Against human nature

Abstract

Are cultural differences superimposed upon a universal human nature? The appeal to an essentialist concept ofhuman nature is a defensive reaction to the legacy of racist science left by Darwin’s argument in The Descent ofMan. Humans are made to appear different in degree from their evolutionary antecedents by attributing the movement ofhistory to a process ofculture that differs in kind from the biological process of evolution. The specifications of evolved human nature are supposed to lie in the genes. However, human capacities are not genetically speci- fied but emerge within processes of ontogenetic development. Moreover the circumstances of development are continually shaped through human activity. There is consequently no human nature that has escaped the current of history.