One of the defining intellectual struggles of the modern Western world concerns the nature of human nature itself. Since the cultural upheavals of the 1960s, influential currents of the academic Left have sought to minimise, reinterpret or reject biological explanations of human behaviour, particularly when such explanations appear to conflict with political commitments to equality and social transformation. The resulting controversy has involved biology, psychology, anthropology, sociology and philosophy, but its significance extends well beyond academic debate. At stake is whether human beings possess relatively stable biological dispositions that constrain social possibilities, or whether human nature is sufficiently malleable to be reconstructed through education, institutions, culture and political power.
A recent essay by Celina101, entitled "The Left's Problem with Human Nature," linked below, revisits this conflict by challenging the assumption that human abilities and behavioural characteristics can be explained almost entirely through environmental circumstances. The author points to research on the heritability of intelligence and argues that political discomfort with inherited differences does not constitute a scientific refutation of their existence. This is a legitimate starting point, but the deeper philosophical problem is even more interesting. Those who attack biological determinism frequently rely upon alternative accounts of human behaviour that, when taken to their logical extremes, are at least as deterministic and potentially more conceptually problematic than the biological theories they condemn.
The modern controversy acquired particular intensity following the publication of Edward O. Wilson's Sociobiology: The New Synthesis in 1975. Wilson proposed that evolutionary theory could illuminate the biological foundations of social behaviour, including aspects of human conduct. His work generated fierce opposition from academics associated with the radical scientific Left, including Richard Lewontin, Stephen Jay Gould and members of the Sociobiology Study Group of Science for the People. These critics feared that biological explanations of human behaviour would legitimise existing inequalities, reinforce traditional social hierarchies and provide intellectual support for reactionary political programmes.
Their objections were not entirely without scientific substance. Evolutionary explanations can become speculative, and it is possible to construct plausible-sounding stories about the adaptive origins of behaviour without sufficient independent evidence. Moreover, demonstrating that a behavioural tendency has an evolutionary history does not establish that it is morally desirable or socially inevitable. But the controversy was never exclusively scientific. It also concerned the political implications of accepting that human beings possess evolved dispositions that cannot simply be abolished through institutional reform, and Marxism.
Wilson's critics frequently characterised sociobiology as biological determinism, suggesting that its defenders regarded human behaviour as rigidly controlled by genes. Yet this interpretation overlooked a crucial distinction between biological influence and absolute determination. A genetic contribution to behaviour does not imply that environmental circumstances are irrelevant, that behaviour cannot change or that existing institutions are morally justified. Biological systems develop through complex interactions among genes, environments and developmental processes. Recognising inherited dispositions is entirely compatible with acknowledging learning, cultural variation and human agency.
Indeed, the most serious versions of evolutionary psychology and behavioural genetics do not require the simplistic proposition that particular genes mechanically dictate complex social outcomes. Heritability estimates describe variation within populations under particular environmental conditions. They do not establish that an individual's future is fixed, nor do they imply that differences between populations must have genetic explanations. To reject all biological influences because some biological explanations have been exaggerated would be no more rational than rejecting environmental influences because some sociological theories are demonstrably inadequate.
The deeper problem arises when critics substitute an equally sweeping form of sociological determinism. According to strong versions of social constructionism, human beliefs, values, identities and even categories of understanding are products of historically contingent social arrangements. Individuals are supposedly shaped by language, institutions, power relations and cultural practices to such an extent that claims about an independent human nature become suspect. What appears natural is redescribed as socially manufactured, and what appears universal becomes a contingent product of particular historical circumstances.
But this raises an obvious question. If human beings are so thoroughly constituted by social forces, what becomes of independent rational judgment? If beliefs are ultimately determined by class position, ideology, language or institutional power, why should the beliefs of the social constructionist be exempt from the same explanation? The theorist who claims to expose the social origins of everyone else's convictions is himself a participant in a social world. His arguments must therefore be subject to precisely the same forces that supposedly undermine the intellectual independence of his opponents.
This is the central reflexive difficulty. A theory that explains all beliefs as products of social determination cannot simply exempt its own conclusions without special pleading. If biological explanations are dismissed as ideological expressions of prevailing power structures, then social constructionist explanations must also be examined as possible expressions of particular political interests. The critic cannot coherently insist that his opponent's ideas are merely socially conditioned while treating his own ideas as privileged insights into objective reality.
The problem becomes more severe when social constructionism is combined with cognitive relativism. If standards of truth, rationality and evidence are themselves nothing more than local social conventions, on what basis can one social worldview be declared more accurate than another? The relativist may explain why different communities adopt different beliefs, but explanation is not justification. Demonstrating that a proposition has a particular social history does not establish whether it is true or false. To move from the social origins of belief to the invalidity of belief is to commit a form of the genetic fallacy.
Consider the claim that scientific theories are merely products of historically situated systems of power and knowledge. If this proposition is intended as an objective statement about the nature of scientific knowledge, it appears to invoke the very possibility of objective understanding that radical relativism calls into question. If, alternatively, the proposition is merely true within a particular social framework, there is no obvious reason why those outside that framework should accept it. The theory seems caught between making a universal claim it cannot justify and retreating into a local assertion that possesses no general authority.
This does not refute every form of social constructionism. Many social categories are genuinely shaped by historical circumstances, and scientific inquiry is conducted by people operating within institutions that influence research priorities and interpretations. Moderate social constructionism can make important contributions to understanding human behaviour. The conceptual difficulty arises when these observations are inflated into the sweeping proposition that knowledge, rationality and truth have no standards independent of social power or convention.
There is a further inconsistency in the treatment of human nature. The claim that human beings are indefinitely malleable is itself a substantial claim about human nature. It asserts that people possess an extraordinary capacity to be shaped by social circumstances, perhaps without significant biological constraints. But why should this claim be accepted without biological evidence? If human beings are products of evolution, their capacities for learning, imitation, cooperation, aggression, attachment and cultural adaptation must themselves have biological foundations. Culture does not float freely above the natural world. It depends upon organisms possessing evolved capacities to acquire, transmit and transform information.
The radical separation of biology and culture is therefore difficult to sustain. Human language, for example, is an immensely flexible cultural phenomenon, yet the capacity to acquire language depends upon biological structures and developmental processes. Social institutions vary enormously, but the human capacities for social learning, emotional attachment, competition and cooperation are not created from nothing by those institutions. The existence of cultural diversity does not demonstrate the absence of biological foundations. Rather, it illustrates how biologically constituted organisms can produce a remarkable range of cultural arrangements.
The irony is that sociological determinism can threaten human agency more directly than the biological theories it criticises. A biological account that recognises evolved dispositions need not deny that individuals can reflect upon their impulses, deliberate about alternatives and modify their behaviour. By contrast, an extreme account in which beliefs and values are wholly produced by social structures leaves little conceptual room for genuinely independent criticism. If the individual is merely the intersection of class, language, ideology and institutional power, the possibility of rationally transcending these influences becomes difficult to explain.
This difficulty is particularly acute for political movements committed to emancipation. The very idea of liberation presupposes that individuals possess some capacity to recognise oppression, evaluate alternatives and act upon reasons. Yet if all judgments are determined by prevailing social structures, the emergence of critical consciousness requires explanation. Why should one socially produced worldview be regarded as emancipatory while another is condemned as ideological mystification? Unless the critic appeals to standards of truth, reason or moral judgment that transcend the social processes being analysed, the distinction threatens to collapse into a struggle between competing systems of power.
The philosophical distinction between causation and justification is essential here. A person's beliefs may have biological, psychological and social causes without those causes determining whether the beliefs are rationally justified. A scientist may be influenced by professional incentives, political commitments or inherited cognitive dispositions, but the validity of a scientific argument depends upon its evidence, reasoning and susceptibility to criticism. Explaining why someone believes a proposition is not equivalent to establishing whether the proposition is true.
This distinction also protects biological explanations from an objection frequently directed against them. If human cognition is itself a product of evolutionary processes, does that undermine confidence in reason? Not necessarily. Evolutionary origins do not automatically invalidate cognitive capacities, just as social origins do not automatically invalidate beliefs. What matters is whether particular methods of inquiry reliably discriminate between truth and error. Science attempts to improve that reliability through independent testing, replication, logical criticism and correction of mistakes. Such methods are imperfect, but their fallibility does not make objective inquiry incoherent.
The lesson is that neither genes nor social structures should be elevated into an all-purpose explanation of human thought and behaviour. Biological reductionism becomes inadequate when it ignores development, learning and culture. Sociological reductionism becomes inadequate when it ignores evolved human capacities and treats individuals as passive products of social forces. Cognitive relativism becomes especially problematic when it undermines the standards of rational justification upon which its own criticisms depend.
The historical attack upon sociobiology illustrates the dangers of allowing political anxieties to dictate the boundaries of scientific investigation. Biological explanations should be criticised when they lack evidence, rely upon speculative adaptationist narratives or make unjustified claims about social inevitability. They should not be rejected merely because their possible implications are politically uncomfortable. Equally, social explanations should be judged by their explanatory power and empirical adequacy, not by their conformity with fashionable ideological commitments.
The more fundamental philosophical point is that an account of human nature must itself be compatible with the possibility of rational inquiry. A theory that reduces all thought to social determination while claiming objective authority for its own conclusions faces a serious problem of self-reference. A theory that declares all truth relative while presenting relativism as universally true encounters a similar difficulty. Neither contradiction can be resolved simply by invoking social justice, historical oppression or the political desirability of particular conclusions.
Human beings are biological organisms, cultural participants and reasoning agents. Any adequate account of human nature must accommodate all three dimensions without collapsing one into another. Evolution has shaped our capacities, societies influence their development, and rational reflection enables us to evaluate both our inherited tendencies and our cultural assumptions. The relationships among these dimensions are extraordinarily complex, but complexity is not a licence to deny biological reality or abandon standards of objective reasoning.
The most serious weakness of radical social constructionism is therefore not simply that it underestimates heredity. It is that, in its strongest forms, it threatens to dissolve the very intellectual standpoint from which it claims to criticise biological explanations. If every worldview is merely a social product, the constructionist's worldview is no exception. If rationality is nothing more than a local convention, the claim that biological determinism is irrational loses its universal force. And if human nature is infinitely malleable, that remarkable proposition itself requires evidence rather than ideological affirmation.
The revolt against biological determinism may have been motivated partly by legitimate fears concerning the political misuse of science. But replacing one alleged determinism with another does not constitute intellectual progress. Nor does replacing empirical inquiry with cognitive relativism establish a coherent foundation for social criticism. The better alternative is a fallibilist realism that recognises biological constraints, cultural influences and the possibility of objective knowledge without pretending that any one of these provides an exhaustive explanation of humanity.
The ultimate irony is that a Leftist political movement claiming to liberate humanity from the tyranny of biological nature can end by imprisoning human thought within the equally restrictive categories of social determination. The escape from biological determinism becomes a journey into sociological determinism, while the rejection of objective knowledge undermines the intellectual authority of the journey itself. A coherent philosophy of human nature requires something more demanding than the substitution of fashionable social theories for allegedly unfashionable biological ones. It requires recognising that human beings are products of nature who have developed the remarkable, if imperfect, capacity to understand and criticise both nature and society.
https://celina101.substack.com/p/the-lefts-problem-with-human-nature