Summary Of Ehrenreich's View Of Human Nature

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The issue of whether or not humans are natural born killers is discussed by Ehrenreich and Ferguson, but this is not a topic that is directly discussed in the Bodley texts. Bodley implies that war is the result of politically organized states rather than human nature, however nothing is said outright. Both Ferguson and Ehrenreich discuss this aspect of human nature in their works, and they come to similar conclusions using different reasoning. Ferguson states that she does not believe humans are biologically designed for war (Ferguson 1: 33). This author supports their theory by saying, “Maleness is one part of biology, one part of biology is aggressiveness, one part of aggressiveness is combat, one part of combat is war. The explanatory potential of biology thus seems fundamentally …show more content…

As aggressive behaviors are not characteristic of all human populations, Ferguson uses this to prove the point that humans are not aggressive by nature. Ferguson also points out the lack of evidence for major violent conflicts in early human history. According to Ferguson, if humans were naturally violent, there would be evidence of humans starting wars before they were technically “human” (Ferguson 1: 34). To contrast this, Ehrenreich’s view is that humans may be naturally aggressive, but that it is really irrelevant whether they are or not because human aggression is not the cause of war (Ehrenreich 1: 2). While Ehrenreich does believe that it is possible that humans are aggressive creatures, this author does not believe that this is the case. This author supports this belief by pointing out the rituals that humans practice before going to war and discusses development is weapons that contradict the idea that humans are naturally aggressive. Ehrenreich discusses the rituals that humans perform before they engage in violent

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