6 - Nature and nurture

Summary

This chapter will deal with the familiar biological concept of innateness. We are used to hearing claims that such-and-such a trait is innate or, as it might otherwise be expressed, inborn, in our genes, part of our evolutionary heritage, and so on. We seem to know what is meant when such claims are made. Moreover, there is a long history of such claims being made and being contested; for example, Locke and Leibniz disagreed on whether there were “innate ideas” in the mind. Very often, in such debates, it seems to be just assumed that we know what “innate” means. But do we? That will be the main subject of this chapter.

Why does innateness seem to matter so much?

First I want to say a little about why the issue of whether something is innate or not often seems to be a very urgent one. Why does it matter so much whether traits are innate or not? There is often a strong political dimension to such debates. In recent years, the “human nature wars” have attracted much publicity: the battles, that is, over whether certain human traits are innate or whatever the opposite of innate is – acquired, socially constructed, learned or some such. These battles tend to become especially heated around the issue of male-female differences. Evolutionary psychologists often claim that there are typical behavioural differences between men and women, and that these differences are part of our evolutionary heritage.