Human Nature & Human Difference
In and of itself, the concept of 'difference' possesses no significance. Its meaning emerges only in the context of a common standard against which the relationships, and hence the differences, between a set of objects, phenomena or events can be judged. Any discussion of differences, then, only makes sense in relation to a discussion about commonalities. In humans, the discussion about 'commonalities' usually turns on a discussion about 'human nature' - that is, the common nature that all humans are perceived to possess.
The concept of human nature is, of course, a highly contested one, and many deny the very existence of a universal essence to human life. In part, this denial has been shaped by the history of anthropology. Nineteenth racial science had viewed humans as entirely moulded by the laws of nature, and the differences between human groups as the consequence of distinct evolutionary paths. In response, twentieth century anthropology rejected not simply racial essentialism, but increasingly any form of essentialism. Human nature, and indeed the very idea of the human itself, has come to be seen by many anthropologists as suspect.
On the other side of the debate, sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists view an understanding of human nature as a fixed quality that constrains the human condition, and fundamental to any understanding of what it is to be human. The denial of human nature, Steven Pinker suggests, 'distorts our science and scholarship, our public discourse and our day-to-day lives'.
Looked at in a certain fashion, though, the distance between sociobiologists and relativists is not as profound as it might sometimes seem. Virtually all cultural relativists accept the idea of the 'psychic unity of Man' - that is, a common set of mental abilities that ensure that no human group is inherently superior to another. Virtually all sociobiologists accept that cultural distinctions give rise to a multitude of variations in human behaviour and beliefs. Hence, in an influential paper on 'The Scope of Anthropology', Claude Levi-Strauss argued that 'universal forms of thought and morality' pertain solely to 'biology'. The primatologist Frans de Waal, suggests that 'Culture... means that knowledge and habits are acquired from others... which explains why two groups of the same species may behave differently.'
Whatever their other differences, in other words - and I would not wish to diminish those differences - both sides in this debate accept that human unity is manifested solely at a biological level, while culture expresses its differences. What separates the two sides is largely a debate about the relative weights that should be attached to one's biological nature and one's cultural upbringing in shaping beliefs and behaviours. For sociobiologists humans are defined primarily by their nature. Given the pliability of human nature, relativists retort, the universal aspects of the psyche are largely unimportant.
Over the past half century, in other words, the debate about human differences and commonalities has become conflated with the nature-nurture debate. This conflation, I want to suggest, has been unhelpful for our understanding of both human nature and human differences. To explore this further I want to look more carefully at what we mean by human nature, and at what constitutes human universals.
Human nature is an inherently ambiguous term. On the one hand, it means that which expresses the essence of being human - or in Darwinian terms, species-typical behaviours and beliefs. On the other hand, human nature means that which is constituted in nature - which is usually taken to mean that which is the product of natural selection.
In non-human animals the two meanings are synonymous. What bats or sharks or chimps typically do as a species, they do because of natural selection. Many suggest that this is also true for humans. 'Evolutionary biology is fundamental to the study of human behaviour and thought', Leda Cosmides and John Tooby argue, because there are only two ways in which the human mind and its products can be designed - natural selection or divine intervention.
