Abstract

Many have argued that the very notion of human nature is untenable given the facts of evolution and should accordingly be discarded. This paper, by contrast, argues that the notion can be retained in a coherent and modern way. The present account expounds on the view of human nature as a collection of species-typical psychological adaptations, and outlines how it can be understood in formally modeled computational terms. The view defended is also heavily developmental and connects directly with contemporary evolutionary developmental biology. Furthermore, the notion of human nature developed here allows us to abstract away from the obfuscating variability that manifests not only between individuals across ontogeny, but also cross-culturally and throughout time.