About human nature

There are two mistakes one can make in thinking about human nature. One is to think there is no common human nature and the other is to think that there is.

Human nature and social order
Without consistencies in human nature, we could not have any social order at all, because there would be no basis on which to form expectations about behaviour, and so about the results of actions and how institutions can work. Social order is based quite fundamentally on human nature having certain patterns and structures.

Thus, it is a great mistake to think there is no commonality to human nature, no basis to structure human interactions and to develop expectations about human actions. Clearly, there is.

Social order and human variety
But it is also a mistake to think there is, in a strong sense, a single human nature. Over at improved clinch, Jon Venlet has published the following musing for pondering:

As you go through your daily lives, is government truly the mechanism which provides you with stability and safety? When you get up in the morning and brew a cup of coffee, is it the government which has made it possible for this to happen? Did you sleep unmolested because of the government? Do you have a place of work to go to because of the government? Do you drive down the road, safely, because of the government? What about lunch? Are you able to buy a burger or burrito for lunch, tastily made and free of germs, because of the government? How about when you walk your dog? Are you able to do so unmolested by thugs because of the government? Is it really the government, today, which is making it possible for you to engage in all the activities you engage in safely? Is it really the government supplying you with stability in your lives, or is it you and I?

Let us suppose that humans are made up of three types of people:
• saints who always seek to act morally;
• pragmatists or moralists who prefer to act morally; and
• knaves who act amorally: that is, on personal calculation of benefit unconstrained by moral considerations.

(You can read the rest at Critical Thinking Applied.)