Admitting That We Are What We Are

  The "nature vs nurture" argument has been around for millenia in one form of the other, and this is one point on which I break with most of the ancient Stoics.  They tended to hold to the belief that, if we were taught properly, we could transcend our nature.  If a person acts immorally, he is simply mistaken, and needs to be taught how to act in the larger society.  The came down firmly on what we now call the "nurture" side of the debate, at least to the extent that they saw human nature as very malleable.

  I think, however, that what we have learned from the sciences compels us, if we are honest and follow the data rather than a priori ethical principles, to admit that while we might be able to control human behavior with the social unit, we cannot significantly change it.  First, the evidence tells us that we evolved from omnivorous and would-be carnivorous ancestors.  There were herbivorous hominids, yes, but they are not in our line of descent.  In fact, they were evolutionary failures. Secondly, animals that eat meat, even as only part of their diet, tend to be aggressive.  After all, the prey does not voluntarily agree to be killed for our nourishment.  it must be hunted, and the kill must be guarded from other, opportunistic predators.  A meek, peaceful animal will not make a successful hunter.

  We can look at living examples of these types of animals among the modern primates.  The gorilla, despite his size and the almost slanderous "King Kong" movies, is a relatively peaceful herbivore.  True, a silver-back male will respond quite aggressively to threats to his group, but they rarely exhibit aggressive behavior unless provoked.  By contrast, the chimpanzee, our closest genetic relative, is an aggressive omnivore.  Meat and insects are a normal part of their diet, and they exhibit the type of behavior one expects from a predator.  They even initiate raids on other groups' territories in order to capture better food resources, and their raids are not gentle and the fighting not ritualistic.http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/science/22chimp.html?_r=0

  Ok, so our ancestors and our closest relative behave aggressively; what does that say about us?  I suggest that we consider one other factor.  As Sagan pointed out in his work Gardens of Eden,  as we evolved we did not lose those parts of the brain possessed by our genetic ancestors.  They are still there, along with the drives and instincts they needed to survive.  What happened is that we developed new layers of brain, capable of turning hard-wired instincts into conscious behavior.  We can direct our drives, we can focus them, yes, but they are still quite present and an inescapable part of our heritage. We are apes, just more intelligent than any of the others currently on the planet. 

   The relevance of this to philosophy is that we have to stop dreaming about ethical or social systems that attempt to remake humanity; we are what we are, the descendent of an aggressive hominid who has learned how to control, to a limited extent, those aggressive tendencies.  Classical thought, unlike early Christian and also unlike Marxist thought, did not try to change man or reform him.  Certain behaviors might be against the law and the social contract, yes, and they would be forbidden.  The ethical and legal focus was purely on behavior, however, not on character.  No classical Roman would have had any concept, for example, of thinking in terms "committing adultery in the heart."  It would have been perfectly natural for a Roman man to look at an attractive woman and think, "I'd like to sleep with her."  As long as he refrained from committing the act, he had done nothing wrong, and the same understanding would apply to a woman as well.  There was no thought of denying normal human nature or trying to change it.