Dr. Adam Johns
ENGCMP 0200 – Seminar in Composition
December 5, 2008
Human Nature – Innate or Learned?
“Human nature” is defined by David J. Buller, author of Adapting Minds, as the concept that there are a set of logical characteristics, including ways of thinking, feeling and acting that all “normal” human beings have in common. One important debate surrounding human nature is whether or not it is an innate quality or a learned behavior. Innate behavior is classified as something that is inborn, genetic, biologically based, or inherited, and learned behavior is categorized as something that is acquired or social background. This perhaps is better known as the nature vs. nurture debate. This debate still rages on as scientists fight over how much of who we are is shaped by genes and how much by the environment. Lilith’s Brood, a novel by Octavia Butler, shows “what they call ‘the human contradiction,’ humanity’s ‘lethal’ combination of ‘mismatched genetic characteristics’: intelligence and hierarchical thinking” (Tucker 1). After reading this novel, I believe what Butler is trying to convey is that our hierarchical tendencies drive our intelligence, and these tendencies drive us to use our intelligence to try to dominate one another. We are all victims of the human contradiction. Therefore, we must learn to resist acting on our nastier and innate hierarchical tendencies, such as aggression, ignorance, fear, and racism, in order to achieve tolerance and prevent a nuclear war from occurring. After gathering other research information about the debate, I became convinced that human nature is an innate quality that is with us since birth and endows us with inborn abilities and traits.
First, it is necessary to define innatism. Innatism can be defined as a philosophical doctrine that holds that the mind is born with ideas/knowledge. Several philosophers have tried to define innateness with the intention of making sense of its use in cognitive psychology. Paul E. Griffiths, a Professor of history and philosophy of science at the University of Pittsburgh, states, “In cognitive psychology, however, whether a trait is innate is still regarded as a significant question and is often the subject of heated debate. Some [scientific authors] claim that the popular demand to know if something is ‘in our genes’ is best construed as a question about whether a trait is an adaptation” (1). Research shows that “innate” traits are those that are to be explained biologically rather than psychologically. The term “innate” has been used in animal behavior studies in seven different senses, such as: present at birth, a behavioral difference caused by a genetic difference, adapted over the course of evolution, unchanging through development, shared by all members of the species, not learned, and a distinctly organized system of behavior driven from within (Griffiths 3). Human nature is also related to the innate features of human beings. For example, “if you were to give a popular science talk and assert that, say, addictive behavior is part of human nature you can count on your audience interpreting this to mean that addictive behavior is innate” (Griffith 4). Cognitive psychology gives many detailed explanations of how innate characteristics are equivalent to human nature.
One example of a positive innate characteristic that humans possess is language. Language and culture, and how knowledge and ideas are processed, are all evidence for the innatism side of the debate. Leon Eisenberg, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, argues that “[t]he capacity to acquire language must be generic because only the human species display this capacity” (7). Also, William O’Grady, a professor of linguistics at the University of Hawaii, believes that “children are born with a set of universal linguistic principles and that many aspects of adult grammar are innate” (4). Innatism is shown in language because humans are born with the ability to speak and understand language. Many linguists and scientists agree that it is impossible for a child to learn the rules of language from examples; the child must have innate rules to which the vocabulary of the language is fitted. A baby’s brain is inscribed with the genetic history of humankind, with the traits that allowed earlier humans to survive, and with many of the quirks that make individuals who they are.
One characteristic that certainly sets humans apart from the rest of the world is our intelligence. In Octavia Butler’s Lilith’s Brood, she discusses her fear that the human race will destroy itself because of its human contradiction – we are both intelligent and hierarchical. The Oankali seek to interbreed with the survivors of a nuclear war in order to remove this conflict between humanity’s genetic traits. Because the conflict involves humans’ genes, it can be said that the human contradiction is an innate trait. Jdahya explains to Lilith, “You are intelligent. That’s the newer of the two characteristics, and the one you might have put to work to save yourselves. You are potentially one of the most intelligent species we’ve found, though your focus is different from ours” (Butler 39). The Oankali believe that no matter where humans are, they will eventually destroy themselves with their intelligence. Eisenberg asserts, “Man’s intelligence permits him the conscious choice of goals and so differentiates him from the rest of animate existence” (7). This is important because our ability to reflect and consciously choose the values we instill in our children enables us as a species to be whatever we want to be. James VanHise believes:
Unlike most animals, we have a large cerebral cortex that allows for reasoning, consideration, creativity and culture. The instinct-controlling part of our brain is relatively insignificant in comparison to the cortex, and can be superseded by will and thought. It is this “flexible response” capability that enabled humans to survive and rise above the rest of the animal kingdom. (1)
I believe that human intelligence is separated from the intelligence of the rest of the animal kingdom because we are able to knowingly make our own decisions and choices based on our morals, ethics, and beliefs. Our intelligence has given us a positive advantage that has helped us through natural selection. However, if we become too intelligent, we might possess the power and knowledge to destroy ourselves, as demonstrated in Lilith’s Brood.
The second characteristic that makes up the human contradiction is that we are hierarchical. Jdahya again elaborates, “That’s the older and more entrenched characteristic. We saw it in your closest animal relatives and in your most distant ones. It’s a terrestrial characteristic” (Butler 39). The Oankali believe that humans were doomed from the start, because of their aggressions and hierarchical behavior. Jeffrey Tucker reveals that “the human propensity for hierarchical thinking sustains it and maps it on to another group, at a higher, species-oriented, taxonomic level” (6). I believe this to be true. Humans strive to be the superior species and feel that they must always be the biggest, the richest, and the best at everything. Humans place themselves at the top of the hierarchy pyramid above all other living organisms. Lilith however argues against all this and does not think that it could be that simple. The Oankali lecture Lilith about the superiority of their egalitarian, nonviolent lifestyle, as opposed to the hierarchical, violent tendencies of humans. “On the face of it, ‘the human contradiction’ is a statement about human nature, a claim that the hierarchical thinking for which there are all too many examples in human history is an inevitable consequence of human DNA coding” (Tucker 12). After Akin persuades the Oankali of the necessity of a resister colony on Mars, he tells Yori, one of the resistors, “Human purpose isn’t what you say it is or what I say it is. It’s what your biology says it is--what your genes say it is” (Butler 501). This is further evidence that our human behavior of hierarchical thinking is a part of humanity’s biological hard-wiring and thus is an innate behavior.
The human contradiction can be found in real world examples, outside of the story told in Lilith’s Brood. “It is hierarchical thinking that Butler detected in Cold War-era rhetoric in the 1980s, particularly in the Reagan Administration’s delusional statements about achieving victory through nuclear warfare, which Butler identifies as an ‘inspiration’ for writing Lilith’s Brood” (Tucker 15). Butler states, “‘It’s less a matter of being programmed for self-destruction than it is that self-destruction occurs because we’re not willing to go beyond that principle of who’s got the biggest or the best or the most’” (Tucker 15). Here, Butler locates the human contradiction not at the level of the biological, of genetic “programming,” but, rather, as “principle,” at the level of culture and convention. This same principle structures and enables racism and sexism. Racism is a most deadly form of hierarchical thinking that support’s the novel’s theme of embracing difference (Tucker 10). Butler’s concern or interest is the hierarchical tendency to arrange groups vertically, to ascribe value to those at the top and to deny the value of those at the bottom. This way of thinking can be dangerous and causes it to be very easy to make stereotypes about different types of people who we see at the bottom of the pyramid. If we are as intelligent as we like to think we are, hopefully we will be able to avoid turning these hierarchical thoughts into hierarchical behavior and avoid destroying one another as a result of this behavior.
Aggression is one of the main behavioral instincts that factor into whether we can keep ourselves from destroying each other. Many psychologists debate whether it is instinct or culture that drives us to commit atrocities, such as murder and war. I believe that there is to human nature a nature that is motivated by territorial obligations and provoked by aggressive instincts. Leon Eisenberg states, “The tendency to aggression is an innate, independent, instinctual disposition in man” (2). VanHise agrees that “we are born with aggressive instincts. Human nature is violent. War is inevitable” (1). Many of our ideas about society and how it should be organized are based on this idea, and much of our thinking starts with the basic principle that human beings are born-killers.
One way to determine whether or not aggression is an innate human trait is to examine other cultures. The other side of the debate says that if just one culture can be found that values cooperation and nurturing over violence, then we can conclude that aggression is a learned cultural response, not a human instinct (VanHise 1). Research shows that some cultures are extremely violent warrior societies where aggression is highly valued, but other cultures are gentle and peaceful, with few instances of violent crime or war. Eisenberg further summarizes, “The phenomenon of war is unknown to one society, appears in a second only under environmental stress, but is a lethal ‘game’ without apparent material benefit in a third” (8). However, I do not believe that by finding one example of a society that is not violent disproves the entire notion that aggression is a human instinct. There are several other variables that could explain why some cultures and societies are more or less violent than other ones. Perhaps the more peaceful societies have learned how to counteract their innate aggressive instincts and have become more tolerant of others. Moreover, even the most peaceful societies are still involved in the bloodiest of wars. War has increased in intensity and duration, reaching its culmination in modern society (Eisenberg 8). Also, “when violence is sanctioned, it will increase” (Eisenberg 9). This reveals that when violent acts are being authorized and allowed, people will commit more of them because of their innately aggressive instincts.
Further evidence that supports my belief that human nature is an innate quality is the concept of natural selection and Darwinism. Nativism is the idea that the mind cannot learn unless it has the rudiments of innate knowledge. William James, a psychologist and philosopher, believed that human beings were equipped with innate tendencies that were derived not from experience but from the Darwinian process of natural selection. In Paul Griffiths view, “[t]his intentional or normative element of the innateness concept is today usually assimilated to the idea of design by natural selection: innate traits are those that the organism is designed to possess or which are programmed in its genes” (2). Many anthropologists believe that it is our ability to cooperate with one another, not our ability to fight or compete that is our evolutionary survival trait (VanHise 1). “The idea of brotherhood is not new, but what is special to our times is that brotherhood has become the precondition for survival” (Eisenberg 10).
In addition, the debate over innate ideas is a possible turning point in the integration of Darwinism with the human sciences. “If it became recognized that human minds are infused with content many of whose specifics are the downstream consequence of natural selection, this would require revision throughout psychology, neuroscience, and the social sciences” (Tooby 4). Humans’ innatism has helped them in their quest for survival because through natural selection, favorable heritable traits have become more common in successive generations and unfavorable heritable traits have become less common. The traits we possess innately are very important to our survival as a species because natural selection is based on hereditary characteristics. By passing on only the positive traits to our offspring, we are ensuring their survival and their ability to do the same with their own offspring. Only shortly after Darwin’s development of the idea of natural selection, he realized that natural selection provided an elegant, naturalistic explanation for the origin of innate ideas.
Additionally, an ongoing debate that focuses on whether human nature is an innate quality or a learned experience is the nature versus nurture debate. The nature vs. nurture debate concerns the relative importance of an individual’s innate qualities (“nature”) versus personal experiences (“nurture”) in determining or causing individual differences in physical and behavioral traits. It has been reported that the use of the terms “nature” and “nurture” can be traced back to 13th century France. Some scientists think that people behave as they do according to genetic predispositions or even “animal instincts.” Other scientists believe that people think and behave in certain ways because they are taught to do so.
Supporters of the nurture theory believe genetic tendencies ultimately do not matter -- that our behavioral aspects originate only from the environmental factors of our upbringing. Benjamin Lahey, author of Psychology: An Introduction, concludes, “Although the influence of heredity on human behavior and mental processes is significant, the events that we experience in our environments play a profoundly important role as well” (100). Griffiths supports this belief and says, “The innate traits are simply the complement of the learnt traits” (3). There are two different types of environments that followers of the nurture theory believe influences us: physical environments and social environments. “When psychologists speak of the important role in the environment in shaping our lives, we are referring to both the physical and the psychological environment” (Lahey 101). For example, some of the chemicals we are exposed to from water and air pollution may influence human behavior and mental processes. There is even stronger evidence that greater exposure to alcohol during pregnancy has a casual impact on the level of aggressive and rule-breaking behavior later in childhood (101).
Human beings are also profoundly influenced by their social environments. Lahey explains, “Our parents, siblings, friends, and neighborhoods all influence us. The language that we speak, the foods that we eat, and the beliefs that we hold are all influenced by other people” (101). For instance, parents, siblings, friends, and neighborhoods all influence the likelihood that an adolescent will smoke cigarettes and suffer the health consequences caused by smoking. According to psychologist Steven Pinker, nature -- not nurture, culture or learning -- is the key.
Pinker declares, “Parents affect which peer group a child falls into. They teach their children skills such as sports, musical instruments, and school skills. And, at least during childhood, parents strongly affect their children’s happiness and well-being” (Painter 2). I believe this to be true because my parents instilled on me an appreciation for music and motivated me to develop good study skills to help me do well in school. However, sports were not a big emphasis during my childhood so I did not develop exceptional athletic skills.
Another characteristic that the nurture theory seeks to explain is aggression. Children are presented with many opportunities to learn violent behavior. Children see that violence pays off, and they are provided with adult models of violent behavior with whom to identify, both on television and in real life (Eisenberg 9). National leaders also endorse violence as an appropriate response to the resolution of intergroup conflict. “Learning may not account completely for human aggression, but the social forces in contemporary society that encourage its development are so evident that preoccupation with hypothesized biological factors is almost impractical” (Eisenberg 9). According to Eisenberg, the social environmental factors are so profound that the explanations of the biological factors pale in comparison.
The culture to which we belong is a prime source of the social influences that affect our behavior and make one individual different from another. VanHise believes that if peaceful cultures exist, then we can conclude that aggression is a learned cultural response, not a human instinct (1). Also, according to Pinker, “[p]arents should be relieved that they can’t mold their children’s intellects and personalities with the right toys, books, and experiences. There is a tendency to blame mothers for everything that goes wrong with their children” (Painter 2). However, Pinker adds that “research suggests that within a culture, about half the variation among people’s personalities is caused by differences in their genes; little is caused by the homes and parents they grew up with; and half is caused by something else” (Painter 2). This shows that while parents can help teach their children how to develop skills, they cannot possess complete control over their personalities. A further example is a study in New Scientist that suggests that sense of humor is a learned trait, influenced by family and cultural environment, and not genetically determined. In summary, the nurture theory proposes that human nature is a learned experience that only comes from watching and learning from others. Humans model one another’s behavior and acquire these characteristics through their physical and social environments.
At the other end of the spectrum, is the nature theory. The nature theory declares that abstract traits such as intelligence, personality, and aggression are encoded in an individual’s DNA. One of the main supporting arguments for the nature theory comes from the study of identical and fraternal twins. Identical (monozygotic) twins are identical in appearance because they have the same genetic structure. Fraternal (dizygotic) twins are no more alike genetically than are siblings born at different times. If a characteristic of behavior is influenced to some degree by heredity, monozygotic twin pairs (who share 100% of their genes) will be more similar to each other than will dizygotic twin pairs (who share 50% of their genes, on average, like typical siblings born at different times). “The many experiments conducted using twins have revealed the influence of heredity on behavior. For example, studies of twins have suggested that intelligence is partly determined by heredity. Monozygotic twins who have identical genetic structure have almost identical IQ scores. Dizygotic twins and ordinary siblings share only half of their genes and have considerably less similar IQ scores than monozygotic twins” (Lahey 95). These conclusions must be true because if genetics did not play a part, then fraternal twins, reared under the same conditions, would be alike, regardless of differences in their genes. But, while studies show they do more closely resemble each other than do non-twin brothers and sisters, they also show these same striking similarities when reared apart – as in similar studies done with identical twins. The nurture theory tries to show that environments in which the twins were reared are significant, but the nature theory clearly disputes this and proves that intelligence is in fact a genetic characteristic.
The view that humans acquire all or almost all of their behavioral traits from “nurture” is known as tabula rasa, or “blank slate.” This question was once considered to be an appropriate division of developmental influences, but since both types of factors are known to play such interacting roles in development, many modern psychologists consider the question naive – representing an outdated state of knowledge. John Tooby, co-director for the Center for Evolutionary Psychology and author of the article “Resolving the Debate on Innate Ideas” made the following counter-argument to the nurture theory:
For evolutionary psychologists, the blank slate view is both theoretically implausible (as it would pointlessly and fatally handicap any animal so designed), and inconsistent with the comparative evidence. Darwin and subsequent evolutionary researchers have investigated numerous species in which organisms display knowledge and competences which, as we have argued, they did not acquire ontogenetically from any general-purpose, content-independent neurocomputational procedure. That is, many species develop knowledge that is absent from the stimuli they have access to, and not uniquely entailed by it. (4)
I agree with Tooby because if animals were born with a blank slate and had to learn all of their behavioral traits and characteristics, they would have very little chance of surviving. Evidence shows that these animals possess knowledge and skills that they did not obtain through their environment. Concisely, the nature theory shows that many of our characteristics and traits are genetic and are with us since birth.
In conclusion, human nature is a very important topic to study because it dictates what we think, how we feel, how we act, and who we are. There are those who believe in the nature theory that traits are genetic, and there are those who believe in the nurture theory that behaviors originate only from environmental factors. After researching evidence, support, and counter-arguments from both sides of the debate, I believe that most of our traits are genetic and I support the nature theory. I agree with Griffiths who observes, “Innateness is a term in common use, and one that represents a highly intuitive way of thinking about living systems” (5). I believe that scientists and psychologists will continue to argue for both sides of the debate and might change their opinions as more and more research is conducted and new discoveries are made. The world may never know whether or not nature, nurture, or an interplay of both nature and nurture are responsible for giving us our behaviors, characteristics, traits, and skills, but it is still a very important and on-going debate. Similarly to Octavia Butler inviting her readers to question her grim view of human nature, as portrayed in Lilith’s Brood, and encouraging their intellectual curiosity, the nature vs. nurture debate provokes our curiosity as more evidence and research is made presentable to us. The debate challenges us to see the situation from both sides and then make our own personal decision on whether human nature is innate or learned.
Works Cited
Butler, Octavia E. Lilith's Brood. Grand Rapids: Grand Central, 2000.
Eisenberg, Leon. "The "Human" Nature of Human Nature." Science, New Series 176.4031
(1972): 123-128. JSTOR. 14 Apr. 1972. 16 Nov. 2008 http://www.jstor.org/stable/1732969.
Griffiths, Paul E. "What is Innateness?" Monist 85 (2002): 70-86. MLA International
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Lahey, Benjamin B. Psychology: An Introduction. 10th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2008.
O'Grady, William. "Innateness, universal grammar, and emergentism." Lingua 118 (2008):
620-31. 5 July 2007. ScienceDirect. 15 Nov. 2008 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=mimg&_imagekey=b6v6h-4p48246-1-1&_cdi=5815&_user=88470&_orig=search&_coverdate=04%2f30%2f2008&_sk=998819995&view=c&wchp=dglbvtb-zskzv&_valck=1&md5=9c9688cc9efd01cbcf53d4eda9c04bde&ie=/sdarticle.pdf.
Painter, Kim. "We are who we are, or are we? The idea that we are driven by biology isn't sitting well." USA TODAY 03 Oct. 2002. USA TODAY Special. 16 Nov. 2008 http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/about/media/2002_10_03_usatoday.html.
Tooby, John, Leeda Cosmides, and Clark Barrett. "Resolving the debate on innate ideas: Learnability constraints and the evolved interpenetration of motivational and conceptual functions." The Innate Mind : Structure and Contents. By Peter Carruthers. Ed. Stephen Laurence and Stephen Stich. New York, NY: Oxford UP, Incorporated, 2005.
Tucker, Jeffrey A. "'The Human Contradiction': Identity and/as Essence in Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis Trilogy." Yearbook of English Studies 37 (2007): 164-81. 2007. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. University of Pittsburgh ULS, Pittsburgh. 15 Nov. 2008 http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/litrc?&srchtp=adv&c=1&ste=78&stab=2048&tbst=asrch&tab=2&advst1=rn&bconts=2050&advsf1=a167030912&docnum=a167030912&locid=gale.
VanHise, James, ed. "Innate Aggression." Fragments Zine. 17 Nov. 2008 http://www.fragmentsweb.org/txt2/innatetx.html.
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