John Derbyshire offers up three prevalent views of human nature, in chronological order by origin:
The “Abrahamic” view is the one promoted by the big old Western faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The Darwinian view is the one implied (though not dispositively proved) by Darwinism. The third view I have labeled “Boasian” after anthropologist Franz Boas, who was the first to use it as basis for a comprehensive modern account of human nature.
Abrahamic: Our species homo sapiens is the special creation of God, either as a one-off miracle or by God-guided evolution. Human nature is a mix of attributes, some biological, some inserted by God. The God-given attributes are unique to our species. They are the same in all human populations, forming the foundation of our essential equality. Their existence is independent of our biological nature, even to the degree that they can continue to exist after our deaths. Being non-biological, they certainly do not evolve, even if other features of the living world do, so that our evolution, if it ever took place, ended (except perhaps for some incidental biological features) when God decreed we have these attributes. God rules!Darwinian: Our species homo sapiens arose, like all other species, from the ordinary processes of evolution, which have continued to the present day. Human nature is a collection of characteristics all susceptible to biological explanation. These characteristics show variation in any one population. A human population that breeds mostly within itself for many generations will develop distinctive profiles of variation, as a result of ordinary biological laws, causing it to diverge from other such populations. Neither individual human beings nor human populations are equal. Some human-nature characteristics can be shaped to some degree by “cultural” (i.e. social or environmental) forces; some cannot. Biology rules!
Boasian: Our species homo sapiens arose, like all other species, from the ordinary processes of evolution. However, these processes ceased in the very early history of the species, leaving us with a human nature uniform across all populations and unchanging over time, forming the foundation of our essential equality. This human nature is infinitely resilient, like a water-filled balloon. Any of its characteristics can be pushed into almost any shape by “cultural” forces (see above), but will submit to radical re-shaping if different forces are applied. Observed variations in human-nature characteristics have probably (in the case of individuals) and certainly (in the case of populations) no biological foundation. Culture rules!
A thing you notice when these three views of human nature are lined up is how far the Darwinian explanation stands from the other two. I have worked my phrasing somewhat to bring this out, but it wasn’t difficult to do so. A Darwinian view of human nature really is quite sensationally revolutionary. In particular, it makes a hash of intrinsic human equality. We may of course — and we should, and I hope we ever shall! — hold equal treatment under the law to be an organizing principle of our civilization; but that is a social agreement, like driving on the right, not a pre-existing fact in the world.
We might even speculate that the Abrahamic and the Boasian views are really the same, or that the second is a scientistic nineteenth-century derivative of the first, as Marxism was of traditional religious millenarianism. As the authors of math textbooks say: I leave this as an exercise for the reader.