Philosophy of Human Nature

Many fields of inquiry traffic in a conception of some fixed essence of humanity, in which we all share. The idea of there being a human nature serves as a kind of Archimedean point from which we can learn to judge whether particular virtues possessed by this or that society represent the best life for us, given that essential human nature. What makes this a philosophical issue is precisely that there is disagreement among philosophers as to whether or not there is such a constant, and what the possessions of such a notion entails. This course satisfies a portion of the AU Core Requirement for the Humanities.