Are we really naturally violent?

The Dish flags a story that challenges a self evident truth contained in the Declaration of Independence, one based on an assumption enlightenment philosophers made about the state of nature.

It was generally assumed that it was violent, and that this was why people in the state of nature decided to form government - to secure the unalienable rights. Thomas Hobbes argued that the state of nature was a perpetual state of war of all against all.

But other philosophers during the enlightenment period scoffed at that idea - they saw little evidence that a state of nature every really existed.

An evolutionary biologist challenges the idea that there was ever any proof that ancient people were actually that violent. The assumption that they were has clouded how evidence has been evaluated. Yes we can be violent, but we can be compassionate as well.

When it comes to human aggression, violence and war, there simply is no unitary direction impelled by evolution. On the one hand, we are capable of despicable acts of horrific violence; on the other, we evince remarkable compassion and self-abnegation. Our selfish genes can generate a wide array of nasty, destructive and unpleasant actions; and yet, these same selfish genes can incline us toward altruistic acts of extraordinary selflessness. It is at least possible that our remarkably rapid brain evolution has been driven by the pay-off derived by successful warlike competition with other primitive human and humanoid groups. But it is equally possible that it was driven by the pay-off associated with co-operation, co‑ordination and mutual care-taking.

Perhaps we need to rethink why government evolve and what purposes they serve.

"A tyrannical government is not a legitimate government"

This is an important and provocative post from David Kopel. I need to add this to my 2301 lecture on natural rights. The author quotes a variety of classical authors who make arguments against the legitimacy of tyrannical governments, likening them to robbers. A tyrannical government is not a legitimate government. That statement should make sense if you properly understand the argument made in the Declaration of Independence.

Consider this required reading.

Obviously the post relates to current issues regarding Libya, but it gives no hint about what pragmatic steps can be taken to deal with tyrannical governments. Is there an obligation to remove them from power?

It was going to happen sooner or later ...

Foreign Policy predicts the death of macho:

The great shift of power from males to females is likely to be dramatically accelerated by the economic crisis, as more people realize that the aggressive, risk-seeking behavior that has enabled men to entrench their power—the cult of macho—has now proven destructive and unsustainable in a globalized world.

Indeed, it’s now fair to say that the most enduring legacy of the Great Recession will not be the death of Wall Street. It will not be the death of finance. And it will not be the death of capitalism. These ideas and institutions will live on. What will not survive is macho. And the choice men will have to make, whether to accept or fight this new fact of history, will have seismic effects for all of humanity—women as well as men.