In Human Nature and the Limits of Science, John Dupré provides an extended criticism of what he calls scientific imperialism—the view that whatever questions we might have, the answers are to be found through scientific investigations that identify the responsible physical mechanisms. Dupré gives particular attention to this view's inadequacies as they bear on explanations of human mind and behavior offered by evolutionary psychology (EP) and rational choice theory. Dupré argues that in both these cases the science is theoretically and empirically problematic, and that the justifications for policies they offer can ultimately be harmful.

On Dupré's view, these problems stem from a flawed reductionist philosophy on which all macro-level phenomena can be explained by the intrinsic properties of their micro-parts. This conception is problematic, he thinks, for several reasons. First, there are no physical explanations of anything remotely biological or psychological (9). Second, most genuine explanations explicitly require taking “context” into consideration (10). Third, reductionism focuses our attention on only the narrow set of phenomena whose behavior can be accounted for in terms of the workings of their micro-parts (15). Ultimately, Dupré thinks there are no good reasons to believe that this strategy can be applied to human phenomena.

In place of imperialism, Dupré urges us to adopt an epistemological pluralism on which we draw resources from the many sciences, and from the humanities (4). By embracing a genuine empiricism, Dupré argues, we see the real successes of the sciences as well as their limits.

Much of Dupré's book is taken up with detailing just how the sciences of human mind and behavior have been led astray by taking up the wrong philosophical approach. According to Dupré, EP rests on the basic claims that (i) human behavior is best understood through investigating human brains; that (ii) the best way to understand our brains is through an account of our genes; and that (iii) our genes are explained through evolution by natural selection. On this view, our genome probably has not been significantly altered since the Pleistocene. Therefore, (iv) the adaptations we exhibit are the result of selection regimes in the environment of evolutionary adaptations (EET). Finally, evolutionary psychologists hold that (v) our minds/brains are massively modular (21–22).

Dupré offers several criticisms of this program. First, he argues that the evolution of a mental module that produces some behavior does not explain what people do in particular circumstances. Our explanations of such facts, he thinks, are properly local and social (25). Second, Dupré, a fan of developmental systems theory, contends that there is no sense in which genes “build” brains but wombs or schools do not. Thus, we need more than genes to explain how brains are constructed (29). Third, Dupré argues that at best minds explain behavior. He rejects brain-mind identity, however, on the grounds that the mind depends ontologically on its community for social phenomena like language. Hence, he concludes, brains cannot explain behavior even if minds can (33–34).

Dupré also offers criticisms of specific findings in EP, focusing on sex and gender. In EP, the differences between male and female sexual behavior and strategies are generally explained by different reproductive investments. Men have far smaller gametes than females and females must make much larger commitments in gestation and in post-natal care than males. Thus, males maximize their reproductive success by mating as much as possible, whereas females maximize their reproductive success by being choosy of a male's genes and resources.

Dupré criticizes the evidence for such hypotheses, charging that it is absurd, banal, or only mildly interesting (54). Dupré asks us to consider several such phenomena and their evolutionary explanations. Studies done to show that there is a rape module by measuring the sexual response of prisoners to film depictions of coercive sex are absurd, he says, because they make the contentious assumptions that prisoners are a representative sample of men and that rape is a sexual act for example (56). In the same vein, Dupré argues that the performance of individuals on the Wason selection task, or data concerning different rates of homicide of stepchildren and biological children by parents can be interesting, but that there are a variety of non-evolutionary, sociological explanations to account for these data (60–61).

If the evidence is so poor, why adopt such a research program? Dupré locates the charms of evolutionary psychology in the successes of other reductions and in the imperialistic tendencies of scientists. But again, Dupré thinks evolutionary psychologists who seek reductions of human behavior make a mistake: because they attend to social and environmental issues only in the most simplistic sense, the environment serves only as the background of evolutionary adaptation and the trigger of our modulated dispositions (72). This is to neglect relevant contextual factors, Dupré claims, and thus even if there are mental modules, it is unclear how they can account for particular behaviors in particular circumstances. If rape has more to do with power than with sex, then the putative reduction focuses our attention on explanatorily irrelevant factors. Worse, it may alter our moral responses (89).

Dupré also locates the charms in his second target, rational choice theory. He grants that certain rigorously tested forms of this program can be successful in specific domains. However, he contends that when scientists offer economic analyses of the “markets” of marriage and HIV transmission, they take their formal models too far (125–128). Dupré illustrates this problem with the concept of work in its Smithian, Marxist, and Millian variations, arguing that much is lost when we think of labor and its value purely in terms of transactions in labor markets.

In his final chapter, Dupré argues against “causal completeness” and offers a defense of free will and autonomy that will draw stares of disbelief from physicalists. Causal completeness claims that for any event there is a set of precise deterministic or stochastic laws governing that event (157). Dupré argues that causal completeness is false and that it is in this denial that human freedom and autonomy rests.

With this overview in place, let me now offer some criticisms. First, reductionists need not believe that to explain some macro-phenomena we must cite the intrinsic properties of an object's parts only. One could be a “broad individualist” about society and organisms and grant that any complete account would need both factors to be micro-characterized via relational properties of individuals (Sterelny Reference Sterelny1996). Secondly, Dupré defines “evolution” as “any change over time in the distribution of properties across a population” against evolution as simply change in gene frequencies (26). But this allows evolution to occur when any change occurs in the distribution of such properties. Even if there is cultural evolution, there must be some non-trivial unit of heredity (genes, memes, etc.). Finally, given the disunity approach, it is unclear how the sciences could explain human behavior when they are so specialized. It looks like these important questions not only resist imperialistic answers, but answers of any sort. Dupré owes us a story of how human behavior can be explained at all if our world is dappled.