The Five Core Capacities

The next several posts will explore five major areas of human core capacities and will focus attention on answering the question as to whether these capacities are a result of “nature or nurture.”

Those core capacities are:

• Possessing the desire for reconciliation
• Understanding the benefits of cooperation
• Having the cognitive capacity to forgive
• Understanding the reciprocal nature of relationships
• Having the capacity for empathy

(Aureli et al. 2000; Raviv 60; Bonta 1993; Batson 413).