Evolved Human Nature

Abstract

Aristotle’s function argument stipulated that human flourishing is a matter of expressing human nature excellently. The purpose of this chapter is to describe the evolutionary approach to understanding human nature. I outline the key premises and practices of the major disciplines that contribute to our understanding of human evolution, which explains the specific nature that characterizes our species. These disciplines include evolutionary psychology, anthropology, ethology, archeology, primatology, comparative biology, game theory, and neuropsychology. Obviously, I cannot cover this disciplinary breadth with great depth in this chapter, but it is important to provide an explanation of the key aspects of the theory and research so that the discussion of the specific findings about human evolution in Part II is more comprehensible to the non-specialist. For those with a strong background in the theory and research on human evolution, this chapter is unnecessary.