Tabula Rasa

Surface

Tabula Rasa, Latin for "blank slate", is the theory that humans are born without innate mental content, and that knowledge and character are entirely the product of experience and environment. John Locke argued this in 1689 as a foundation for his political philosophy: if we are shaped by environment, then environment can be changed, and human nature is not fixed.

Middle

The blank slate has profound political implications. If humans are infinitely malleable, then the right institutions and education can produce any kind of person. This optimism underlies Enlightenment liberalism, progressive politics, and most theories of rehabilitation. It also underlies some of the 20th century's worst atrocities, when states tried to forcibly reshape human nature.

Deep

Modern cognitive science has largely discredited the strong blank slate. Humans arrive pre-equipped with language acquisition, moral intuitions, emotional responses, and personality tendencies that are substantially heritable. But the debate is not nature versus nurture, it is about which aspects of which traits are how malleable under which conditions. The answer is almost always: more complex than either side wants.