## Definition **Human nature** refers to the set of psychological traits, dispositions, and capacities that are characteristic of the species *Homo sapiens* by virtue of evolved biology rather than individual learning or cultural transmission. **Innateness** is the property of a trait that is present in an organism due to its genetic endowment, not solely because of environmental input. In Steven Pinker's *The Blank Slate* (2002), affirming a rich human nature — against the Blank Slate doctrine — is the book's central empirical claim. ## The Evolutionary Argument Human nature is the product of natural selection operating over hundreds of thousands of years in ancestral environments. The brain, like the heart or the immune system, is an organ with a functional architecture shaped by selection pressures. It comes equipped with specialised systems: a language faculty (Chomsky's universal grammar), a theory of mind (ability to attribute beliefs and desires to others), intuitive physics, numerical sense, face recognition, emotional programmes, and a moral sense. This does not mean behaviour is fixed or that culture is irrelevant. Evolution equipped humans with learning mechanisms, including a uniquely powerful capacity to accumulate and transmit culture. But the learning mechanisms themselves are innate — the blank slate was never blank. ## Human Universals The anthropologist Donald Brown catalogued over 300 behavioural universals — traits found in every documented human society without exception. These include: language with recursive grammar; concepts of right and wrong; romantic love; mourning the dead; distinctions between kin and non-kin; in-group/out-group distinctions; trade; music and dance; bodily adornment; myths and narratives; and humour. The universality of these features across radically different cultures is evidence that they are products of a shared evolved endowment rather than local cultural invention. ## The Four Sciences Pinker identifies four disciplines whose convergent findings support a rich human nature: 1. **Cognitive science**: modular theory of mind; the mind is not a general learning device but a collection of domain-specific systems. 2. **Neuroscience**: all mental functions are substrate-dependent; the mind is what the brain does. 3. **Behavioural genetics**: approximately 40–50 % of variance in personality, intelligence, and behavioural tendencies is heritable (see [[Nature vs Nurture and Behavioural Genetics]]). 4. **Evolutionary psychology**: psychological mechanisms can be explained as adaptations to ancestral environments — kin-directed altruism, reciprocity, mate preferences, aggression, coalition-building, and moral emotions all follow from evolutionary logic. ## The Human Nature and Moral Equality Distinction A recurring theme in Pinker's argument is that acknowledging innate human traits does not entail any discriminatory conclusion. Equality of rights and dignity does not require empirical identity — two people can be radically different in endowment without either being less deserving of respect. The fallacy is to treat "different" as equivalent to "inferior" or to use natural differences to justify social hierarchies. Pinker quotes the genomics finding that all 8 billion humans descend from a small ancestral population and are remarkably uniform genetically; visible between-group differences (e.g. skin colour) are superficial climate adaptations. ## Evolved Ambivalence Crucially, human nature is neither purely selfish nor purely altruistic — it is a stable mixture shaped by game-theoretic pressures. Kin selection, reciprocal altruism, reputation management, and coalition loyalty all contributed to a psychology that is simultaneously capable of heroic self-sacrifice and vicious in-group/out-group hostility. Every great tragedy in literature, Pinker notes, reflects this permanent tension. ## Related - [[The Blank Slate Doctrine]] - [[The Noble Savage]] - [[The Ghost in the Machine]] - [[Nature vs Nurture and Behavioural Genetics]] ## Sources - [[The Blank Slate (Pinker 2002)]]