ABSTRACT
The analysis of “human nature” became unfashionable in the early decades of the last century because it was so speculative. Today, we have much better empirical and analytical tools to explore what is basic to human biology, as distinct from what is cultural and learned. Of course, there is very little that is wholly biological, or cultural for that matter. Indeed, at biological conception when the egg and sperm meet, interaction effects between genotypes and emerging phenotypes, on the one side, and the social and physical environment, on the other, begin and never end. The womb is an environment that is affected by the larger sociocultural environment, and so there is very little about humans and their actions that is not simultaneously sociocultural and biological. Still, if we are to gain extra purchase in understanding human emotionality, we should try to discover the reasons why hominid and human neuroanatomy was rewired not only for emotions but other behavioral propensities as well. Culture and social structure certainly constrain how these propensities are expressed, but we must also recognize the converse: cultural and social structural arrangements are also constrained by human biology. How, then, should we enter this tricky terrain and try to ferret out what we can call, in a weak moment, human nature?
