The first report on human nature must present a view of human nature contained in
one of the works listed in this document. There are about 130 books, persons,
movements, and topics listed here, so you should be able to find something of
interest and use.
You are expected to devote about 20 hours to this paper. Presumably you will
spend about 10 hours reading about your subject, about four or five hours of free
writing on the subject, and then another four or five hours editing what you have
written, plus a couple hours to do final editing and go over your paper adding in
details, citations, or revisions. Giving this much time to the project you will
probably produce a work of somewhere between 1000 and 3000 words in length,
although possibly longer. This document describing the assignment with the list
of potential topics has slightly fewer than 3000 words in it.
Begin the paper with an introduction paragraph in which you give an abstract of
your topic and your topic's view on human nature.
You will need a section or paragraph(s) describing the context in which your
subject appears. Talk about the culture, period in history, and influences upon
your topic.
Demonstrate descriptive understanding and knowledge. You will need to give a
careful description of the basic elements of your subject’s theory of human nature,
or the conclusions about human nature we can draw from your subject. You can
give at least some outline of your subject's views on human nature. What views
are expressed directly in the source or sources? Which are assumed or implied?
It's helpful to give some interesting details or examples. Quotations usually
strengthen the paper. Remember that longer quotations are usually given their
own special indent in a block of text, while shorter quotations of a few words
merely have quotation marks. In either case, cite your sources!
Demonstrate comparative analysis. Try to work on both the broad level of
generalizations and the specific level of interesting details. You will need a section
or paragraph(s) where you examine your topic's views in a comparative view,
showing how your topic agrees and disagrees with some popular or conventional
ideas about human nature. It is usually quite helpful to mention (or even quote
from) critics or advocates of the views expressed in your topic or source. If your
topic is a specific book, what have serious reviewers of the book said about the
ideas contained in it? I’m thinking of reviews in academic journals or newspapers
and magazines or journalistic periodicals (although blogs with a scholarly aspect
would be fine), and I’m not thinking of Amazon.com reviewers.
Demonstrate evaluative analysis. You will need an element of evaluative critical
writing, in which you give your own view on the strengths or weaknesses of your
topic's views.
Demonstrate applied thinking. You will need a section with a theme of
application. Who applies or uses this view of human nature? What groups
currently study or advocate for this view? How is this view applied, or how could
it be applied in daily life, in politics, in ethical decision-making?
Your audience is your classmates (and your instructor). Making your report
interesting and enjoyable to read is one standard used in assigning points to it.
Other criteria include: content (how did you cover the areas I've outlined above?);
the balance between elegance and brevity versus comprehensiveness and longwindedness; style and language; integration of ideas to the topics covered in the
course; demonstration that you are meeting the learning objectives of this course
as described in this syllabus.
Anything over 20 pages is almost certainly too long, and will suffer in points as a
result, but anything shorter than six pages is likely to be too superficial, and would
likewise suffer. Use a word count utility or tool (Microsoft Word has one in the
Tools menu). Edit your paper well. The instructor should give some general
comments to help you improve your style and writing, but the instructor must not
act as a writing coach or co-author doing major revisions or correcting spelling
and grammar in every paragraph.
The instructor will establish groups of students in the class to act as peer
reviewers. Your first paper's first draft will be submitted to your peers in these
small groups, and you will receive the papers of other students in your small
group. You should read what your classmates have written in their drafts and give
them some feedback. Expect to benefit from feedback from your peers in your
writing group.
The first draft of this paper is due to your peer writing group in the eighth session
of the semester. There is nothing stopping you from submitting your work to your
peers earlier, or working with classmates throughout the semester. You will give
and receive feedback from peers and your instructor in the ninth and tenth weeks
of the course. Your final revised draft is due by the end of the twelfth session of
the semester. Your first draft will be given a score of 17 or 18 for outstanding or
excellent work, with scores of 19 or 20 reserved for amazingly good, nearly
publishable work. Scores of 15 or 16 represent good work, and scores of 13 or 14
are entirely respectable. In the second draft due in the 12th session will receive
29-32 for good work at the level expected in this course, or scores of 27-28 for
adequate work. Scores of 33-40 are possible, but are reserved for papers
representing truly outstanding or exceptional quality.
When naming the file for your paper, use your name in the file name. For
example, if you are named “Henry Lee” you could name the first draft of this
paper “LIS446_paper1_3-3-14_Henry_Lee.doc” that way your draft would
communicate what the paper is, what class it’s for, what date you finished it, and
whose paper it is. Most people could just use their surname or given name rather
than both names.
A list of approximately 130 permitted topics for your first
human nature paper.
These are recommended books and topics for the first paper on human nature. Also,
these are good resources for you to use in supplementing the required reading in this
course. You may consider a single work (such as a book) or a single person. You may
also consider a particular school of thought or movement in philosophy, religion, art,
literature, or science. Where I have listed a person I have sometimes also listed some
good books or articles or websites I think you could use in your paper. I have sometimes
listed several possibilities and books as a single “choice” but in fact you could pick any
one of several individuals or movements within that choice, but you need to be sure to
put your specific example in the context of the movement.
Popular Culture and Composers:
(9 choices)
Counter-cultural musical movements such as punk music, grunge, heavy metal, some
forms of rap music, independent garage band music, and so forth. If you want to
focus on a particular band or lyrics of a particular songwriter you should carefully
place the work in the context of the musical movement that influenced the person.
Suggested books include Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter’s Nation of Rebels,
Ken Goffman and Dan Joy’s Counterculture Through the Ages, Peter Wicke’s
Rock Music, Pretty in Punk by Lauraine Leblanc, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop by Jeff
Chang, The Last Black Mecca by Robert Jackson, and the Examining Pop Culture
edited by Jared Green.
The popular music group The Beatles. Don’t just focus on the songs and their lyrics
or the films, consider the cultural phenomena associated with Beatlemania and the
lasting influence of the Beatles on popular culture. Steve Turner is a journalist
who has given some attention to the meaning and context of the Beatles you
might start with his A Hard Day’s Write or The Gospel According to the Beatles.
Other books to consider would include Steven Stark’s Meet the Beatles, Read the
Beatles (edited by June Skinner Sawyers), and the book edited by Todd Davis and
Kenneth Womack, Reading the Beatles.
The television series Seinfield. You’ll need to read William Irwin’s Seinfeld and
Philosophy as well as Seinfeld, Master of Its Domain edited by David Lavery and
Sara Lewis Dunne.
The television series Star Trek and associated phenomena. Recommended books are
The Ethics of Star Trek by Judith Barad and Ed Robertson (2000) and The Double
Vision of Star Trek by Mike Hertenstein (1998). In addition to investigating the
ideas about human nature in the television and movie franchise you can explore
the implications of the fandom surrounding the stories.
The television series The Simpsons. Recommended books are The Gospel According
to the Simpsons by Mark Pinsky or the book edited by William Irwin The
Simpsons and Philosophy.
Mahler’s symphonies and his music in general.
Beethoven’s symphonies and his music in general.
You could write about current popular music, perhaps taking songs and performers
that have had some of the most popular and best-selling songs over the past year
or two, and write a critical paper on the meaning of these songs, their lyrics, and
their mass popularity.
The popularity of “reality television” (most so-called “reality” television shows are
actually very much scripted and planned, and not at all spontaneous or “real” in
the sense that relationships are allowed to develop naturally). You might uses
sources such as the Reference Shelf (v. 85, no. 1) Reality Television (published in
2013). There are older books as well, including Su Holmes and Deborah
Jermyn’s Understanding reality television (2004); Andrejevic, M. (2003). Reality
TV: The work of being watched. ; Calvert, C. (2000). Voyeur nation: Media,
privacy, and peering in modern culture. Read also Reiss, Steven & Wiltz, James,
(2004), Why people watch reality TV, Media Psychology 6, 363-378).
Great Literature:
(12 choices)
You could take any of the following literary figures and read a novel or play, or
perhaps some short stories or a collection of poetry, and then bring in some insights
from scholarly articles of literary criticism and a biography or two to create an
interesting paper on views of human nature:
Cao Xueqin (Tsao Hsueh-Chin)
Emily Dickinson
Fyodor Dostoevsky
J. R. R. Tolkien. Read The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and then some of the better
books about the philosophy behind this work, including the best books, Matthew
Shippey’s The Road to Middle Earth or his Tolkien: Author of the Century. Also
read Ralph C. Wood’s The Gospel According to Tolkien.
Jane Austin
Leo Tolstoy
Lu Xun (Lu Hsun)
Mark Twain. Read Mark Twain On the Damned Human Race edited by Maxwell
Geismar, and Twain’s Letters from the Earth. Try also The Bible According to
Mark Twain edited by Joseph B. McCullogh and Howard G. Baetzhold.
Rabindranath Tagore. You could start at the websites:
http://www.infed.org/thinkers/tagore.htm
http://www.boloji.com/perspective/064.htm
Raja Rao
William Shakespeare
Literature and art as an aspect of human nature, drawing from: Stephen Davies
(2012) The artful species: Aesthetics, Art, and Evolution. Larry Shiner (2001)
The invention of art: A cultural history. Richard Hickman’s (2010) Why we make
art and why it is taught (Second Edition).
Philosophers (30 choices)
A Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy, edited by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Charles
A. Moore (Chapter 17 is especially good)
Alexander Pope, An Essay On Man (1733) available online at
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=2428
Aristotle. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy has some good pages on Aristotle.
You’ll find the section on the soul and psychology to be most relevant to this
class: http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/a/aristotl.htm#H6
Ayn Rand
Confucius
David Chalmers. His web page is worth checking out at http://consc.net/chalmers/.
You’ll find links to many of his papers there. He is a guy who studies
consciousness.
Darwinian Natural Right: The Biological Ethics of Human Nature by Larry Arnhart
Epicurus
Galen. Galen’s essay, “On Hippocrates’ On the Nature of Man” is available in
English translation on the internet at:
http://www.medicinaantiqua.org.uk/tr_GNatHom.html
Hippocrates
Hobbes, T. (1651). Leviathan. Chapters 6, 10-13 (this covers and exceeds what you’ll
read in Study of Human Nature). If you do this, refer to Federalist Paper #55 by
A. Hamilton, J Madison, & J. Jay (1787).
Hsun-tzu
Human Nature, Ritual, and History: Studies in Xunzi and Chinese Philosophy by
Antonio S. Cua (chapters 1, 2, 8, 10, 11, and 15.)
Hume, D (1739). An enquiry concerning human understanding chapters 19-28, 3233. This is available for free download at http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/9662.
You can also just get A treatise of human nature.
John Passmore
Mencius
Nancy Holmstrom
Peter Simpson. His Goodness and Nature is available as a pdf download at
http://web.gc.cuny.edu/philosophy/GoodnessandNature.pdf
Constantine Sandis & Mark J. Cain (Editors) Human Nature Volume 70 of the Royal
Institute of Philosophy Supplements, published in July 2012.
Plato. Symposium http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/symposium.html
René Descartes
http://www.msu.org/intro/content_intro/texts/descartes/descartes_eb.htm
http://www.msu.org/intro/content_intro/texts/descartes/descartes2.html#med2
http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/DA026SECT10
Rousseau. Rousseau’s Emile, on Education is available online in English or the
original French at:
http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/pedagogies/rousseau/Contents2.html
Shaw, G. B. (1903). Man and Superman.
Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
The Book of Songs translated by Arthur Waley (often called the Book of Odes) You
might also use other classic Chinese texts available at http://ctext.org/
The Human Condition: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Human Nature (by Nina
Rosenstand)
Titus Lucretius Carus
Visions of Human Nature: An Introduction (by Donald Palmer)
War, evil, and the end of history by Bernard-Henri Levi, (2004)
Who are We?: Theories of Human Nature (by Louis P. Pojman)
Zeno of Citium. For the stoics and Zeno of Citium you’ll find excellent encyclopedia
entries at sites such as: http://www.iep.utm.edu/s/stoicism.htm and
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/stoicism/ See also the essay by Barry Smith at
Atlantic Baptist University at: http://www.abu.nb.ca/Courses/GrPhil/Stoic.htm
Religious Thinkers
(11 choices)
All Men are Brothers: Life and Thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi as told in his own
words, edited by Krishna Kripalani.
Hans Kung Eternal Life: Life After Death As a Medical, Philosophical, and
Theological Problem
McGrath, A. (2005). Dawkins' God: Genes, memes, and the meaning of life.
Reinhold Niebuhr The Nature and Destiny of Man: Vol. 1, Human Nature or Moral
Man and Immoral Society: A Study of Ethics and Politics
Saint Augustine of Hippo. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has some fine
material about Saint Augustine at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/augustine/#3
The sections most relevant to this course are those on “Philosophical
Anthropology,” “Psychology and Epistemology,” and “Will.” You’ll find more
about Augustine at http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/augustine/
Saint Paul the Apostle
Sri Ramakrishna, Selections from the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna: Annotated and
Explained (translated by Swami Nikhilananda and annotated by Kendra Crossen
Burroughs
Sufi poets and philosophers. Look for the works by Idries Shah, and consider the
works of Shaikh Abil-Kheir, Jalal al-Din Muhammad Mawlana Rumi, AlGhazzali, or Shamsuddin Muhammad Hafiz. The Alchemy of Happiness by AlGhazzali is available on the internet. You may find chapter six most relevant to
this course. http://www.sacred-texts.com/isl/tah/
The Book of Proverbs (from the Bible’s Old Testament)
Thomas Aquinas. On Human Nature (Aquinas) edited by Thomas S. Hibbs or
Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature: A Philosophical Study of Summa
Theologiae, by Robert Pasnau (pages 25-99, 200-266)
Thomas Merton No Man Is An Island
Social Scientists (11 choices)
Crime & Human Nature: The Definitive Study of the Causes of Crime by James Q.
Wilson and Richard J. Herrnstein.
In search of human nature. The decline and revival of Darwinism in American social
thought. By Carl N. Degler (1991).
Joseph Campbell. The Hero With a Thousand Faces.
Karl Marx. Before jumping into Marx and Engles you might read “Marx and Aristotle
on Human Nature, Ethics, and the State” an essay available at
http://www.octapod.org/gifteconomy/content/marxaristotle.html and then you can
look for original sources at http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/index.htm
Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution by Peter J.
Richerson and Robert Boyd.
The ideas of Judith Rich Harris, including her 1998 book The nurture assumption:
Why children turn out the way they do and her 2006 book No two alike: human
nature and human individuality.
Not in our genes: Biology, ideology, and human nature. by R. C. Lewontin, Steven
Rose, & Leon J. Ramin (1984).
Our Kind by Melvin Harris (1989)
Shermer, M. (2004). The science of good and evil.
The Social Animal (Ninth Edition) by Elliot Aronson.
The Brighter Side of Human Nature: Altruism and Empathy in Everyday Life (1990)
by Alfie Kohn.
Psychologists, medical doctors, and neurologists (24 choices):
Abraham Maslow Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences and The Further Reaches
of Human Nature.
Albert Bandura. See the list of on-line Bandura writings available at
www.des.emory.edu/mfp/BanduraPubs.html and read any of them that seem
interesting.
Carl Jung. Man and His Symbols or Modern Man in Search of a Soul by Carl Jung
Carl Rogers. On Becoming a Person: A Therapist’s View of Psychotherapy
E. Kubler-Ross. Life Lessons: Two Experts on Death and Dying Teach Us About the
Mysteries of Life and Living by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross & David Kessler
Erik Erikson. These web sites are good starting places:
http://www.rlc.dcccd.edu/MATHSCI/anth/P101/DVLMENTL/ERIKSON.HTM
facultyweb.cortland.edu/~ANDERSMD/ERIK/welcome.HTML
Evolutionary Psychology: a beginner’s guide. By Robin Dunbar, Louise Barrett, and
John Lycett.
John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth
John Gottman
Martin Seligman. Flourish: A New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being —
and How to Achieve Them. This is his more recent book. His older book was
also very significant, but Dr. Seligman has revised many of the ideas he expressed
in Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your
Potential for Lasting Fulfillment.
Stuart Hameroff (known for his ideas about quantum consciousness). Check out his
web page at http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience or Finding
Flow: The Psychology of Engagement With Everyday Life.
Out of the Blue: Depression and Human Nature by David B. Cohen
Robert Jay Lifton. The Protean Self: Human Resilience in an Age of Fragmentation
by Robert Jay Lifton. Superpower Syndrome: America's Apocalyptic
Confrontation with the World by Robert Jay Lifton.
Sacks, Oliver (1970). The man who mistook his wife for a hat and other clinical tales.
Sigmund Freud. Totem and Taboo or Civilization and its Discontents. Good websites
include: www.nyfreudian.org/abstracts/abs_volumes/vol-13.htm,
www.mdx.ac.uk/www/study/xfre1913.htm,
www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/freud-civ.html and
www.historyguide.org/europe/freud_discontents.html. See also commentary at:
www.webster.edu/~corbetre/personal/reading/civilization.html and
www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/introser/freud.htm
The Blank Slate: The Denial of Human Nature and Modern Intellectual Life (by
Steven Pinker) See also How the mind works.
Urie Bronfenbrenner. The Bioecological Theory of Human Development by Urie
Bronfenbrenner (2001) can be found from pages 3-15 in Making Human Beings
Human and also in the International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral
Science published by Elsevier Science in 2002. Learned Optimism: How to
Change Your Mind and Your Life by Martin Seligman.
William James The Principles of Psychology (chaps. 6-10 & 24-26) and The
Varieties of Religious Experience.
The topic of cross-cultural psychology would offer fertile ground for a project on
human nature. Try Beyond the Chinese Face: Insights from Psychology by
Michael Harris Bond. See also Normal and Abnormal behavior in Chinese
Culture edited by A. Kleinman and T. Y. Lin. Read also Schizophrenia, Culture,
and Subjectivity: The Edge of Experience, edited by Janis Hunter Jenkins and
Robert John Barrett.
Kelly, Edward, & Kelly, Emily Williams (editors) (2009). Irreducible Mind: Toward
a Psychology for the 21st Century.
Critiques of evolutionary psychology, drawing mainly from Getting Darwin wrong:
Why evolutionary psychology won’t work (2010) by Brendan Wallace and
Evolutionary Psychology: Neglecting Neurobiology in Defining the Mind (2011)
by Brad M. Peters. Also perhaps using Jaak Panksepp and Jules B. Panksepp
(2000) The Seven Sins of Evolutionary Psychology; and Jaime Confer, Judith
Easton, Diana Fleischman, Cari Goetz, David Lewis, Carin Perilloux, and David
Buss (2010) Evolutionary psychology: Controversies, questions, prospects, and
limitations.
Human deception and detecting deceit, using sources such as...Navaro, J. (2009)
What every BODY is saying. Philip Houston, Michael Floyd, Susan Carnicero,
and Don Tennant (2012). Spy the lie: Former CIA officers teach you how to
detect deception. And also Mike Bouton’s (2010) How to Spot Lies Like the FBI:
Protect your money, heart, and sanity using proven tips.
The playful nature of humanity, as explored in Play, Playfulness, Creativity and
Innovation (2013) by Patrick Bateson and Paul Martin; Huizinga, J. (2008). Homo
Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture; and Suits, B. (2005). The
Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia.
Biologists, Zoologists, and other natural scientists: (14 choices)
Alfred Russel Wallace. You could start with chapters 16 and 17 in Alfred Russel
Wallace’s Social Environment and Moral Progress which you can find and read at
“The Alfred Russel Wallace Page” at http://www.wku.edu/~smithch/index1.htm
Charles Darwin. The Descent of Man. Chapters 1, 3-4
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2300
Desmond Morris. You could study both his art (as a surrealist) and his writings as a
zoologist, including his famous book The Naked Ape.
Driven: How Human Nature Shapes our Choices by Paul R. Lawrence & Nitin
Nohria.
Gregory Bateson Mind and nature, a necessary unity and Steps Toward an Ecology of
Mind.
Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior by Christopher
Boehm
Human Natures: Genes, Cultures, and the Human Prospect by Paul R. Ehrlich (2000)
Loren Eiseley. Aside from The Star Thrower, which you have for this class, you
might try collections of his essays such as The Immense Journey, The Unexpected
Universe, and Darwin’s Century.
Miller, K. R. (2002). Finding Darwin's God: A scientist's search for common ground
between God and evolution.
Mother Nature: Maternal Instincts and How They Shape the Human Species by Sarah
Hrdy
Richard Dawkins. The Devil's Chaplain or The ancestor's tale: A pilgrimage to the
dawn of evolution (2005). Also, The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.
Ridley, M. (1993). The red queen: Sex and the evolution of human nature.
Sapolsky, R. (2005) Monkeyluv: and other essays on our lives as animals.
Wilson, E. O. (2004) [1978]. On Human Nature, Revised Edition.
Other scientists or political leaders. (20 choices)
Abraham Lincoln
Blink: The power of thinking without thinking by M. Gladwell. Or, really, any of
Malcom Gladwell’s popular books. But, if you do a paper on Malcolm Gladwell’s
books, be sure to read some of the critiques of his approach and his books.
Carol Gilligan
Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed by J. Diamond
Feminist Politics and Human Nature. (1983) by Alison M. Jaggar
Jean Piaget
John Dewey
Kenneth Hammond. Human Judgment and Social Policy or his more recent book
Beyond rationality: The search for wisdom in a troubled time (2007).
Lawrence Kohlberg
Leakey, R. & Lewin R. (1995). The sixth extinction: Patterns of life and the future of
humankind.
Lev Vygotsky
McCrone, J. (1990). The ape that spoke: Language and the evolution of the human
mind.
Noam Chomsky
Potts, R. (1996). Humanity's descent: The consequences of ecological instability.
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
Springer, C. & McKie, R. (1996). African exodus: The origins of modern humanity.
Thomas Paine
War and human nature: Opposing viewpoints. Edited by David L. Bender & Bruno
Leone (1983).
You could write a paper on what we learn from folk tales, urban legends, fairy tales,
and myths. Folk stories and myths are explored in many excellent web sites. Try
http://www.folkstory.com/ and look at one of my favorite organizations, the
Mythopoeic Society: http://www.mythsoc.org/index.html.
You might do an interesting paper on the work of Robert Axelrod and Brian Skyrms,
starting with Skyrms’ paper “Game Theory, Rationality and Evolution of the
Social Contract” (pages 269-284) in Evolutionary Origins of Morality; CrossDisciplinary Perspectives (edited by Leonard D. Katz). Then read Evolution of
the Social Contract and The Stag Hunt and the Evolution of Social Structure by
Brian Skyrms.