hypothesis about human nature

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Human Nature

Talk of human nature is a common feature of moral and political discourse among people on the street and among philosophers, political scientists and sociologists. This is largely due to the widespread assumption that true descriptive or explanatory claims making use of the concept of human nature have, or would have, considerable normative significance. Some think that human nature excludes the possibility of certain forms of social organisation—for example, that it excludes any broadly egalitarian society. Others make the stronger claim that a true normative ethical theory has to be built on prior knowledge of human nature. Still others believe that there are specific moral prohibitions concerning the alteration of, or interference in, the set of properties that make up human nature. Finally, there are those who argue that the normative significance derives from the fact that merely deploying the concept is typically, or even necessarily, pernicious.

Alongside such varying and frequently conflicting normative uses of the expression “human nature”, there are serious disagreements concerning the concept’s content and explanatory significance—the starkest being whether the expression “human nature” refers to anything at all. Some reasons given for saying there is no human nature are anthropological, grounded in views concerning the relationship between natural and cultural features of human life. Other reasons given are biological, deriving from the character of the human species as, like other species, an essentially historical product of evolution. Whether these reasons justify the claim that there is no human nature depends, at least in part, on what it is exactly that the expression is supposed to be picking out. Many contemporary proposals differ significantly in their answers to this question.

Understanding the debates around the philosophical use of the expression “human nature” requires clarity on the reasons both for (1) adopting specific adequacy conditions for the term’s use and for (2) accepting particular substantial claims made within the framework thus adopted. One obstacle to such clarity is historical: we have inherited from the beginnings of Western philosophy, via its Medieval reception, the idea that talk of human nature brings into play a number of different, but related claims. One such set of claims derives from different meanings of the Greek equivalents of the term “nature”. This bundle of claims, which can be labelled the traditional package , is a set of adequacy conditions for any substantial claim that uses the expression “human nature”. The beginnings of Western philosophy have also handed down to us a number of such substantial claims . Examples are that humans are “rational animals” or “political animals”. We can call these claims the traditional slogans . The traditional package is a set of specifications of how claims along the lines of the traditional slogans are to be understood, i.e., what it means to claim that it is “human nature” to be, for example, a rational animal.

Various developments in Western thought have cast doubt both on the coherence of the traditional package and on the possibility that the adequacy conditions for the individual claims can be fulfilled. Foremost among these developments are the Enlightenment rejection of teleological metaphysics, the Historicist emphasis on the significance of culture for understanding human action and the Darwinian introduction of history into biological kinds. This entry aims to help clarify the adequacy conditions for claims about human nature, the satisfiability of such conditions and the reasons why the truth of claims with the relevant conditions might seem important. It proceeds in five steps. Section 1 unpacks the traditional package, paying particular attention to the importance of Aristotelian themes and to the distinction between the scientific and participant perspectives from which human nature claims can be raised. Section 2 explains why evolutionary biology raises serious problems both for the coherence of this package and for the truth of its individual component claims. Sections 3 and 4 then focus on attempts to secure scientific conceptions of human nature in the face of the challenge from evolutionary biology. The entry concludes with a discussion of accounts of human nature developed from a participant perspective, in particular accounts that, in spite of the evolutionary challenge, are taken to have normative consequences.

1.1 “Humans”

1.2 unpacking the traditional package, 1.3 essentialisms, 1.4 on the status of the traditional slogan, 2.1 the nature of the species taxon, 2.2 the nature of species specimens as species specimens, 2.3 responding to the evolutionary verdict on classificatory essences, 3.1 privileging properties, 3.2 statistical normality or robust causality, 4.1 genetically based psychological adaptations, 4.2 abandoning intrinsicality, 4.3 secondary altriciality as a game-changer, 5.1. human nature from a participant perspective, 5.2.1. sidestepping the darwinian challenge, 5.2.2. human flourishing, 5.3. reason as the unique structural property, other internet resources, related entries, 1. “humans”, slogans and the traditional package.

Before we begin unpacking, it should be noted that the adjective “human” is polysemous, a fact that often goes unnoticed in discussions of human nature, but makes a big difference to both the methodological tractability and truth of claims that employ the expression. The natural assumption may appear to be that we are talking about specimens of the biological species Homo sapiens , that is, organisms belonging to the taxon that split from the rest of the hominin lineage an estimated 150,000 years ago. However, certain claims seem to be best understood as at least potentially referring to organisms belonging to various older species within the subtribe Homo , with whom specimens of Homo sapiens share properties that have often been deemed significant (Sterelny 2018: 114).

On the other hand, the “nature” that is of interest often appears to be that of organisms belonging to a more restricted group. There may have been a significant time lag between the speciation of anatomically modern humans ( Homo sapiens ) and the evolution of behaviourally modern humans, i.e., human populations whose life forms involved symbol use, complex tool making, coordinated hunting and increased geographic range. Behavioural modernity’s development is often believed only to have been completed by 50,000 years ago. If, as is sometimes claimed, behavioural modernity requires psychological capacities for planning, abstract thought, innovativeness and symbolism (McBrearty & Brooks 2000: 492) and if these were not yet widely or sufficiently present for several tens of thousands of years after speciation, then it may well be behaviourally, rather than anatomically modern humans whose “nature” is of interest to many theories. Perhaps the restriction might be drawn even tighter to include only contemporary humans, that is, those specimens of the species who, since the introduction of agriculture around 12,000 years ago, evolved the skills and capacities necessary for life in large sedentary, impersonal and hierarchical groups (Kappeler, Fichtel, & van Schaik 2019: 68).

It was, after all, a Greek living less than two and a half millennia ago within such a sedentary, hierarchically organised population structure, who could have had no conception of the prehistory of the beings he called anthrôpoi , whose thoughts on their “nature” have been decisive for the history of philosophical reflection on the subject. It seems highly likely that, without the influence of Aristotle, discussions of “human nature” would not be structured as they are until today.

We can usefully distinguish four types of claim that have been traditionally made using the expression “human nature”. As a result of a particular feature of Aristotle’s philosophy, to which we will come in a moment, these four claims are associated with five different uses of the expression. Uses of the first type seem to have their origin in Plato; uses of the second, third and fourth type are Aristotelian; and, although uses of the fifth type have historically been associated with Aristotle, this association seems to derive from a misreading in the context of the religiously motivated Mediaeval reception of his philosophy.

A first , thin, contrastive use of the expression “human nature” is provided by the application of a thin, generic concept of nature to humans. In this minimal variant, nature is understood in purely contrastive or negative terms. Phusis is contrasted in Plato and Aristotle with technē , where the latter is the product of intention and a corresponding intervention of agency. If the entire cosmos is taken to be the product of divine agency, then, as Plato argued (Nadaf 2005: 1ff.), conceptualisations of the cosmos as natural in this sense are mistaken. Absent divine agency, the types of agents whose intentions are relevant for the status of anything as natural are human agents. Applied to humans, then, this concept of nature picks out human features that are not the results of human intentional action. Thus understood, human nature is the set of human features or processes that remain after subtraction of those picked out by concepts of the non-natural, concepts such as “culture”, “nurture”, or “socialisation”.

A second component in the package supplies the thin concept with substantial content that confers on it explanatory power. According to Aristotle, natural entities are those that contain in themselves the principle of their own production or development, in the way that acorns contain a blueprint for their own realisation as oak trees ( Physics 192b; Metaphysics 1014b). The “nature” of natural entities thus conceptualised is a subset of the features that make up their nature in the first sense. The human specification of this explanatory concept of nature aims to pick out human features that similarly function as blueprints for something like a fully realised form. According to Aristotle, for all animals that blueprint is “the soul”, that is, the integrated functional capacities that characterise the fully developed entity. The blueprint is realised when matter, i.e., the body, has attained the level of organisation required to instantiate the animal’s living functions (Charles 2000: 320ff.; Lennox 2009: 356).

A terminological complication is introduced here by the fact that the fully developed form of an entity is itself also frequently designated as its “nature” (Aristotle, Physics 193b; Politics 1252b). In Aristotle’s teleological metaphysics, this is the entity’s end, “that for the sake of which a thing is” ( Metaphysics 1050a; Charles 2000: 259). Thus, a human’s “nature”, like that of any other being, may be either the features in virtue of which it is disposed to develop to a certain mature form or, thirdly , the form to which it is disposed to develop.

Importantly, the particularly prominent focus on the idea of a fully developed form in Aristotle’s discussions of humans derives from its dual role. It is not only the form to the realisation of which human neonates are disposed; it is also the form that mature members of the species ought to realise ( Politics 1253a). This normative specification is the fourth component of the traditional package. The second, third and fourth uses of “nature” are all in the original package firmly anchored in a teleological metaphysics. One question for systematic claims about human nature is whether any of these components remain plausible if we reject a teleology firmly anchored in theology (Sedley 2010: 5ff.).

A fifth and last component of the package that has traditionally been taken to have been handed down from antiquity is classificatory. Here, the property or set of properties named by the expression “human nature” is that property or property set in virtue of the possession of which particular organisms belong to a particular biological taxon: what we now identify as the species taxon Homo sapiens . This is human nature typologically understood.

This, then, is the traditional package:

The sort of properties that have traditionally been taken to support the classificatory practices relevant to TP5 are intrinsic to the individual organisms in question. Moreover, they have been taken to be able to fulfil this role in virtue of being necessary and sufficient for the organism’s membership of the species, i.e., “essential” in one meaning of the term. This view of species membership, and the associated view of species themselves, has been influentially dubbed “typological thinking” (Mayr 1959 [1976: 27f.]; cf. Mayr 1982: 260) and “essentialism” (Hull 1965: 314ff.; cf. Mayr 1968 [1976: 428f.]). The former characterisation involves an epistemological focus on the classificatory procedure, the latter a metaphysical focus on the properties thus singled out. Ernst Mayr claimed that the classificatory approach originates in Plato’s theory of forms, and, as a result, involves the further assumption that the properties are unchanging. According to David Hull, its root cause is the attempt to fit the ontology of species taxa to an Aristotelian theory of definition.

The theory of definition developed in Aristotle’s logical works assigns entities to a genus and distinguishes them from other members of the genus, i.e., from other “species”, by their differentiae ( Topics 103b). The procedure is descended from the “method of division” of Plato, who provides a crude example as applied to humans, when he has the Eleatic Stranger in the Statesman characterise them as featherless bipeds (266e). Hull and many scholars in his wake (Dupré 2001: 102f.) have claimed that this simple schema for picking out essential conditions for species membership had a seriously deleterious effect on biological taxonomy until Darwin (cf. Winsor 2006).

However, there is now widespread agreement that Aristotle was no taxonomic essentialist (Balme 1980: 5ff.; Mayr 1982: 150ff.; Balme 1987: 72ff.; Ereshefsky 2001: 20f; Richards 2010: 21ff.; Wilkins 2018: 9ff.). First, the distinction between genus and differentiae was for Aristotle relative to the task at hand, so that a “species” picked out in this manner could then count as the genus for further differentiation. Second, the Latin term “species”, a translation of the Greek eidos , was a logical category with no privileged relationship to biological entities; a prime example in the Topics is the species justice, distinguished within the genus virtue (143a). Third, in a key methodological passage, Parts of Animals , I.2–3 (642b–644b), Aristotle explicitly rejects the method of “dichotomous division”, which assigns entities to a genus and then seeks a single differentia, as inappropriate to the individuation of animal kinds. Instead, he claims, a multiplicity of differentiae should be brought to bear. He emphasises this point in relation to humans (644a).

According to Pierre Pellegrin and David Balme, Aristotle did not seek to establish a taxonomic system in his biological works (Pellegrin 1982 [1986: 113ff.]; Balme 1987, 72). Rather, he simply accepted the everyday common sense partitioning of the animal world (Pellegrin 1982 [1986: 120]; Richards 2010: 24; but cf. Charles 2000: 343ff.). If this is correct, Aristotle didn’t even ask after the conditions for belonging to the species Homo sapiens . So he wasn’t proposing any particular answer, and specifically not the “essentialist” answer advanced by TP5. In as far as such an answer has been employed in biological taxonomy (cf. Winsor 2003), its roots appear to lie in Neoplatonic, Catholic misinterpretations of Aristotle (Richards 2010: 34ff.; Wilkins 2018: 22ff.). Be that as it may, the fifth use of “human nature” transported by tradition—to pick out essential conditions for an organism’s belonging to the species—is of eminent interest. The systematic concern behind Mayr and Hull’s historical claims is that accounts of the form of TP5 are incompatible with evolutionary theory. We shall look at this concern in section 2 of this entry.

Because the term “essentialism” recurs with different meanings in discussions of human nature and because some of the theoretical claims thus summarised are assumed to be Aristotelian in origin, it is worth spending a moment here to register what claims can be singled out by the expression. The first , purely classificatory conception just discussed should be distinguished from a second view that is also frequently labelled “essentialist” and which goes back to Locke’s concept of “real essence” (1689: III, iii, 15). According to essentialism thus understood, an essence is the intrinsic feature or features of an entity that fulfils or fulfil a dual role: firstly, of being that in virtue of which something belongs to a kind and, secondly, of explaining why things of that kind typically have a particular set of observable features. Thus conceived, “essence” has both a classificatory and an explanatory function and is the core of a highly influential, “essentialist” theory of natural kinds, developed in the wake of Kripke’s and Putnam’s theories of reference.

An account of human nature that is essentialist in this sense would take the nature of the human natural kind to be a set of microstructural properties that have two roles: first, they constitute an organism’s membership of the species Homo sapiens . Second, they are causally responsible for the organism manifesting morphological and behavioural properties typical of species members. Paradigms of entities with such natures or essences are chemical elements. An example is the element with the atomic number 79, the microstructural feature that accounts for surface properties of gold such as yellowness. Applied to organisms, it seems that the relevant explanatory relationship will be developmental, the microstructures providing something like a blueprint for the properties of the mature individual. Kripke assumed that some such blueprint is the “internal structure” responsible for the typical development of tigers as striped, carnivorous quadrupeds (Kripke 1972 [1980: 120f.]).

As the first, pseudo-Aristotelian version of essentialism illustrates, the classificatory and explanatory components of what we might call “Kripkean essentialism” can be taken apart. Thus, “human nature” can also be understood in exclusively explanatory terms, viz. as the set of microstructural properties responsible for typical human morphological and behavioural features. In such an account, the ability to pick out the relevant organisms is simply presupposed. As we shall see in section 4 of this entry, accounts of this kind have been popular in the contemporary debate. The subtraction of the classificatory function of the properties in these conceptions has generally seemed to warrant withholding from them the label “essentialist”. However, because some authors have still seen the term as applicable (Dupré 2001: 162), we might think of such accounts as constituting a third , weak or deflationary variant of essentialism.

Such purely explanatory accounts are descendants of the second use of “human nature” in the traditional package, the difference being that they don’t usually presuppose some notion of the fully developed human form. However, where some such presupposition is made, there are stronger grounds for talking of an “essentialist” account. Elliott Sober has argued that the key to essentialism is not classification in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions, but the postulation of some “privileged state”, to the realisation of which specimens of a species tend, as long as no extrinsic factors “interfere” (Sober 1980: 358ff.). Such a dispositional-teleological conception, dissociated from classificatory ambitions, would be a fourth form of essentialism. Sober rightly associates such an account with Aristotle, citing Aristotle’s claims in his zoological writings that interfering forces are responsible for deviations, i.e., morphological differences, both within and between species. A contemporary account of human nature with this structure will be discussed in section 4 .

A fifth and final form of essentialism is even more clearly Aristotelian. Here, an explicitly normative status is conferred on the set of properties to the development of which human organisms tend. For normative essentialism, “the human essence” or “human nature” is a normative standard for the evaluation of organisms belonging to the species. Where the first, third and fourth uses of the expression have tended to be made with critical intent (for defensive exceptions, see Charles 2000: 348ff.; Walsh 2006; Devitt 2008; Boulter 2012), this fifth use is more often a self-ascription (e.g., Nussbaum 1992). It is intended to emphasise metaethical claims of a specific type. According to such claims, an organism’s belonging to the human species entails or in some way involves the applicability to the organism of moral norms that ground in the value of the fully developed human form. According to one version of this thought, humans ought be, or ought to be enabled to be, rational because rationality is a key feature of the fully developed human form. Such normative-teleological accounts of human nature will be the focus of section 5.2 .

We can summarise the variants of essentialism and their relationship to the components of the traditional package as follows:

Section 2 and section 5 of this entry deal with the purely classificatory and the normative teleological conceptions of human nature respectively, and with the associated types of essentialism. Section 3 discusses attempts to downgrade TP5, moving from essential to merely characteristic properties. Section 4 focuses on accounts of an explanatory human nature, both on attempts to provide a modernized version of the teleological blueprint model ( §4.1 ) and on explanatory conceptions with deflationary intent relative to the claims of TP2 and TP3 ( §4.2 and §4.3 ).

The traditional package specifies a set of conditions some or all of which substantial claims about “human nature” are supposed to meet. Before we turn to the systematic arguments central to contemporary debates on whether such conditions can be met, it will be helpful to spend a moment considering one highly influential substantial claim. Aristotle’s writings prominently contain two such claims that have been handed down in slogan form. The first is that the human being (more accurately: “man”) is an animal that is in some important sense social (“zoon politikon”, History of Animals 487b; Politics 1253a; Nicomachean Ethics 1169b). According to the second, “he” is a rational animal ( Politics 1253a, where Aristotle doesn’t actually use the traditionally ascribed slogan, “zoon logon echon”).

Aristotle makes both claims in very different theoretical contexts, on the one hand, in his zoological writings and, on the other, in his ethical and political works. This fact, together with the fact that Aristotle’s philosophy of nature and his practical philosophy are united by a teleological metaphysics, may make it appear obvious that the slogans are biological claims that provide a foundation for normative claims in ethics and politics. The slogans do indeed function as foundations in the Politics and the Nicomachean Ethics respectively (on the latter, see section 5 of this entry). It is, however, unclear whether they are to be understood as biological claims. Let us focus on the slogan that has traditionally dominated discussions of human nature in Western philosophy, that humans are “rational animals”.

First, if Pellegrin and Balme are right that Aristotelian zoology is uninterested in classifying species, then ascribing the capacity for “rationality” cannot have the function of naming a biological trait that distinguishes humans from other animals. This is supported by two further sets of considerations. To begin with, Aristotle’s explicit assertion that a series of differentiae would be needed to “define” humans ( Parts of Animals 644a) is cashed out in the long list of features he takes to be their distinguishing marks, such as speech, having hair on both eyelids, blinking, having hands, upright posture, breasts in front, the largest and moistest brain, fleshy legs and buttocks (Lloyd 1983: 29ff.). Furthermore, there is in Aristotle no capacity for reason that is both exclusive to, and universal among anthropoi . One part or kind of reason, “practical intelligence” ( phronesis ), is, Aristotle claims, found in both humans and other animals, being merely superior in the former ( Parts of Animals , 687a). Now, there are other forms of reasoning of which this is not true, forms whose presence are sufficient for being human: humans are the only animals capable of deliberation ( History of Animals 488b) and reasoning ( to noein ), in as far as this extends to mathematics and first philosophy. Nevertheless, these forms of reasoning are unnecessary: slaves, who Aristotle includes among humans ( Politics 1255a), are said to have no deliberative faculty ( to bouleutikon ) at all ( Politics 1260a; cf. Richter 2011: 42ff.). Presumably, they will also be without the capacities necessary for first philosophy.

Second, these Aristotelian claims raise the question as to whether the ascription of rationality is even intended as an ascription to an individual in as far as she or he belongs to a biological kind. The answer might appear to be obviously affirmative. Aristotle uses the claim that a higher level of reason is characteristic of humans to teleologically explain other morphological features, in particular upright gait and the morphology of the hands ( Parts of Animals 686a, 687a). However, the kind of reason at issue here is practical intelligence, the kind humans and animals share, not the capacity for mathematics and metaphysics, which among animals is exercised exclusively by humans. In as far as humans are able to exercise this latter capacity in contemplation, Aristotle claims that they “partake of the divine” ( Parts of Animals 656a), a claim of which he makes extensive use when grounding his ethics in human rationality ( Nicomachean Ethics 1177b–1178b). When, in a passage to which James Lennox has drawn attention (Lennox 1999), Aristotle declares that the rational part of the soul cannot be the object of natural science ( Parts of Animals 645a), it seems to be the contemplative part of the soul that is thus excluded from biological investigation, precisely the feature that is named in the influential slogan. If it is the “something divine … present in” humans that is decisively distinctive of their kind, it seems unclear whether the relevant kind is biological.

It is not the aim of this entry to decide questions of Aristotle interpretation. What is important is that the relationship of the question of “human nature” to biology is, from the beginning of the concept’s career, not as unequivocal as is often assumed (e.g., Hull 1986: 7; Richards 2010: 217f.). This is particularly true of the slogan according to which humans are rational animals. In the history of philosophy, this slogan has frequently been detached from any attempt to provide criteria for biological classification or characterisation. When Aquinas picks up the slogan, he is concerned to emphasise that human nature involves a material, corporeal aspect. This aspect is, however, not thought of in biological terms. Humans are decisively “rational substances”, i.e., persons. As such they also belong to a kind whose members also number angels and God (three times) (Eberl 2004). Similarly, Kant is primarily, indeed almost exclusively, interested in human beings as examples of “rational nature”, “human nature” being only one way in which rational nature can be instantiated (Kant 1785, 64, 76, 85). For this reason, Kant generally talks of “rational beings”, rather than of “rational animals” (1785, 45, 95).

There is, then, a perspective on humans that is plausibly present in Aristotle, stronger in Aquinas and dominant in Kant and that involves seeing them as instances of a kind other than the “human kind”, i.e., seeing the human animal “as a rational being” (Kant 1785 [1996: 45]). According to this view, the “nature” of humans that is most worthy of philosophical interest is the one they possess not insofar as they are human, but insofar as they are rational. Where this is the relevant use of the concept of human nature, being a specimen of the biological species is unnecessary for possessing the corresponding property. Specimens of other species, as well as non-biological entities may also belong to the relevant kind. It is also insufficient, as not all humans will have the properties necessary for membership in that kind.

As both a biologist and ethicist, Aristotle is at once a detached scientist and a participant in forms of interpersonal and political interaction only available to contemporary humans living in large, sedentary subpopulations. It seems plausible that a participant perspective may have suggested a different take on what it is to be human, perhaps even a different take on the sense in which humans might be rational animals, to that of biological science. We will return to this difference in section 5 of the entry.

2. The Nature of the Evolutionary Unit Homo sapiens and its Specimens

Detailing the features in virtue of which an organism is a specimen of the species Homo sapiens is a purely biological task. Whether such specification is achievable and, if so how, is controversial. It is controversial for the same reasons for which it is controversial what conditions need to be met for an organism to be a specimen of any species. These reasons derive from the theory of evolution.

A first step to understanding these reasons involves noting a further ambiguity in the use of the expression “human nature”, this time an ambiguity specific to taxonomy. The term can be used to pick out a set of properties as an answer to two different questions. The first concerns the properties of some organism which make it the case that it belongs to the species Homo sapiens . The second concerns the properties in virtue of which a population or metapopulation is the species Homo sapiens . Correspondingly, “human nature” can pick out either the properties of organisms that constitute their partaking in the species Homo sapiens or the properties of some higher-level entity that constitute it as that species. Human nature might then either be the nature of the species or the nature of species specimens as specimens of the species.

It is evolution that confers on this distinction its particular form and importance. The variation among organismic traits, without which there would be no evolution, has its decisive effects at the level of populations. These are groups of organisms that in some way cohere at a time in spite of the variation of traits among the component organisms. It is population-level groupings, taxa, not organisms, that evolve and it is taxa, such as species, that provide the organisms that belong to them with genetic resources (Ghiselin 1987: 141). The species Homo sapiens appears to be a metapopulation that coheres at least in part because of the gene flow between its component organisms brought about by interbreeding (cf. Ereshefsky 1991: 96ff.). Hence, according to evolutionary theory, Homo sapiens is plausibly a higher-level entity—a unit of evolution—consisting of the lower-level entities that are individual human beings. The two questions phrased in terms of “human nature” thus concern the conditions for individuation of the population-level entity and the conditions under which organisms are components of that entity.

The theory of evolution transforms the way we should understand the relationship between human organisms and the species to which they belong. The taxonomic assumption of TP5 was that species are individuated by means of intrinsic properties that are individually instantiated by certain organisms. Instantiating those properties is taken to be necessary and sufficient for those organisms to belong to the species. Evolutionary theory makes it clear that species, as population-level entities, cannot be individuated by means of the properties of lower-level constituents, in our case, of individual human organisms (Sober 1980: 355).

The exclusion of this possibility grounds a decisive difference from the way natural kinds are standardly construed in the wake of Locke and Kripke. Recall that, in this Kripkean construal, lumps of matter are instances of chemical kinds because of their satisfaction of intrinsic necessary and sufficient conditions, viz. their atoms possessing a certain number of protons. The same conditions also individuate the chemical kinds themselves. Chemical kinds are thus spatiotemporally unrestricted sets. This means that there are no metaphysical barriers to the chance generation of members of the kind, independently of whether the kind is instantiated at any contiguous time or place. Nitrogen could come to exist by metaphysical happenstance, should an element with the atomic number 14 somehow come into being, even in a world in which up to that point no nitrogen has existed (Hull 1978: 349; 1984: 22).

In contrast, a species can only exist at time \(t_n\) if either it or a parent species existed at \(t_{n-1}\) and there was some relationship of spatial contiguity between component individuals of the species at \(t_n\) and the individuals belonging to either the same species or the parent species at \(t_{n-1}\). This is because of the essential role of the causal relationship of heredity. Heredity generates both the coherence across a population requisite for the existence of a species and the variability of predominant traits within the population, without which a species would not evolve.

For this reason, the species Homo sapiens , like every other species taxon, must meet a historical or genealogical condition. (For pluralistic objections to even this condition, see Kitcher 1984: 320ff.; Dupré 1993: 49f.) This condition is best expressed as a segment of a population-level phylogenetic tree, where such trees represent ancestor-descendent series (Hull 1978: 349; de Queiroz 1999: 50ff.; 2005). Species, as the point is often put, are historical entities, rather than kinds or classes (Hull 1978: 338ff.; 1984: 19). The fact that species are not only temporally, but also spatially restricted has also led to the stronger claim that they are individuals (Ghiselin 1974; 1997: 14ff.; Hull 1978: 338). If this is correct, then organisms are not members, but parts of species taxa. Independently of whether this claim is true for all biological species, Homo sapiens is a good candidate for a species that belongs to the category individual . This is because the species is characterised not only by spatiotemporal continuity, but also by causal processes that account for the coherence between its component parts. These processes plausibly include not only interbreeding, but also conspecific recognition and particular forms of communication (Richards 2010: 158ff., 218).

Importantly, the genealogical condition is only a necessary condition, as genealogy unites all the segments of one lineage. The segment of the phylogenetic tree that represents some species taxon begins with a node that represents a lineage-splitting or speciation event. Determining that node requires attention to general speciation theory, which has proposed various competing criteria (Dupré 1993: 48f.; Okasha 2002: 201; Coyne & Orr 2004). In the case of Homo sapiens , it requires attention to the specifics of the human case, which are also controversial (see Crow 2003; Cela-Conde & Ayala 2017: 11ff.). The end point of the segment is marked either by some further speciation event or, as may seem likely in the case of Homo sapiens , by the destruction of the metapopulation. Only when the temporal boundaries of the segment have become determinate would it be possible to adduce sufficient conditions for the existence of such a historical entity. Hence, if “human nature” is understood to pick out the necessary and sufficient conditions that individuate the species taxon Homo sapiens , its content is not only controversial, but epistemically unavailable to us.

If we take such a view of the individuating conditions for the species Homo sapiens , what are the consequences for the question of which organisms belong to the species? It might appear that it leaves open the possibility that speciation has resulted in some intrinsic property or set of properties establishing the cohesion specific to the taxon and that such properties count as necessary and sufficient for belonging to it (cf. Devitt 2008: 17ff.). This appearance would be deceptive. To begin with, no intrinsic property can be necessary because of the sheer empirical improbability that all species specimens grouped together by the relevant lineage segment instantiate any such candidate property. For example, there are individuals who are missing legs, inner organs or the capacity for language, but who remain biologically human (Hull 1986: 5). Evolutionary theory clarifies why this is so: variability, secured by mechanisms such as mutation and recombination, is the key to evolution, so that, should some qualitative property happen to be universal among all extant species specimens immediately after the completion of speciation, that is no guarantee that it will continue to be so throughout the lifespan of the taxon (Hull 1984: 35; Ereshefsky 2008: 101). The common thought that there must be at least some genetic property common to all human organisms is also false (R. Wilson 1999a: 190; Sterelny & Griffiths 1999: 7; Okasha 2002: 196f.): phenotypical properties that are shared in a population are frequently co-instantiated as a result of the complex interaction of differing gene-regulatory networks. Conversely, the same network can under different circumstances lead to differing phenotypical consequences (Walsh 2006: 437ff.). Even if it should turn out that every human organism instantiated some property, this would be a contingent, rather than a necessary fact (Sober 1980: 354; Hull 1986: 3).

Moreover, the chances of any such universal property also being sufficient are vanishingly small, as the sharing of properties by specimens of other species can result from various mechanisms, in particular from the inheritance of common genes in related species and from parallel evolution. This doesn’t entail that there may be no intrinsic properties that are sufficient belonging to the species. There are fairly good candidates for such properties, if we compare humans with other terrestrial organisms. Language use and a self-understanding as moral agents come to mind. However, whether non-terrestrial entities might possess such properties is an open question. And decisively, they are obviously hopeless as necessary conditions (cf. Samuels 2012: 9).

This leaves only the possibility that the conditions for belonging to the species are, like the individuating conditions for the species taxon, relational. Lineage-based individuation of a taxon depends on its component organisms being spatially and temporally situated in such a way that the causal processes necessary for the inheritance of traits can take place. In the human case, the key processes are those of sexual reproduction. Therefore, being an organism that belongs to the species Homo sapiens is a matter of being connected reproductively to organisms situated unequivocally on the relevant lineage segment. In other words, the key necessary condition is having been sexually reproduced by specimens of the species (Kronfeldner 2018: 100). Hull suggests that the causal condition may be disjunctive, as it could also be fulfilled by a synthetic entity created by scientists that produces offspring with humans who have been generated in the standard manner (Hull 1978: 349). Provided that the species is not in the throes of speciation, such direct descent or integration into the reproductive community, i.e., participation in the “complex network […] of mating and reproduction” (Hull 1986: 4), will also be sufficient.

The lack of a “human essence” in the sense of intrinsic necessary and sufficient conditions for belonging to the species taxon Homo sapiens , has led a number of philosophers to deny that there is any such thing as human nature (Hull 1984: 19; 1986; Ghiselin 1997: 1; de Sousa 2000). As this negative claim concerns properties intrinsic both to relevant organisms and to the taxon, it is equally directed at the “nature” of the organisms as species specimens and at that of the species taxon itself. An alternative consists in retracting the condition that a classificatory essence must be intrinsic, a move which allows talk of a historical or relational essence and a corresponding relational conception of taxonomic human nature (Okasha 2002: 202).

Which of these ways of responding to the challenge from evolutionary theory appears best is likely to depend on how one takes it that the classificatory issues relate to the other matters at stake in the original human nature package. These concern the explanatory and normative questions raised by TP1–TP4. We turn to these in the following three sections of this article.

An exclusively genealogical conception of human nature is clearly not well placed to fulfil an explanatory role comparable to that envisaged in the traditional package. What might have an explanatory function are the properties of the entities from which the taxon or its specimens are descended. Human nature, genealogically understood, might serve as the conduit for explanations in terms of such properties, but will not itself explain anything. After all, integration in a network of sexual reproduction will be partly definitive of the specimens of all sexual species, whilst what is to be explained will vary enormously across taxa.

This lack of fit between classificatory and explanatory roles confronts us with a number of further theoretical possibilities. For example, one might see this incompatibility as strengthening the worries of eliminativists such as Ghiselin and Hull: even if the subtraction of intrinsicality were not on its own sufficient to justify abandoning talk of human nature, its conjunction with a lack of explanatory power, one might think, certainly is (Dupré 2003: 109f.; Lewens 2012: 473). Or one might argue that it is the classificatory ambitions associated with talk of human nature that should be abandoned. Once this is done, one might hope that certain sets of intrinsic properties can be distinguished that figure decisively in explanations and that can still justifiably be labelled “human nature” (Roughley 2011: 15; Godfrey-Smith 2014: 140).

Taking this second line in turn raises two questions: first, in what sense are the properties thus picked out specifically “human”, if they are neither universal among, nor unique to species specimens? Second, in what sense are the properties “natural”? Naturalness as independence from the effects of human intentional action is a key feature of the original package (TP1). Whether some such conception can be coherently applied to humans is a challenge for any non-classificatory account.

3. Characteristic Human Properties

The answer given by TP2 to the first question was in terms of the fully developed human form, where “form” does not refer solely to observable physical or behavioural characteristics, but also includes psychological features. This answer entails two claims: first, that there is one single such “form”, i.e., property or set of properties, that figures in explanations that range across individual human organisms. It also entails that there is a point in human development that counts as “full”, that is, as development’s goal or “telos”. These claims go hand in hand with the assumption that there is a distinction to be drawn between normal and abnormal adult specimens of the species. There is, common sense tells us, a sense in which normal adult humans have two legs, two eyes, one heart and two kidneys at specific locations in the body; they also have various dispositions, for instance, to feel pain and to feel emotions, and a set of capacities, such as for perception and for reasoning. And these, so it seems, may be missing, or under- or overdeveloped in abnormal specimens.

Sober has influentially described accounts that work with such teleological assumptions as adhering to an Aristotelian “Natural State Model” (Sober 1980: 353ff.). Such accounts work with a distinction that has no place in evolutionary biology, according to which variation of properties across populations is the key to evolution. Hence, no particular end states of organisms are privileged as “natural” or “normal” (Hull 1986: 7ff.). So any account that privileges particular morphological, behavioural or psychological human features has to provide good reasons that are both non-evolutionary and yet compatible with the evolutionary account of species. Because of the way that the notion of the normal is frequently employed to exclude and oppress, those reasons should be particularly good (Silvers 1998; Dupré 2003: 119ff.; Richter 2011: 43ff.; Kronfeldner 2018: 15ff.).

The kinds of reasons that may be advanced could either be internal to, or independent of the biological sciences. If the former, then various theoretical options may seem viable. The first grounds in the claim that, although species are not natural kinds and are thus unsuited to figuring in laws of nature (Hull 1987: 171), they do support descriptions with a significant degree of generality, some of which may be important (Hull 1984: 19). A theory of human nature developed on this basis should explain the kind of importance on the basis of which particular properties are emphasised. The second theoretical option is pluralism about the metaphysics of species: in spite of the fairly broad consensus that species are defined as units of evolution, the pluralist can deny the primacy of evolutionary dynamics, arguing that other epistemic aims allow the ecologist, the systematist or the ethologist to work with an equally legitimate concept of species that is not, or not exclusively genealogical (cf. Hull 1984: 36; Kitcher 1986: 320ff.; Hull 1987: 178–81; Dupré 1993: 43f.). The third option involves a relaxation of the concept of natural kinds, such that it no longer entails the instantiation of intrinsic, necessary, sufficient and spatiotemporally unrestricted properties, but is nevertheless able to support causal explanations. Such accounts aim to reunite taxonomic and explanatory criteria, thus allowing species taxa to count as natural kinds after all (Boyd 1999a; R. Wilson, Barker, & Brigandt 2007: 196ff.). Where, finally , the reasons advanced for privileging certain properties are independent of biology, these tend to concern features of humans’—“our”—self-understanding as participants in, rather than observers of, a particular form of life. These are likely to be connected to normative considerations. Here again, it seems that a special explanation will be required for why these privileged properties should be grouped under the rubric “human nature”.

The accounts to be described in the next subsection (3.2) of this entry are examples of the first strategy. Section 4 includes discussion of the relaxed natural kinds strategy. Section 5 focuses on accounts of human nature developed from a participant perspective and also notes the support that the pluralist metaphysical strategy might be taken to provide.

Begin, then, with the idea that to provide an account of “human nature” is to circumscribe a set of generalisations concerning humans. An approach of this sort sees the properties thus itemised as specifically “human” in as far as they are common among species specimens. So the privilege accorded to these properties is purely statistical and “normal” means statistically normal. Note that taking the set of statistically normal properties of humans as a non-teleological replacement for the fully developed human form retains from the original package the possibility of labelling as “human nature” either those properties themselves (TP3) or their developmental cause (TP2). Either approach avoids the classificatory worries dealt with in section 2 : it presupposes that those organisms whose properties are relevant are already distinguished as such specimens. What is to be explained is, then, the ways humans generally, though not universally, are. And among these ways are ways they may share with most specimens of some other species, in particular those that belong to the same order (primates) and the same class (mammals).

One should be clear what follows from this interpretation of “human”. The organisms among whom statistical frequency is sought range over those generated after speciation around 150,000 years ago to those that will exist immediately prior to the species’ extinction. On the one hand, because of the variability intrinsic to species, we are in the dark as to the properties that may or may not characterise those organisms that will turn out to be the last of the taxon. On the other hand, the time lag of around 100,000 years between the first anatomically modern humans and the general onset of behavioural modernity around the beginning of the Upper Palaeolithic means that there are likely to be many widespread psychological properties of contemporary humans that were not possessed by the majority of the species’ specimens during two thirds of the species’ history. This is true even if the practices seen as the signatures of behavioural modernity (see §1.1 ) developed sporadically, disappeared and reappeared at far removed points of time and space over tens of thousands of years before 50,000 ka (McBrearty & Brooks 2000; Sterelny 2011).

According to several authors (Machery 2008; 2018; Samuels 2012; Ramsey 2013), the expression “human nature” should be used to group properties that are the focus of much current behavioural, psychological and social science. However, as the cognitive and psychological sciences are generally interested in present-day humans, there is a mismatch between scientific focus and a grouping criterion that takes in all the properties generally or typically instantiated by specimens of the entire taxon. For this reason, the expression “human nature” is likely to refer to properties of an even more temporally restricted set of organisms belonging to the species. That restriction can be thought of in indexical terms, i.e., as a restriction to contemporary humans. However, some authors claim explicitly that their accounts entail that human nature can change (Ramsey 2013: 992; Machery 2018: 20). Human nature would then be the object of temporally indexed investigations, as is, for example, the weight of individual humans in everyday contexts. (Without temporal specification, there is no determinate answer to a question such as “How much did David Hume weigh?”) An example of Machery’s is dark skin colour. This characteristic, he claims, ceased to be a feature of human nature thus understood 7,000 years ago, if that was when skin pigmentation became polymorphic. The example indicates that the temporal range may be extremely narrow from an evolutionary point of view.

Such accounts are both compatible with evolutionary theory and coherent. However, in as far as they are mere summary or list conceptions, it is unclear what their epistemic value might be. They will tend to accord with everyday common sense, for which “human nature” may in a fairly low-key sense simply be the properties that (contemporary) humans generally tend to manifest (Roughley 2011: 16). They will also conform to one level of the expression’s use in Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40), which, in an attempt to provide a human “mental geography” (1748 [1970: 13]), lists a whole series of features, such as prejudice (1739–40, I,iii,13), selfishness (III,ii,5), a tendency to temporal discounting (III,ii,7) and an addiction to general rules (III,ii,9).

Accounts of this kind have been seen as similar in content to field guides for other animals (Machery 2008: 323; Godfrey-Smith 2014: 139). As Hull points out, within a restricted ecological context and a short period of evolutionary time, the ascription of readily observable morphological or behavioural characteristics to species specimens is a straightforward and unproblematic enterprise (Hull 1987: 175). However, the analogy is fairly unhelpful, as the primary function of assertions in field guides is to provide a heuristics for amateur classification. In contrast, a list conception of the statistically normal properties of contemporary humans presupposes identification of the organisms in question as humans. Moreover, such accounts certainly do not entail easy epistemic access to the properties in question, which may only be experimentally discovered. Nevertheless, there remains something correct about the analogy, as such accounts are a collection of assertions linked only by the fact that they are about the same group of organisms (Sterelny 2018: 123).

More sophisticated nature documentaries may summarise causal features of the lives of animals belonging to specific species. An analogous conception of human nature has also been proposed, according to which human nature is a set of pervasive and robust causal nexuses amongst humans. The list that picks out this set would specify causal connections between antecedent properties, such as having been exposed to benzene or subject to abuse as a child, and consequent properties, such as developing cancer or being aggressive towards one’s own children (Ramsey 2013: 988ff.). Human nature thus understood would have an explanatory component, a component internal to each item on the list. Human nature itself would, however, not be explanatory, but rather the label for a list of highly diverse causal connections.

An alternative way to integrate an explanatory component in a statistical normality account involves picking out that set of statistically common properties that have a purely evolutionary explanation (Machery 2008; 2018). This reinterpretation of the concept of naturalness that featured in the original package (TP1) involves a contrast with social learning. Processes grouped together under this latter description are taken to be alternative explanations to those provided by evolution. However, learning plays a central role, not only in the development of individual humans, but also in the iterated interaction of entire populations with environments structured and restructured through such interaction (Stotz 2010: 488ff.; Sterelny 2012: 23ff.). Hence, the proposal raises serious epistemic questions as to how the distinction is precisely to be drawn and operationalised. (For discussion, see Prinz 2012; Lewens 2012: 464ff.; Ramsey 2013: 985; Machery 2018: 15ff.; Sterelny 2018: 116; Kronfeldner 2018: 147ff.).

4. Explanatory Human Properties

The replacement of the concept of a fully developed form with a statistical notion yields a deflationary account of human nature with, at most, restricted explanatory import. The correlative, explanatory notion in the original package, that of the fully developed form’s blueprint (TP2), has to some authors seemed worth reframing in terms made possible by advances in modern biology, particularly in genetics.

Clearly, there must be explanations of why humans generally walk on two legs, speak and plan many of their actions in advance. Genealogical, or what have been called “ultimate” (Mayr) or “historical” (Kitcher) explanations can advert to the accumulation of coherence among entrenched, stable properties along a lineage. These may well have resulted from selection pressures shared by the relevant organisms (cf. Wimsatt 2003; Lewens 2009). The fact that there are exceptions to any generalisations concerning contemporary humans does not entail that there is no need for explanations of such exception-allowing generalisations. Plausibly, these general, though not universal truths will have “structural explanations”, that is, explanations in terms of underlying structures or mechanisms (Kitcher 1986: 320; Devitt 2008: 353). These structures, so seems, might to a significant degree be inscribed in humans’ DNA.

The precise details of rapidly developing empirical science will improve our understanding of the extent to which there is a determinate relationship between contemporary humans’ genome and their physical, psychological and behavioural properties. There is, however, little plausibility that the blueprint metaphor might be applicable to the way DNA is transcribed, translated and interacts with its cellular environment. Such interaction is itself subject to influence by the organism’s external environment, including its social environment (Dupré 2001: 29ff.; 2003: 111ff.; Griffiths 2011: 326; Prinz 2012: 17ff.; Griffiths & Tabery 2013: 71ff.; Griffiths & Stotz 2013: 98ff., 143ff.). For example, the feature of contemporary human life for which there must according to Aristotle be some kind of blueprint, viz. rational agency, is, as Sterelny has argued, so strongly dependent on social scaffolding that any claim to the effect that human rationality is somehow genetically programmed ignores the causal contributions of manifestly indispensable environmental factors (Sterelny 2018: 120).

Nevertheless, humans do generally develop a specific set of physiological features, such as two lungs, one stomach, one pancreas and two eyes. Moreover, having such a bodily architecture is, according to the evidence from genetics, to a significant extent the result of developmental programmes that ground in gene regulatory networks (GRNs). These are stretches of non-coding DNA that regulate gene transcription. GRNs are modular, more or less strongly entrenched structures. The most highly conserved of these tend to be the phylogenetically most archaic (Carroll 2000; Walsh 2006: 436ff.; Willmore 2012: 227ff.). The GRNs responsible for basic physiological features may be taken, in a fairly innocuous sense, to belong to an evolved human nature.

Importantly, purely morphological features have generally not been the explananda of accounts that have gone under the rubric “human nature”. What has frequently motivated explanatory accounts thus labelled is the search for underlying structures responsible for generally shared psychological features. “Evolutionary Psychologists” have built a research programme around the claim that humans share a psychological architecture that parallels that of their physiology. This, they believe, consists of a structured set of psychological “organs” or modules (Tooby & Cosmides 1990: 29f.; 1992: 38, 113). This architecture is, they claim, in turn the product of developmental programmes inscribed in humans’ DNA (1992: 45). Such generally distributed developmental programmes they label “human nature” (1990: 23).

This conception raises the question of how analogous the characteristic physical and psychological “architectures” are. For one thing, the physical properties that tend to appear in such lists are far more coarse-grained than the candidates for shared psychological properties (D. Wilson 1994: 224ff.): the claim is not just that humans tend to have perceptual, desiderative, doxastic and emotional capacities, but that the mental states that realise these capacities tend to have contents of specific types. Perhaps an architecture of the former kind—of a formal psychology—is a plausible, if relatively unexciting candidate for the mental side of what an evolved human nature should explain. Either way, any such conception needs to adduce criteria for the individuation of such “mental organs” (D. Wilson 1994: 233). Relatedly, if the most strongly entrenched developmental programmes are the most archaic, it follows that, although these will be species-typical, they will not be species-specific. Programmes for the development of body parts have been identified for higher taxa, rather than for species.

A further issue that dogs any such attempts to explicate the “human” dimension of human nature in terms of developmental programmes inscribed in human DNA concerns Evolutionary Psychologists’ assertion that the programmes are the same in every specimen of the species. This assertion goes hand in hand with the claim that what is explained by such programmes is a deep psychological structure that is common to almost all humans and underlies the surface diversity of behavioural and psychological phenomena (Tooby & Cosmides 1990: 23f.). For Evolutionary Psychologists, the (near-)universality of both developmental programmes and deep psychological structure has an ultimate explanation in evolutionary processes that mark their products as natural in the sense of TP1. Both, they claim, are adaptations. These are features that were selected for because their possession in the past conferred a fitness advantage on their possessors. Evolutionary Psychologists conceive that advantage as conferred by the fulfilment of some specific function. They summarise selection for that function as “design”, which they take to have operated equally on all species specimens since the Pleistocene. This move reintroduces the teleological idea of a fully developed form beyond mere statistical normality (TP3).

This move has been extensively criticised. First, selection pressures operate at the level of groups and hence need not lead to the same structures in all a group’s members (D. Wilson 1994: 227ff.; Griffiths 2011: 325; Sterelny 2018: 120). Second, other evolutionary mechanisms than natural selection might be explanatorily decisive. Genetic drift or mutation and recombination might, for example, also confer “naturalness” in the sense of evolutionary genesis (Buller 2000: 436). Third, as we have every reason to assume that the evolution of human psychology is ongoing, evolutionary biology provides little support for the claim that particular programmes and associated traits evolved to fixity in the Pleistocene (Buller 2000: 477ff.; Downes 2010).

Perhaps, however, there might turn out to be gene control networks that do generally structure certain features of the psychological development of contemporary humans (Walsh 2006: 440ff.). The quest for such GNRs can, then, count as the search for an explanatory nature of contemporary humans, where the explanatory function thus sought is divorced from any classificatory role.

There has, however, been a move in general philosophy of science that, if acceptable, would transform the relationship between the taxonomic and explanatory features of species. This move was influentially initiated by Richard Boyd (1999a). It begins with the claim that the attempt to define natural kinds in terms of spatiotemporally unrestricted, intrinsic, necessary and sufficient conditions is a hangover from empiricism that should be abandoned by realist metaphysics. Instead, natural kinds should be understood as kinds that support induction and explanation, where generalisations at work in such processes need not be exceptionless. Thus understood, essences of natural kinds, i.e., their “natures”, need be neither intrinsic nor be possessed by all and only members of the kinds. Instead, essences consist of property clusters integrated by stabilising mechanisms (“homeostatic property clusters”, HPCs). These are networks of causal relations such that the presence of certain properties tends to generate or uphold others and the workings of underlying mechanisms contribute to the same effect. Boyd names storms, galaxies and capitalism as plausible examples (Boyd 1999b: 82ff.). However, he takes species to be the paradigmatic HPC kinds. According to this view, the genealogical character of a species’ nature does not undermine its causal role. Rather, it helps to explain the specific way in which the properties cohere that make up the taxon’s essence. Moreover, these can include extrinsic properties, for example, properties of constructed niches (Boyd 1991: 142, 1999a: 164ff.; Griffiths 1999: 219ff.; R. Wilson et al. 2007: 202ff.).

Whether such an account can indeed adequately explain taxonomic practice for species taxa is a question that can be left open here (see Ereshefsky & Matthen 2005: 16ff.). By its own lights the account does not identify conditions for belonging to a species such as Homo sapiens (Samuels 2012: 25f.). Whether it enables the identification of factors that play the explanatory roles that the term “human nature” might be supposed to pick out is perhaps the most interesting question. Two ways in which an account of human nature might be developed from such a starting point have been sketched.

According to Richard Samuels’ proposal, human nature should be understood as the empirically discoverable proximal mechanisms responsible for psychological development and for the manifestation of psychological capacities. These will include physiological mechanisms, such as the development of the neural tube, as well as environmentally scaffolded learning procedures; they will also include the various modular systems distinguished by cognitive science, such as visual processing and memory systems (Samuels 2012: 22ff.). Like mere list conceptions (cf. §3.2 ), such an account has a precedent in Hume, for whom human nature also includes causal “principles” that structure operations of the human mind (1739–40, Intro.), for example, the mechanisms of sympathy (III,iii,1; II,ii,6). Hume, however, thought of the relevant causal principles as intrinsic.

A second proposal, advanced by Paul Griffiths and Karola Stotz, explicitly suggests taking explanandum and explanans to be picked out by different uses of the expression "human nature". In both cases, the “nature” in question is that of the taxon, not of individual organisms. The former use simply refers to “what human beings are like”, where “human beings” means all species specimens. Importantly, this characterisation does not aim at shared characteristics, but is open for polymorphisms both across a population and across life stages of individual organisms. The causal conception of human nature, what explains this spectrum of similarity and difference in life histories, is equated by Griffiths and Stotz with the organism-environment system that supports human development. It thus includes all the genetic, epigenetic and environmental resources responsible for varying human life cycles (Griffiths 2011: 319; Stotz & Griffiths 2018, 66f.). It follows that explanatory human nature at one point in time can be radically different from human nature at some other point in time.

Griffiths and Stotz are clear that this account diverges significantly from traditional accounts, as it rejects assumptions that human development has a goal, that human nature is possessed by all and only specimens of the species and that it consists of intrinsic properties. They see these assumptions as features of the folk biology of human nature that is as scientifically relevant as are folk conceptions of heat for its scientific understanding (Stotz 2010: 488; Griffiths 2011: 319ff.; Stotz & Griffiths 2018: 60ff.). This raises the question as to whether such a developmental systems account should not simply advocate abandoning the term, as is suggested by Sterelny (2018) on the basis of closely related considerations. A reason for not doing so might lie in the fact that, as talk of “human nature” is often practised with normative intent or at least with normative consequences (Stotz & Griffiths 2018: 71f.), use of the term to pick out the real, complex explanatory factors at work might help to counter those normative uses that employ false, folk biological assumptions.

Explanatory accounts that emphasise developmental plasticity in the products of human DNA, in the neural architecture of the brain and in the human mind tend to reject the assumption that explanations of what humans are like should focus on intrinsic features. It should, however, be noted that such accounts can be interpreted as assigning the feature of heightened plasticity the key role in such explanations (cf. Montagu 1956: 79). Accounts that make plasticity causally central also raise the question as to whether there are not biological features that in turn explain it and should therefore be assigned a more central status in a theory of explanatory human nature.

A prime candidate for this role is what the zoologist Adolf Portmann labelled human “secondary altriciality”, a unique constellation of features of the human neonate relative to other primates: human neonates are, in their helplessness and possession of a relatively undeveloped brain, neurologically and behaviourally altricial, that is, in need of care. However they are also born with open and fully functioning sense organs, otherwise a mark of precocial species, in which neonates are able to fend for themselves (Portmann 1951: 44ff.). The facts that the human neonate brain is less than 30% of the size of the adult brain and that brain development after birth continues at the fetal rate for the first year (Walker & Ruff 1993, 227) led the anthropologist Ashley Montagu to talk of “exterogestation” (Montagu 1961: 156). With these features in mind, Portmann characterised the care structures required by prolonged infant helplessness as the “social uterus” (Portmann 1967: 330). Finally, the fact that the rapid development of the infant brain takes place during a time in which the infant’s sense organs are open and functioning places an adaptive premium on learning that is unparalleled among organisms (Gould 1977: 401; cf. Stotz & Griffiths 2018: 70).

Of course, these features are themselves contingent products of evolution that could be outlived by the species. Gould sees them as components of a general retardation of development that has characterised human evolution (Gould 1977: 365ff.), where “human” should be seen as referring to the clade—all the descendants of a common ancestor—rather than to the species. Anthropologists estimate that secondary altriciality characterised the lineage as from Homo erectus 1.5 million years ago (Rosenberg & Trevathan 1995: 167). We are, then, dealing with a set of deeply entrenched features, features that were in place long before behavioural modernity.

It is conceivable that the advent of secondary altriciality was a key transformation in generating the radical plasticity of human development beginning with early hominins. However, as Sterelny points out, there are serious difficulties with isolating any particular game changer. Secondary altriciality, or the plasticity that may in part be explained by it, would thus seem to fall victim to the same verdict as the game changers named by the traditional human nature slogans. However, maybe it is more plausible to think in terms of a matrix of traits: perhaps a game-changing constellation of properties present in the population after the split from pan can be shown to have generated forms of niche construction that fed back into and modified the original traits. These modifications may in turn have had further psychological and behavioural consequences in steps that plausibly brought selective advantages (Sterelny 2018: 115).

5. Human Nature, the Participant Perspective and Morality

In such a culture-mind coevolutionary account, there may be a place for the referents of some of the traditional philosophical slogans intended to pin down “the human essence“ or “human nature”—reason, linguistic capacity ( “ the speaking animal”, Herder 1772 [2008: 97]), a more general symbolic capacity ( animal symbolicum , Cassirer 1944: 44), freedom of the will (Pico della Mirandola 1486 [1965: 5]; Sartre 1946 [2007: 29, 47]), a specific, “political” form of sociality, or a unique type of moral motivation (Hutcheson 1730: §15). These are likely, at best, to be the (still evolving) products in contemporary humans of processes set in motion by a trait constellation that includes proto-versions of (some of) these capacities. Such a view may also be compatible with an account of “what contemporary humans are like” that abstracts from the evolutionary time scale of eons and focuses instead on the present (cf. Dupré 1993: 43), whilst neither merely cataloguing widely distributed traits ( §3.2 ) nor attempting explanations in terms of the human genome ( §4.1 ). The traditional slogans appear to be attempts to summarise some such accounts. It seems clear, though, that their aims are significantly different from those of the biologically, or otherwise scientifically orientated positions thus far surveyed.

Two features of such accounts are worth emphasising, both of which we already encountered in Aristotle’s contribution to the original package. The first involves a shift in perspective from that of the scientific observer to that of a participant in a contemporary human life form. Whereas the human—or non-human—biologist may ask what modern humans are like, just as they may ask what bonobos are like, the question that traditional philosophical accounts of human nature are plausibly attempting to answer is what it is like to live one’s life as a contemporary human. This question is likely to provoke the counter-question as to whether there is anything that it is like to live simply as a contemporary human, rather than as a human-in-a-specific-historical-and-cultural context (Habermas 1958: 32; Geertz 1973: 52f.; Dupré 2003: 110f.). For the traditional sloganeers, the answer is clearly affirmative. The second feature of such accounts is that they tend to take it that reference to the capacities named in the traditional slogans is in some sense normatively , in particular, ethically significant .

The first claim of such accounts, then, is that there is some property of contemporary humans that is in some way descriptively or causally central to participating in their form of life. The second is that such participation involves subjection to normative standards rooted in the possession of some such property. Importantly, there is a step from the first to the second form of significance, and justification of the step requires argument. Even from a participant perspective, there is no automatic move from explanatory to normative significance.

According to an “internal”, participant account of human nature, certain capacities of contemporary, perhaps modern humans unavoidably structure the way they (we) live their (our) lives. Talk of “structuring” refers to three kinds of contributions to the matrix of capacities and dispositions that both enable and constrain the ways humans live their lives. These are contributions, first, to the specific shape other features of humans lives have and, second, to the way other such features hang together (Midgley 2000: 56ff.; Roughley 2011: 16ff.). Relatedly, they also make possible a whole new set of practices. All three relations are explanatory, although their explanatory role appears not necessarily to correspond to the role corresponding features, or earlier versions of the features, might have played in the evolutionary genealogy of contemporary human psychology. Having linguistic capacities is a prime candidate for the role of such a structural property: human perception, emotion, action planning and thought are all plausibly transformed in linguistic creatures, as are the connections between perception and belief, and the myriad relationships between thought and behaviour, connections exploited and deepened in a rich set of practices unavailable to non-linguistic animals. Similar things could be claimed for other properties named by the traditional slogans.

In contrast to the ways in which such capacities have frequently been referred to in the slogan mode, particularly to the pathos that has tended to accompany it, it seems highly implausible that any one such property will stand alone as structurally significant. It is more likely that we should be picking out a constellation of properties, a constellation that may well include properties variants of which are possessed by other animals. Other properties, including capacities that may be specific to contemporary humans, such as humour, may be less plausible candidates for a structural role.

Note that the fact that such accounts aim to answer a question asked from the participant perspective does not rule out that the features in question may be illuminated in their role for human self-understanding by data from empirical science. On the contrary, it seems highly likely that disciplines such as developmental and comparative psychology, and neuroscience will contribute significantly to an understanding of the possibilities and constraints inherent in the relevant capacities and in the way they interact.

5.2. Human Nature and the Human ergon

The paradigmatic strategy for deriving ethical consequences from claims about structural features of the human life form is the Platonic and Aristotelian ergon or function argument. The first premise of Aristotle’s version ( Nicomachean Ethics 1097b–1098a) connects function and goodness: if the characteristic function of an entity of a type X is to φ, then a good entity of type X is one that φs well. Aristotle confers plausibility on the claim by using examples such as social roles and bodily organs. If the function of an eye as an exemplar of its kind is to enable seeing, then a good eye is one that enables its bearer to see well. The second premise of the argument is a claim we encountered in section 1.4 of this entry, a claim we can now see as predicating a structural property of human life, the exercise of reason. According to this claim, the function or end of individual humans as humans is, depending on interpretation (Nussbaum 1995: 113ff.), either the exercise of reason or life according to reason. If this is correct, it follows that a good human being is one whose life centrally involves the exercise of, or life in accordance with, reason.

In the light of the discussion so far, it ought to be clear that, as it stands, the second premise of this argument is incompatible with the evolutionary biology of species. It asserts that the exercise of reason is not only the key structural property of human life, but also the realization of the fully developed human form. No sense can be made of this latter notion in evolutionary terms. Nevertheless, a series of prominent contemporary ethicists—Alasdair MacIntyre (1999), Rosalind Hursthouse (1999), Philippa Foot (2001) and Martha Nussbaum (2006)—have all made variants of the ergon argument central to their ethical theories. As each of these authors advance some version of the second premise, it is instructive to examine the ways in which they aim to avoid the challenge from evolutionary biology.

Before doing so, it is first worth noting that any ethical theory or theory of value is engaged in an enterprise that has no clear place in an evolutionary analysis. If we want to know what goodness is or what “good” means, evolutionary theory is not the obvious place to look. This is particularly clear in view of the fact that evolutionary theory operates at the level of populations (Sober 1980: 370; Walsh 2006: 434), whereas ethical theory operates, at least primarily, at the level of individual agents. However, the specific conflict between evolutionary biology and neo-Aristotelian ethics results from the latter’s constructive use of the concept of species and, in particular, of a teleological conception of a fully developed form of individual members of the species “ qua members of [the] species” (MacIntyre 1999: 64, 71; cf. Thompson 2008: 29; Foot 2001: 27). The characterisation of achieving that form as fulfilling a “function”, which helps the analogy with bodily organs and social roles, is frequently replaced in contemporary discussions by talk of “flourishing” (Aristotle’s eudaimonia ). Such talk more naturally suggests comparisons with the lives of other organisms (although Aristotle himself excludes other animals from eudaimonia ; cf. Nicomachean Ethics 1009b). The concept of flourishing in turn picks out biological—etymologically: botanical—processes, but again not of a sort that play a role in evolutionary theory. It also seems primarily predicated of individual organisms. It may play a role in ecology; it is, however, most clearly at home in practical applications of biological knowledge, as in horticulture. In this respect, it is comparable to the concept of health.

Neo-Aristotelians claim that to describe an organism, whether a plant or a non-human or human animal, as flourishing is to measure it against a standard that is specific to the species to which it belongs. To do so is to evaluate it as a more or less good “specimen of its species (or sub-species)” (Hursthouse 1999: 198). The key move is then to claim that moral evaluation is, “quite seriously” (Foot 2001: 16), evaluation of the same sort: just as a non-defective animal or plant exemplifies flourishing within the relevant species’ life form, someone who is morally good is someone who exemplifies human flourishing, i.e., the fully developed form of the species. This metaethical claim has provoked the worry as to whether such attributions to other organisms are really anything more than classifications, or at most evaluations of “stretched and deflated” kinds that are missing the key feature of authority that we require for genuine normativity (Lenman 2005: 46ff.).

Independently of questions concerning their theory of value, ethical Neo-Aristotelians need to respond to the question of how reference to a fully developed form of the species can survive the challenge from evolutionary theory. Three kinds of response may appear promising.

The first adverts to the plurality of forms of biological science, claiming that there are life sciences, such as physiology, botany, zoology and ethology in the context of which such evaluations have a place (Hursthouse 1999: 202; 2012: 172; MacIntyre 1999: 65). And if ethology can legitimately attribute not only characteristic features, but also defects or flourishing to species members, in spite of species not being natural kinds, then there is little reason why ethics shouldn’t do so too. This strategy might ground in one of the moves sketched in section 3.1 of this entry. It might be argued, with Kitcher and Dupré, that such attributions are legitimate in other branches of biological science because there is a plurality of species concepts, indeed of kinds of species, where these are relative to epistemic interests. Or the claim might simply rest on a difference in what is taken to be the relevant time frame, where temporal relevance is indexed relative to the present. In ethics we are, it might be claimed, interested in humans as they are “at the moment and for a few millennia back and for maybe not much longer in the future” (Hursthouse 2012: 171).

This move amounts to the concession that talk of “the human species” is not to be understood literally. Whether this concession undermines the ethical theories that use the term is perhaps unclear. It leaves open the possibility that, as human nature may change significantly, there may be significant changes in what it means for humans to flourish and therefore in what is ethically required. This might be seen as a virtue, rather than a vice of the view.

A second response to the challenge from evolutionary biology aims to draw metaphysical consequences from epistemic or semantic claims. Michael Thompson has argued that what he calls alternatively “the human life form” and “the human species” is an a priori category. Thompson substantiates this claim by examining forms of discourse touched on in section 3.2 , forms of discourse that are generally taken to be of mere heuristic importance for amateur practices of identification, viz. field guides or animal documentaries. Statements such as “The domestic cat has four legs, two eyes, two ears and guts in its belly”, are, Thompson claims, instances of an important kind of predication that is neither tensed nor quantifiable. He calls these “natural historical descriptions” or “Aristotelian categoricals” (Thompson 2008: 64ff.). Such generic claims are not, he argues, made false where what is predicated is less than universal, or even statistically rare. Decisively, according to Thompson, our access to the notion of the human life form is non-empirical. It is, he claims, a presupposition of understanding ourselves from the first-person perspective as breathing, eating or feeling pain (Thompson 2004: 66ff.). Thus understood, the concept is independent of biology and therefore, if coherent, immune to problems raised by the Darwinian challenge.

Like Foot and Hursthouse, Thompson thinks that his Aristotelian categoricals allow inferences to specific judgments that members of species are defective (Thompson 2004: 54ff.; 2008: 80). He admits that such judgments in the case of the human life form are likely to be fraught with difficulties, but nevertheless believes that judgments of (non-)defective realization of a life form are the model for ethical evaluation (Thompson 2004: 30, 81f.). It may seem unclear how this might be the case in view of the fact that access to the human life form is supposed to be given as a presupposition of using the concept of “I”. Another worry is that the everyday understanding on which Thompson draws may be nothing other than a branch of folk biology. The folk tendency to ascribe teleological essences to species, as to “races” and genders, is no indication of the reality of such essences (Lewens 2012: 469f.; Stotz & Griffiths 2018: 60ff.; cf. Pellegrin 1982 [1986: 16ff., 120] and Charles 2000: 343ff., 368, on Aristotle’s own orientation to the usage of “the people”).

A final response to evolutionary biologists’ worries aims equally to distinguish the Neo-Aristotelian account of human nature from that of the sciences. However, it does so not by introducing a special metaphysics of “life forms”, but by explicitly constructing an ethical concept of human nature. Martha Nussbaum argues that the notion of human nature in play in what she calls “Aristotelian essentialism” is, as she puts it, “internal and evaluative”. It is a hermeneutic product of “human” self-understanding, constructed from within our best ethical outlook: “an ethical theory of human nature”, she claims,

should force us to answer for ourselves, on the basis of our very own ethical judgment, the question which beings are fully human ones. (Nussbaum 1995: 121f.; cf. Nussbaum 1992: 212ff.; 2006: 181ff.; McDowell 1980 [1998: 18ff.]; Hursthouse 1999: 229; 2012: 174f.)

There can be no question here of moving from a biological “is” to an ethical “ought”; rather, which features are taken to belong to human nature is itself seen as the result of ethical deliberation. Such a conception maintains the claim that the key ethical standard is that of human flourishing. However, it is clear that what counts as flourishing can only be specified on the basis of ethical deliberation, understood as striving for reflective equilibrium (Nussbaum 2006: 352ff.). In view of such a methodological proposal, there is a serious question as to what work is precisely done by the concept of human nature.

Neo-Aristotelians vary in the extent to which they flesh out a conception of species-specific flourishing. Nussbaum draws up a comprehensive, open-ended catalogue of what she calls “the central human capacities”. These are in part picked out because of their vulnerability to undermining or support by political measures. They include both basic bodily needs and more specifically human capacities, such as for humour, play, autonomy and practical reason (Nussbaum 1992: 216ff.; 2006: 76ff.). Such a catalogue allows the setting of three thresholds, below which a human organism would not count as living a human life at all (anencephalic children, for instance), as living a fully human life or as living a good human life (Nussbaum 2006: 181). Nussbaum explicitly argues that being of human parents is insufficient for crossing the first, evaluatively set threshold. Her conception is partly intended to provide guidelines as to how societies should conceive disability and as to when it is appropriate to take political measures in order to enable agents with nonstandard physical or mental conditions to cross the second and third thresholds.

Nussbaum has been careful to insist that enabling independence, rather than providing care, should be the prime aim. Nevertheless, the structure of an account that insists on a “species norm”, below which humans lacking certain capacities count as less than fully flourishing, has prompted accusations of illiberality. According to the complaint, it disrespects the right of members of, for example, deaf communities to set the standards for their own forms of life (Glackin 2016: 320ff.).

Other accounts of species-specific flourishing have been considerably more abstract. According to Hursthouse, plants flourish when their parts and operations are well suited to the ends of individual survival and continuance of the species. In social animals, flourishing also tends to involve characteristic pleasure and freedom from pain, and a contribution to appropriate functioning of relevant social groups (Hursthouse 1999: 197ff.). The good of human character traits conducive to pursuit of these four ends is transformed, Hursthouse claims, by the addition of “rationality”. As a result, humans flourish when they do what they correctly take themselves to have reason to do—under the constraint that they do not thereby cease to foster the four ends set for other social animals (Hursthouse 1999: 222ff.). Impersonal benevolence is, for example, because of this constraint, unlikely to be a virtue. In such an ethical outlook, what particular agents have reason to do is the primary standard; it just seems to be applied under particular constraints. A key question is thus whether the content of this primary standard is really determined by the notion of species-specific flourishing.

Where Hursthouse’s account builds up to, and attempts to provide a “natural” framework for, the traditional Aristotelian ergon of reason, MacIntyre builds his account around the claim that flourishing specific to the human “species” is essentially a matter of becoming an “independent practical reasoner” (MacIntyre 1999: 67ff.). It is because of the central importance of reasoning that, although human flourishing shares certain preconditions with the flourishing, say, of dolphins, it is also vulnerable in specific ways. MacIntyre argues that particular kinds of social practices enable the development of human reasoning capacities and that, because independent practical reasoning is, paradoxically, at core cooperatively developed and structured, the general aim of human flourishing is attained by participation in networks in local communities (MacIntyre 1999: 108). “Independent practical reasoners” are “dependent rational animals”. MacIntyre’s account thus makes room on an explanatory level for the evolutionary insight that humans can only become rational in a socio-cultural context which provides scaffolding for the development and exercise of rationality ( §4 ). Normatively, however, this point is subordinated to the claim that, from the point of view of participation in the contemporary human life form, flourishing corresponds to the traditional slogan.

MacIntyre, Hursthouse and Nussbaum (Nussbaum 2006: 159f.) all aim to locate the human capacity for reasoning within a framework that encompasses other animals. Each argues that, although the capacities to recognise reasons as reasons and for deliberation on their basis transform the needs and abilities humans share with other animals, the reasons in question remain in some way dependent on humans’ embodied and social form of life. This emphasis is intended to distinguish an Aristotelian approach from other approaches for which the capacity to evaluate reasons for action as reasons and to distance oneself from ones desires is also the “central difference” between humans and other animals (Korsgaard 2006: 104; 2018: 38ff.; cf. MacIntyre 1999: 71ff.). According to Korsgaard’s Kantian interpretation of Aristotle’s ergon argument, humans cannot act without taking a normative stand on whether their desires provide them with reasons to act. This she takes to be the key structural feature of their life, which brings with it “a whole new way of functioning well or badly” (Korsgaard 2018: 48; cf. 1996: 93). In such an account, “human nature” is monistically understood as this one structural feature which is so transformative that the concept of life applicable to organisms that instantiate it is no longer that applicable to organisms that don’t. Only “humans” live their lives, because only they possess the type of intentional control over their bodily movements that grounds in evaluation of their actions and self-evaluation as agents (Korsgaard 2006: 118; 2008: 141ff.; cf. Plessner 1928 [1975: 309f.]).

We have arrived at an interpretation of the traditional slogan that cuts it off from a metaphysics with any claims to be “naturalistic”. The claim now is that the structural effect of the capacity for reasoning transforms those features of humans that they share with other animals so thoroughly that those features pale into insignificance. What is “natural” about the capacity for reasoning for humans here is its unavoidability for contemporary members of the species, at least for those without serious mental disabilities. Such assertions also tend to shade into normative claims that discount the normative status of “animal” needs in view of the normative authority of human reasoning (cf. McDowell 1996 [1998: 172f.]).

The most radical version of this thought leads to the claim encountered towards the end of section 1.4 : that talk of “human nature” involves no essential reference at all to the species Homo sapiens or to the hominin lineage. According to this view, the kind to which contemporary humans belong is a kind to which entities could also belong who have no genealogical relationship to humans. That kind is the kind of entities that act and believe in accordance with the reasons they take themselves to have. Aliens, synthetically created agents and angels are further candidates for membership in the kind, which would, unlike biological taxa, be spatiotemporally unrestricted. The traditional term for the kind, as employed by Aquinas and Kant, is “person” (cf. Hull 1986: 9).

Roger Scruton has recently taken this line, arguing that persons can only be adequately understood in terms of a web of concepts inapplicable to other animals, concepts whose applicability grounds in an essential moral dimension of the personal life form. The concepts pick out components of a life form that is permeated by relationships of responsibility, as expressed in reactive attitudes such as indignation, guilt and gratitude. Such emotions he takes to involve a demand for accountability, and as such to be exclusive to the personal life form, not variants of animal emotions (Scruton 2017: 52). As a result, he claims, they situate their bearers in some sense “outside the natural order” (Scruton 2017: 26). According to such an account, we should embrace a methodological dualism with respect to humans: as animals, they are subject to the same kinds of biological explanations as all other organisms, but as persons, they are subject to explanations that are radically different in kind. These are explanations in terms of reasons and meanings, that is, exercises in “Verstehen”, whose applicability Scruton takes to be independent of causal explanation (Scruton 2017: 30ff., 46).

Such an account demonstrates with admirable clarity that there is no necessary connection between a theory of “human nature” and metaphysical naturalism. It also reinforces the fact, emphasised throughout this entry, that discussions of “human nature” require both serious conceptual spadework and explicit justification of the use of any one such concept rather than another.

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Aquinas, Thomas | Aristotle, General Topics: biology | Aristotle, General Topics: ethics | ethics: virtue | evolution | Kant, Immanuel | Locke, John: on real essence | naturalism: moral | natural kinds | psychology: evolutionary | species

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I would like to thank Michelle Hooge, Maria Kronfeldner, Nick Laskowski and Hichem Naar for their comments on earlier drafts.

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• Published: 05 March 2020

Social media, nature, and life satisfaction: global evidence of the biophilia hypothesis

• Chia-chen Chang 1   na1 ,
• Gwyneth Jia Yi Cheng 1   na1 ,
• Thi Phuong Le Nghiem 1 ,
• Xiao Ping Song   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8825-195X 2 , 4 ,
• Rachel Rui Ying Oh   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2716-7727 3 ,
• Daniel R. Richards   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8196-8421 4 &
• L. Roman Carrasco   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2894-1473 1  

Scientific Reports volume  10 , Article number:  4125 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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• Human behaviour
• Psychology and behaviour

Humans may have evolved a need to connect with nature, and nature provides substantial cultural and social values to humans. However, quantifying the connection between humans and nature at a global scale remains challenging. We lack answers to fundamental questions: how do humans experience nature in different contexts (daily routines, fun activities, weddings, honeymoons, other celebrations, and vacations) and how do nature experiences differ across countries? We answer these questions by coupling social media and artificial intelligence using 31,534 social media photographs across 185 countries. We find that nature was more likely to appear in photographs taken during a fun activity, honeymoon, or vacation compared to photographs of daily routines. More importantly, the proportion of photographs with nature taken during fun activities is associated with national life satisfaction scores. This study provides global evidence of the biophilia hypothesis by showing a connection between humans and nature that contributes to life satisfaction and highlights how nature serves as background to many of our positive memories.

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Introduction.

Ecosystems provide multiple benefits to humans, encompassing economic, ecological, cultural, and social values 1 , 2 . Despite these benefits, continuing environmental degradation has placed millions of animal and plant species under risk of extinction 3 , 4 . Removal and degradation of natural environments is expected to have negative consequences on human wellbeing 5 . This disparity between the overexploitation of natural resources and its importance to humans stems largely from the difficulty in integrating the value of nature’s benefits to people (“ecosystem services”) into policy 6 .

The value of ecosystem services is complex and multifaceted 6 . Although significant progress has been made in the economic and ecological valuation of ecosystem services, much less attention has been paid to cultural and social values, which are the most complex to capture 7 . Cultural ecosystem services are intangible benefits that people gain from experiencing nature 7 , 8 . The concept of “nature” is amorphous, so here we define nature as including biodiversity, ecosystems, living organisms, landscapes, and seascapes 5 . Nature provides an environmental space for cultural practices (including interacting with nature directly or using nature as background for other social activities) and yields various benefits 9 . These benefits include, among others, spiritual experiences, recreation, ecotourism, aesthetic appreciation, and further improved social cohesion and subjective wellbeing 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 .

Quantifying cultural ecosystem services is challenging as they represent immaterial benefits and the assessment involves untangling the reasons behind why people enjoy a particular space 7 , 10 . Collecting such information involves surveys or interviews that are resource-intensive and typically limited to small spatial scales 11 , 12 . Especially, how people experience nature in everyday lives (e.g., urban greenspace) and how people interact with nature under different contexts (e.g., relaxation, celebration, socialization, or daily routines) are particularly difficult to study in a large spatial scale. Recent breakthroughs in the study of cultural ecosystem services and understanding human-nature interactions have been possible through the use of social media. For instance, analyzing the user-defined “tags” of photographs can help understand the context under which the photograph was taken and potentially the self-reported emotional state of users. Analysis of social media photographs has been used, for instance, to study recreational 13 and aesthetic qualities of natural areas 14 , preferences for nature-based activities in protected areas 15 , and associations between the use of outdoor space and happiness 16 . Despite these advances, global multi-country comparisons of cultural ecosystem services are lacking. Coupling social media with artificial intelligence for automated approaches in image recognition opens up unique opportunities to carry out large-scale studies of cultural ecosystem services to advance our understanding in human-nature relationships 17 .

One discipline that has studied the relationships between the experience of nature and human wellbeing is environmental psychology. According to the biophilia hypothesis (i.e., humanity’s innate tendency to connect with nature), humans largely relied on natural resources for survival and reproduction in human history, leading humans to evolve a tendency to prefer being close to nature through an emotional connection 18 . Psychological studies have demonstrated the capacity of nature to increase life satisfaction and improve attention restoration and stress recovery 19 , 20 , 21 . The psychological benefits gained from experiencing nature provide an important aspect of cultural ecosystem services 5 . People’s favorite places tend to have high restorative potential 10 . The locations where individuals can feel relaxed, forget their worries, and reflect on personal matters are often natural spaces 10 . We hypothesize that nature may play a role as a backdrop for key social contexts in a human’s life.

To test this hypothesis, we integrate both the fields of ecosystem services and environmental psychology to study how humans experience nature in various contexts, and how this relates to life satisfaction scores at a national level. Using the concept of cultural ecosystem services, we aim to analyze the links between nature (background), cultural practices (various contexts and activities), and benefits (cultural association between nature and positive social contexts and further life satisfaction). Based on the biophilia hypothesis and the capacity of nature for psychological restoration 19 , 20 , 21 , we hypothesize that humans tend to associate nature with positive social contexts, such as fun activities, celebrations, weddings, honeymoons, and vacations. In addition, we also investigate whether the relationship between nature experience and life satisfaction holds true at a cross-cultural level. We hypothesize that a nation with a stronger culture of experiencing nature would show higher life satisfaction as compared to other nations with a weaker culture in nature experience. We do this at an unprecedented global scale by leveraging on social media data and image recognition using machine learning algorithms.

We analyzed a total of 31,534 social media photographs uploaded on Flickr—a popular social media platform—using the Google Cloud Vision API. We used Flickr as the source of data because there are a large number of users (over 70 million users) and geotagged photographs (over 197 million) 13 . Flickr contains information about the location where many of the uploaded photographs were taken. These geotagged photographs allowed us to identify which country photographs were taken in. The photographs used in this study were geo-located across 185 countries, over a period of 11 years. We first assessed nature labels (i.e., image contents detected and generated by Google Cloud Vision API as nature-related labels) in photographs tagged by the users as “nature” and later checked the frequency of those labels within photographs tagged with specific contexts by users: people’s daily routines (as a baseline for comparisons with other contexts), fun activities, weddings, celebrations, honeymoons, and vacations. These social contexts were selected as they are likely to reflect people’s choice of favorite places when holding memorable social events/activities in their lives.

Analyzing the content of 5,362 photographs tagged by users as “nature”, we listed the most common nature labels identified by the image content analysis. These common nature labels covered from 7.3% to 40.2% of photographs (Fig.  1 ). These labels were subsequently categorized as: water, terrestrial landscapes, plants, animals, and nature in general terms (Fig.  1 ).

Word cloud showing the 40 most common nature labels detected by the image content analysis in 5,362 nature-tagged photographs. Word size is proportional to the frequency of occurrence. Nature labels were subsequently categorized into five different nature categories (color-coded, green: plants, brown: terrestrial landscapes, black: general terms, blue: water, purple: animals).

Comparing the frequencies of these nature labels identified in photographs tagged with various contexts by users (n = 26,172 photographs), we found that, across all five nature categories, photographs tagged with fun activities, honeymoons, and vacations were more likely to have nature labels identified in them than photographs tagged with daily routines (Figs.  2 , 3 , Table  S1 ). Honeymoon and vacation photographs were more likely to have nature labels in them than fun activity photographs, with the exception of animals (Table  S1 ). However, there was no difference between honeymoon photographs and vacation photographs in terms of the frequency of nature labels identified (Table  S1 ). Celebration photographs were less likely to have nature labels than daily routine photographs, except for plants (Figs.  2 , 3 , Table  S1 ). There was generally no significant difference between wedding photographs and daily routine photographs, except that wedding photographs were likely to have more plants and less animals (Figs.  2 , 3 , Table  S1 ). This indicates that people tend to associate fun activities, honeymoons and vacations with nature, but not celebratory social events.

The relationship between social contexts and the presence of nature. The coefficient estimate (± SE) of the generalized linear mixed-effects models for each social context and nature category. A positive (negative) coefficient indicates a more (less) propensity for photographs to contain nature labels than the control photographs. Control photographs were used as the baseline (photographs tagged with “daily” or “routine”). Fun activity, honeymoon, and vacation photographs were more likely to contain nature labels as compared to daily routine photographs, for all categories of nature (Table  S1 ). Celebration photographs were less likely to have nature labels than daily routine photographs, except for plants (Table  S1 ).

The proportion of photographs with nature labels identified with different nature categories (plants, terrestrial landscapes, general terms, water, animals) for each social context (daily routines, fun activities, weddings, celebrations, honeymoons, and vacations). Each point represents one country, and the size of points is proportional to the total number of photographs, and grey points represent the total number of photographs that are less than 10.

There was a wide variation in terms of how commonly nature appeared in photographs across countries (Table  S2 , Fig.  3 ). Nature commonly appeared in the photographs taken in some countries (e.g., for general nature terms: Iceland, Tanzania, Maldives, New Zealand, and Montenegro), but not in others (e.g., for general nature terms: Russia, Myanmar, China, Czech Republic, and Singapore).

We found that, at a cross-national level, there was a positive association between the national life satisfaction score and the proportion of nature labels (plants) in the fun activity photographs (Fig.  4a , Table  S3 , Coefficient = 4.70 ± 1.29, t value = 3.64, unadjusted p value = 0.0006, FDR adjusted p value = 0.039). However, this relationship was not significant in the vacation photographs (Fig.  4b , Table  S3 , Coefficient = 1.95 ± 1.21, t value = 1.61, unadjusted p value = 0.113, FDR adjusted p value = 0.516), which may have been taken by a higher proportion of overseas tourists. This relationship was also not significant in daily routine photographs (Fig.  4c , Table  S3 , Coefficient = −1.95 ± 3.96, t value = −0.49, unadjusted p value = 0.626, FDR adjusted p value = 0.881). These results suggest that the context-dependent relationship between the national level of life satisfaction score and nature experience appears in the residents of the country.

The relationship between national life satisfaction scores and the proportion of photographs with plant-related labels identified in three social contexts ( a fun activity, b vacation, c daily routine). National life satisfaction was positively associated with the proportion of nature labels (plants) in fun activity photographs, but not associated in the context of vacations and daily routines. The size of the point is proportional to the number of photographs.

Our results reveal that people are more likely to interact with nature in the context of fun activities, honeymoons, and vacations, suggesting an association between nature and these fun or relaxing moments. We also find that countries with more nature (plant-related) in fun activity photographs had higher life satisfaction, such as Costa Rica and Finland. These results, taken together, suggest the importance of nature in providing the background to positive social contexts, presumably fond memories, as well as in contributing to life satisfaction in communities worldwide.

A preference for natural environments during fun activities supports the biophilia hypothesis 18 . This biophilic relationship is more evident in the context of vacations and honeymoons, as both social contexts are intended to provide relaxation from daily routines and the possibly stressful period of organizing weddings or other celebratory events. This implies that humans not only associate nature with emotional happiness but also desire to experience nature probably because of experiences of awe, relaxation, and stress relief  22 , 23 . For instance, visiting nature has been shown to improve cognitive ability, reduce stress, and lower the risk of depression 5 , 19 , 24 . These results further confirm the importance of nature for travel and tourism worldwide 25 , which not only provides economic value but also psychological and cultural values.

Landscape aesthetics as a cultural ecosystem service is particularly important given that the biophilic relationship is pervasive across cultures. Analyzing photographs allows us to understand what and when people want to capture as memories and share with other people. The high frequency of nature in photographs taken during fun activities and vacations implies the significance of nature in some of our fondest memories. For example, national parks in South Africa and marine sites in the UK provide cultural and social values by providing a place identity (a sense of place, such as “reliving childhood memories” and “I miss these sites when I have been away from them for a long time”) 26 , 27 . Similarly, the Satoyama landscape in Japan tends to be regarded as “home” for many Japanese people 28 . Some other famous natural landscapes have been identified as important cultural values to local communities, such as the Waikaraka Estuary in New Zealand 29 and the Arafura-Timor seascape in Southeast Asia 30 . The human influence and loss of nature could potentially lead to the loss of these natural backgrounds to fond memories as well as diminish the cultural values of ecosystem services 30 .

In contrast, wedding photographs were not significantly different from daily routine photographs in terms of the presence of nature labels, and celebration photographs were generally less likely to have nature than daily routine photographs. This suggests that, unlike honeymoons or vacations, urban areas and closed settings (e.g. hotels) are chosen presumably for the convenience to organize social gatherings through high accessibility and to conform to traditional ceremonies 31 , and are thus prioritized over biophilic needs.

People vary in their connectedness to nature 32 , 33 . For example, some people spend time interacting with nature and perceive nature as an important component to their lives, but other people do not. We found that the frequency of nature that appeared in photographs varied widely across countries. This variation could be related to cultural and sociodemographic differences 34 , 35 . For example, it has been shown that Menominee Native Americans spend more time interacting with nature directly in their outdoor activities, as compared to European Americans 34 . Another comparative study also showed that Swiss participants preferred forests with high biodiversity, while Chinese participants did not show such preference 35 . The cultural variation in nature connectedness is important to be considered in the assessment and research in cultural ecosystem services.

Our study further reveals a positive relationship between life satisfaction and the presence of nature in fun activity photographs across multiple countries. Being correlational, these results could either point towards nature contributing to life satisfaction through fun memories, or to the tendency of people satisfied with their lives to spend time in a natural setting. Further research should focus on disentangling the cause and effect behind the observed patterns, as this could be an opportunity to design better programs for interacting with nature and improving human wellbeing. This result also points to the potentially synergistic effect of having social activities in the presence of nature. Different from the other contexts analyzed, fun activities are likely to be a social setting where people tend to interact with each other in a group. The combination of both social interaction and nature connection can be more rewarding than having either element alone 36 , 37 , 38 . Being related to both humans and nature is likely to contribute to our life satisfaction. For instance, it has been shown that in natural environments people tend to behave more altruistically and less selfishly, and that nature enhances social cohesion in communities and increases life satisfaction 23 , 39 . Interactions with nature, or within a natural backdrop, could strengthen social cohesion and improve life satisfaction.

Our analyses present several limitations. Although we know the country where the photograph was taken, we do not know whether it was taken by a local or a foreigner travelling to the country. Also, our focus on English tags assigned by Flickr users biased our results toward English-speaking nations and users. Further research could attempt to replicate our methods across multiple languages and photograph-sharing platforms. Although we performed verification checks to ensure that user-assigned tags led to the intended photographs (e.g. we excluded “proposal” as a tag for a special life event because it turned out to be ambiguous), some tags may lead to unrelated pictures, thus introducing noise to the analysis.

Integrating both the fields of cultural ecosystem services and environmental psychology through a photograph analysis at an unprecedented scale, we showed that people have a preference for nature in their fun activities, vacations, and honeymoons globally. Although our study represents only small steps in this line of inquiry, the findings suggest there is a whole underestimated dimension of the relationship between humans and nature through positive social contexts, presumably in the form of fond memories ultimately associated with life satisfaction. The main implication is that the loss of nature may mean more than losing quantifiable economic and ecological benefits; it could also mean losing the background to our fondest memories.

Choice of tags and nature labels

To select suitable nature elements that people associate with nature, we used “nature” as the tag, which is a self-reported keyword added by social media users when they upload to increase the photographs’ visibility. The common nature-related labels detected and generated by the Google image recognition API within the nature-tagged photographs were used as the nature labels in subsequent analyses.

We considered six contexts in this study. These were daily routines (as the baseline for comparisons), fun activities, weddings, celebrations, honeymoons, and vacations. Similarly, we used “tags” to identify these contexts. Daily routine related tags “daily” and “routine”, on separate searches, were used to retrieve daily routine photographs to be used as the baseline for comparisons. To identify general fun activities, we used the tags “fun” and “activity” on separate searches to retrieve the fun activity photographs. To investigate whether nature labels were more likely to be present in critical life events (weddings and honeymoons), we used wedding-related tags “wedding” and “marriage” to retrieve wedding photographs. The tag “honeymoon” was used solely for the honeymoon photographs. To distinguish between weddings and other types of celebrations as well as between honeymoons and other types of vacations, we also used the tag “celebration” to correspond to the celebration photographs, and vacation-related tags “vacation”, “holiday”, and “travel” to retrieve vacation photographs. Contexts and the tags used are summarized in Table  S4 .

Image extraction and content detection

To extract photographs globally, we used Flickr’s public API to retrieve photographs with tags. We used the abovementioned 12 target tags, and retrieved photographs across 11 years, from 1 st of January 2008 to 31 st December 2018. As users varied in the number of photographs uploaded, we randomly selected one photograph from each Flickr user per returned tag search and therefore each photograph corresponds to an unique user in each tag search. We retrieved only photographs that users of Flickr had chosen to make publicly visible, by filtering the privacy setting. We also extracted all other tags that users added in the retrieved photographs to confirm that the retrieved photographs contained the target tags. Photographs without target tags were removed. To identify the geographical location of the photographs, we also extracted the GPS coordinates of the photographs and used the revgeo package with OpenStreetMap 40 to identify the country of origin (n = 185).

To automatically detect the content within photographs, we used the Google Cloud Vision API through the RoogleVision package in R v3.5.3 41 . We used the label detection function to detect the content in a photograph. The Vision API can detect and generate various labels such as general objects, activities, locations, and products. We extracted a maximum of 15 labels from each photograph with a minimum confidence score of 0.5 (ranging from 0 to 1).

We performed a random manual check of 200 photographs (10 photographs across 20 countries) to verify the tags linked with the intended photographs, locations of photographs, and the accuracy of label detection. Among 200 photographs, all photographs showed correct contexts and countries, and captured nature content correctly for 91% of photographs (182/200) with the use of our nature labels.

Statistical analyses

Association between the presence of natural labels and tags.

We obtained 5,362 nature-tagged photographs. To understand what natural elements people may associate with nature, we first identified the common natural labels in the nature-tagged photographs. The Google Cloud Vision API detected and generated a total number of 2,942 labels, and we selected the 50 most frequently shown labels (each label appeared at least in 389 photographs among nature-tagged photographs). After filtering out irrelevant and ambiguous labels (i.e., adaptation, evening, green, morning, photography, reflection, sky, cloud, atmosphere, and atmospheric phenomenon), we grouped the nature-related labels into five nature categories: water, terrestrial landscapes, plants, animals, and nature in general terms (Table  S5 with frequency). These natural labels were used as the labels to identify the presence of nature in the photographs with various contexts.

Photographs that were retrieved using the “celebration” tag may actually be wedding photographs and, similarly, the “vacation” tag may retrieve honeymoon photographs. To further refine the separation of wedding photographs from generic celebration photographs, we searched “wedding” tags in celebration-tagged photographs, and those photographs were then categorized as wedding photographs. Similarly, we searched “honeymoon” tags among vacation-tagged photographs and considered those photographs as honeymoon photographs. After the regrouping, some photographs that were tagged with multiple target tags (e.g., fun and holiday) were included in the sample of more than one contexts, as they may contain multiple contexts according to our definitions. In total, we obtained 26,172 photographs, and 3,781 of them were categorized into more than one contexts. We had 3,236 photographs classed as daily routine photographs, 8,589 photographs classed as fun activity photographs, 3,098 photographs classed as wedding photographs, 4,227 photographs classed as celebration photographs, 880 photographs classed as honeymoon photographs, and 10,129 photographs classed as vacation photographs. To evaluate the effect of including photographs in multiple contexts on the conclusions, a second analysis was run with the dataset after removing repeated photographs (n = 22,391, Table  S6 ).

We performed generalized linear mixed-effects models with a binomial error structure. The presence or absence of certain nature categories (according to previously identified nature labels) was coded as a response variable (e.g., a photograph in which it was detected the presence of the nature label “tree” was considered as an instance of “plants” in the nature category, Table  S5 ). The context was coded as the fixed effect, and country was considered as the random effect. The random effect for country attempted to account for national-level cultural differences and availability of natural space. The random effect for each country was extracted using the ranef function. We performed a total of four sets of analyses with different contexts as the baseline: 1) comparing fun activities, weddings, celebrations, honeymoons, and vacations against daily routines, 2) comparing weddings, celebrations, honeymoons, and vacations against fun activities, 3) comparing between weddings and celebrations, and 4) comparing honeymoons and vacations. We ran five models (for each nature category separately) in each set of analyses except for the natural category animal in 3) and 4) due to convergence failures. The p values were adjusted for multiple comparisons using the false discovery rate (FDR, with a total of 53 p values).

Association between life satisfaction and presence of natural labels in photographs

To investigate the association between the life satisfaction and proportion of photographs with the presence of nature at a cross-national level, we calculated the proportion of the photographs containing nature labels (for each nature category) in each context (i.e., daily routine, fun activity, wedding, celebration, honeymoon, and vacation) for each country. To ensure that each country is adequately represented, we removed countries that had less than 10 photographs for a given context.

We used life satisfaction in the Cantril Ladder scale (ranging from 0 to 10) with the average of survey responses from each country in 2017 42 , 43 . To control for the income of countries, we used GDP per capita based on purchasing power parities in 2017 42 , 43 , 44 . A total of 69 countries were used in the statistical analysis.

We ran linear regressions with life satisfaction as a response variable, and GDP per capita (to control for the relationship between wealth and life satisfaction), proportion of photographs with nature labels for each nature category, and the interaction between both variables were considered as the explanatory variables. We ran different models for different social contexts and each nature category was run separately. The p values were adjusted for multiple comparisons using the false discovery rate (with a total of 60 p values).

Data availability

All the photographs data can be retrieved using Flickr’s public API, and national life satisfaction and GDP data are available in Our World in Data (see ref. 43 ).

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge research funds from the National Parks Board and the Ministry of National Development, Singapore.

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These authors contributed equally: Chia-chen Chang and Gwyneth Jia Yi Cheng.

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Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, 14 Science Drive 4, Singapore, 117543, Singapore

Chia-chen Chang, Gwyneth Jia Yi Cheng, Thi Phuong Le Nghiem & L. Roman Carrasco

Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore, 117566, Singapore, Singapore

Xiao Ping Song

School of Biological Sciences, Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Sciences, University of Queensland, 4072, Brisbane, Australia

Rachel Rui Ying Oh

ETH Zurich, Singapore-ETH Centre, 1 Create Way, 138602, Singapore, Singapore

Xiao Ping Song & Daniel R. Richards

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L.R.C. and D.R.R. conceptualized the research. C.C., G.J.Y.C., L.R.C. collected data and performed data analysis. C.C., and L.R.C. produced the first draft. All authors revised the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Chia-chen Chang , Daniel R. Richards or L. Roman Carrasco .

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Chang, Cc., Cheng, G.J.Y., Nghiem, T.P.L. et al. Social media, nature, and life satisfaction: global evidence of the biophilia hypothesis. Sci Rep 10 , 4125 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-60902-w

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Kant’s Human Being: Essays on His Theory of Human Nature

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This book continues and deepens avenues of research first initiated in the author’s highly acclaimed book, Kant’s Impure Ethics . Drawing on a wide variety of both published and unpublished works spanning all periods of Kant’s extensive writing career, the author focuses on Kant’s under-appreciated empirical work on human nature, with particular attention to the connections between this body of work and his much-discussed ethical theory. Kant repeatedly claimed that the question, “What is the human being” is philosophy’s most fundamental question, one that encompasses all others. The author analyzes and evaluates Kant’s own answer to his question, showing how it differs from other accounts of human nature. The book is divided into three parts. Part One explores the nature and role of virtue in Kant’s ethical theory, showing how the conception of human nature behind Kant’s virtue theory results in a virtue ethics that is decidedly different from more familiar Aristotelian virtue ethics programs. Part Two uncovers the dominant moral message in Kant’s anthropological investigations, drawing new connections between Kant’s work on human nature and his ethics. Part Three explores specific aspects of Kant’s theory of human nature developed outside of his anthropology lectures, in his works on religion, geography, education, and aesthetics, and shows how these writings substantially amplify his account of human beings.

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November 20, 2012

Scientists Probe Human Nature--and Discover We Are Good, After All

Recent studies find our first impulses are selfless

By Adrian F. Ward

When it really comes down to it—when the chips are down and the lights are off—are we naturally good? That is, are we predisposed to act cooperatively, to help others even when it costs us? Or are we, in our hearts, selfish creatures?

This fundamental question about human nature has long provided fodder for discussion. Augustine’s doctrine of original sin proclaimed that all people were born broken and selfish, saved only through the power of divine intervention. Hobbes , too, argued that humans were savagely self-centered; however, he held that salvation came not through the divine, but through the social contract of civil law. On the other hand, philosophers such as Rousseau argued that people were born good, instinctively concerned with the welfare of others. More recently, these questions about human nature—selfishness and cooperation, defection and collaboration—have been brought to the public eye by game shows such as Survivor and the UK’s Golden Balls , which test the balance between selfishness and cooperation by pitting the strength of interpersonal bonds against the desire for large sums of money.

But even the most compelling televised collisions between selfishness and cooperation provide nothing but anecdotal evidence. And even the most eloquent philosophical arguments mean noting without empirical data.

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A new set of studies provides compelling data allowing us to analyze human nature not through a philosopher’s kaleidoscope or a TV producer’s camera, but through the clear lens of science. These studies were carried out by a diverse group of researchers from Harvard and Yale—a developmental psychologist with a background in evolutionary game theory , a moral philosopher-turned-psychologist , and a biologist-cum-mathematician —interested in the same essential question: whether our automatic impulse—our first instinct —is to act selfishly or cooperatively.

This focus on first instincts stems from the dual process framework of decision-making, which explains decisions (and behavior) in terms of two mechanisms: intuition and reflection. Intuition is often automatic and effortless, leading to actions that occur without insight into the reasons behind them. Reflection, on the other hand, is all about conscious thought—identifying possible behaviors, weighing the costs and benefits of likely outcomes, and rationally deciding on a course of action. With this dual process framework in mind, we can boil the complexities of basic human nature down to a simple question: which behavior—selfishness or cooperation—is intuitive, and which is the product of rational reflection? In other words, do we cooperate when we overcome our intuitive selfishness with rational self-control, or do we act selfishly when we override our intuitive cooperative impulses with rational self-interest?

To answer this question, the researchers first took advantage of a reliable difference between intuition and reflection: intuitive processes operate quickly, whereas reflective processes operate relatively slowly. Whichever behavioral tendency—selfishness or cooperation—predominates when people act quickly is likely to be the intuitive response; it is the response most likely to be aligned with basic human nature.

The experimenters first examined potential links between processing speed, selfishness, and cooperation by using 2 experimental paradigms (the “ prisoner’s dilemma ” and a “ public goods game ”), 5 studies, and a tot al of 834 participants gathered from both undergraduate campuses and a nationwide sample. Each paradigm consisted of group-based financial decision-making tasks and required participants to choose between acting selfishly—opting to maximize individual benefits at the cost of the group—or cooperatively—opting to maximize group benefits at the cost of the individual. The results were striking: in every single study, faster—that is, more intuitive—decisions were associated with higher levels of cooperation, whereas slower—that is, more reflective—decisions were associated with higher levels of selfishness. These results suggest that our first impulse is to cooperate—that Augustine and Hobbes were wrong, and that we are fundamentally “good” creatures after all.

The researchers followed up these correlational studies with a set of experiments in which they directly manipulated both this apparent influence on the tendency to cooperate—processing speed—and the cognitive mechanism thought to be associated with this influence—intuitive, as opposed to reflective, decision-making. In the first of these studies, researchers gathered 891 participants (211 undergraduates and 680 participants from a nationwide sample) and had them play a public goods game with one key twist: these participants were forced to make their decisions either quickly (within 10 seconds) or slowly (after at least 10 seconds had passed). In the second, researchers had 343 participants from a nationwide sample play a public goods game after they had been primed to use either intuitive or reflective reasoning. Both studies showed the same pattern—whether people were forced to use intuition (by acting under time constraints) or simply encouraged to do so (through priming), they gave significantly more money to the common good than did participants who relied on reflection to make their choices. This again suggests that our intuitive impulse is to cooperate with others.

Taken together, these studies—7 total experiments, using a whopping 2,068 participants—suggest that we are not intuitively selfish creatures. But does this mean that we our naturally cooperative? Or could it be that cooperation is our first instinct simply because it is rewarded? After all, we live in a world where it pays to play well with others: cooperating helps us make friends, gain social capital, and find social success in a wide range of domains. As one way of addressing this possibility, the experimenters carried out yet another study. In this study, they asked 341 participants from a nationwide sample about their daily interactions—specifically, whether or not these interactions were mainly cooperative; they found that the relationship between processing speed (that is, intuition) and cooperation only existed for those who reported having primarily cooperative interactions in daily life. This suggests that cooperation is the intuitive response only for those who routinely engage in interactions where this behavior is rewarded—that human “goodness” may result from the acquisition of a regularly rewarded trait.

Throughout the ages, people have wondered about the basic state of human nature—whether we are good or bad, cooperative or selfish. This question—one that is central to who we are—has been tackled by theologians and philosophers, presented to the public eye by television programs, and dominated the sleepless nights of both guilt-stricken villains and bewildered victims; now, it has also been addressed by scientific research. Although no single set of studies can provide a definitive answer—no matter how many experiments were conducted or participants were involved—this research suggests that our intuitive responses, or first instincts , tend to lead to cooperation rather than selfishness.

Although this evidence does not definitely solve the puzzle of human nature, it does give us evidence we may use to solve this puzzle for ourselves—and our solutions will likely vary according to how we define “human nature.” If human nature is something we must be born with, then we may be neither good nor bad, cooperative nor selfish. But if human nature is simply the way we tend to act based on our intuitive and automatic impulses, then it seems that we are an overwhelmingly cooperative species, willing to give for the good of the group even when it comes at our own personal expense.

Are you a scientist who specializes in neuroscience, cognitive science, or psychology? And have you read a recent peer-reviewed paper that you would like to write about? Please send suggestions to Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist at the Boston Globe. He can be reached at garethideas AT gmail.com or Twitter @garethideas .

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Biophilia: Does Visual Contact with Nature Impact on Health and Well-Being?

Bjørn grinde.

1 Norwegian Institute of Public Health, PO Box 4404 Nydalen, 0403 Oslo, Norway

Grete Grindal Patil

2 Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Box 5003, N-1432 Ås, Norway; E-Mail: [email protected]

It is concluded that an environment devoid of Nature may act as a “discord”, i.e., have a negative effect. While the term mismatch is used for any difference between present living conditions and the environment of evolutionary adaptation, discords are mismatches with a potentially undesirable impact on health or quality of life. The problem is partly due to the visual absence of plants, and may be ameliorated by adding elements of Nature, e.g., by creating parks, by offering a view through windows, and by potted plants. The conclusion is based on an evaluation of some fifty relevant empirical studies.

1. Introduction

The hypothesis that humans have an inherent inclination to affiliate with Nature has been referred to as biophilia [ 1 , 2 ]. Biophilia implies affection for plants and other living things. Cities and indoor environments are dominated by manmade objects; the question is whether the concomitant depletion of natural elements has a negative impact on the human mind.

In most cultures, both present and past, one can observe behavior reflecting a fondness for Nature. For example, tomb paintings from ancient Egypt, as well as remains found in the ruins of Pompeii, substantiate that people brought plants into their houses and gardens more than 2,000 years ago [ 3 ]. Moreover, in most cities, trees are planted and parks established in order to improve the environment. A tendency to add elements of Nature seems to be a universal human feature; evident wherever manmade surroundings tend to remove humans from a natural setting, and where the people are sufficiently affluent to afford doing something about it. The behavior is, presumably, a response to the biophilic quality of the human mind [ 4 ].

The first hospitals in Europe were infirmaries in monastic communities where a garden was considered an essential part of the environment in that it supported the healing process [ 5 ]. Since then the connection between greenery and either therapeutic or preventive medicine has gradually been outmoded, partly due to the advance of medical science and the concomitant technical approaches to healing. Over the last decades, however, considerable research has been carried out looking at the effects of being in Nature, and of adding plants to otherwise sterile environments. To the extent that the results are positive, the idea that access to nature can aid healing, or help prevent ailments, may eventually be incorporated into evidence based medicine.

Adding elements of Nature to living spaces can presumably induce positively valued changes in cognition and emotion, which again may impact on stress level, health and well-being. In order to allocate resources for the purpose of creating more natural environments, it is important to assess what sort of return can be expected. Here we review a range of current data, focusing primarily on recent work published in established scientific journals. Some fifty empirical studies were examined with the following aims: One, to verify whether the biophilia hypothesis has merit; two, to suggest what sort of influence the presence of plants may have on the human mind; and three, to evaluate to what extent adding elements of nature can compensate for visits to the outdoors and thereby be used as a preventive measure to improve health and well-being. Although plants may enhance the environment in several ways, including improved air quality and the addition of fragrance, we here focus on the visual impact.

2. Theoretical Perspectives

Humans, like any other species, have been shaped by the forces of evolution. The term Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation , or EEA, is used to denote the qualities of the environment humans are adapted to live in [ 6 , 7 ]. Obviously this environment comprised a closer presence of Nature compared to what most people experience today. Plants were of crucial importance for survival during most of our evolutionary history; as a food resource, for shelter, and as an indicator of water. On a purely theoretical ground, one would expect the presence of plants, as an integral part of the human EEA, to have had an impact on the evolution of the brain. We are presumably adapted to live in a green environment.

Deviations from the way of life for which we are genetically designed have been referred to as mismatches [ 8 ]. Some mismatches are beneficial, such as sleeping on a mattress instead of on the ground, while others may contribute to disease or reduce life quality. The word discord is used for mismatches that have a negative impact; i.e., they cause some form of “stress”, at least in susceptible individuals [ 9 ].

Zoological gardens illustrate the role of discords. Zoo keepers need expertise as to what sort of conditions one ought to provide the various species of animals. As a rule of thumb the ideal is to approach as close as possible the EEA of the species in question; i.e., to offer the type of conditions that the species have in the wild. Refraining from this rule easily leads to animals that show inappropriate behavior such as hurting themselves and refusing to mate or eat. Obviously it is impossible to offer the exact EEA within the confinement of a zoo, thus the focus is on avoiding the more troublesome discords.

Modern societies can be construed as “zoological gardens” in that the environment necessarily is different from the EEA. A relevant step towards improving the situation is to avoid discords by creating an environment that approaches as much as possible the EEA. A constructive strategy is to suggest candidate discords by comparing present living with assumptions about the environment humans are adapted to live in, and subsequently assess these putative discords by empirical research. The implications, as to the presence of plants, is that although the absence of natural elements is an obvious mismatch, research is required to decide to what extent it is also a discord.

Although any organ or bodily function can suffer from discords, the human brain appears to be particularly vulnerable—due to its complexity, the fact that it requires substantial maturation after birth, and that the maturation takes place in response to environmental stimuli. This vulnerability presumably helps explain why mental disorders are one of the main health problems of Western societies [ 10 ]. Thus, to the extent that a lack of natural elements is a discord, one would expect that a closer association with nature should improve psychological health. Most of the research related to biophilia has focused on positive effects of associating with plants rather than negative, i.e., discord, effects of removing greenery. According to the concept of discords, a positive effect suggests that those who presently obtain a suboptimal dose of exposure to plants have a concomitant reduced life quality. Current statistics of mental health does not contradict this model.

Most studies dealing with psychological benefits of Nature are within the field of environmental psychology, and are typically based on theories of restorative effects. Restoration, in this context, implies the process of regaining psychological, social and physical capacity [ 11 ]. One theory suggests that the visual environment is important for stress recovery and that stress reduction is faster in Nature compared to urban environments [ 12 , 13 ]. It is argued that stress activation has evolved through evolution as a strategy to deal with situations that threatens well-being. Too much stress may lead to various ailments, including anxiety related disorders [ 14 ]. A visual presence of plants may be one such stress-reducing factor as affective responses to visual stimuli deemed aesthetic may release tension. Beauty has been defined as visual input that gives pleasure to the mind, thus aesthetics offer per definition a positive experience. A theoretical examination of aesthetic values points towards the importance of elements reflecting Nature; such as complexity, choice of colors, perspective and balance [ 15 ]. In other words, Nature itself may offer potent aesthetic stimuli.

The Attention Restoration Theory offers an alternative way of explaining psychological benefits of Nature [ 16 ]. Directing attention to demanding tasks and dealing with disturbing environmental factors may lead to mental fatigue. On the other hand, environments that provide a possibility for more effortless attention offer an opportunity to restore mental capacity. Surroundings dominated by elements of Nature are thought to be restorative.

Although it would be useful to understand how the visual presence of plants can have a positive effect on well-being and health, one should be open for the possibility that the natural environment influences subconscious parts of the brain in ways that cannot easily be described. Objects within the field of vision may in fact exert an influence even if the conscious brain does not recognize their existence. The classical example is the response evoked by a twig on the ground if it remotely resembles a snake: The fear is initiated prior to any visual inspection of the twig. Similarly, plants may impact on brain processes through unconscious mechanisms even when they are not the object of focus. The absence of plants may suggest an “unnatural”, and thus potentially unsafe, environment.

Non-visual aspects of adding plants to the environment may also play a role, for example fragrance [ 17 ], or improving acoustics [ 18 ]. Moreover, effects on health can be conveyed by the way plants influence the microclimate, i.e., by improving humidity and purifying the air [ 19 , 20 ]. The present review will focus on visual aspects. Although empirical data offer clues as to possible advantages of associating with Nature, it should be noted that in most cases there is limited information as to how the effects are elicited.

3. Empirical Studies on Outdoor Environment

Over the past decades, an increasing number of studies have documented that experiences in, or of, Nature can be beneficial for human health and well-being. The issue has been reviewed in a report for the Health Council of the Netherlands [ 21 ], which concludes that there is a positive link between health indicators and living close to Nature.

More specifically, contact with Nature has been reported to have psychological benefits by reducing stress [ 12 , 22 ], improving attention [ 16 ], by having a positive effect on mental restoration [ 23 – 25 ], and by coping with attention deficits [ 26 , 27 ]. In addition to mental advantages, there appear to be direct physical health benefits [ 28 ], such as increased longevity [ 29 ], and self-reported health [ 30 , 31 ]. As might be expected, the availability of Nature correlates positively with health [ 32 ]. Benefits have been associated with various types of Nature experiences, including true wilderness [ 33 , 34 ], neighbourhood parks [ 35 , 36 ], gardens [ 37 – 39 ], and natural features around residences [ 40 , 41 ].

The stress reducing effect may be a key element as to the health benefits of Nature. Stress plays a role in the etiology and course of several common health problems, including cardiovascular diseases, anxiety disorders and depression. It is noteworthy that beneficial effects of Nature can occur even upon relatively brief exposure.

A main concern with most of the studies mentioned above is to decipher what is actually causing the benefits. Ulrich [ 13 ] points to four possible advantages: One, being in Nature tends to correlate with physical activity, which obviously promotes health. Two, Nature activities often implies socializing, e.g., in the form of walking together or sitting in a park with friends. Building social networks has a well documented potential for improving health. Three, Nature offers temporary escape from everyday routines and demands. The fourth option is the question of to what extent the interaction with Nature itself has an appreciable impact on the mind; in other words, is there an extra benefit of performing these tasks in a natural environment, or can the physical and social advantages alone explain the observed benefits?

The idea that being in Nature may improve health has led to organized activities referred to as therapeutic horticultural (for a review, see [ 42 ]). The term typically implies that a group of people comes together to do gardening or in other ways interact with or care for plants. Therapeutic horticultural activities have apparently had some success, primarily for people with mental health problems or learning difficulties, although empirical data is limited [ 43 ].

If Nature itself is responsible for some of the advantages, the next question is how to explain this effect? Again there are at least three options: One, the air may be more healthy in that it contains less air pollutants and more humidity; two, the plants may emit fragrances that humans find pleasant or react to in various ways [ 17 , 44 ]; or three, which is the main subject for the present review, the visual experience of plants makes a difference. As will be discussed below, some reports contain data relevant for singling out the potential of the latter option.

One approach relevant to the task of distinguishing between visual and non-visual effects is to consider the outcome of simply viewing Nature through a window or seeing pictures of Nature. To the extent that looking at Nature makes a difference, the other possible explanations can normally be ruled out. It has been reported that viewing natural landscapes provides psychological and health benefits, including a reduction in stress [ 12 , 13 , 45 ]. Having a hospital window with a view has been shown to improve healing, reflected in both the level of pain medication and the speed of recovery after surgery [ 48 , 49 ]. In reviewing this issue, Velarde et al. [ 50 ] found that natural landscapes have a consistent positive health effect, while urban landscapes can have a negative effect

To conclude this section, nature appears to have qualities useful for stress relief, mental restoration, and improved mood simply by being consciously or unconsciously “pleasing to the eye”. Although there are several other ways in which the availability of plants can contribute to health, the visual aspect is presumably sufficient to offer some advantage.

4. Empirical Studies on Indoor Environment

The next question is whether adding elements of Nature, in the form of plants or other items resembling Nature, to indoor environments offers some of the advantages of outdoor nature. This is a relevant question as we spend a major part of our time indoors [ 51 ].

It has been shown that office employees seem to compensate for lack of window view by introducing indoor plants or pictures of Nature [ 52 ]. An ensuing question is whether the plants or pictures improve performance, health, or well-being for the employees. In the same study population it was found that having a view to plants from the work station decreased the amount of self-reported sick leave [ 53 ].

Experimental studies on psychological benefits of indoor plants have recently been reviewed in a report including more than twenty studies [ 54 ]. Most of these studies concern people in settings reflecting everyday life, such as the workplace, students at school, or patients in hospitals. Some studies were more experimental in Nature, typically recruiting college students as subjects for testing the effect of plants in the laboratory. Almost all of the studies had a no-plant control condition, but otherwise they showed considerable variation in experimental manipulations, both quantitatively (e.g., number of plants) and qualitatively (e.g., a distinction between flowering and non-flowering foliage, size, shape and plant species). The duration of exposure to plants also varied, from minutes in laboratory studies up to a year in workplace settings. The measured outcomes reflected practical concerns of the research, and included task performance, affect, physiological arousal, pain perception, health and discomfort symptoms, social behavior, and room evaluations. Some studies found beneficial effect(s), while others did not, or only found them for some groups. None of the studies reported any significant negative outcome associated with the presence of plants.

Several studies indicated that indoor plants improve the attractiveness of a room [ 55 – 58 ]. Dijkstra et al. [ 58 ], for example, found that by showing photos of hospital rooms with or without plants, those with plants reduced self-reported stress. Other studies also indicate lower stress level when adding plants to a windowless work environment [ 22 , 59 ].

The biophilia hypothesis might suggest an impact of plants on emotional states; however, several studies have failed to find any consistent impact [ 56 , 60 – 62 ]. Some studies, using mood scales including several items, found significant differences, but only on particular items [ 57 , 59 , 63 ]. Adachi et al. [ 57 ] even reported possible negative effects of plants on annoyance and temper. A couple of reports suggested gender differences in that women, particularly those with a relatively high level of preinduced stress, had the most benefit [ 17 , 44 ].

The idea of a stress-reducing effect also inspired experiments concerned with pain and recovery from disease [ 63 – 66 ]. One starting point for these studies was the idea that the pleasant and attention holding (i.e., positively distracting) properties of plants might keep a person from focusing on pain. All the studies concluded that the subjects had better tolerance for pain with than without plants present. One report [ 64 ] suggested that flowering plants have more positive effects on pain tolerance and distress than non-flowering plants. Lohr and Pearson-Mims [ 63 ] observed an effect on pain tolerance, apparently due to more than just a distracting quality of plants.

Other experiments have looked at the effect of plants on task performance or self-reported alertness [ 56 , 59 , 60 , 62 ]. The idea is that the presence of indoor plants may help restore attention by relaxing the subjects and help them recover from mental fatigue. Positive effects of plants were reported, although the results are somewhat ambiguous. One report found that performance on a letter identification task decreased with the presence of a larger number of plants, which was taken to suggest that fascination with plants may interfere with the focus on the task at hand [ 56 ].

A decrease in health complaints, such as tiredness and coughing, has been reported in office and hospital workers when plants were added to the work environment [ 67 , 68 ]. Similar findings on conceived health and level of discomfort were observed in school children [ 68 ]. The authors ascribe the positive outcome in these experiments to either an improvement in air quality, or that a more pleasant visual environment affected the amount of health complaints.

It is worth mentioning that plants may be viewed as one among many types of aesthetic features added to enhance indoor environments. A study by Lohr and Pearson-Mims [ 63 ], however, suggests that plants may have advantages. They found that plants had greater attention holding power and gave greater relief from pain compared to other aesthetic objects such as a designer lamp or an abstract picture. The room with plants was also perceived as more cheerful, pleasant, and inviting.

As in the case of the outdoor studies, it is not obvious that the indoor results reflect solely the visual presence of plants. It is difficult to exclude an effect of fragrance or of air quality. However, it seems fair to assume that visual impact is an important factor.

5. Discussion

Taking all the reviewed evidence into account, the idea that interacting with Nature can offer positive effects on health and well-being seems to be reasonably well substantiated. Thus, the biophilia hypothesis has merit. The evidence includes studies on outdoor activities, therapeutic use of Nature, having a view of Nature (either actual Nature or in pictures), and adding plants to indoor environments. Moreover, the notion that part of the effect is mediated through visual contact with plants also appears to be substantiated. The above statement is based on empirical data, but supported by theoretical expectations, which suggest that the absence of Nature is a potential discord. The latter point has been raised recently by Richard Louv [ 69 ], who use the term nature-deficit , and suggests that the increase in prevalences of conditions such as obesity, attention disorders, and depression is partly due to a decrease in the degree children are exposed to Nature.

Biophilia may be described as a vague preference for having a natural environment as a consequence of our evolutionary history. As such, one would expect that plants are agreeable, and that the absence of greenery is sensed, possibly unconsciously, as a stress factor. In other words, the presence of plants can impact on the human mind. Biophilia, however, is probably not an attribute with a strong penetrance. Thus the relationship between humans and plants is likely to be shaped to a large extent by cultural factors and individual peculiarities [ 47 ].

On a theoretical basis, it should be expected that if plants in a natural setting have an impact, so would indoor greenery. However, one might also expect that disconnected, potted plants are less potent than outdoor Nature. The overall trend in the literature appears to support this contention. In their review, Bringslimark et al. [ 54 ] focused on the benefits of indoor plants. They concluded that although some findings recurred, such as enhanced pain management with plants present, the mixed results from the studies suggest that more research is needed in order to define possible effects. None of the studies reported obvious negative effects. It might be argued that if there was no effect, an equal number of studies would be expected to find negative as positive correlates between health parameters and the presence of plants. On the other hand, publications are liable to the bias of preferential reporting of positive results. It is not possible to know how many trustworthy neutral or negative findings that are not published, but the fact that several articles reported absence of effect indicates that both types of results would be publishable.

One problem in detecting possible effects is that most studies, for practical reasons, span a short time-period. Some only look at brief exposure to plants, while others may follow subjects for a year or so. To the extent that the absence of plants is a discord, one might expect that the consequences are more likely to be apparent over a life time. Moreover, although the therapeutic or preventive potential of plants is likely to be limited, as the indoor environment is the daily setting for a majority of the present population, even minor effects of adding plants can add up to a substantial decrease in the health burden on a global scale.

The positive effect of having a view from the window may be related more to the perceived openness than to any particularities of the vista. Velarde et al. [ 50 ] addressed this issue and concluded that seeing open water is better than open city landscapes, but that green landscapes offered the best effect. In this context, it should, however, be mentioned that green spaces perceived to be unmanaged may have an adverse effect in the cities by causing an increased anxiety for crime [ 70 ].

Some studies reported differences in the response to plants depending on gender [ 17 , 44 , 61 , 62 ]. Although the results were somewhat mixed, there seemed to be a tendency for women to respond stronger to plants than men. On a theoretical ground one might expect that women take more interest in plants due to differences in activities during the formative period of human evolution; that is, women were supposedly more involved in gathering plants as food, while men were more tuned towards hunting. However, the difference may also be due to cultural bias; for example, in Western societies it has traditionally been the task of women to care for the home, which will typically include both garden and indoor plants.

There seems to be a current trend towards a love for TV and computer screens rather than for nature, in that people use the former more and the latter less [ 71 , 72 ]. Although indoor plants may ameliorate some of the negative effects of this trend, it can hardly be more than a substitute for experiencing real Nature outdoors.

The biophilia trait can be reinforced or subdued by individual learning. It seems likely, however, that even in individuals who do not express any appreciation for plants and nature, the lack of nature can have a negative effect. Moreover, although the demonstrated effects are not overwhelming, the cost of making nature available, if only as potted plants, is neither prohibiting. In other words, it seems worthwhile to encourage interaction with plants, both outdoor and indoor, as this is likely to be a useful environmental initiative with a sound cost-benefit profile.

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The Right-Wing Story About Human Nature Is False

Are we naturally violent, power-hungry, and greedy? Rutger Bregman’s book “Humankind” devastates the myth of human selfishness.

• Nathan J. Robinson
• “All men would be tyrants if they could.” — John Adams* 
• “It is just as foolish to complain that people are selfish and treacherous, as it is to complain that the magnetic field does not increase unless the electric field has a curl. Both are laws of nature.” — John von Neumann
• “Humankind’s covetousness is boundless…  Its selfishness appears to be genetically inborn .” —  Paul Bahn and John Flenley, Easter Island, Earth Island *  
• “Tell me, is there some society you know that doesn’t run on greed? You think Russia doesn’t run on greed? You think China doesn’t run on greed?… The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests.” — Milton Friedman  
• “Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.” — Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene *
• “No one needs a scientist to measure whether humans are prone to knavery. The question has been answered in the history books, the newspapers, the ethnographic record, and the letters to Ann Landers. But people treat it like an open question, as if someday science might discover that it’s all a bad dream and we will wake up to find that it is human nature to love one another.” — Steven Pinker  
• “For this can be said of men in general: that they are ungrateful, fickle, hypocrites.” — Machiavelli * 
• “Our nature is not only destitute and empty of good, but so fertile and fruitful of every evil that it cannot be idle. ” — John Calvin* 
• “As a rule men do wrong whenever they can.” — Aristotle
• “Remove the elementary staples of organized, civilized life—food, shelter, drinkable water, minimal personal security—and we all go back within hours to a Hobbesian state of nature, a war of all against all. ” — Timothy Garton Ash *
• “No one likes to think they’re a Nazi, but everyone is one.” “Granted the opportunity, how many of us would not be Hitlers?” — Jordan Peterson Humankind. Thanks to Troy Parfitt for supplying Peterson quotes." rel="footnote">1

One common view of human beings is that we are “by nature” selfish, violent, cruel, and untrustworthy, and that, to the extent we manage to restrain these base instincts, it is because we are taught to be generous, and punished if we go around hurting others. Sometimes this view is accompanied by a story about human development: once upon a time, life was nasty, brutish, and short, a war of all against all. Prehistoric human beings were violent barbarians. Fortunately, civilization has gradually brought out the better angels of our nature. Free markets can actually direct humans’ natural selfishness toward socially beneficial ends, and laws backed by the threat of violence are able to ensure that a semblance of order is maintained. But this progress is fragile and depends on maintaining our existing institutions roughly as they are. Civilization could easily be destroyed if you tamper with it, and we could lapse back into barbarism. The primatologist Frans de Waal coined the term “veneer theory” to describe the idea that morality and civilization are essentially a thin veneer that is easily cracked, and that beneath it is a “natural” state in which we are warlike and irrational. 

Dutch historian Rutger Bregman, in Humankind: A Hopeful History ( newly issued in paperback ), destroys this story utterly. Bregman, perhaps best known for driving Tucker Carlson nuts by daring to criticize Carlson on his own show , claims this is nothing more than a myth or fable about humanity. It is a dangerous one, too, because believing in it can shape the policy choices we make and the way we treat each other. Alarmingly, most people do seem to hold a cynical or pessimistic view of other people, seeing them as untrustworthy. But Bregman’s remarkable book shows that when we actually look at the real world of human social life, and get past the powerful pessimistic tales about original sin, the state of nature, the darkness in all of our hearts, etc., we find that human beings are, on the whole, far more inclined to be sociable and selfless than “treacherous and knavish.” 

One of Bregman’s most helpful contributions is to expose that many of the most vivid examples used to support the pessimistic view of “human nature” collapse when we look at evidence from the real world. Many of us read William Golding’s Lord of the Flies in high school, with its haunting portrait of well-educated boys reverting to tribal chaos (poor Piggy!) when isolated and deprived. Golding intended it to be a realistic novel, showing how, contrary to romantic illusions, boys trapped on an island would “really behave.” No matter how well-intentioned and innocent they started off, things would descend because, in his words, “our nature compels us” in that direction, since “man produces evil as a bee produces honey.”

But while Golding’s novel might be a ripping yarn, Bregman shows that it’s in no way a realistic depiction of human social behavior under such conditions. In fact, in emergencies, the opposite tends to happen: a remarkable instinct toward solidarity, compassion, and collectivism displays itself. It’s in precisely the situations where we might expect people to panic and “revert” to a brute struggle for survival that we see perfect strangers willing to give their lives for each other. In fact, as Rebecca Solnit shows in A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster , shared dire circumstances tend to create social bonds so strong that the results are almost utopian , offering a weird and beautiful vision of the kinds of radical social transformations that we are capable of. 

Bregman shows that “Lord of the Flies”-style myths about post-disaster chaos are simply at odds with the facts. Post-Katrina New Orleans was portrayed in early press accounts as a place of lawlessness and violence, with reports of murders and rapes among the residents huddled together in the Superdome. (From The Guardian: “ Katrina’s big lesson is that the crust of civilisation on which we tread is always wafer thin… looting, rape and armed terror…. emerged within hours in New Orleans. ”) In fact, these were rumors based on prejudices, and the real story of the city after the storm is of a place of resilience where neighbors who had lost everything worked together to slowly rebuild and preserve an extraordinary place. 

Bregman even tracked down a real-world “Lord of the Flies” situation , to see whether Golding was right about what schoolboys trapped on an island would “really” do. In 1965, six boys from Tonga ended up stranded on a barren islet for 15 months. What happened? Well, while in Golding’s novel the boys fight viciously over who is to maintain the fire, “those in this real-life version tended their flame so it never went out, for more than a year.” Lifelong bonds were generated. It was a heartwarming story, but it didn’t get widely told.  

So life diverges sharply from Golding’s supposedly “realistic” fiction. But Bregman also shows that many of the real-world case studies used to prove “veneer” theory and the pessimistic view of human nature are almost equally fictitious. The infamous Stanford Prison Experiment , for instance, in which students were assigned the role of “prisoner” or “guard,” and the guards became savage and brutal, supposedly shows that ordinary people given a role to inhabit can quickly transform into sociopaths. It offered support for Jordan Peterson’s notion that any one of us could be Hitler, and showed that it would take precious little for the veneer of goodness to disappear and the brutes within us to come out. 

But the experiment, cited endlessly in introductory psychology courses (it is one of the things I most vividly remember from high school AP psychology), was a fraud. The demented and sadistic stuff was intentionally dreamed up by the experimenter, Stanford psychologist Philip Zimbardo, not spontaneously by the student guards. As French sociologist Thibault Le Texier, author of the paper “ Debunking the Stanford Prison Experiment ,” told Bregman:

“It took me a while before I accepted the idea that it could all be fake. At first, I didn’t want to believe it. I thought: no, this is a reputable professor at Stanford University. I must be wrong.”

It turns out that reputable professors at Stanford can indeed be fakers. As Le Texier found, the experiment caught people’s attention because it was a powerful moral allegory, but it was worthless as scientific research. The guards who abused prisoners appeared to be doing the things that Zimbardo wanted them to do, not what they were naturally inclined to do in the contrived situation, and it’s unclear to what extent the whole thing was play-acting on the part of both the guards and the prisoners, all of whom knew they were in a role-playing exercise. Drawing conclusions about human nature from the Stanford Prison Experiment is like concluding from watching Macbeth that seemingly normal actors can quickly turn into serial murderers. Zimbardo himself said that “the research itself is a dramatic piece. It is really like a Greek drama—what happens when you put good people in an evil place? There is a stage-like setting, costumes, actors, auxiliary actors… . There is deep dramatic focus.” So Zimbardo did not conduct an experiment testing a hypothesis. He dramatized a widely-believed story, and because that story was already widely-believed, the fraudulence of the project as a scientific enterprise went totally under-discussed in popular presentations. 2

The Stanford Prison Experiment may be one of the most egregious pieces of fake science about human nature, but Bregman shows that other popular “case studies” similarly crumble under scrutiny. Take the 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese , which also became a staple of psychology textbooks. The standard story, popularized by an article in the New York Times , was that when Genovese was attacked, there were 38 witnesses who either saw or heard what happened but did not intervene or call the police. Dozens of neighbors supposedly “watched [Genovese] get knifed to death in a New York street” yet “not one of [them] made the slightest effort to save her, to scream at the killer, or even to call the police,” as science fiction writer Harlan Ellison related the tale. 

In fact, it later turned out that the Times had, by its own admission, “grossly exaggerated the number of witnesses and what they had perceived. None saw the attack in its entirety. Only a few had glimpsed part of it, or recognized the cries for help.” The Times reporter later admitted that he concealed the fact that the witnesses didn’t realize what was happening, because “It would have ruined the story.” 

Furthermore, a neighbor did rush to help Genovese. Her name was Sophia Farrar , and she “actually raced from her apartment to rescue Ms. Genovese, knowing she was in distress,” despite being unaware whether the assailant was still present. Genovese died in Farrar’s arms, as Farrar comforted her and promised that “help is on the way.” The fact that Genovese was helped by someone who put themselves at risk undercuts the story of her killing as a tale of our indifference to the fate of others. The absence of that fact from the story also meant Genovese’s relatives experienced more pain and disillusionment than they needed to. Genovese’ brother said later that “it would have made such a difference to my family knowing that Kitty died in the arms of a friend.”  

In fact, as Bregman documents, bystanders are actually capable of a lot of remarkable heroics. Bregman cites as one example an incident in which, over the course of just two minutes, four perfect strangers come together to jump into the water and save a woman from a sinking car. It is true that, in cases where people assume somebody else has a situation under control, or that their own intervention wouldn’t help, they can refrain from offering aid. You have probably seen situations yourself where you are tempted to do something but worry you will only make things worse. But when people know they’re needed, they tend to leap into action. Human beings who have never shown any prior sign of special heroism or bravery suddenly reveal themselves to be so committed to the welfare of those they do not know that they are willing to die for them . Bregman quotes a survivor of the 9/11 attacks who recalls that as the towers were being evacuated, people did not push and shove past others but actually said, “you first.” 

In instance after instance, where Bregman investigates the “pessimistic” story about natural human inclinations, he finds that it doesn’t hold up. The story is believed not because it has been proven to be true, but because it rings true. The story of how Easter Island’s civilization destroyed itself through lapsing into war and cannibalism, retold by the bestselling pop science writer Jared Diamond, is probably false . Bregman debunks statistics presented by Steven Pinker purporting to show that life before civilization was hyper-violent. He discusses the work of anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon, whose book Yanomamö: The Fierce People , profiled an Indigenous society in the Amazon that supposedly engaged in “incessant warfare,” who led Chagnon to speculate that “violence may be the principal driving force behind the evolution of culture.” The book became perhaps “the best-selling anthropology text ever,” but another field researcher who spent a decade among the Yanomamö insisted “fierce people” was “the biggest misnomer in the history of anthropology.” “I never saw what Chagnon reported that he saw in terms of the violence…” he said . It was “as if someone had stood on a mean corner in Manhattan chronicling muggings and murders and then had written a book titled ‘New Yorkers: The Mugging and Murdering People.’” Yet the “fierce people” picture of the Yanomamö has been used (e.g., by Pinker ) to support the view that humans’ natural pre-Enlightenment condition is a violent one. Surveying the anthropology literature, Bregman concludes: “How much proof is there that war is in our nature? The answer is almost none.”(David Graeber and David Wengrow’s new magnum opus The Dawn of Everything offers a great deal of further evidence that “primitive” societies are actually more complex and less brutal than portrayed in simplistic stories that characterize human history as a march from barbarism to Enlightenment.) 

Another famous social psychology study, psychologist Muzafer Sherif’s Robbers Cave Experiment , was based around the conflicts that arose between two groups of young boys separated into teams. It had “Lord of the Flies” vibes, but as with the Stanford Prison Experiment, the conflict did not arise organically but was intentionally stoked by the researchers. In fact, the first time Sherif ran the experiment, he “believed he could make the two groups… sworn enemies via a series of well-timed ‘frustration exercises.’” To his “dismay, however, the children just couldn’t be persuaded to hate each other.” He tried again with more subtle manipulations by the research team, “egg[ing] the boys on [and] providing them with the means to provoke one another.” Eventually Muzafer managed to stoke some antagonism, including “raids on cabins, vandalism and food fights,” and the results were used to develop “ realistic conflict theory. ” But he suppressed the results of the first attempt where no fighting occurred, and Gina Perry, author of a book on the experiment , explains that Muzafer’s research practices came out of a “tradition in the [19]30s of using experiments as demonstrations—as a confirmation, not to try to find something new.” In other words, flagrantly violating the basics of the scientific method. 

Amusingly, when artificial scenarios like this are tried without the manipulation, the results have often been rather dull. The BBC put together a modernized and slightly more ethical version of the Stanford Prison Experiment, and apart from the lively moments in which the prisoners tried to reorganize the prison as a democratic commune, and a brief breakout attempt, very little serious conflict occurred. CBS, in its infamous 2007 Kid Nation reality show, put a bunch of kids together alone to try to run their own town. They were evidently expecting Lord of the Flies , but according to kids who participated, it took a lot of selective editing to wring real drama out of the situation.  

Bregman also looks at the way that crude economic assumptions about humans as “rational self-interested maximizers” ( homo economicus , the study of a person “solely as a being who desires to possess wealth,” in John Stuart Mill’s formulation) have distorted our understanding of the ways people actually operate. For instance, a famous 1968 article by Garrett Hardin called “The Tragedy of the Commons” argued that because of human selfishness, property held in common for all would quickly be used up and destroyed. Hardin wrote: 

“The tragedy of the commons develops in this way. Picture a pasture open to all. It is to be expected that each herdsman will try to keep as many cattle as possible on the commons. Such an arrangement may work reasonably satisfactorily for centuries because tribal wars, poaching, and disease keep the numbers of both man and beast well below the carrying capacity of the land. Finally, however, comes the day of reckoning, that is, the day when the long desired goal of social stability becomes a reality. At this point, the inherent logic of the commons remorselessly generates tragedy. As a rational being, each herdsman seeks to maximize his gain. Explicitly or implicitly, more or less consciously, he asks, “What is the utility to me of adding one more animal to my herd?” … the rational herdsman concludes that the only sensible course for him to pursue is to add another animal to his herd. And another; and another … But this is the conclusion reached by each and every rational herdsman sharing a commons. Therein is the tragedy. Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit—in a world that is limited. Ruin is the destination to-ward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.”

To economists, who believe that “rationality” is synonymous with “trying to maximize one’s individual gains,” Anthony Downs said that “when we speak of rational behavior, we always mean rational behavior directed primarily to selfish ends. It is extraordinary the degree to which sociopathy has become normalized by economics, to the point where it is treated as synonymous with being rational. This is one example of what critics of economics are talking about when they argue that it contains embedded normative ideological assumptions that make the discipline’s claim to be a “science” ridiculous." rel="footnote">3 the story makes sense. Under a certain theory of what human beings are like and how they act, this hypothetical does indeed describe what would logically follow. 

But as it happens, the theory is false. Economist Elinor Ostrom decided to actually look at what does happen when property is held in common and used by groups. The answer is that, across thousands of successful commons, the groups establish norms that are followed, and the situation Hardin foresaw is avoided , because people aren’t like that . This is not to say that it cannot occur—sometimes it does, when people are foolish and can’t get their act together—but “rational” people actually do not try to maximize their gains at the expense of everybody else, because this (1) is sociopathic and (2) destroys everything. Instead, as Ostrom documented in Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action , they create institutions for managing the commons so that everyone benefits. 

In fact, it is not just that the popular examples adduced to prove human selfishness fall to pieces when scrutinized. It’s that we also have plenty of counter- evidence to show a totally different picture of our basic moral selves. Bregman shows many cases of human beings being natural everyday communists , constantly acting to assist one another without any expectation of reward. Cynics can always find a way to attribute a selfish motive to an altruistic-seeming act (“ah, you gave him some change because you wanted to appear good, not because you wanted to do good”), but in experimental settings, even when people stand to gain nothing reputationally from being generous, they still try to do what is fair rather than what is most self-serving. There is a famous experiment called the “dictator game” in which subjects are given a sum of money and told they can decide how to split it with another subject (even if they decide to give the other person nothing). Usually people do not give the stranger nothing, as they would if they were operating on pure self-interest. 

As Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis write in A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution , mounting evidence has challenged old-fashioned views of human beings as typically concerned with their own individual interest. In fact, human beings are constantly working together and assisting each other, and this is a good part of the reason why our species has been so successful. Bregman comments that as our species developed, “rather than a struggle for survival, it was a snuggle for survival, in which we kept each other warm.” Nor is altruistic behavior self-serving beneath the surface. People genuinely care about each other. Bowles and Gintis summarize: 

“People cooperate not only for self-interested reasons but also because they are genuinely concerned about the well-being of others, try to uphold social norms, and value behaving ethically for its own sake. People punish those who exploit the cooperative behavior of others for the same reasons. Contributing to the success of a joint project for the benefit of one’s group, even at a personal cost, evokes feelings of satisfaction, pride, even elation. Failing to do so is often a source of shame or guilt … [W]e came to have these “moral sentiments” because our ancestors lived in environments … in which groups of individuals who were predisposed to cooperate and uphold ethical norms tended to survive and expand relative to other groups, thereby allowing these prosocial motivations to proliferate.” 

The idea that “rational” human beings would engage in a dog-eat-dog Social Darwinist competition (one that, as the famous prisoners’ dilemma showed, ends up leaving nobody well off) was contradicted by evidence of what human beings actually do. “As the prisoner’s dilemma and the tragedy of the commons were becoming staples of undergraduate instruction,” Bowles and Gintis write, “field evidence from anthropology and micro-historical studies of social movements pointed in an entirely different direction.” For instance, it was long suspected that “rational-self-interested individuals will not act to achieve their common or group interests” because lazy free-riders could just let others do the work. In reality, as the history of the labor movement and the civil rights movement shows, people will band together and make immense sacrifices to achieve goals that they themselves may never actually get to see realized. 

So, given all this rosy and uplifting material about the natural goodness of humankind, how do we explain all the completely horrible stuff that human beings have done and are capable of doing? Fine, Philip Zimbardo faked his findings, but Auschwitz was a real place, millions upon millions of people have died enslaved, and horrible crimes are committed every day. There has been no shortage of brutality, bloodshed, and exploitation. How can we deal with these facts?

Bregman argues as follows: first, even in situations of terrible human evil and destruction, things are often more complicated than they seem, and the number of truly twisted people may be smaller than the amount of suffering suggests. He points to striking evidence that soldiers in war over the years have shown a reluctance to actually kill anyone, and that it appears to be quite difficult to train the average person out of their instinctive aversion to violence. This is one reason that violent protest movements succeed less often than nonviolent ones; it is simply more difficult to recruit people to a violent movement and gain support for it, because people don’t like to see others hurt and don’t like doing it. 

Bregman recalls the World War I Christmas Truce of 1914 , in which troops from the British and French side left the trenches and made merry with troops from the German side, getting to know one another, singing carols, playing football, etc. The event was spontaneous and unauthorized: soldiers on the two sides simply realized the other side was comprised of human beings, and the natural instinct to be sociable kicked in. Their commanders were horrified, and strict regulations had to be put in place to make sure there were no more instances of enemies accidentally becoming friends. Over the years, training regimens have been perfected that are better at desensitizing soldiers to murder, though the prevalence of PTSD among combat veterans shows that it is not easy to get people accustomed to violence. ( During the Vietnam War, one of the techniques for turning American teens into killers was requiring them to practice the disgusting racist dehumanization of the Vietnamese, who were only ever referred to using ethnic slurs.) It also becomes easier to overcome this by making killing a more clinical and detached act; it may be harder to stab someone than to drop an atomic bomb on them, because the dropping of bombs is conducted by pressing a button from miles up in the sky. 

Even in cases where people carry out true indefensible acts, Bregman argues that only for a very few true psychopaths does cruelty create pleasure. Rather, there are often other motivations at work. In the infamous Milgram experiments , for instance, people showed a disturbing willingness to inflict painful electric shocks on others when they were instructed to do so by an authority figure. Milgram saw his experiment as proof that human beings are disturbingly obedient to authority, and the findings as important in explaining the Holocaust.

Bregman does not dismiss the Milgram experiments entirely, but adds a few complications: for instance, it’s not necessarily clear that people complied with Milgram because they were “obedient” to authority, simple amoral automatons who simply did whatever they were told to do. Interviews revealed that those who suppressed their conscious revulsion at the task did so in part because they were told they were helping science and they wanted to be useful. They were told that the experiment would be a failure if they didn’t comply, with the implication that they could be preventing the accumulation of important scientific findings that would help people learn. (The cover story for the whole thing was that the electric shocks were being administered in an effort to discover how the learning process worked.) And as video of the experiment shows, many showed extreme reluctance and discomfort. When they did comply, it was often under great distress and anguish. 

This still isn’t particularly encouraging. It does mean that people are insufficiently stubborn in their disinclination to harm, and that many can be pressured into doing the indefensible. But the direction of the inclination is clear. We are not simply robots who can be directed by authority figures to do any kind of sinister act. The overwhelming majority of us do not want to cause harm. To cause harm, our better instincts must be overridden . 

Furthermore, the factors that make us do terrible things are often because we are social and want to please and be helpful. People do not want to be a bother and are reluctant to challenge others. One of the less-discussed findings of Milgram’s experiments is that people are far more likely to refuse to do an immoral thing if they see someone else refusing. Participants in the Milgram experiment who watched someone else refuse to administer the shocks rarely agreed to continue. (Incidentally, transcripts of instances in which people did confront the experimenter offer inspiring examples of courageous human moral behavior. If we are disturbed by conformity and acceptance of authority, we should in equal measure admire resistance and consider what brings it about.) 

Milgram himself said that the experiments did not show that human beings were amoral, but that our moral concern can “shift to a consideration of how well [we are] living up to the expectation that the authority has.” Even acts of obvious evil can come of a desire to do good: “The virtues of loyalty, discipline, and self-sacrifice that we value so highly in the individual are the very properties that create destructive organizational engines of war and bind men to malevolent systems of authority.” Bregman himself dares to point out that ordinary front-line Nazi troops were often not particularly ideologically committed to Hitler’s doctrine, but had a desire to serve their country and their friends. This is not a defense of them, but an important piece of the picture: take an ordinary person and put them in a situation where “helping your country” means helping a genocidal nightmare, and your Perfectly Normal Person without evil intent will become part of a monstrous enterprise. 

To the extent normal people can do awful things, then, it is often because they are embedded in systems that put immense pressure on them to override their moral instincts: the insurance adjuster who is too generous granting claims will not last long in the company, the draft dodger who does not want to kill will be treated as a coward, the teenager who joins a gang does so for protection and a desire to fit in. A capitalist economy rewards those who exploit others, and the business owner who is too generous will lose the struggle of the marketplace. One of the central insights to take from the prisoner’s dilemma is that we can easily get trapped in situations where we want to cooperate, and it would be good for us, but we can nevertheless end up betraying one another. World War One is an astonishing example of a situation that is desired by nobody coming about because of a failure to properly coordinate, and a hierarchical social structure where a few powerful people can order the deaths of millions. It does not, however, tell us that we are cruel and selfish. 

Nevertheless: plenty of people are clearly not very good. They swindle, they lie, they abuse, and they kill. What of them? First, Bregman reminds us that if we are trying to produce a rational assessment, we need to look at the norm rather than the exceptions. He notes that if one reads the newspaper, one can see life as a parade of nothing but murders and catastrophes, because that’s the stuff that makes the newspaper, but all of the people who are not murdering are not news. But Bregman also makes a strong case that where people are at their worst, it is because they are in positions of power , meaning that other people are less likely to call them on their bad behavior, because those people are being ruled over. If I care about the judgment of others and shape my behavior accordingly, but I am a billionaire surrounded by sycophants who always insist they are pleased by everything I do, then I do not face social sanctions for immorality. Power, Bregman argues, really does corrupt, and he warns that we have to keep sociopaths from rising to positions where they can command other people. 

Milgram’s findings are not wrong; ordinary people can indeed be induced to participate in atrocities. But it often takes manipulation by the powerful. Moral panics can be created through propaganda. The media can terrify people through creating a distorted image of the world, and convince people that foreigners are fundamentally different somehow. Zimbardo may have produced a morality play rather than scientific research, but part of the argument he made is certainly true: we have created, in the contemporary American prison, an institution where people are routinely dehumanized, and where this dehumanization has become something normal. 

What are the implications of taking a more positive view of the average human being? Bregman says that there are major consequences. Once we reject the pessimistic view of our nature, we must “rethink how we organize our schools and prisons, our businesses and democracies.” He cites American criminal punishment as a clear example of a set of failed policies that comes from a lack of faith in people. If you view “criminals” as a class of people who are simply “bad,” because they have “reverted” to their “natural” instincts, then throwing them away in a cage for a long time makes rational sense. Bregman cites “broken windows policing” as an example of bad policy based on a pessimistic view of human nature. The theory was classic “veneer” thinking: if you allow vandals to break a few windows here and there, you are on a slippery slope to complete anarchy and chaos. “If a window in a building is broken and is left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken,” wrote the theory’s originators. Thus it is important to punish the small offenses, to make sure the first window never gets broken. (The theory was built on a misinterpretation of another dubious study by Philip Zimbardo.) This totally speculative theory was hugely influential and changed policing practices such that officers treated  “ordinary people like potential criminals” because “the smallest misstep could supposedly be on the path to far worse.” These policies didn’t reduce crime but did result in the racist terrorizing of ordinary people going about their business. 

Bregman argues that if, on the other hand, we do not assume that society is one broken window away from collapse, we will take a far more effective approach to actually reducing violence in society. He looks at Norwegian prisons, which are famous for treating their inmates as humans by offering them what is basically a normal life. The “soft” approach works—the Norwegian prison system “boasts a 20 percent recidivism rate (compared to the 76.6 percent recidivism rate in the U.S.) and includes Halden Prison, considered the most humane prison in the world .” Bregman argues that if you treat people well and expect the best of them, they become better , and that pessimism can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. He cites an incredible story of a social worker who, while being mugged, invited his mugger to dinner. The evening ended with the return of his wallet and a new acquaintanceship.   

This is, of course, a rather exceptional anecdote, and it is perhaps not best practice for dealing with a violent assailant. But Bregman has the courage to defend the humanity of the people seen as most inhuman, even including terrorists, who are less fanatical and far more human than one might think from judging their horrifying acts alone. The right-wing perspective on crime is that bleeding hearts need to get “tough,” and that “realists” understand that the strict enforcement of the law is necessary, because people who are not disciplined lapse into bad behavior. In fact, Bregman’s book is an argument that taking pessimism and cynicism as synonymous with “realism” is mistaken. In fact, as the success of the “bleeding heart” model in Norwegian criminal punishment shows, it is the cynics who have departed from reality, and that departure means that we have chosen to accept more crime (because people reoffend) than we would have if we were “realistic” enough to understand that rehabilitation is more effective than retribution . currently conducting an experiment in Norwegian style rehabilitation. Bregman quotes the head of the state’s department of corrections, who had seen Norwegian prisons: “How did we think it was okay to put human beings in cagelike settings?”" rel="footnote">4 It is standard to assume that the legal system should be constructed on the assumption that people are bad—as David Hume advised, “in contriving any system of government … every man ought to be supposed to be a knave and to have no other end, in all his actions, than private interest.” But that is a bad model that results in bad policy. The Moral Economy: Why Good Incentives Are No Substitute for Good Citizen s , Samuel Bowles shows why economic policy should not be made on the supposition that people are motivated chiefly by financial self-interest, and we actually make people worse than they would otherwise be when we think this way." rel="footnote">5

Bregman warns us that the consequences of accepting “veneer” theory can be horrific. During World War II, the Germans assumed that if they bombed London enough, the British would be demoralized and social order would break down. Exactly the opposite happened: the Blitz created a spirit of solidarity and strengthened the social order like nothing before or since. But the British had the same assumption about the Germans, and conducted saturation bombing of German cities on the identical false theory, with the same lack of effect. Tough circumstances can lead to a remarkable level of cooperation, a trait that has allowed human beings to flourish as a species. To ignore this and to assume that bombing a civilian population enough would lead to a “war of all against all,” only leads to the pointless colossal taking of life.

When we view our fellow humans with suspicion, we make it harder to solve our collective problems. Understanding that the people of Russia and China, for example, are pretty much like ourselves in many essential ways is critical if we are to avoid increasing levels of international tension. In a nuclear-armed world, we cannot afford to assume the worst of other people. (John von Neumann, a pioneer of game theory, publicly suggested that it was rational to start a preemptive nuclear war with the USSR as soon as possible.) We have to get past our suspicion and believe in the full humanity of those who are officially portrayed as sinister others and enemies. 

“Poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy name! … The greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weakness of human nature.” — Emma Goldman 6  

“People don’t refuse the ambition to become Hitler because they don’t have the genocidal motivation. They don’t follow that pathway because they don’t have the organizational genius. They’ve got the damned motivation!” — Jordan Peterson  

When someone describes “humanity” as selfish and cruel, they are more likely to be describing themselves than the bulk of actual human beings. Lord of the Flies author William Golding said, “I have always understood the Nazis, because I am of that sort by nature.” Jordan Peterson, speaking of being a concentration camp guard torturing people, said: “I know perfectly well that I could do that sort of thing… and maybe I could even enjoy it … ” Those who lack empathy may assume that the rest of us are the same, Against Empathy , that because empathy tends to be selective we should abandon it in favor of a more detached and rational “compassion.” I have previously shown at length why this argument is wrong and harmful, and I do not agree at all with the claim that less rather than more empathy would make us better off." rel="footnote">7 and that the “veneer” of morality can easily be peeled away, revealing the beast within us all.

In fact, as Bregman writes, “modern science has made short work of the veneer theory of civilization.” Even the disturbing Milgram experiments showed that on average, people are reluctant to inflict pain on each other, and tend to go forward with it only under immense pressure from others. In reality, a good source of the problem is that we are not individualistic enough, that we care too much about what others want and expect from us, to the point where we may be willing to commit atrocities if it seems like the socially appropriate thing to do. often engages in tests of how much horrifying behavior Americans will tolerate. The answer is a surprising amount , much of which seems to come from the desire to be agreeable." rel="footnote">8

Bregman discusses the contrasting visions of human nature as the difference between the philosophies of Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Hobbes believed that human beings were naturally in a warlike state, and needed to surrender their freedom to the great Leviathan of the state in order to have any hope of achieving a civilized order. Rousseau believed the “civilized order” was the problem and that the trouble with humanity had started when private property arose. 9 The conservative economist Thomas Sowell describes a similar dichotomy between two “visions” of nature. Sowell calls them the “constrained” or “tragic” vision and the “unconstrained” or “utopian” vision. The tragic view emphasizes how flawed human beings are, and tries to construct institutions that tame our natural bad instincts. The utopian view treats us as infinitely perfectible and capable of anything. For Sowell, this results in excessively idealistic policy-making that results in catastrophe.

In reality, neither binary view of human nature is helpful. Even the term “human nature” is too imprecise to be especially meaningful. We know that some people are more selfish than others, and that other than the true sociopaths and true saints, each of us has a mixture of both base and generous motives. I don’t think it is necessary to believe human beings are “fundamentally good at heart”—though some beautiful souls have managed to maintain this view —because in fact what we are depends a lot on our circumstances. Good people can be turned hateful and cruel through exposure to propaganda, or can be too cowardly and conformist to prevent a hideous crime. I do think, however, that we need to completely reject the simplistic narrative of a “base” or “knavish” nature that must be aggressively restrained through discipline. Humankind: A Hopeful History shows persuasively that this view is a myth that will only come close to being true if we choose to act as if it is true. Our default assumption should be to believe in people. Not all people, and not all the time. But on average, humans are a cooperative species. We want to be fair and to help each other. This fundamental fact about us needs to be understood, so that we can move on to the more difficult question of why we fail to uphold our values when we do fail to uphold them. Let us begin with a respect for, rather than a cynicism toward, the average human being. 

Quotes with * were found in Bregman’s Humankind. Thanks to Troy Parfitt for supplying Peterson quotes.  ↩

Academics, to their credit, have spent decades harshly criticizing the “experiment.”  ↩

This is not a caricature. Influential economist Anthony Downs said that “when we speak of rational behavior, we always mean rational behavior directed primarily to selfish ends. It is extraordinary the degree to which sociopathy has become normalized by economics, to the point where it is treated as synonymous with being rational. This is one example of what critics of economics are talking about when they argue that it contains embedded normative ideological assumptions that make the discipline’s claim to be a “science” ridiculous.  ↩

Interestingly, North Dakota is currently conducting an experiment in Norwegian style rehabilitation. Bregman quotes the head of the state’s department of corrections, who had seen Norwegian prisons: “How did we think it was okay to put human beings in cagelike settings?”  ↩

In The Moral Economy: Why Good Incentives Are No Substitute for Good Citizen s , Samuel Bowles shows why economic policy should not be made on the supposition that people are motivated chiefly by financial self-interest, and we actually make people worse than they would otherwise be when we think this way.  ↩

Quoted in Bregman  ↩

It should be noted that one major flaw in Bregman’s book is that he endorses the dubious argument made by Yale psychologist Paul Bloom, in Against Empathy , that because empathy tends to be selective we should abandon it in favor of a more detached and rational “compassion.” I have previously shown at length why this argument is wrong and harmful, and I do not agree at all with the claim that less rather than more empathy would make us better off.  ↩

Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat character often engages in tests of how much horrifying behavior Americans will tolerate. The answer is a surprising amount , much of which seems to come from the desire to be agreeable.  ↩

“The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying ‘This is mine,’ and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows, “Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.”  ↩

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Reason and Meaning

Philosophical reflections on life, death, and the meaning of life, summary of plato’s theory of human nature.

Plato (427-347 BCE) “was one of the first to argue that the systematic use of our reason can show us the best way to live.” [Platonic thinking is part of this rise of reason in ancient Greece—often called the Greek miracle. It replaced superstitious, religious, mythological, supernatural thinking with rational, scientific, philosophical, naturalistic thinking. The lives we live today, especially the benefits of science and technology, owe much to this Greek miracle.] Plato argues that if we truly understand human nature we can find “individual happiness and social stability.” [We can answer ethical and political questions.]

Plato’s Life and Works – Plato “was born into an influential family … of Athens.” Athens was at the center of the Greek miracle, the use of reason to understand the world. He was especially influenced by Socrates , but after Athens lost the twenty-seven year Peloponnesian War with Sparta, Socrates came under suspicion and was eventually condemned to death. [Here is my summary of the  trial of Socrates .]

Socrates was interested in political and ethical matters, especially about whether the Sophists were correct in defending moral (cultural) relativism . [This is the idea that morality is relative to, conditioned by, or dependent upon cultural conventions.] Socrates believed that the use of reason could resolve philosophical questions, especially if one employed the method of rational argument and counter-argument; the Socratic method  uses a series of questions and answers designed to uncover the truth.

Socrates claimed that he did not know the answers to questions beforehand, but that he was wiser than others in knowing that he didn’t know. [This is the essence of Socratic wisdom —he is wiser than others in knowing he doesn’t know, whereas the ignorant often claim to know with great certainty. Using the Socratic Method, he showed people that they didn’t know what they claimed to know. Needless to say, questioning people about their beliefs and implicitly asking them to defend them often arouses resentment and hostility . As Spinoza said “I cannot teach philosophy without being a disturber of the peace”]

Plato was shocked by Socrates’ execution but maintained faith in rational inquiry. Plato wrote extensively, and in a series of dialogues, expounded the first (relatively) systematic philosophy of the Western world. [The early dialogues recount the trial and death of Socrates. Most of the rest of the Platonic dialogues portray Socrates questioning those who think they know the meaning of justice (in the Republic ), moderation (in the Charmides ), courage (in the Laches ), knowledge, (in the Theaetetus ), virtue (in the Meno ), piety (in the Euthyphro ), or love (in the Symposium ).] The Republic is the most famous dialogue. It touches on many of the great philosophical issues including the best form of government, the best life to live, the nature of knowledge, as well as family, education, psychology, and more. It also expounds on Plato’s theory of human nature. [The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead famously said that all of philosophy is just footnotes to Plato.]

Metaphysical Background: The Forms – Plato is not a theist or polytheist, and he is certainly not a biblical theist. When he talks about the divine he is referring to reason (logos), a principle that organizes the world from preexisting matter. What is most distinctive about Plato’s philosophy is his theory of forms, although his description of forms isn’t precise. But Plato thought that knowledge is an active process through which we organize and classify our perceptions. Forms are ideas or concepts which have at least 4 aspects:

A) Logical – how does “table” or “tree” apply to various tables/trees? How does a universal concept like “bed” or “dog” or “red” or “hot” apply to many individual things? [Any word, except proper names and pronouns, refers to a form.] Nominalists argue that words simply name things, there are no universal concepts existing over and above individuals. [Words are convenient names that demarcate some things from others.] Platonic realists argue that universal forms really exist independently, and individual things are x’s because they participate in the form of xness. [Dogs are mammals because they participate in doginess—which transcends individual dogs.] At times Plato suggests that there is a form for all general words—other times he doesn’t.

B) Metaphysical – are forms ultimately real; do they exist independently? Plato says yes. Universal, eternal, immaterial, unchanging forms are more real than individuals. Individual material things are known by the senses, whereas forms are known by the intellect. And the forms have a real, independent existence—there is a world of forms.

C) Epistemological – knowledge is of forms, perceptions in this world lead only to belief or opinion. We find the clearest example of knowledge based on forms in mathematics. [Hence the motto of Plato’s academy. “Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here.”] The objects of mathematical reasoning are often not found in this world—and we can never see most of them—but they provide us with knowledge about the world. [Plato is challenging us to account for mathematical knowledge without positing mathematical forms. Even today most mathematicians are mathematical Platonists.]

D) Moral – ideals of human conduct, moral concepts like justice, and equality are forms. [So there are physical, mathematical, and moral forms.] Individuals and societies can participate in justice, liberty, or equality, but in this world, we never encounter the perfect forms. The most prominent of all the forms is the form of the “good.”

The parables of the sun and cave are primarily about understanding forms and the form of the good. [Plato compares the sun’s illumination of the world with the form of the good’s illumination of reality.] Plato thought that by using reason we could come to know the good, and then we would do the good. Thus knowledge of the good is sufficient for virtue, doing the good. [This seems mistaken as Aristotle will point out because our will can be weak.] Thus Plato’s philosophy responds to intellectual and moral relativism—there are objective truths about the nature of reality and about human conduct. [ The allegory of the cave, the myth of the sun , and the divided line are the devices Plato uses to explain the forms. I will explain these in tomorrow’s post .]

Theory of Human Nature – The Tripartite Structure of the Soul – [Having encountered the social self of Confucianism, the divine self of Hinduism, and the no-self of Buddhism, we come to dualism.]

Plato is a dualist ; there is both immaterial mind (soul) and material body, and it is the soul that knows the forms. Plato believed the soul exists before birth and after death. [We don’t see perfect circles or perfect justice in this world, but we remember seeing them in Platonic heaven before we were born.] Thus he believed that the soul or mind attains knowledge of the forms, as opposed to the senses. Needless to say, we should care about our soul rather than our body.

The soul (mind) itself is divided into 3 parts: reason ; appetite (physical urges); and will  (emotion, passion, spirit.) The will is the source of love, anger, indignation, ambition, aggression, etc. When these aspects are not in harmony, we experience mental conflict. The will can be on the side of either reason or the appetites. We might be pulled by lustful appetite, or the rational desire to find a good partner. To explain the interaction of these 3 parts of the self, Plato uses the image is of the charioteer (reason) who tries to control horses representing will and appetites. [Elsewhere he says that reason uses the will to control the appetites.

Plato also emphasized the social aspect of human nature. We are not self-sufficient, we need others, and we benefit from our social interactions, from other person’s talents, aptitudes, and friendship.

Diagnosis – Persons differ as to which part of their nature is predominant. Individual dominated by reason seeks are philosophical and seek knowledge; individuals dominated by spirit/will/emotion are victory loving and seek reputation; individuals dominated by appetites are profit loving and seek material gain. Although each has a role to play, reason ought to rule the will and appetites. And in the same way, those with the most developed reason ought to rule society. A well-ordered, harmonious, or just society is one in which each kind of person plays their proper role.  Thus there is a parallel between proper functioning individuals and proper functioning societies. Good societies help produce good people who in turn help produce good societies, while bad societies tend to produce bad individuals who in turn help produce bad societies.

Plato differentiates between 5 classifications of societies. 1) The best is a meritocracy , where the talented rule. This may degenerate into increasingly bad forms, each one worse than the other as we go down the list. 2) The timarchic society, which values honor and fame while reason is neglected. In such a society spirit dominates the society and the ruling class. 3) Oligarchy , where money-making is valued and political power lies with the wealthy. In such a society appetites dominate the society and the ruling class. 4) Democracy , where the poor seize power. They are also dominated by appetites. He describes the common people as “lacking in discipline [and] pursuing mere pleasure of the moment …” 5) Anarchy is the sequel to the permissiveness and self-indulgence of democracy.  It is a total lack of government. Plato thought this would usher in a tyrant to restore order.

Prescription – Justice is the same in both individuals and society—the harmonious workings of the parts to create a flourishing whole. But how is this attained? Plato believes that education —academic, musical, and physical— is the key. Education takes place in the context of a social and political system. Not surprisingly this includes kings (rulers) being philosophers, those in whom reason dominates. If there really is a truth about how people should live, then only those with such knowledge should rule. [Think of the parallels with Confucianism, where those who rule have mastered the Confucian political texts.]

To achieve this end Plato, the guardians or rulers must engage in a long educational process in which they learn about the Forms. [After a nearly 50 year-long process, those of the highest moral and intellectual excellence will rule.] The guardians cannot own personal property and cannot have families. [The idea is that only the desire to serve the common good motivates them, rather than money or power.] He hopes that the guardians will so love wisdom that they will not misuse their power. As for those dominated by will/emotion/spirit they are best suited to being auxiliaries —soldiers, police, and civil servants. The final class is composed of the majority, those in whom the appetites dominate. They will be farmers, craftsmen, traders, and other producers of the materials necessary for living.

Critics have called Plato’s republic authoritarian or totalitarian, and Plato advocated both censorship and propaganda as means of maintaining social control.  He certainly believed that the masses [who he says like to “shop and spend”] were unable to govern the society and that an elite, composed of the morally and intellectually excellent should make the important decisions about how best to govern a society.

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36 thoughts on “ summary of plato’s theory of human nature ”.

Great compilation…really helpful. Thanks a lot.

Appreciate your comments.

Wonderful piece. Need more of this.

Thanks for the comments.

Thank you. I really appreciate this post 🙂

i love this document, its well explained and summerized

Thank you very much for your kind words. JGM

Great staff…I’m impressed

Thanks for the compliment.

That was an absolutely wonderful study guide. It helped my review immensely.

thanks for the comment Chris.

I think that you should have had also emphasized on the preaching of human rights by Plato. The rest was considerable and helpful, i believe.

nicely written and well thought through. very helpful to us as students studying of Plato. Thanks a lot for your help.

Thanks so much for your kind words.

Absolutely magnificent. Bravo and thank you very much indeed

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thank you so much. because can help us as a student to study more the Philosophy of plato.

thank you so much

you’re welcome. JGM

a great resource! thank you very much for this.

omg thank you this article helped me so much! i read the whole thing and it was really good

Thanks for the article. I wanted to know more of Plato’s arguments on immortality.

Thank you for your explanation about Plato. It’s a great resource

You’re welcome. Good luck in philosophy.

In search of more understanding, I stumbled across this great read. Thank you for your work, I look forward to reading more.

thanks Natasha

Thanks so much sir. Can you give us the summary of plato’s theories of human nature and there relationship to education. Then give us the reference

no, you get to do that.

Such an instructive and super clear explanation of things that certainly require a lot of time and work to understand and learn. I am getting into Plato after reading the wonderful “Memoirs of Socrates” by Xenophon. Although I had already read Crito, Phaedo and a couple other dialogues, only now I start to understand how much I love Socrates. What a character. The Jesus of philosophy!

“He describes the common people as “lacking in discipline [and] pursuing mere pleasure of the moment …”.

I agree with most things Plato says. Totalitarian he might be, but he’s right about most people being vulgar and lazy. And let it be said, ignorant and stupid. I too am all that, but I try to be aware of it.

Ironically, the more I learn, the less I can have a “conversation ” with anyone! I must be on the right track, ha ha!

“Don’t go where most people are going, for they are going the wrong ways.”. -Seneca

thanks for the compliment. And you are a real searcher after truth Luigi.

Dr. Messerly,

You have no idea how encouraging and heart warming is your approval in regard to my little mind. I’ll continue learning with even more vigor. I’ll never learn as much as you have, but I am sure it will be still worthwhile.

Thank you! Luigi

thanks for your kind words and you can learn as much as you want.

my grade will thank you

thanks Nick

I compel to re- think in between who is my natural self and constructed my self ?

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Generalist Versus Specialist CEOs and the Scope of Corporate Social Responsibility

• Original Paper
• Published: 03 June 2024

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• Qian Lu 1 ,
• Guoguang Wan 2 &
• Liang Xu 3  

This study explored how the nature of CEOs’ human capital affects the scope of their firms’ corporate social responsibility initiatives. By integrating upper echelons theory with the attention-based view of the firm, the analyses showed that generalist CEOs with a broader range of knowledge and skills tend to aim their firms’ corporate social responsibility efforts toward a broader range of responsibility domains than do specialist CEOs with a narrower range of knowledge and skills. The difference is weaker when a firm’s board has a sustainability committee or when industry peers are active in a broad range of corporate social responsibility domains. These findings are supported by data on S&P 1500 firms spanning 2000 to 2018.

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Data availability

The datasets of this study are available upon request.

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Acknowledgements

Three authors have contributed equally and are listed alphabetically. We thank Assaad El Akremi, Section Editor of JBE, and five anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions. We also thank Heli Wang, Jun Xia, JT. Li and other seminar participants in NJU. The usual disclaimers apply.

This study is supported by Guanghua Talent Project of Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. 1235011071856), and National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 71602086, Grant No. 71972099, Grant No. 72132005, Grant No. 72372072, Grant No. 72372068, Grant No. 72072088).

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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Data collection and analysis were performed by Liang Xu. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Qian Lu, Guoguang Wan, and Liang Xu and all authors commented on the previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Lu, Q., Wan, G. & Xu, L. Generalist Versus Specialist CEOs and the Scope of Corporate Social Responsibility. J Bus Ethics (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-024-05733-9

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Received : 06 July 2021

Accepted : 12 May 2024

Published : 03 June 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-024-05733-9

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