On Instinctive Human Peace Versus War

Abstract

There is a substantial history of scholars and others claiming that human beings are “instinctively” war prone. This perspective has recently been amplified by a chorus of some anthropologists, evolutionary biologists, and evolutionary psychologists, exaggerating this argument by the use of material from the Yanomamo people (a pre-technological group, known for their ferocity) as well as research on nonhuman primates. Such generalizations are, however, misleading, since there are numerous human societies whose history has been distinctly non-warlike, just as there are species of nonhuman primates that are notably pacific. The scientific reality is that Homo sapiens are endowed by evolution with the potential to be either violent or pacific, depending on circumstances, while the ethical reality is that unlike other claims that are morally neutral, the assertion that human beings are “naturally” war prone also has political implications, sensitivity to which should make scholars especially careful when making such pronouncements, particularly since they are not only liable to be incorrect but to have deleterious social consequences.