Daniel Hruschka — You Can't Characterize Human Nature If Studies Overlook 85 Percent Of People On Earth

Non-random sampling.

… a nonrandom sample tells us about a population, but we don’t know how precisely: we can’t determine a margin of error or a confidence level.

A lot of mistakes occur from generalizing special cases. This tendency to overgeneralize, along with the tendency to absolutize, often infects formulation of assumptions in "scientific" modeling.

econintersect
You Can't Characterize Human Nature If Studies Overlook 85 Percent Of People On Earth

Daniel Hruschka | Professor and Associate Director of the School of Human Evolution and Social Change , Arizona State University

Originally published at The Conversation

Massimo Pigliucci — Human Nature and the Ethical Life

Philosophers have been debating human nature for centuries, but in an era of increasing political vitriol and partisanship, the issues at stake are gaining new relevance. To understand what we should expect from our leaders, we must first consider what to expect of ourselves.

The fact that is is appearing at Project Syndicate is an indication of recognition that the enduring question, What does it means to live a good life in a good society, continues to have relevance in practical affairs, including policy.

Project Syndicate
Human Nature and the Ethical Life
Massimo Pigliucci | K.D. Irani Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York and author of How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life

Elaine Graham-Leigh — Marxism and Human Nature

Weekend reading.

This post presents the Marxist position on human nature as socially embedded and historically determined in contrast to the the natural law position of classical liberalism that is based on individualism.

Longish, but clearly written and informative.

Counterfire
Marxism and Human Nature

Elaine Graham-Leigh

Maximus Thaler — Holding Hands is More Important Than You Think

Humans are social animals.

Dr. Coan is a neuroscientist who specializes in measuring social cognition. His work falls under the heading of Social Baseline Theory. The critical claim of social baseline theory is that humans are inherently social creatures. Just as fish gills indicate that fish are aquatic creatures, the human mind has a suite of adaptations which indicate that we are social creatures.

For the entirety of human evolution (some 6 million years) people have always relied on other people. Social aid has been a fixture in humanity’s evolutionary environment, and our brains should reflect this....

Evolution Institute

Holding Hands is More Important Than You Think

Maximus Thaler | PhD candidate at Binghamton University studying cultural evolution.

Yves Smith — Cash or Copyright or Real Creativity?

Yet another important, counterintuitive finding…at least if you think that people respond only or mainly to economic incentives. Not to give the punchline away, but the success of open source software from a technical standpoint is one supporting datapoint. Can readers think of others? 

By Dan Hunter, Dean, Swinburne Law School at Swinburne University of Technology. Originally published at The Conversation

Naked Capitalism
Cash or Copyright or Real Creativity?
Yves Smith

Yet another important, counterintuitive finding…at least if you think that people respond only or mainly to economic incentives. 

The interests aspect of value as interest is much broader than economic interests. Value is also a broader concept than interest in many ethics and value theories, and psychological and sociological studies of motivation bear this out. Human being are not only more complicated psychologically and socially than self-interest alone can account for, but also more complex and interrelated.

This relates to the rather complex concept of human freedom. There are three key aspects of freedom. The first is freedom from constraint and limitation. The second is freedom to choose and to express oneself. The third is freedom for self- determination and self-actualization. Rights are linked to these three aspects of freedom.

While all are integral aspects of human freedom, freedom for is perhaps most significant for both creativity and also political self-determination.

Most significantly, freedom is fundamental to the spiritual or metaphysical dimension in contrast to the physical and material. Therefore, it is a moral category rather than simply a descriptive one. Freedom is not explained entirely by observations about its manifestation in life. It is a potential that underlies human complexity and is the basis for development and innovation.

Yves asks for example. One in particular comes to mind, since it is paradigmatic. A friend was a "starving artist" until she was discovered by a prominent gallery owner who successfully sold many of her paintings. But after some time, she realized that her creativity was being undermined by the process. 

First, she was required to schmooze with the patrons at shows, which was not her thing. She didn't like selling herself and felt that her work should stand by itself. But that was part of the deal in getting promoted.

Secondly and more importantly, she got tired of painting the same style and want to switch, but the gallery owner balked. Why kill the goose that lays the golden egg, he wondered. Her answer was that she either kill the goose or kill her creativity.

So she is not as well off as she might have been, but she is happier and producing more innovative work, following her muse regardless of where it leads financially.

Most really creative people have known haven't given a rat's ass about money. Some became wealthy in spite of it. Others didn't, but most were happy and self-fulfilled anyway. On the other hand, some give up and either sell out or get a job, while others are bummed that the world doesn't appreciate them sufficiently. But that's often not about the money but lack of recognition.

Of course, this is not say that creativity and finanical interest are either never related or mutually exclusive. Financial interest can inhibit or kill creativity, and absence of financial interest is not a necessary condition for high creativity. Entrepreneurs are often highly creative people as are designers, engineers and advertising people, for example. And most successful firms innovate by introducing new products and expanding line, as well as re-inventing themselves with changing conditions.

Bryan Caplan — The Evidence of Altruism

The logic of collective action versus the free rider problem. Take that, economic liberalism.

Each of these stories appeals to self-interest, but economists almost uniformly reject them as absurd. Why? Because they ignore another beloved economic insight: the logic of collective action. When actors have a small effect on big social outcomes, and their only incentive to act is the big outcome itself, selfishness urges them to stand down, twiddle their thumbs, free ride, and yawn "Let someone else do it."

Econolog
The Evidence of Altruism
Bryan Caplan | Professor of Economics at George Mason University, research fellow at the Mercatus Center, adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute.

Bryan Caplan is a Libertarian (anarcho-capitalist). But see his Why I Am Not an Austrian Economist.

Apparently, some Libertarians (right libertarians) get it about the logic of collective action and the free rider problem that arises from economic liberalism based on self-interest (rational pursuit of maximum utility).

On the other hand, all left libertarians get this, as well as social democrats and heterodox economics of the left — which is why they are on the left. Caplan links to the Wikipedia article on the logic of collective action, which is chiefly about the book of that title by Mancur Olson. What it fails to mention is Nobel laureate in economics Elinor Ostrom's collective action and social development. See her paper, Collective Action and the Evolution of Social Norms.

Oh, and contrary to Libertarian assumptions to the contrary, some people are actually motivated by altruism. Moreover, this is the normal path of human development toward self-actualization and unfolding human potential.

Altruism one manifestation of spiritual maturity. Caplan seems to think that his explanation is comprehensive, whereas it is only partial. Just as humans develop physically, emotionally and intellectually, they are also capable of developing spiritually, that is, the the direction of greater universality as the boundary of individuality recedes toward the horizon of wholeness.

Spiritually immature people imagine that altruism means giving up individual desire, choice and action, which kill one's individuality, one's sense of personal self, that to which one relates everything, which is what one is. However, the opposite is the case. As one grows spiritually through actualizing one's potential as a human being, one becomes more fulfilled, more complete, and happier. As Aristotle observed in Book One of Nichomachean Ethics, happiness or well-being (eudaimonia) is the by-product of excellence (arete). This is consistent with the perennial teaching of those to whom humanity looks to as sages about the spiritual path and the progressive realization of inherent potential. To miss this is to miss what is truly important in life.

William Manson — The Blank Slate: A Liberal-Totalitarian Dogma

By the end of the 20th century, influential anthropologists embraced the reigning “postmodernist” theories, and peremptorily rejected the very idea of a “human nature” as reactionary “essentialism.”

Yet, Homo sapiens, a species derived from its mammalian/primate roots, obviously requires certain socio-psychological conditions consonant with its nature. (Indeed, the eminent anthropologist Weston La Barre characterized the human species as “hyper-mammalian”: prolonged dependency, intensified mother-child bond, etc.). Such a universalist doctrine, based on the demonstrable facts about evolved human behaviors, could have scientifically bolstered the global human rights agenda—for example, as it focused on the real, bio-psychological needs of children everywhere.

Indeed, such findings of trans-cultural anthropology and comparative psychology (e.g., Bowlby’s UN research on maternal care, attachment, and mental health) are still critical to the recognition that human nature is de-limited, defined by specific psycho-social needs, and subject to suffering and pathology if these needs are denied or ignored. To recognize such fundamental, relatively intractable psycho-social needs is also to fundamentally challenge politically repressive institutionalized structures.

What he is calling "human nature" as a scientific concept is not "essentialism" in that it is naturalistic, based on biological similarities and their measurable effects that human share as a species beneath anthropological and sociological differences that result from setting and nurture.

The philosophical concept of human nature, on the other hand, was a secular and rationalistic substitute for the "soul" of theology. 

The naturalistic concept bears no resemblance to this, and to compare the two is to commit a category mistake.

And it is much more difficult to ground human rights on the naturalistic concept than the philosophical or theological ones. The former entails a utilitarian justification, whereas the latter is categorical. The words of the US Declaration of Independence,

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,

are categorical. The beginning of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights,

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

is also categorical, its self-evidence being presumed.

These fundamental principles are to key to the historical debate, and this short post is worth reading for an elucidation of conflicting contemporary views of cultural anthropologists and biological/evolutionary (physical) anthropologists, with the implications for universalism.

Dissident Voice

The Blank Slate: A Liberal-Totalitarian Dogma
William Manson

Ian Welsh — Human Nature for Ideology

All ideologies, including all economic ideologies like the modern discipline of economics, are theories of human nature in drag.

This is an especially good post that makes many significant points, and I suggest reading the whole thing. But if you chose not to, at least remember this quote.

Human Nature for Ideology
Ian Welsh