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[watertank]

The origins of American psychology are found in the historical resolution of two conflicting nineteenth-century interests: a concern with character and morality, on one hand, and an equally strong belief in pragmatism, technology, and a materialist explanation of behavior implied by the Darwiniian thesis. These two ideas were incompatible at the end of the 19th century. How could anyone defend and idealistic description of humans as loyal, altruistic, cooperative and spiritual and simultaneously accept the extreme individualism and pursuit of self-interest society demanded and biology rationalized?

An Argument for Mind, by Jerome Kagan, Yale Univ. Press, 2006. p.8