The battle for human nature : science, morality, and modern life /

Schwartz (psychology, Swarthmore) delineates with remarkable clarity and detail the views of human nature in economics, evolutionary theory, and behavioral psychology. He shows how these disciplines cohere to form a unified position in which human beings are seen as self-interested, self-aggrandizing creatures with insatiable wants. This scientific view of human nature is juxtaposed to a moral framework that asks what humans ought to do and that assumes the possibility of acting for a communal good. Schwartz manifests the unwarranted assumptions of the new scientific view of human nature and reveals the devastating social costs of this view. The book is impressive in the breadth of material it integrates, the clarity of its writing, and the seriousness with which it poses crucial questions for our culture. It deserves to be available in every public and academic library, and read by scholars interested in the relations between human nature and ethics.-J.H. Riker, The Colorado College

Are people basically selfish creatures out to further their own interests and goals? In this brilliant investigation, Schwartz (Psychology of Learning and Behavior, etc.), a Swarthmore psychology professor, exposes the hidden assumptions that cause modern economists, behavioral psychologists and sociobiologists to form incomplete impressions of human beings and reply ``yes'' to the above question. Making sense of individuals' economic activity, he argues, requires knowledge of their noneconomic motives. Behaviorists do not find ``order in chaos'' so much as they create it by imposing a narrow frame of reference. Sociobiologists' clever theories equating human sexuality and aggression with animal behavior leave out the cultural dimension entirely. After identifying biases that link these disciplines, Schwartz goes on to ponder the threat economic imperialism poses to democratic institutions and our sense of social concern. (May 27) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved