By Kamran Nayeri, May 21, 2026
The question of human nature has
long been posed. In Western thought,
Plato held that the rational soul is the essential characteristic of humans.
Aristotle viewed humans as “political animals.” Unlike Plato, he viewed human
nature embedded in social and natural life unfolding through participation in
community and the cultivation of virtues.
Epicurus emphasized pleasure and the avoidance of suffering. Stoics
argued humans participate in the rational cosmic order.
In Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam, the Abrahamic tradition, humans are generally seen as created beings who
possess free will, are morally responsible, but also marked by weakness and
sin.
In Eastern philosophy, Confucius
emphasized human rationality, arguing that people become fully human through
ethical relations, ritual, and social cultivation. Mencius argued that humans
are naturally inclined toward goodness, while Xunzi held the opposite view that
humans are selfish and require discipline and culture. Siddhartha Gautama, who
founded Buddhism, rejected a fixed, permanent self and emphasized
interdependence, impermanence, and suffering shaped by desire and attachment.
In modern times, social contract
theorists held divergent views of human nature. Thomas Hobbes viewed humans as
driven by fear, competition, and self-interest. John Locke viewed humans as
cooperative and capable of civil society. Rousseau argued humans were not
naturally corrupt and that civilization and inequality distorted human
capacities.
Among political economists, Adam
Smith, often identified with self-interest as the prime human motive, also
emphasized sympathy and moral sentiments. David Hume argued reason alone does
not govern human action, passions and habits are central.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
argued that human nature was not fixed but historically developed through
labor, conflict, and social recognition.
Ludwig Feuerbach developed one of
the most influential nineteenth-century theories of human nature as
species-being. By that, he meant humans are natural, sensuous, embodied, and
social beings.
Marx drew on key concepts from
Hegel and Feuerbach to view humans as both natural, sensuous beings and to go
further than they did.
In Theses on Feuerbach
(1845), Marx defined human nature through a philosophical-anthropological lens
by suggesting: “The essence of man is no abstraction inherent in every single
individual. In reality, it is the ensemble of social relations.” (Thesis 6) Thus,
he argues against “contemplative materialism” of Feuerbach in favor of a materialist
(as against Hegel’s idealist) historical understanding of human nature.
Therefore, Marx argues: “The standpoint of the old materialism is civil
society; the standpoint of the new is human society or social humanity.”
The concept of civil society
Aristotle viewed the political
community (polis) as the natural and highest form of human association. He did
not sharply separate “state” from “society” as human beings were “political
animals,” whose fulfillment came through participation in communal life. Thus, in classical Western thought, civil
society and political society were fused.
In modern thought, the two concepts
have been separated. John Locke argued
that civil society emerged from a social contract: individuals agreed to
establish government specifically to protect their pre-existing natural rights.
This was a significant departure from the classical view because it placed
individual rights prior to the state.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam
Smith held that the binding principle of civil society was a private morality,
grounded in self-interest but ultimately serving collective ends.
Adam Ferguson went further,
contributing directly to the literature on civil society and democratic
political society through his influential work in Scottish Enlightenment
philosophy, emphasizing voluntary associations as a counterbalance to state
power.
G.W.F. Hegel provided the most
decisive theoretical break by fundamentally redefining civil society, giving
rise to a modern liberal understanding of it as a form of non-political
society, distinct from the institutions of the modern nation-state. For Hegel,
civil society was a “system of needs” situated between the family and the state
(Brooks, 2025). It was the realm of economic activity, social interaction, and
individual pursuit.[1]
In this context, Marx affirmed his
view that “ the standpoint of the new [materialism] is human society or social
humanity.” That is, human beings are inherently social beings whose nature,
consciousness, needs, capacities, and freedom develop only through historically
formed social relations.
This idea stood in opposition to the
liberal view that isolated individuals are the basic units of human society.
Instead, he argued that human essence is fundamentally social and historical.
Historical materialism
In the same year, this idea of
human nature became the cornerstone of their materialist conception of history
in The German Ideology (Marx and Engels 1845).
Thus, they wrote:
“The first premise
of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals.
Thus, the first fact to be established is the physical organization of these
individuals and their consequent relation to the rest of nature. Of course, we cannot
here go either into the actual physical nature of man, or into the natural
conditions in which man finds himself -- geological, hydrographical, climatic,
and so on. The writing of history must always set out from these natural bases
and their modification in the course of history through the action of men.”
Let us underline what Marx and
Engels argued in these sentences. Of course, how human individuals emerged, and
their relationship with the rest of nature, are the first premises of all human
history. Of course, nobody, including Marx and Engels, in 1845 had any idea of
the natural history that led to the emergence of humanity. Darwin’s On the
Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection was published in 1859. The term "biology" was coined by
scientists like Lamarck and Treviranus in the 18th century. In the 19th
century, advances in microscopy and cell theory by scientists like Schleiden
and Schwann established biology as a distinct discipline, and Darwin’s theory
of evolution linked all forms of life. In the 20th century, Watson and Crick
discovered DNA, further solidifying biology's status as a key scientific field.
Anthropology emerged as a distinct discipline in the 19th century, influenced
by Darwin’s theory. Franz Boas, often called the "father of American
anthropology," formalized the field in the early 20th century. The introduction of scientific methods and
fieldwork techniques solidified anthropology's status as a science. The field of archeology was revolutionized by
carbon dating, the determination of the age of organic matter from the relative
proportions of the carbon isotopes carbon-12 and carbon-14 it contains. The
ratio between them changes as radioactive carbon-14 decays and is not replaced by
atmospheric exchange. Carbon dating was developed in the late 1940s by Willard
Libby. It was first widely used in the early 1950s, marking a milestone. The
technique allowed for dating organic materials up to about 50,000 years old. It
provided a scientific method to establish timelines for archaeological finds.
Carbon dating helped confirm and refine historical chronology. Its introduction
led to a paradigm shift in dating methods used by archaeologists and
anthropologists.
On this basis, we know that life
emerged on Earth 3.5 to 4 billion years ago; the homo genus emerged 2.5 million
years ago; and Homo sapiens emerged about 300,000 years ago.
In contrast, in the mid-nineteenth
century, Marx and Engels had access only to three thousand years of written
history. Thus, they were quite correct to admit “we cannot here go either into
the actual physical nature of man, or into the natural conditions in which man
finds himself -- geological, hydrographical, climatic, and so on.” They lacked
knowledge about humanity’s natural history, especially the 2.5 million years of
our history as hunter-gatherers. Therefore, they could not have developed a
materialist conception of history because, in their own words, “The writing of
history must always set out from these natural bases and their modification in
the course of history through the action of men.”
Their theory of society and
history, historical materialism, was, of necessity, limited to three thousand
years of written history of class societies (civilization).
Marxism and human nature
Engels, aware of this shortcoming,
sought to address it to some extent by writing The Origins of Family,
Private Property, and the State (1884).
In this, he was following Marx’s notes on Lewis Henry Morgan’s Ancient
Society or Researches in the Lines of Human Progress from Savagery through
Barbarism to Civilization (1877).
Morgan was an American anthropologist and social theorist who developed
his theory of stages of human progress. Building on the data about kinship and
social organization presented in Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of
the Human Family (1871), Morgan developed his theory of the three stages of
human progress, from savagery through barbarism to civilization.
In his book, Engels attempts to
show how, in line with historical materialism, all social institutions
ultimately reflect economic conditions. This includes the family, and Morgan’s
research on how the family has evolved over time provided substantial evidence
of this. Morgan’s greatest insight is to discover, in prehistoric times, a
“matriarchal gens,” a family structure that passed on the family's rights and
privileges through the mother, tracing back to an original female ancestor. The
mere existence of such a structure refutes the contemporary notion that
marriage has always been a strictly monogamous arrangement with the father
squarely in charge. If that arrangement is, in fact, the contingent byproduct
of social forces, then imagining the world before patriarchy makes it possible
to envision a world after. The book then proceeds in chronological order,
beginning with a broad overview of humanity’s progression through three phases
of development that Engels, following Morgan’s example, terms “savagery,”
“barbarism,” and “civilization.” Engels details a series of premodern family
structures in which consanguinity, or the sharing of a bloodline, was the
central arrangement rather than monogamous marriage. Such systems also tended
toward matriarchy, as maternity was far easier to prove than paternity. Thus, mothers were the most reliable conveyers of the bloodline from one generation
to the next. It was the ancient Greeks who were primarily responsible for the
establishment of patriarchy, following an intense period of economic
development that induced a handful of powerful families to concentrate wealth
in their own hands, ultimately treating their own wives and children as
property as well. To preserve their wealth, the patriarchs then created states,
formally neutral entities that were, in fact, charged with preserving the
status quo by which the few continued to enrich themselves at the expense of
the many.
After a painstaking overview of the
transition from matriarchy under the Iroquois in North America and the
“barbarian” peoples of Europe to the patriarchy of Greece and Rome, Engels sees
the last flash of hope in the German and Frankish tribes, which destroyed the
Roman Empire and passed on a flicker of individual liberty, which ultimately
allowed for the abolition of serfdom. As matters currently stand, capitalism
has turned most people into producers of commodities, over which they exercise
no meaningful control. “Civilization” itself, in Engels’s view, is a nice word
for a condition of acute class warfare. Humanity must therefore reach into its
past to reclaim freedom in its future.
In 1890, Engels further developed
his ideas about human nature in the essay “The Role of Labor in the Transition
from Ape to Man.” He argued that
evolution from ape to man resulted from the ape’s interaction with its
environment, which not only changed the environment but also transformed the
ape into man. Levin and Lewontin (1980, p. 453), an ecologist and evolutionary
geneticist, put it: “He saw ‘environment’ not as a passive selective force
external to the organism but rather as the product of human activity, the
special feature of the human niche being productive labor and cooperation,
which channeled the evolution of hand and brain.”
Levins and Lewontin’s approach
to human nature
In Dialectical Biologist
(1985), Levins and Lewontin argue that human nature is not a fixed, genetically
programmed blueprint, but a flexible, constantly evolving process created by
the interaction between biology and society. They reject biological
determinism, the idea that genes dictate human behavior) Moreover, cultural
determinism, the idea that biology does not matter. Instead, they propose
dialectical determinism to offer a holistic alternative.
They argued against E. O. Wilson's (1978) On Human Nature, which attempts to explain human nature and society through sociobiology. Wilson argues that evolution has left its traces on characteristics such as generosity, self-sacrifice, worship, and the use of sex for pleasure, and proposes a sociobiological explanation of homosexuality. He attempts to complete the Darwinian revolution by bringing biological thought into the social sciences and humanities. On Human Nature was a sequel to his earlier books The Insect Societies (1971) and Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975).[2]
“For Marxists, the
evolution of humans from prehumans and the inclusion of human history in
natural history presupposed both continuity and discontinuities, qualitative
change, but for most materialists, evolution meant simply continuity. (Levins
and Levinton, 1985, p. 254).”
They continue later:
“No political
theorist, not even the completely historicist Marx, has been able to dispense
with the problem of human nature; on the contrary, all have found it
fundamental to the construction of their worldview. After all, if we want to
give a normative description of society, how can we say how society ought to be
organized unless we claim to know what human beings are really like (ibid.).”
They then critique “reductionist”
views of human nature, focusing on E. O. Wilson’s sociobiology.
“Since the individual is ontologically prior to the social organization, it is genetically determined human nature that gives shape to society. Wilson (1978) gives an explicit exposition of this theory. The biologically deterministic theory of human nature is logically consistent (ibid.).”
“The most superficial disagreement with the conservative theory has come both from liberals and from the anarchist left. This position holds that there is indeed a biologically determined human nature and that a prescription for society can be written using knowledge of that innate nature, but that conservatives have simply got the details wrong. Whereas apologists for unrestrained competitive capitalism claim aggressiveness, entrepreneurial activity, male domination, territoriality, and xenophobia as the content of human nature, left anarchists give a contrary description, arguing as Kropotkin did in Mutual Aid that people are really cooperative and altruistic underneath but have been coerced into competition by an artificial world. These critics agree with the conservatives that a basic set of attributes is natural to human being as an entity as an entity in isolation but that these attributes may be suppressed by societies, that are either unnaturally competitive or unnaturally competitive, as one’s taste runs.
“A more subtle version of the human nature argument flows from classical Marxism. According to what little can be found in Marx on the subject, this theory holds that labor is the property that marks off the human species from all others, although it is not sufficient to specify the form of social relations. Human labor is marked by these features: it transforms the world of nature into a world of artifacts that serve human beings; this transformation is carried out socially rather than individually; and it is done by the producer first conceiving mentally the end to be achieved and the varied means of its achievement, thus action is teleological (ibid. pp. 254-55).”
Levins and Lewontin underscore that
this transformation of nature is teleological: the end product is envisioned by
humans and actualized through cooperative effort, using tools and implements,
to arrive at the anticipated end product(s). They also note that some nonhumans
behave similarly, citing Jane Goodall’s observations of chimpanzees. They also
object to the universality of the classical Marxist claim that all humans at
all times behave this way. They cite the Kalahari Bushmen, who alter nature minimally
and, rather than producing, plan consumption. The point is well taken only if
we explicitly recognize the difference between hunter-gatherer cultures and the
culture of civilized (class) societies. As we have discussed, it was with the
rise of agriculture that hunter-gatherer animist views of the world were set
aside, and anthropocentrism (a human-centered worldview) was adopted. I will
return to this key issue later.
The second problem
with the classical Marxist view[3]
is that even if true, it is not very informative. “It cannot be used to project
any actual features of human social organization, nor to say how that
organization may or may not change (ibid, p. 256).”
“A radical
alternative has been to deny the existence of human nature altogether, at least
in any non-trivial sense. Human beings are simply what they make of themselves
(ibid.).”
The existentialist
Simon de Beauvoir in The Second Sex (1953) makes this argument using Marx. She
wrote:
“When we abolish
the slavery of half humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy that
it implies, then the division
“ of humanity will
reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form.
‘The direct, natural and necessary relation of human creatures is its relation of
man to woman,” Marx has said. ‘The nature of this relation determines to what
point man himself is to be considered as a generic being, as mankind;
the relation of man to woman is the most natural relation human being to human
being. By it is shown, therefore, to what point natural behavior of man becomes
human, or at that point, the human being has become his nature.”[4]
Levins and Lewontin hold that the
question of human nature is the wrong question because it reflects the analysis
we bring to understanding of human political and social life. Partly it
“carries a vestige of Platonic idealism.” (ibid. p. 257).
“The evident fact
about human life is the incredible diversity in individual life histories and
in social organization across space and time. The attempt to understand this
diversity by looking for some underlying ideal uniformity called ‘human
nature,’ of which the manifest variation is only a shadow, is reminiscent of
the pre—Darwinian” idealism of biological thought (ibid.)
They also criticize the tabula rasa
hypothesis, which holds that humans are born with a blank slate, unaffected by
their biology. Proponents of the view include Aristotle, Ibn Sina (11th
century), Ibn Tufail (12th century), Agustina (13th
century), Descartes (17th century), John Locke (17th century), and Freud
(19th century).
Science has shown that we are not blank
slates at birth and that biology matters in human life histories.
Moreover, there are universal needs
in every species, including humans, such as the need for food. Warm-blooded
animals like mammals and birds require much more food than cold-blooded animals
like reptiles, as they must maintain a constant body temperature. Humans need
specific nutrients, such as vitamin C, because our bodies can no longer produce
them internally. We respond to stress the
same way other mammals do: increased adrenaline levels, higher blood pressure,
and a faster heartbeat. As in other mammals, the regulation of breathing, blood
circulation, digestion, and other functions is managed by the secretion of
hormones and the unconscious activities of the autonomic nervous system.
However, humans have complemented their
bodies' innate needs with socially produced needs. We use clothing and shelter,
and fuel to warm or cool our bodies. Our
body temperature now is also a function of our economic standing, as some of us
cannot afford food, shelter, or fuel. Our ability to avoid and live in
stressful situations is related to our social standing. Etc.
Levins and Lewontin offer an
example of how humans meet their need for food to show its historical and
social aspects. A fundamental ecological problem confronting all organisms is
how to cope with the uncertainty of their food supply. Cold-blooded animals
live slowly, so their nutritional state depends on what they have eaten over
the past few weeks or months. Mammals and birds live quickly. They eat,
process, and use up food in a day or even in hours. So, they are more
vulnerable to environmental variability. One way to deal with this is to store food
as body fat.
People have invented ways to store food
by curing, salting, smoking, cooking, or refrigerating it. People also
redistribute food through their social networks by creating social ties and
obligations, so today’s food can be tomorrow’s if supply problems arise. As food
is widely monetized, it can be separated from its original purpose of providing
nutritional value and, under certain conditions, become an insatiable
goal. Food as a commodity traded internationally
creates new sources of uncertainty. Fluctuations in food prices become detached
from local conditions. Thus, the price of grain would become more a function of
what happens in Argentina or Canada. Further, food production becomes
increasingly detached from its nutritional goals and more aligned with the profitability
of the food-producing industry. What
people should eat has been biologically determined. What people can eat is an
entirely different question. Eating has
become a social occasion that cements family or friendship bonds, but it has
also become an opportunity for commercial exchange or for creating mutual
social obligations. Hundred-dollar plate dinner invitations are not about
feeding anyone nutrition, but about sustaining the body politic.
Critique of the Marxian view of
human nature
If we take the above presentation
of the Marxian view of human nature (assuming there is such a thing), let me
summarize its key elements:
First, Marx did not have a well-defined
theory of human nature. In his Theses on Feuerbach, he limited it to “the
ensemble of the social relations.” While it is true that Marx considered human
interaction with the rest of nature in his theory of society and history,
historical materialism, he abstracted from nature:
“The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals. Thus, the first fact to be established is the physical organization of these individuals and their consequent relation to the rest of nature. Of course, we cannot here go either into the actual physical nature of man, or into the natural conditions in which man finds himself -- geological, hydrographical, climatic, and so on. The writing of history must always set out from these natural bases and their modification in the course of history through the action of men.”
Levins and Lewontin admit “little
can be found in Marx on the subject” (Levins and Lewontin, 1985, p. 255), that
is, about human nature. At the same
time, they also admit the importance of a theory of human nature for socialism:
“how can we say how society ought to be organized unless we claim to know what
human beings are really like (ibid. p. 254)."
Thus, Marx’s theory of socialism
has an inadequate theory of human nature. I have argued that Marx’s theories
are anthropocentric, while the existential crises of the 21st century
are ecological-social (ecosocial) (Nayeri, 2021, 2023, Chapter 19).
Second, Engels’ attempt to develop Marx’s
thinking on human nature contributed significantly to it in the sense that he followed
Marx’s notes on Morgan and developed them to locate the transition of the hunter-gatherers'
social organization and culture that was communal and animistic to civilization
(class society) with the emergence of private property, family, and the state as
markers of the transition. Of course, in the late nineteenth century, little
was known about our prehistory, including hunter-gatherers and the emergence
and evolution of life on the planet. Levins and Lewinont (ibid. p. 255) point
to the explanatory limit of Engels’ hypothesis.
Third, Marxists, including Levins
and Lewontin, entirely miss the world-historic changes in human culture from
ecocentrism to anthropocentrism. As others and I have argued, the transition
from hunter-gathering to agriculture required alienation from nature and the
need to dominate and control it systematically for social reproduction.
Fourth, as Levins and Lewontin note,
the “orthodox Marxist view…even if true” is “not very informative. It cannot be
used to project any actual feature of human social organization, nor to say how
that organization may or may not change (ibid. p. 256).”
Finally, while I agree with Levins
and Lewontin’s criticism of E. O. Wilson’s theory of human nature and
sociobiology (more nuanced in his later writings, with his emphasis on epigenic
influences) that he goes too far out on a limb trying to synthesize biology
with the humanities and social sciences, Marx and Marxists can be similarly
accused of venturing too far out from a critique of political economy human
society and history as Levins’ and Lewontin admit themselves. As some of the
key problems of our time are clearly specific to the present capitalist mode of
production, others, such as religion and war, date back to prehistory but are
now articulated within a capitalist world economy (Nayeri, 2015). Furthermore, I know of no Marxist who has
shown as much attention and care for the natural world as Wilson has. He was
not only a world-class entomologist and a prominent biologist, but also a
prolific author of many biological and biologically related books, and a
conservationist. His Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life (2016), the last
in a trilogy beginning with The Social Conquest of Earth (2012) and The Meaning
of Human Existence (2014), is demanding that half the Earth’s land and ocean be
set aside from human intervention to allow wildlife to prosper. A very small-scale
experiment of his ambitious idea was documented in the movie Wilding (2024), as
the couple who owned it allowed all plants and animals to go wild (for a review
of the movie, see here).
In the next part, I will discuss the
contribution of Gregory Bateson’s view of human nature. He argued that human
beings are not isolated but parts of larger ecological, communicative, and
evolutionary systems. He rejected the modern Western split between mind and
nature, humanity and environment, and subject and object.
--to be continued.
References:
Brooks. Thom. “Hegel’s
Social and Political Philosophy.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
2025.
Engels, Friedrich. Origin
of the Family, Private Property, and the State. 1884.
Morgan, Lewis Henry. Ancient
Society or Researches in the Lines of Human Progress from Savagery through
Barbarism to Civilization. 1877.
Nayeri, Kamran. “An
Ecological Socialist's Reflection on Edward O. Wilson's Sociobiology.” Our
Place in the World: A Journal of Ecosocialism. October 16, 2015.
_____________. “E.
O.Wilson: The Sixth Extinction: Life and Death in the Biosphere.” December
12. 2016.
_____________. “The
Case for Ecocentric Socialism.” 2021.
_____________. Whose Planet? Essays
on Ecocentric Socialism. 2023.
Levins, Richard, and Richard
Lewontin. The Dialectical Biologist. 1985.
Wilson, E. O. Sociobiology: The New
Synthesis. 1975.
___________. On Human Nature. 1978.
___________. Consilience: The Unity
of Knowledge. 1999.
___________. The Social Conquest of
the Earth. 2012.
___________. The Meaning of Human
Existence. 2015.
___________. Half-Earth: Our Planet’s
Fight for Life. 2016.
[1] In "The Phenomenology of Spirit,"
Hegel discusses the development of self-consciousness and social relations."The
Phenomenology of Spirit" - Discusses the development of self-consciousness
and social relations.
"The Science of Logic" - Explores the
conceptual framework that underpins civil society.
"Elements of the Philosophy of Right" -
Provides a detailed analysis of civil society as a distinct sphere of ethical
life. "Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences" - Offers a
systematic overview of civil society within Hegel's broader philosophical
system."Lectures on the Philosophy of History" - Examines the
historical context and evolution of civil society. "The Philosophy of
History" - Discusses the role of civil society in the development of
freedom and ethical life. "The Science of Logic" - Explores the
conceptual framework that underpins civil society. In "Elements of the
Philosophy of Right," he provides a detailed analysis of civil society as
a distinct sphere of ethical life. In "Encyclopedia of the Philosophical
Sciences," Hegel offers a systematic overview of civil society in his broader
philosophical system. In "Lectures
on the Philosophy of History," he examines the historical context and
evolution of civil society. "The Philosophy of History" Discusses the
role of civil society in the development of freedom and ethical life.
[2] Levins, Lewontin, and
Wilson were all professors at Harvard University, with their labs and offices
close to each other.
[3] Levins and Lewontin use
“classical Marxist” view and “Orthodox Marxist” view interchangeably. They were
among the young radicals in the United States who were initially attracted to the pro-Moscow Communist Party, later became disillusioned with it, and formed the radical Science
for the People as a loosely organized political organization. The author joined
this group in 2008. In the post-Occupy Wall Street action, some Generation
Alpha, the first full generation not to have known a world without smartphones
and social media, who became radicalized scientists, mathematicians, and engineers,
formed the new generation of Science for the People. The earlier generations,
who were mostly active in politics through the Science for the People online
discussion list, gradually abandoned it as they aged.
[4] The quotation is from
Marx’s Philosophic Manuscripts, vol. 6; italics are in the original.
