About human nature

In this short, snappy book, Roger Scruton presents a radical and original defense of human uniqueness.

Confronting the views of evolutionary psychologists, utilitarian moralists, and philosophical materialists such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, the author argues that human beings cannot be explained simply as biological objects. We are not just human animals: we are persons, essentially linked to others by obligations and rights. Our world is shared, and to understand it, we need to communicate with people face to face, one to one.

In On Human Nature , Scruton develops and defends his vision, traversing the entire intellectual history of Plato and Averroes to Darwin and Wittgenstein, and offers a new way of understanding how self-awareness affects the question of how we should live. The result is an enriching view of human nature that challenges the most established notions about our species.