There are many aspects of human existence- like war, morality etc- which are quite often attributed to the nativist school of thought. In contrast to the empiricist or tabula rasa view, this viewpoint holds that human beings are endowed with certain inborn, innate instincts which are hard-wired into the brain and these deeply entrenched features explain why humans wage war or why religion is so ubiquitous across ages and civilizations or why there is one true morality binding upon all of us. These characteristics of human existence, psychological nativists claim, are engendered by human biology and thus are an intractably inherent part of human nature. But in reality, innateness is not what determines the omnipresence of war or religion but cultural and historical conditioning. Put in a different way, the source of these dominant behaviors of human nature stem not from our genetic make-up but rather from the contemporary cultural practices and codes of conduct.
Take the case of war. It is naturally assumed that human beings categorically possess the animal instinct of aggression and hostility owing to the continuous struggle for survival. Why else would there be wars in all ages of human history? But as Margret Mead explains in the essay War not a Biological Necessity that war is not contingent upon factors like human nature or endless struggle for resources or frustration arising out of biologically determined drives. Warfare is more of a practice, a cultural ritual, an invention. If people have an idea about warfare as a way to handle certain circumstances i.e if war is the appropriate form of behavior, then when such circumstances appear, people will inevitably go to war. On the other hand, if people don't have an idea about war as a cultural norm or practice, they would either submit to the enemy or commit suicide themselves or quietly go about their business or find some way to vent out the anger, but they would never go to war.The point in emphasized in the following paragraphs by Margret Mead.
There is a way of behaving which is known to a given people and labelled as an appropriate form of behaviour; a bold and warlike people like the Sioux or the Maori may label warfare as desirable as well as possible, a mild people like the Pueblo Indians may label warfare as undesirable, but to the minds of both peoples the possibility of warfare is present. Their thoughts, their hopes, their plans are oriented about this idea--that warfare may be selected as the way to meet some situation.
And, conversely, peoples who do not know of duelling will not fight duels, even though their wives are seduced and their daughters ravished; they may on occasion commit murder but they will not fight duels. Cultures which lack the idea of the vendetta will not meet every quarrel in this way. A people can use only the forms it has. So the Balinese have their special way of dealing with a quarrel between two individuals: if the two feel that the causes of quarrel are heavy, they may go and register their quarrel in the temple before the gods, and, making offerings, they may swear never to have anything to do with each other again
Warfare may be an invention, a cultural code of conduct, but is it true of morality as well? Is it not that some people are morally good; people who help others genuinely; people who can't see the pain of others? Jesse Prinz in his book "The Emotional Construction of Morals" proclaims otherwise, making the case that there is no such thing as innate goodness and the moral values of an individual is derived from cultural conditioning and emotional osmosis. The key idea is that we learn the values in very young age in the form of codes of conduct. When we scream, throw things, hurt other kids or make a noisy disturbance,our parents correct these behaviors and they usually do this by emotional conditioning. For example, parents threaten physical punishment( Do You want a slap?), they withdraw love( I am not going to play with you), they cast out( Go away!) etc. These methods cause a negative emotion in the child and thus it gets internalized in the form of morals. As and when children come in contact with society and culture, they imbibe more of the norms and morals present in the society. So later on, if they find homosexuality or polygamy outrageous, it is not because they being good are grossed out by bad things but because the society they lived in never considered it morally good and thus indoctrinated them through emotional osmosis.
Morality, in this sense, is not a standalone feeling of an individual but the collective attitude of a culture. This is why morals vary so much across places and cultures. One group's moral values might be immoral for other groups. For example, today we consider cannibalism bad, but in history, 34% of the cultures practiced cannibalism. In ancient Rome, blood sports, decapitation etc were pursued for recreation. Public torture and execution were performed in many European countries before the 18th century. And the people of these cultures didn't find them morally outrageous because it was culture in the first place which conditioned them. Thus, it would be plausible to say that our moral viewpoint of the world is mutable and insular, impacted solely by the cultures and societies we happen to inhabit.
It is, therefore, evident that the inventions of culture permeate through our lives in such a way that they appear innate to human nature.As it turns out, however, that these traits are not the part of us but of our culture. This gives us hope that if we correctly invent cultural practices and codes, we might overcome many problems in our society which are prematurely associated with hard-wired problems of human nature. Blood sports was such an invention, but we made better invention- the contemporary version of sports- which is not only much more efficient and harmless but also much more thrilling.
Take the case of war. It is naturally assumed that human beings categorically possess the animal instinct of aggression and hostility owing to the continuous struggle for survival. Why else would there be wars in all ages of human history? But as Margret Mead explains in the essay War not a Biological Necessity that war is not contingent upon factors like human nature or endless struggle for resources or frustration arising out of biologically determined drives. Warfare is more of a practice, a cultural ritual, an invention. If people have an idea about warfare as a way to handle certain circumstances i.e if war is the appropriate form of behavior, then when such circumstances appear, people will inevitably go to war. On the other hand, if people don't have an idea about war as a cultural norm or practice, they would either submit to the enemy or commit suicide themselves or quietly go about their business or find some way to vent out the anger, but they would never go to war.The point in emphasized in the following paragraphs by Margret Mead.
There is a way of behaving which is known to a given people and labelled as an appropriate form of behaviour; a bold and warlike people like the Sioux or the Maori may label warfare as desirable as well as possible, a mild people like the Pueblo Indians may label warfare as undesirable, but to the minds of both peoples the possibility of warfare is present. Their thoughts, their hopes, their plans are oriented about this idea--that warfare may be selected as the way to meet some situation.
And, conversely, peoples who do not know of duelling will not fight duels, even though their wives are seduced and their daughters ravished; they may on occasion commit murder but they will not fight duels. Cultures which lack the idea of the vendetta will not meet every quarrel in this way. A people can use only the forms it has. So the Balinese have their special way of dealing with a quarrel between two individuals: if the two feel that the causes of quarrel are heavy, they may go and register their quarrel in the temple before the gods, and, making offerings, they may swear never to have anything to do with each other again
Warfare may be an invention, a cultural code of conduct, but is it true of morality as well? Is it not that some people are morally good; people who help others genuinely; people who can't see the pain of others? Jesse Prinz in his book "The Emotional Construction of Morals" proclaims otherwise, making the case that there is no such thing as innate goodness and the moral values of an individual is derived from cultural conditioning and emotional osmosis. The key idea is that we learn the values in very young age in the form of codes of conduct. When we scream, throw things, hurt other kids or make a noisy disturbance,our parents correct these behaviors and they usually do this by emotional conditioning. For example, parents threaten physical punishment( Do You want a slap?), they withdraw love( I am not going to play with you), they cast out( Go away!) etc. These methods cause a negative emotion in the child and thus it gets internalized in the form of morals. As and when children come in contact with society and culture, they imbibe more of the norms and morals present in the society. So later on, if they find homosexuality or polygamy outrageous, it is not because they being good are grossed out by bad things but because the society they lived in never considered it morally good and thus indoctrinated them through emotional osmosis.
Morality, in this sense, is not a standalone feeling of an individual but the collective attitude of a culture. This is why morals vary so much across places and cultures. One group's moral values might be immoral for other groups. For example, today we consider cannibalism bad, but in history, 34% of the cultures practiced cannibalism. In ancient Rome, blood sports, decapitation etc were pursued for recreation. Public torture and execution were performed in many European countries before the 18th century. And the people of these cultures didn't find them morally outrageous because it was culture in the first place which conditioned them. Thus, it would be plausible to say that our moral viewpoint of the world is mutable and insular, impacted solely by the cultures and societies we happen to inhabit.
It is, therefore, evident that the inventions of culture permeate through our lives in such a way that they appear innate to human nature.As it turns out, however, that these traits are not the part of us but of our culture. This gives us hope that if we correctly invent cultural practices and codes, we might overcome many problems in our society which are prematurely associated with hard-wired problems of human nature. Blood sports was such an invention, but we made better invention- the contemporary version of sports- which is not only much more efficient and harmless but also much more thrilling.
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