Reconceptualizing Human Nature: Response to Lewens

Abstract

There is a growing consensus that the traditional notion of human nature has failed and that human nature needs to be reconceptualized in light of our current scientific knowledge, including the knowledge gained in genetics and evolutionary biology. In “A Plea for Human Nature,” I highlighted this need, and I engaged in this reconceptualization effort, proposing a new notion of human nature, “the nomological notion of human nature” [Machery (Philosophical Psychology 21:321–330, 2008)]; for some more recent work, see Griffiths (Arts: The Journal of the Sydney University Arts Association, 31:30–57, 2009), (2011); Stotz (Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 9:483–501, 2010); Samuels (Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, 70:1–28, 2012). In “Human Nature: The Very Idea,” Tim Lewens discusses the nomological notion of human nature critically. I am grateful for Lewens’s insightful article, and I examine Lewens’s criticisms in this brief response.