On Human Nature
On Human Nature

Summary/Abstract: The widely accepted interactionist picture of human development makes it clear that, given the historical and geographical differences in the cultures in which human develop, we should expect a great historical and geographical diversity of human natures. This makes it advisable not to talk about a singular human nature at all, and consider only diverse human natural histories. This view is reinforced by the contemporary move from preformationist to epigenetic understandings of the role of the genome in development. Among the defects of evolutionary psychologists’ claims to delineate a universal human nature is the implicit commitment to an obsolete preformationist view of development. Their misguided project has political dangers as well as epistemological shortcomings.

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