Maslow. Finally, human culture is discussed as the ultimate defining characteristic of human beings: culture represents our 'natural habitat' and what defines us as a species.

This updated second edition includes increased coverage of social psychology and has a broader scope, in order to identify the defining characteristics of human beings. With reference to current psychological research and philosophical material, this is fascinating reading for students of psychology, philosophy, and the social sciences.

1 Introduction

How should we understand ‘human nature’?

Key questions

• What’s meant by the ‘universalist assumption’ (or universalism)?

• In what sense are humans part of nature?

• Is there necessarily a contradiction between those characteristics shared by all human beings and individual and cultural differences between people?

• How can we account for the apparent opposition between human beings’ natural emotional responses and the ability to keep these under control?

Some preliminary thoughts

‘Yes, he let himself down, but he’s only human’; ‘it’s human nature to want to get married and have children’; ‘wanting sex with another man is unnatural’; ‘what makes human beings unique as a species is their use of language’.

These statements suggest a number of different views regarding the meaning of ‘human nature’ and how it is understood by both the layperson and the scientist.

1 ‘Yes, he let himself down, but he’s only human after all’. The implication here is that human beings, despite all their outstanding abilities and achievements, are far from being ‘perfect’ or infallible beings, without weaknesses or faults. Put another way, it’s ‘natural’ for individuals, on occasion, to fall short of the very highest standards of socially acceptable behaviour. Indeed, if someone never deviated from these standards, never showing human fallibility (such as losing self-control and displaying anger, or having too much to drink, or over-indulging in some other way), we may regard them as odd or strange (more automaton than human). These standards may derive from religious beliefs and codes and will differ between religious communities (within the same country) and between different countries and national cultures.

2 ‘It’s human nature to want to get married and have children’ implies that these wishes are ‘normal’; this, in turn, implies that (i) society expects people to want these things; and (ii) the majority of people will, in fact, want them. This is why those who choose not to get married and/or not have children may be seen as ‘social deviants’, having to justify themselves in a way that the majority don’t need to (wanting marriage and parenthood is regarded as the ‘default option’ and so doesn’t require justification). But as with the first example, the freedom to deviate from this norm – and any penalties for doing so – will differ hugely between different religious and cultural communities.

3 ‘Wanting sex with another man is unnatural (if you’re a man)’ implies a deviation that is much more of an aberration compared with the wish to remain single and not have children. For some, it represents a breach of fundamental religious principles and doctrine (e.g. ‘the Bible condemns ‘lying with another man as you would with a woman’’); for others, it represents a breach of fundamental biological principles (e.g. ‘sex is ultimately about reproduction’). Either way, it is judged to be wrong (either ‘immoral’ or ‘perverse’).

4 ‘What makes human beings unique as a species is their use of language’ implies that it’s ‘natural’ for human beings to speak and in other ways use language; any attempts to teach non-human animals to use language (in any form) – and any claims to have been successful – are ‘unnatural’ and likely to be unfounded. In turn, the implication is that language is a human species-specific behaviour: it’s part of our biological make-up, reflecting our evolution as a species and distinguishing us from all other species. The ease with which humans acquire and use language demonstrates that it is, indeed, species-specific.

Human nature and universalism

What these examples illustrate are some of the different ways in which we commonly – and not so commonly (as in the last example) – understand the term ‘human nature’.

• Whatever we think the distinguishing features of human nature may be, it conveys a set of characteristics, abilities, and tendencies that identify what human beings have in common and which set us apart from all other species. This possession of shared features is referred to as universalism (or the universalist assumption): as human beings, we all display the same basic abilities, characteristics, behaviours, etc., making people interchangeable.

• These universal characteristics, abilities, and tendencies are sometimes referred to as the important ‘deep’ or ‘hard-wired’ structures of the mind; since we’re all human and fundamentally alike with regard to these structures, national or cultural differences should have no effect on how they function.

• This raises fundamental questions regarding the validity of generalising research findings from the study of one particular cultural population to ‘people in general’. If we start out by making the universalist assumption, then, by definition, such generalisation is valid; but if we don’t, then we’re obliged to study different populations independently. If we find that certain features assumed to be ‘hard-wired’ do in fact vary between different cultural groups, do we then have to reject the concept of ‘human nature’ altogether?

• Perhaps, but not necessarily. The most common ‘middle-ground’ solution is to retain belief in a particular hard-wired feature (for instance, the capacity for language) but to acknowledge that it manifests itself differently according to varying environmental conditions (being born into different linguistic communities). If a child born in China to Chinese parents is raised from birth in England by English-only-speaking parents, the child will learn to speak – and understand – English as easily as if it had remained in China and acquired Chinese. What’s hard-wired is, clearly, not knowledge of a specific language but the capacity to acquire any language the child is exposed to. (Language and other cognitive features of human nature are discussed in Chapter 5.) (This reasoning also applies to culture: see Chapter 9.)

• So, particular features of human nature don’t have to come ‘ready-made’ for them to be considered deep or hard-wired. Other examples include what, arguably, are the most fundamentally important features, namely, our genetic make-up and the resulting human brain. In Chapter 3, we discuss what is distinctive about the human genome (the sum total of human genes) and the brain. The evidence for evolution is very powerful in both cases: we share so many of our genes, as well as major brain structures, with other species (not just our closest evolutionary relatives). From this, we could argue that underpinning human nature is a small set of genes that are only found in our species (or certain forms of which are unique to humans); these, in turn, determine the kind of brain that has evolved over millions of years and which is found only in human beings.

Are humans part of nature?

Just as it’s commonly agreed that we have evolved from other animal species, so there’s considerable – and constantly emerging – evidence that, like all evolving species, human beings (‘Homo’) had ancestors and cousins who shared some of our abilities but became extinct. The human family of species (hominin) comprises several extinct types (such as the Australopithecines – ‘southern apes’, Asian Homo erectus, and European Homo neanderthalensis). (Until quite recently, ‘hominid’ was used: but the great apes were then included following the discovery of close genetic relations with modern humans.)

According to Leakey (1994), it is the evolution of upright locomotion (bipedalism) that distinguishes ancient hominids from other apes of that time. But habitual bipedalism predates the appearance of modern humans (Homo sapiens) by at least four million years. The other fundamental change that occurred during the evolution of modern humans (who first appeared around 200,000 years ago) was an increase in brain growth (see Chapter 3).

According to Reynolds (1980), life in the early hominid past can be thought of as the last phase of humans as a natural phenomenon, that is, an animal that’s entirely subject to the processes of animal evolution generally (see Figure 1.1). Our now extinct hominid ancestors faced ecological and evolutionary challenges much like other, non-human, species did: we can describe their way of life in terms of adaptation to the environment, subject to all the normal ‘rules’ of natural selection with regard to the evolution of their physical form and behaviour. While being far from driven by instinct:

Man was, at the Australopithecine stage, part of nature and any characteristics of the early hominids would be characteristics that one could compare on a one-to-one basis with those of closely related species, especially chimpanzees and gorillas.

(Reynolds, 1980, p. 37)

Ironically, the concept of human nature only begins to be used and discussed once Homo sapiens had evolved, that is, once we had ceased being part of nature and started living as cultural creatures (see reference to Shotter, 1975, below). Once we’d ceased to be a part of nature, we began our history as human beings.

Human nature and the brain

Considering a single, isolated individual, there’s a kind of in-built contradiction within his/her brain. The so-called paleomammalian brain comprises the limbic system which is responsible for emotional behaviour. While it’s commonly believed that non-human animals are driven purely by instinct and...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Preface to the second edition
• Acknowledgements
• Dedication
• 1 Introduction: How should we understand ‘human nature’?
• 2 Origins of the concept of ‘human nature’: Views from religion, philosophy, biology, and psychology
• 3 The biology of human nature: Genetics and the brain
• 4 Consciousness and self-consciousness
• 5 Cognitive aspects of human nature: The recursive mind
• 6 Behaviourist and psychodynamic accounts: People as driven by forces beyond their control
• 7 The humanistic-phenomenological approach: People as self-determining organisms
• 8 The social psychology of good and evil
• 9 Culture and human nature
• 10 The future of human evolution: From Homo sapiens to gods
• References
• Index