Human Nature
Many ethical judgments make appeals to human nature either as their foundation or as their standard. In the strongest case ethics is argued to be based on human nature; in other instances actions are proscribed if they fail to respect human nature or are recommended because they are said to be in harmony with human nature. Human nature is also an object of scientific investigation, raising questions related to both process and product: whether scientific investigation is undertaken in ways that respect human nature and whether the results of such investigations can contribute to the understanding of human nature in an ethically relevant sense. After a brief review of theories of human nature, the focus in this entry will be on the final question: the extent to which scientific knowledge of human beings can contribute to understanding or assessing these theories, especially in their role as foundations for ethics.
Theories of Human Nature in History
According to Leslie Stevenson (2004), theories of human nature entail theories about the world, human beings, what might be wrong with human beings, and how anything that is wrong might be corrected. Even those who deny any essential human nature in favor of a historical or cultural construction of human nature have views about what kinds of things human beings are and their place in the world.
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