Human nature in a post-essentialist world

Abstract

In this essay I examine a well-known articulation of human nature skepticism, a paper by Hull. I then review a recent reply to Hull by Machery, which argues for an account of human nature that he claims is both useful and scientifically robust. I challenge Machery's account and introduce an alternative account-the "life-history trait cluster" conception of human nature-that I hold is scientifically sound and makes sense of (at least some of) our intuitions about-and desiderata for-human nature. © 2013 by the Philosophy of Science Association. All rights reserved.