1. CHAPTER TWO: HUMAN NATURE P H I L O S O P H Y A Text with Readings ELEVENTH EDITION M A N U E L V E L A S Q U E Z

2. CHAPTER TWO: HUMAN NATURE P H I L O S O P H Y Human nature refers to what it means to be a member of our species, what makes us different from anything else. Some important issues raised by our views of human nature are questions concerning whether humans have a spiritual aspect or are purely material and whether humans are aggressive and self-interested or cooperative and benevolent.

3. CHAPTER TWO: HUMAN NATURE P H I L O S O P H Y Traditional Western views of human nature assume that all humans have the same human nature: They are conscious, rational selves who have a purpose. Some Traditional views refer to this immaterially defined self as the "soul".

4. CHAPTER TWO: HUMAN NATURE P H I L O S O P H Y One important version of the Traditional Western view of human nature is the ancient Greek view that sees humans as uniquely rational beings with a purpose. This view contends that reason can and should rule over human desire and aggressiveness. The Judeo-Christian religious view claims that humans are made in the image of God, who has endowed them with rational self-consciousness and an ability to love. In the Christian version, the self is immaterial and distinct from the body.

5. CHAPTER TWO: HUMAN NATURE P H I L O S O P H Y Some scientific views challenge the Traditional view of human nature. Darwin argued that humans evolved from earlier animal species through random variations and a natural selection that is the result of a struggle for existence. Darwin's view has been taken to imply that human nature has no purpose and is not unique.

6. CHAPTER TWO: HUMAN NATURE P H I L O S O P H Y Existentialist views deny that all humans have the same fixed nature. Instead, existentialists claim that each human creates his or her own nature. Existentialism asserts that although there is no fixed human nature, there is still a self that is a freely choosing, self-creating, active agent.

7. CHAPTER TWO: HUMAN NATURE P H I L O S O P H Y Feminists have argued that our concepts of reason, appetites, emotions, mind, and body are all biased in favor of men and against women, yet the rationalist and Judeo-Christian view is framed in terms of these sexist concepts. Reason, rationality, and mind are seen as superior "male" traits that must rule over the inferior "female" traits of emotion and bodily appetites, and this idea appears to be fundamentally sexist.

8. CHAPTER TWO: HUMAN NATURE P H I L O S O P H Y Descartes's dualist view of human nature says that humans are immaterial minds with material bodies. The material body is observable and has color, size, shape, and weight. The mind has no observable color, size, or shape, but it has consciousness. It is unclear how immaterial entities can interact with material ones.

9. CHAPTER TWO: HUMAN NATURE P H I L O S O P H Y Materialist views say that humans are solely material bodies. Identity theory holds that conscious states are identical with the body's brain states. Behaviorism says that conscious mental states are bodily behaviors or dispositions. Functionalism says that conscious mental states is a shorthand term for connections the body makes between sensory inputs and behavioral outputs. The computer view of human nature says that computers running programs can have minds and so the human mind is a computer.

10. CHAPTER TWO: HUMAN NATURE P H I L O S O P H Y The Traditional view of human nature and our ordinary thinking assume that humans have a self that endures through time. Descartes claims that the enduring self is a soul. Locke argues that memory produces the enduring self. Buddhism and Hume suggest that there is no enduring self.

11. CHAPTER TWO: HUMAN NATURE P H I L O S O P H Y Many of us believe in the view that the human self can and should be independent of others, self-sufficient, and capable of thinking for itself. Yet Hegel argues that who we are depends on the recognition of others and on our culture.