The nature vs. nurture question can exhibit moral undertones and become a touchy subject in our society. For example, a criminal goes to court for his crime. When the criminal is on trail, you must debate this man's sentence, they must consider his past and the context of his crime. Is it fair to sentence a man to prison if he was raised in an abusive household where crime was the only life he knew? Or, would it be fair to sentence this man to a life in prison if he inherited a specific gene from his father, which makes

Intersubjectivity requires the same frame of reference for everyone since it relies on the social aspect as well as the subjective experience of the individual. Could it be possible that registering an object as being red is not truly intersubjective and instead purely subjective? Or, is it likely that specific commonalties such as language and culture create a reference frame of intermediate size? Eleanor Rosch, a cognitive anthropologist, performed a series of experiments, which tested her hypothesis that the color universe is not arbitrary. Color is a good variable to use in order to test for commonalties among different cultures, which would refute the previously accepted hypothesis that culture determines experience. Rosch traveled around to different cultures of people and investigated their reactions when asked to identify a "pure red."

Another question raised by the nurture-nature debate is the question of evolution. Is our object concept "inherited through genes that have shaped themselves over the millennia to a world of objects," or are "children, in interaction with a world filled with objects, nurtured by this environment to take up the object concept and apply it throughout the rest of their lives in constructing their experience" (59)? The nature side of the argument maintains that the concepts that we apply to the objects we experience are genetically determined concepts. This suggests that evolution plays the main role in explaining how objects contribute the concepts we apply in constructing our experiences. "Since the 'external' world manifests such pervasive features as causation, time, space, permanent objects, and so on, there was selection pressure toward brains that used these concepts in construction our ancestors' 'internal' experience" (56). The nurture side of the argument supports the idea that each human is born with a moldable brain that is shaped by the environment and not pre-programmed with specific genes that apply object concepts to experience. This argument still involves evolution, although evolution contributes in a more subtle way. Natural selection chooses the brain with the maximum plasticity to any given environment, and the brains that do not bend and adapt as easily to the environment do not compete well in our world.

Hume claimed that "reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions." This statement accounts for many unusual human practices like setting up institutions and creating moral codes. Hume concluded that "human beings have 'passions'- they care about the ways things are for themselves and one another." This theory is not quite as altruistic as it sounds, however. It is no mystery that humans desire to successfully pass one's genes onto future generations. These biological instincts harness nature in order to prosper in life. There is a catch however; "Without nurturing those tendencies" to survive and prosper, humans will find themselves in an unattractive place (203). Hundert uses the arms race as an example of natural instincts, which are out of control without the help of nurture. Hume claims that there are two types of human virtues: natural virtues and artificial virtues. A natural virtue comes naturally and does not require thought or nurture to perform. Kindness to children is an example of a natural virtue because it is something that most humans do automatically. An artificial virtue is something that must be learned and nurtured into individuals. The sense of justice, truthfulness, and courage are artificial virtues. These traits are highly valued in people because they are not intrinsic features of most humans and must be learned.

Surprisingly, there was a definite universality in the prototypical red among the various languages and cultures Rosch tested. In order to confirm her hypothesis, Rosch found a very primitive culture to study called the Dani. She divided up the Dani and gave half of them a set of vocabulary for identifying seven basic wave

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Approximate Word count = 3696
Approximate Pages = 15 (250 words per page double spaced)