Human Nature and War

Abstract

The relationship between war and human nature is one of those abstract and theoretical topics that people rarely talk about explicitly. Assumptions about human nature are more likely to remain implicit in most discussions of war and peace. There is something about human nature that leads to war; many believe that there must be some uncontrollable force that drives people to engage in warfare. For centuries, contrasting philosophical and religious views of human nature have framed this debate. More “scientific” version of this argument focus on psychological and biological impulses or instincts that supposedly lead to aggression and war. Through most realists do not explicitly endorse instinctual theories of war; there are some obvious parallels with their negative view of human nature, especially for classical realists. The opposing view sees war as a culturally learned practice, a form of collective violence rather than a manifestation of any individual level aggressive instinct. This perspective is more consistent with liberalism’s positive assessment of human nature as well as feminist and constructivist perspectives stressing the socially constructed nature of many human behaviors. Though much of this debate has been defined in terms of the familiar nature-or-nurture divide, (the debate over which human behaviors are biologically or instinctually determined as opposed to being socially or culturally conditioned). In the final analysis it might be more useful to think in terms of a combination of nature and nurture.