Human Nature
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Human nature is very complicated. We have instincts or natural inclinations towards certain types of behavior (such as aggression, sex, selfishness, etc). Evolution can explain how we developed our physiology and our behavior patterns. We have a very complex social behavior (no doubt due, in part, to our capacity for language). We pass along non-genetic information (e.g. ideas, 'memes', etc). We organize ourselves through ideas -- unlike other social animals, which organize themselves through aggression leading to dominance/subservient hierarchies (e.g. wolf packs) or through functions of the individuals (e.g. worker bees, queen bees, etc). Our society changes rapidly and dramatically within decades (just look at how different society was 10 and 20 years ago from today). In nature, species tend to go extinct if they undergo such rapid and major changes. How does our society maintain its integrity? Organic evolution is believed to be too slow to compensate for such rapid changes. Is it really? Darwinism requires gradual change over long time periods for organic evolution, however, does this mean that cultural evolution must also be gradual? Perhaps, in a sense, but cultural evolution can be much faster than organic evolution. We are capable of morality (...or at least, we think we are). Determining when our species evolved the capacity for morality may be an impossible task. The question is not why did evolution create a moral being? (for that would presuppose some supernatural entity), but rather how did evolution create a moral being? Certainly our brain size (or brain mass to body mass ratio), brain physiology and brain functions are part of the answer. The human brain evolved because it gave us some advantage: it enabled us to rapidly adapt to changing environments. But is this sufficient to answer how our societies continue to function under rapid change? Humans have conciousness. Consciousness may simply be an "emergent property" of a highly complex system (i.e. our brain and nervous system are made up of numerous ganglia which collectively work for the whole). As a consequence of this emergent property, morality may have arisen spontaneously. It is a basic principle that new rules or properties arise in higher levels of complexity not found in the constituent parts (e.g. different combinations of protons and neutrons create atoms with completely different properties; different combinations of atoms create molecules that have different properties from the constituent atoms or from different molecules). What is our nature and where are we headed with it? Answers to these have been attempted by philosophers, biologists, psychologists, physicists, etc. Each attempt reveals a small part of the whole picture. My purpose here is to provide some biological perspectives on the matter, since we are biological organisms --knowledge of our origins have to be part of the answer, even if it's just a small part. Here are summaries of books dealing with human (and animal) nature. I recommend reading the actual books for understanding the details of their arguments -- these are only summaries, any interpretations are my own. You may also want to read some of the books in my reference section. I recommend the two below, as well as Consilience by E.O. Wilson (1998).
BOOK SUMMARIES:
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