Historical and Contemporary Background

Abstract

The Impact of Evolutionary Theory As noted in the introduction, the main intention of this book is to outline the most fundamental human processes that aff ect human behaviour. Considering the importance of the subject in question, it is reasonable to assume that this kind of project, in various forms, has been attempted before. Th us, it is clear that over the course of history many thinkers have in one way or another explored questions relating to the basic components of human nature. In fact, it is possible to say that philosophy's " million dollar question " in the history of human thinking has often been centred on attempts to meaningfully reduce the enormous diversity of human behaviour to basic processes that are common to all people. However, answering the question Does diversity of human action have some com-mon ground? depends mainly on which point of view is adopted when it comes to understanding and defi ning human nature. Indeed, the answer to this question might only be provided by postulating some rudimen-tary motivational forces that shape human existence and guide subse-quent behaviour. It also logically follows that these processes should be equally common and applicable to all people, regardless of social class, 20 Basic Motivation and Human Behaviour background or origin. Moreover, and in a wider sense, such universal and comprehensive models of human motivation should also be applicable in part to the animal kingdom. As much as these requirements might sound reasonable and even trivial from the perspective of our time, the beliefs in mystical, supernatural, discriminatory and prejudicial understandings of human life and behavioural manifestations were quite infl uential and dominant in the distant past. As is commonly known, the development of a comprehensive theory of human existence that is applicable to all people was impeded to some degree by the dominant views on human nature that suggested diff erent classes of human beings are not equally worthy. Th us, there is a rich human history of exclusion, segregation, ostracism, devaluation and marginalisation, and it is still strongly present where there are many examples of some categories of people being con-sidered better or more valuable than others. Under such circumstances and under the domination of such a basic view on human nature, it is clear that it was diffi cult to develop models capable of explaining the apparent diversity of human behavioural manifestations, ranging from kings and nobles to the poor and developmentally challenged. In fact, it was not uncommon to postulate that men and women were also driven by qualitatively diff erent processes in terms of motivation, as well as in terms of cognitive abilities. All this suggests that some important premises essential for developing one comprehensive theory of human motivation and subsequent behaviour were lacking. Perhaps even more importantly, the powerful existence of some other premises impeded advancements in human thought in this particular area. One of the most fundamen-tal premises in the past that directly represented a major obstacle to the advancement of scientifi cally based models of human functioning was the notion of divine creation. In historical terms, one could say that the postulation of divine creation represented one of the most powerful, and in many ways most unfortunate, ideas on which all discussions concern-ing human nature started and ended. One of the main problems was that ancient philosophical discussions did not suffi ciently distinguish between the " why " and " how " of behaviour. One could say that the " why " did not represent a problem because the majority of the postulations prior to 1850 have, without hesitation or doubt, been based on the notion of God as an initiator of all actions. In many ways, in the history of ideas