Rose, Lewontin and Kamin Not in our Genes Philosophy 224 Rose, Lewontin and Kamin Not in our Genes

The Scientists Reply Rose and his colleagues are just the type of people that Wilson believes should be taking up the question of human nature (an evolutionary biologist, a neurobiologist, and a psychologist). Unlike Wilson, however, they are skeptics of biological determinism and have actively opposed, “…the oppressive forms in which determinist ideology manifests itself” (304). They have done so from an explicitly political perspective and in the name of “a critical and liberatory science:” the “radical science” movement. RS assumes that scientific practice and theorizing can be, and typically is, as conditioned by political ideology as any other human activity, “…science is not and cannot be above ‘mere’ human politics” (309). In this book from which this excerpt is taken, they propose to offer an alternative account of “the nature of human nature.”

The New Right The political ideology (see footnote on p. 305) to which Rose and his colleagues are opposing themselves is the “New Right.” This movement is a late 20th century development, a response to the liberalism of the 60’s and 70’s in which they see an ‘erosion’ of the values which characterized the early-capitalist west. The conceptual core of the New Right is a philosophy of individualism. Moral: rights of individuals primary. Ontological: collectives are just sums of individuals.

Historical Antecedents As the author’s note, this philosophical individualism is hardly new. It can be traced back at least as far as the 17th century and the work of Thomas Hobbes. Recognition of this historical precedent does highlight an interesting feature of the New Right’s reliance on philosophical individualism. Like the more recent versions, Hobbes individualism is predicated on a theory of human nature based on an analysis of human biology. It’s this connection between individualism and biology that the author’s focus on.

Two Aspects There are two distinct aspects of this connection that come under scrutiny. Ontological Reductionism: the attempt to explain the properties of complex wholes by reference to their parts (which are assumed to be ontologically prior). Biological Determinism: human behavior including ultimately human social organization is the product of a causal chain that originates in human genes. A particularly insidious feature of both of these assumptions is their claim to inevitability: they are presented as logical or natural and thus unarguable. They are not in fact unarguable, and in their book the author’s contest all of the more specific claims listed on p. 308.

Putting Determinism to Work One of the more common features of the New Right highlighted by the authors is their use of biological determinism to justify their political positions. Social inequality, racism, selective distribution of wealth, etc., have all been justified on the basis of the claim that “it’s just human nature.” Though we don’t see the full critique in this selection, in the book, they do offer us a brief survey of the most obvious flaws in New Right’s reliance on determinism as well as a statement of their own, opposing, account of human nature.

Meliorists As the author’s make clear, in opposition to the moral and ontological skepticism of the New Right, they offer a form of meliorism: the belief that it is possible to improve the conditions of human existence and social interaction and that human effort is crucial to this improvement. From their point of view, “…inequalities of wealth, power, and status are not ‘natural’ but socially imposed obstructions to the building of a society in which the creative potential of all its citizens is employed for the benefit of all” (310).

What about Wilson Clearly, Wilson’s attempt to apply sociobiology to the question of human nature is an example of the biological determinism criticized by the author’s. In fact, they devote a whole chapter to his work. Unlike liberal critics of Wilson, who reject his application of biological determinism to human social forms, but accept it as an account of the non-human world, the authors think his biology is as bad as his sociology. But neither do they accept the cultural determinism to which Wilson opposes himself.

A Dialectical Relationship Instead the authors want to acknowledge the deep influence both biology and nurture have on human behavior and social forms. They propose a dialectical treatment of these influences. Such a treatment, “…do[es] not abstract properties of parts in isolation from their associations in wholes but see the properties of parts as arising out of their associations” (312). While still a monist, materialist view, this dialectical account of human nature is decidedly non-reductionist, insisting upon the qualitative and temporal distinctiveness of the moments of the whole, independent of the parts which make up these moments.

A New model We can see the consequences of this dialectical approach for questions of human and non-human environmental interaction (313). The upshot is that organisms are in a constant and active exchange with the environment. This dynamic account of the relationship between the organism and the world complicates any attempt to offer an account of human nature as a static, biological reality, “…about the only sensible thing to say about human nature is that it is ‘in’ that nature to construct its own history” (315). That history includes the attempts by biological determinists to deny this historicity and enshrine as ‘natural’ specific historical inequalities, but it also includes the rejection of these attempts in favor of a more historically sensitive meliorism.