cases suggest that the development of empathy over long periods of time can have
important political consequences. For example, increased empathy accounts, in part,
for the end of legalized slavery and formal colonialism.^59 And Lynn Hunt argues that
the development of human rights over the long term depends on the development
of greater sympathy and empathy towards others, starting in the eighteenth
century.^60
Regions characterized by security communities or successful post-conflict peace-
building, may have achieved their success by first ratcheting down the effects of fear
and gradually increasing the effects of empathy and the capacity to trust. Indeed, the
literature on fear and empathy I have reviewed suggests that confidence-building
measures, such as data exchanges, cultural exchanges, exercises in conciliation, and
the graduated reciprocation in tension reduction (GRIT), are extremely important
if understudied by political science.^61 Trust building and maintaining mechanisms
must be institutionalized in routine practices and expectations to have their greatest
effects.^62
What difference does human nature, old or new, make?
As Waltz demonstrated a half century ago, both optimistic and pessimistic notions
about human nature have shaped many theories of world politics. Indeed, they have
influenced Waltz’s own theorizing. While Waltz was right to warn international
relations theorists from an overemphasis on ‘human nature,’ he was wrong to imply
that human nature was both negative and fixed.
Negative views of human nature support those practices and institutions that
depend on those views. If we believe that the escalation of conflict into war is
inevitable, then its occurrence is understood as natural. A view that humans strive
for domination, that domination and hierarchy are natural and inevitable, supports
those who benefit from domination and hierarchy. I have suggested that we both
acknowledge the persistence of these Hobbesian assumptions and re-examine their
validity.
The questions about ‘man’ should no longer be, as Waltz phrased the debate
between pessimists and optimists, whether humans are naturally aggressive or
peaceful, or whether human nature is ‘fixed’ or can change, or whether it is nature
or nurture that determines our drives, predispositions or capacities. Human biology,
if that is how we define ‘human nature’, clearly has powerful aggressive and peaceful
capacities that respond powerfully to environmental stimuli – including socialization
and institutional contexts.
Anthropologists and historians have long described the diversity and malleability
of social institutions and cultural practices, suggesting that simplistic views of human
nature rooted in biological determinism were mistaken. Neuroscience confirms
these findings. As Richard Rorty argues,
There is a growing willingness to neglect the question ‘What is our nature?’
and to substitute the question ‘What can we make of ourselves?’... We haveRethinking ‘man’ 171