Philosopher’s Cafe is back with ‘human nature’ discussion, Wednesday

The Philosophers Café is back, Wednesday, Sept. 20, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the Aardvark Wine Lounge, 304 Pine St., Green Bay. “We kick the year off with some tasty philosophical questions about the reality of human nature and whether it is inclined toward moral good or harm. What is ‘human nature’, if there is such a thing? Does it incline toward good or bad behavior? Biologists and philosophers have wondered, explored and met with frustrations for centuries over whether there really is some loose set of traits that collectively define a human being. Whether we do in fact share a single commonality, and whether this has anything to do with how we treat ourselves and one another is, then, a pressing yet difficult question. Are bad people acting against the angels of their better nature, or are the rest of us suckers constantly falling prey to the machinations of conniving charlatans? At this year’s inaugural Philosophers Café we will decide — once and for all — whether there is a human nature and, if so, whether it inclines toward altruistic goodness or a struggle of all against that that renders life, as Thomas Hobbes once famously put it, ‘nasty, poor, brutish and short’. Please bring a thirst for conversation (and/or wine) and perhaps a companion whose nature you may or may not be happy about sharing.