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What's Left of Human Nature?: A Post-Essentialist, Pluralist, and Interactive Account of a Contested Concept - Paperback | Diverse Reads

What's Left of Human Nature?: A Post-Essentialist, Pluralist, and Interactive Account of a Contested Concept

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A philosophical account of human nature that defends the concept against dehumanization, Darwinian, and developmentalist challenges.

Human nature has always been a foundational issue for philosophy. What does it mean to have a human nature? Is the concept the relic of a bygone age? What is the use of such a concept? What are the epistemic and ontological commitments people make when they use the concept? In What's Left of Human Nature? Maria Kronfeldner offers a philosophical account of human nature that defends the concept against contemporary criticism. In particular, she takes on challenges related to social misuse of the concept that dehumanizes those regarded as lacking human nature (the dehumanization challenge); the conflict between Darwinian thinking and essentialist concepts of human nature (the Darwinian challenge); and the consensus that evolution, heredity, and ontogenetic development result from nurture and nature.

After answering each of these challenges, Kronfeldner presents a revisionist account of human nature that minimizes dehumanization and does not fall back on outdated biological ideas. Her account is post-essentialist because it eliminates the concept of an essence of being human; pluralist in that it argues that there are different things in the world that correspond to three different post-essentialist concepts of human nature; and interactive because it understands nature and nurture as interacting at the developmental, epigenetic, and evolutionary levels. On the basis of this, she introduces a dialectical concept of an ever-changing and “looping” human nature. Finally, noting the essentially contested character of the concept and the ambiguity and redundancy of the terminology, she wonders if we should simply eliminate the term “human nature” altogether.

ISBN-13: 9780262549684

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: MIT Press

Publication Date: 10-31-2023

Pages: 336

Product Dimensions: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.75d

Series: Strüngmann Forum Reports

Maria Kronfeldner is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Central European University, Budapest.

What People are Saying About This

Endorsement

“This book is very welcome. Kronfeldner articulates and addresses important questions about the notion of 'human nature,' skillfully sorting out the philosophical, pragmatic, scientific, and technological dimensions of current debates. Biologists and philosophers, political theorists, and social activists alike will all find here important tools to advance their work. The book will also serve as a guide to anyone who wonders, in an age where the lines between human and non-human, biological, and artifactual seem to be dissolving, whether there is anything distinctive about 'humanity' and if there is, whether it much matters. Kronfeldner makes the pertinent philosophy accessible, and explains the important scientific controversies clearly, but without eliding crucial detail.”

—Professor Louise Antony, Department of Philosophy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

From the Publisher

“Kronfeldner's philosophical examination of human nature is lucid, rigorous, and comprehensive. This book offers a hugely valuable and timely contribution to thinking about human nature: what does it mean, what challenges does the notion face, and what is the normative importance (if any) of human nature talk. This ground-breaking book is a must-read and essential for everyone interested in the topic.”

—Dr. Mari Mikkola, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford

“What's Left of Human Nature? is an outstanding book that synthesizes complex debates from evolutionary biology to political theory while remaining accessible and vivid. Kronfeldner not only provides an indispensable resource for academic debates about human nature but also demonstrates how the wider cultural and social significance of biological research can be explored with the tools of philosophy of science.”

—Professor David Ludwig, Knowledge, Technology, and Innovation Group, Wageningen University, The Netherlands

“Is the notion of human nature a remnant of an outdated biology? What role can it play in our post-essentialist world? And don't we need it to understand the sadly ubiquitous phenomenon of dehumanization? Providing a compelling, beautifully written answer to these and other questions, What's Left of Human Nature? will change the way you think about what it means to be human.”

—Professor Edouard Machery, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh

“This book is very welcome. Kronfeldner articulates and addresses important questions about the notion of 'human nature,' skillfully sorting out the philosophical, pragmatic, scientific, and technological dimensions of current debates. Biologists and philosophers, political theorists, and social activists alike will all find here important tools to advance their work. The book will also serve as a guide to anyone who wonders, in an age where the lines between human and non-human, biological, and artifactual seem to be dissolving, whether there is anything distinctive about 'humanity' and if there is, whether it much matters. Kronfeldner makes the pertinent philosophy accessible, and explains the important scientific controversies clearly, but without eliding crucial detail.”

—Professor Louise Antony, Department of Philosophy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Table of Contents

Preface xv
Acknowledgments xxxi
1 Introduction: What’s at Issue 1
1.1 Nature? 1
1.2 Human? 4
1.3 Three Different Concepts of Human Nature in Overview 7
I Three Challenges 13
2 The Dehumanization Challenge 15
2.1 The Vernacular Concept of Human Nature 16
2.2 Dehumanization Systematically Viewed 18
2.3 Social Perspectivity 28
2.4 The Challenge That Derives from Dehumanization 31
3 The Darwinian Challenge 33
3.1 What Essences Would Require 34
3.2 Challenging the Classificatory Role of Essences 41
3.3 Challenging the Explanatory Role of Essences 49
3.4 Situating the Anti-Essentialist Consensus 57
4 The Developmentalist Challenge 59
4.1 From Physis versus Nomos to Nature versus Nurture 60
4.2 Ignoring Interactions 67
4.3 The Interactionist Consensus 70
4.4 What Is the Challenge for a Concept of Human Nature? 85
Summary of Part I 87
II Three Natures: A Post-Essentialist, Pluralist, and Interactive Reply to the Three Challenges 89
5 Genealogy, the Classificatory Nature, and Channels of Inheritance 91
5.1 Five Questions Regarding a Species’ Nature 92
5.2 Genealogical Nexus as the Classificatory Nature 96
5.3 Genealogy and the Channels of Inheritance 102
5.4 The Resulting Pluralism 114
6 Toward a Descriptive Human Nature 121
6.1 Descriptive Knowledge about Humans in General 122
6.2 The Relationship to the Classificatory and the Explanatory Nature 126
6.3 Typicality Necessary? 131
6.4 Typicality Sufficient? Or What Does “Important” Mean? 139
7 The Stability of Human Nature 147
7.1 Innate or Evolved? 148
7.2 Channelism, Stability, and the Nature–Culture Divide Revived 157
7.3 A Narrow Enough Concept of Human Nature in the Descriptive Sense 164
8 An Explanatory Nature 169
8.1 Explanatory Neo-Essentialism 170
8.2 A Population-Level Solution 179
8.3 The Explanatory Nature Established 184
9 Causal Selection and How Human Nature Is Thereby Made 189
9.1 Causal Selection, Control, and Normality 190
9.2 Choosing among Actual Difference Makers and the Willingness to Control 196
9.3 How Norms Make Human Nature Visible 202
9.4 How Norms Make Human Nature Real 206
Summary of Part II 210
 III Normativity, Essential Contestedness, and the Quest for
Elimination 213
 10 Humanism and Normativity 215
 10.1 Two Sufficient Entry Conditions for Moral Standing 216
 10.2 The Ethical Importance of the Descriptive Nature 220
 10.3 A Dialectic, Essentially Contested Concept of Human Nature 225
 11 Should We Eliminate the Language of Human Nature? 231
 11.1 Elimination versus Revision 232
 11.2 Redundancy, Neutrality, and Risk of Dehumanization 233
 11.3 Elimination versus Revision as a Matter of Values 238
 Summary of Part III 241
Notes 243
References 265
Index 289