New Chapter: Hobbes and Rousseau on Human Nature and the State of Nature
Description
A paradox of the concept of “human nature” is that it holds both the promise of universal equality—insofar as it takes us all to share a common nature—while all too often rationalizing exploitation, oppression, and even violence against other individuals and other species. Most appallingly, differences in skin color and other physiological traits have been viewed as signs of a “lesser” humanity, or of outright inhumanity, and used to justify great harms. The volume asks: is the concept of human nature separable from the racist, sexist, and speciest abuse that has been made of it? And is it even possible—or desirable—to articulate a notion of human nature unaffected by race or gender or class, as if it were possible to observe humanity in a pure form? With chapter 8 on Hobbes and Rousseau.
