The HBS hosts ask not what is human nature, but what is at stake in this constant recourse to human nature.
The history of philosophy can in part be understood as one long rumination on the question of human nature. Throughout its history philosophers have put forward multiple definitions of what it means to be human and what sets humans apart from other animals: political animal, rational animal, tool making animal, etc., but these definitions have come under scrutiny for both the way they maintain both hierarchies separating humanity from non-human animals as well as hierarchies within human societies, as rationality, tools, and politics become instruments of exclusion. Is it possible to dispense with the idea of human nature, or is it an unavoidable question, framing how we understand ourselves in relation to not just animals but also our increasingly intelligent machines? In other words, human nature, can’t live with it, can live without it.
Full episode notes at this link:
http://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-77-human-nature
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