God. Real. Right.

A note on terms in the argument: in this post, biology serves as the representative of material reductionism or just of naturalism, since it is the closest a reductionist can come to anything complex or progressive enough to explain the features which non-reductionists claim to exist. Similarly, evolution in this post is simply the most consistent model with which to explain biological advantages. In both cases, the position given to naturalism is intended to give it the most favor available.

Humans have many behavioral and functional characteristics which are biological by nature, none of which makes us human. To be clear, they may be necessary to being human, but they are not sufficient. For example, it is necessary to eat to be human. But many non-human things eat. So what separates humans from, say, pigs? Not much, biologically. But plenty, if Aristotle has anything to say about it; reason, to be specific. So Aristotle calls man the rational animal. From his perspective the definition is sufficient because it distinguishes humanity from every other thing.
There are characteristics other than reason which could be used to pull humanity out of the category of all other animals: consciousness, spirit, aesthetics, or ethics, for instance, depending on who is doing the pulling. But the one of most interest here is ethics.
Long since Aristotle, skeptics regarding human nature have argued that there is no cut-and-dry distinction between other animal species and humanity. There are differences of degree, but nothing absolute, they contend. Previously, value-laden characteristics like ethics seemed inexplicable in terms of biology alone. But once evolutionary theory takes on a social element, that explanation no longer seems (more…)

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