首页
登录
职称英语
The problem with the nature-nurture debate is that this is an inadequate way
The problem with the nature-nurture debate is that this is an inadequate way
游客
2023-12-16
60
管理
问题
The problem with the nature-nurture debate is that this is an inadequate way of understanding human freedom. Like every other organism, humans are shaped by both nature and nurture. But unlike any other organism, we are also defined by our ability to transcend both, by our capacity to overcome the constraints imposed both by our genetic and our cultural heritage.
It is not that human beings have floated free of the laws of causation. It is rather that humans are not simply the passive end result of a chain of causes, whether natural or environmental. We have developed the capacity to intervene actively in both nature and culture, to shape both to our will.
To put this another way, humans, uniquely, are subjects as well as objects. We are biological beings, and under the purview of biological and physical laws. But we are also conscious beings with purpose and agency, traits the possession of which allow us to design ways of breaking the constraints of biological and physical laws.
All non-human animals are constrained by the tools that nature has bequeathed them through natural selection, and by the environmental conditions in which they find themselves. No animal is capable of asking questions or generating problems that are irrelevant to its immediate circumstances or its evolutionarily designed needs.
When a beaver builds a dam, it doesn’t ask itself why it does so, or whether there is a better way of doing it. When a swallow flies south, it doesn’t wonder why it is hotter in Africa or what would happen if it flew still further south. Humans do ask themselves these and many other kinds of questions questions that have no relevance, indeed make little sense, in the context of evolved needs and goals.
What marks out humans is our capacity to go beyond our naturally defined goals such as the need to find food, shelter or a mate and to establish human-created goals. Our evolutionary heritage certainly shapes the way that humans approach the world. But it does not limit it.
Similarly, our cultural heritage influences the ways in which we think about the world and the kinds of questions we ask of it, but it does not imprison them. If membership of a particular culture absolutely shaped our worldview, then historical change would never be possible:
If the people of medieval Europe had been totally determined by the worldview sustained by medieval European culture, it would not have been possible for that society to have become anything different. It would not have been possible, for instance, to have developed new ideas about individualism and materialism, or to have created new totals of technology and new political institutions.
Human beings are not automata who simply respond blindly to whatever culture in which they find themselves, any more than they are automata that blindly respond to their evolutionary heritage. There is a tension between the way a culture shapes individuals within its purview and the way that those individuals respond to that culture, just as there is a tension between the way natural selection shapes the way that humans think about the world and the way that humans respond to our natural heritage. This tension allows people to think critically and imaginatively, and to look beyond a particular culture’s horizons.
In the six million years since the human and chimpanzee lines first diverged on either side of Africa’s Great Rift Valley, the behaviour and lifestyles of chimpanzees have barely changed. Human behaviour and lifestyles clearly have. Humans have learned to learn from previous generations, to improve upon their work, and to establish a momentum to human life and culture that has taken us from cave art to quantum physics and to the unraveling of the genome. It is this capacity for constant innovation that distinguishes humans from all other animals.
All animals have an evolutionary past. Only humans make history. The historical, transformative quality of being human is why the so-called nature-nurture debate, while creating considerable friction, has thrown little light on what it means to be human. To understand human freedom we need to understand not so much whether we are creatures of nature or nurture, but how, despite being shaped by’ both nature and nurture, we are also able to transcend both. [br] We can infer that those who participate in the nature-nurture debate most probably ______.
选项
A、ask questions that are unanswerable by either natural or cultural laws
B、refuse to admit that humans are bound by natural or cultural laws
C、are very skeptical about human cultural heritage
D、subscribe to either biological or cultural determinism
答案
D
解析
根据最后一段,有关先天还是后天的争论主要是关于人类是由先天决定的还是由后天决定的,因此争论的双方要么赞同生理(先天)决定开始,要么赞同文化(后天)决定一切。因此选项D为正确答案。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3279478.html
相关试题推荐
SomeProblemsFacingLearnersofEnglishAlthoughmanyEng
SomeProblemsFacingLearnersofEnglishAlthoughmanyEng
SomeProblemsFacingLearnersofEnglishAlthoughmanyEng
SomeProblemsFacingLearnersofEnglishAlthoughmanyEng
SomeProblemsFacingLearnersofEnglishAlthoughmanyEng
OneoftheproblemsinEnglishschoolsisthat______.[originaltext]
OneoftheproblemsinEnglishschoolsisthat______.[originaltext]
Theproblemwithhistoryissimple.Thereistoomuchofit,Andmoreofitc
Ⅰ.Urbanproblems1)problemstobothdevelopedanddevelopingcountri
Ⅰ.Urbanproblems1)problemstobothdevelopedanddevelopingcountri
随机试题
Whenisthemeetinghold?[br][originaltext]W:It’sabout3:30.M:Oh,no,I’
ThetraditionalChinesehospitalityrequiresfooddiversity,sothatguests
FromAccountanttoYogi:MakingaRadicalCareerChange[A]Atsomepoint,a
I’llhavetopushthecartothesideoftheroadbecausewe(fine)________ifwe
摄影时,可以人为控制运动模糊的是A.呼吸 B.心脏搏动 C.胃蠕动 D.痉
新结构、新材料的试验费,由建设单位在()中列支。A.工程建设其他费 B.
A. B. C. D.
取得《物业管理师资格证书》并申请注册的人员,应受聘于()个具有物业管理资质的企业
既可治湿温、暑湿、胸闷呕恶,湿热痞满、黄疸泻痢又可治胎动不安的药物是A.黄芩
教科书的编排形式通常采用()等几种形式。 A.铺垫式 B.直线式 C.螺旋
最新回复
(
0
)