If sexual differentiation is natural, women and men really are hardwired to be complementary to each other - matching soft female empathy to cold male logic, nurturer to provider, nurse to doctor, etc.
Though some such theories may be relevant for understanding the course and nature of contemporary warfare, they do not explain the existence of war itself. The scientific theories of the naturalness of war are definitively refuted by this lack of correlation, a fact they studiously ignore.
They come from our human history, not our human biology. And she points out that mapping sexual differences in brain physiology is a trivial exercise mere phrenology without some demonstration that these differences directly produce significantly different functioning.
Some authors will merely describe these issues, while others will provide their particular perspective and beliefs.
Sometimes this is easy to tell. It is true that religion-compatible behaviours are very common and may plausibly have direct origins in human nature, such as belief in super-human agency, magic, origin stories, sacred rituals and places, ecstatic experiences, etc.
They also note that there are some physiological differences in brain structures between men and women.
But religion as we normally understand it is actually a package that bundles a number of distinct features: Which is not to say that this invention is perfect either. What is the process of maturation?
On the other hand, does this scientific evidence really stack up?
Many deeply entrenched features and characteristics of human life are contingent not essential. I will look at three particularly controversial cases: Law and order or freedom?
There is a lack of adequate critical reflection - of a true scientific spirit of inquiry - in much of the naturalising project. In the human world people create new inventions - like religion or war or slavery or romantic love - that do something for them.
Such aspects of the human condition - like marriage, sports, and war - resist scientific analysis and must be studied in a more humanistic way.
Wells Wednesday, 2 March Human nature and the human condition Aspects of human nature - like our capacity for language, reasoning or emotions - are amenable to scientific analysis that looks at where they come from and how they work, using tools like evolutionary biology, genetics, or neuroscience.
Surely we have evidence right in front of our eyes about how our more or less insidious socialising norms and institutions re-produce gender?
As Plato noted a very long time ago in Book 5 of The Republic the fact that men and women are naturally - physiologically - different in certain ways is not necessarily any more relevant to their abilities than being long-haired or bald is relevant to being a good cobbler.
Well, it can mean MANY different things! Literary critics often label a piece of writing as literature - and not pulp fiction - if it tries to describe this "human condition.
Gender Gender offers a particularly interesting, and controversial, case for the application of this distinction, since there clearly are some natural physiological distinctions between men and women.
Religion Religion is generally taken to be an autonomous and distinct aspect of human nature whose origins and operations are amenable to scientific analysis. So what is war? But not everything about us that is important is innate.
It fits all too easily with our natural desire for a convenient truth: Cultural anthropologists could have saved them a lot of trouble since their research clearly shows that this concept of religion is a relatively recent invention by humans, and although dominant is far from being ubiquitous even in our modern world.
Human Nature -Are we naturally evil or good? But we discovered a better invention - the market economy - that has made inefficient slavery obsolete and now almost extinct. So, when looking for a commentary on the human condition in your readings, look for these central thematic issues.