This article considers the approach to human nature implicit in four textbooks often used to introduce sociology. Human nature is seen as a set of drives and capacities, which play a key role in people’s actions in any social context. In the textbooks, a variety of arguments suggest the irrelevance of a concept of human nature to the discipline. Partly, this message is conveyed by opposing social to biological explanations. In addition, the discipline is framed to exclude the concept of human nature. Society, on the one hand, and the culturally unique individual, on the other, exhaust the sociological arena. Accounts of socialization imply the transcendence of biology and with that, human nature. Refutations of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology are supported with broad ranging rejections of biological explanation, with a similar implication that human nature is not a necessary concept in sociological accounts. Nevertheless, human nature is the elephant in the room. The concept is required and assumed in the detail of these textbooks as they explain current sociological research and analysis. One impact of the denial of human nature is to misunderstand current disputes between sociology and evolutionary psychology.
AdemoyoA (2009) Purpose, human sociality and nature in Akiwowo’s sociology of knowledge: A realist interpretation. African Sociological Review13(2): 16–28.
2.
BarashD (2011) Payback: Why We Retaliate, Redirect Aggression and Take Revenge. New York: Oxford University Press.
3.
BessantJWattsR (2002) Sociology Australia, 2nd edn. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen and Unwin.
4.
BoneJ (2009) Beyond biophobia: A response to Jackson and Rees. Sociology41(5): 1181–1190.
5.
CarolanMS (2005) Realism without reductionism: Toward an ecologically embodied sociology. Research in Human Ecology12(1): 1–20.
6.
ChodorowN (1974) Family structure and feminine personality. In: RosaldoMZLamphereL (eds) Woman, Culture and Society. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 43–66.
7.
ChomskyN (1986) Knowledge of Language: Its Nature, Origin, and Use. New York: Praeger.
FaircloughN (1995) Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. London: Longman.
10.
Fausto-SterlingA (1992) Myths of Gender: Biological Theories about Women and Men. New York: Basic Books.
11.
Fausto-SterlingA (2000) Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. New York: Basic Books.
12.
GerasN (1983) Marx and Human Nature: Refutation of a Legend. London: Verso.
13.
GermovJPooleM (2011) The sociological gaze: Linking private lives to public issues. In: GermovJPooleM (eds) Public Sociology, 2nd edn. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen and Unwin, pp. 2–18.
14.
GiddensA (2009) Sociology, 6th edn, revised and updated with PW Sutton. Cambridge: Polity.
15.
GowatyPA (ed.) (1997) Feminism and Evolutionary Biology: Boundaries, Intersections and Frontiers. New York: Chapman and Hall.
HaralambosMVan KriekenRSmithPHolbornM (1996) Sociology: Themes and Perspectives, Australian edn. South Melbourne: Longman.
18.
HarawayD (1989) Primate Visions: Gender, Race and Nature in the World of Modern Science. New York: Routledge.
19.
HarleyK (2008) Theory use in introductory sociology textbooks. Current Sociology56(2): 289–306.
20.
HerrnsteinRJMurrayC (1996) The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life. New York: Free Press.
21.
JacksonSReesA (2007) The appalling appeal of nature: The popular influence of evolutionary psychology as a problem for sociology. Sociology41(5): 917–930.
22.
KonnerM (2002) The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit, 2nd edn. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
23.
MachalekRMartinMW (2004) Sociology and the second Darwinian revolution: A metatheoretical analysis. Sociological Theory22(3): 455–476.
24.
MarxK (1967) Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society, ed. EastonLDGuddatKH. New York: Doubleday.
25.
MaslowAH (1987) Motivation and Personality, 3rd edn. New York: Harper and Row.
26.
MidgleyM (1996) The Ethical Primate: Humans, Freedom and Morality. London: Routledge.
27.
MidgleyM (2002) Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature, revised edn. London: Routledge.
28.
MolnarG (2003) Powers: A Study in Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
29.
O’DonnellMH (2003) Radically reconstituting the subject: Social theory and human nature. Sociology37(4): 753–770.
30.
PinkerS (2002) The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. London: Penguin Books.
31.
PlattJ (2008a) Introduction. Current Sociology56(2): 147–164.
32.
PlattJ (2008b) British sociological textbooks from 1949. Current Sociology56(2): 165–182.
33.
PooleM (2011) Socialisation and the new genetics. In: GermovJPooleM (eds) Public Sociology, 2nd edn. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen and Unwin, pp. 88–108.
34.
PooleMGermovJ (2011) Contemporary sociological theorists and theories. In: GermovJPooleM (eds) Public Sociology, 2nd edn. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen and Unwin, pp. 37–64.
35.
RyanCJethaC (2010) Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality. New York: Harper.
36.
SchreckerC (2008) Textbooks and sociology: A Franco-British comparison. Current Sociology56(2): 201–219.
37.
ShillingC (2007) Sociology and the body: Classical traditions and new agendas. Sociological Review55: 1–18.
38.
ToobyJCosmidesL (1992) The psychological foundations of culture. In: BarkowJHCosmidesLToobyJ (eds) The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Cuture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 19–136.
39.
TurnerBS (1996) The Body and Society: Explorations in Social Theory, 2nd edn. London: Sage.
40.
WetherellMTaylorSYatesSY (2001) Discourse as Data: A Guide for Analysis. London: Sage.
41.
WilsonEO (1979) Introduction: What is sociobiology? In: GregoryMSSilversASutchD (eds) Sociobiology and Human Nature: An Interdisciplinary Critique and Defense. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp. 1–12.
42.
WitzA (2000) Whose body matters: Feminist sociology and the corporeal turn in sociology and feminism. Body and Society6(2): 1–24.
