Ethics and human nature

In the debate on the relationship between conceptions of human nature and ethics/politics there are those who view any attempt to ground ethics/politics upon a reasonably "thick" conception of human nature as illegitimate. On the other side of the argument are those who accept the necessity of a theory of human nature for an adequate grounding of ethics and politics, although there may be deep divisions among supporters of this basic position as to what kind of theory best fulfills this grounding role. In this paper the claim is made that an understanding of the concept of human nature is central to the enterprises of ethics and politics because it indicates the effective limits of political and ethical debate and that, despite its centrality in ethics and politics (or perhaps because of it) the notion of human nature is essentially contentious.