Sociobiology reduces the human to the animal instead of observing how the animal becomes human. - Harvey Mansfield

The notion of thumos tells us further that politics is about protection, not primarily about gain. The reason you assert in your defense protects you and people like you that are included in the argument you advance. In an assertive, political argument you assume that you are perfectly OK. You are not apologizing for your self or your soul. The problem lies in things outside you, accidents that have happened or might happen, or the faults of others besides yourself. You therefore want to be protected in your self-satisfaction.

The way out from complication and doubt is to reduce the good to pleasure, something close to the body, or to utility, something useful to the body. ... The body is considered as a factor all human beings have in common, hence an easy basis for generalization.

Identity is as foreign to science as the good, and just as the good is reduced to something palpable, one’s own is raised to something vaguer but shareable.