Chapter 2: Human Nature

2.1 : Why does your view of human nature matter?

Psychologists such as Freud claimed humans are cruel, aggressive, and selfish.
Philosophers Hobbes and Schlick claimed that humans act only outof self-interest and are material bodies.
Beliefs about our nature influence our relationships, our view of our place in the universe, and our view of how society should be arranged.

2.2 : What is human nature?

The traditional rationalistic view

Plato claimed that Freud claimed humans are cruel, aggressive, and selfish.
Plato concluded that reason, appetite, and aggression are the three main parts of human nature.
If a person always gives in to his appetites or aggressive impulses, these will enslave him and reason can no longer rule them.
Aristotle claimed that because barbarians were less rational than Greeks, they were less human and so could be ruled and enslaved by the Greeks.

The traditional Judeo-Christian view

The Judeo-Christian view says humans are made in the image of God because they have will and intellect; the purpose of humans is to love and serve God.
Christians like Augustine adopted Plato’s view that the self or soul is rational, immaterial, and immortal and not basically self-interested.
The Judeo-Christian view may not be supported by modern science and may imply a cultural superiority that justifies destroying other cultures.

The Darwinian challange

Darwin said that some creatures have random variations that can be inherited by offspring, and those with advantageous variations survive and pass them on.
Darwin’s theory applies to humans. But if all human abilities evolved from lower animals, reason is not unique but just a more developed animal ability.
Darwin’s theory undermined the idea that living things and humans are designed for a purpose.
Critics say there is evidence of evolution within species but incomplete evidence of evolution of one species into another.
Other critics say even if evolution occurs, God can direct evolution, so evolution is the tool God uses to design humans for a purpose.
Other critics say reason is unique to humans, in particular the use of linguistic reasoning and communication.

The existentialist challenge

Existentialists like Sartre say there is no God to determine our nature, so humans have no purpose or nature except the one they make themselves.
We are free and fully responsible for what we are; knowing this causes anguish.
Bad faith is deceiving ourselves by pretending we are not free and so not responsible.
The self has no rational nature but is the sum total of all its actions.
“Existence is prior to essence” means humans are first born (exist) and then define their nature (essence) by acting.
Existentialism says there is no universal human nature, no rational human nature, no purpose for human nature.

The feminist challenge

Some feminists claim that the Traditional view of human nature is sexist.
Plato said reason is superior to and should rule our desires and emotions; Aristotle then associated women with desires and emotions and men with rationality and concluded that men should rule over women.
So, the rationalistic view implies reason is good,is male, and should rule, whereas feelings and desires are bad, are female, and should be ruled.This is sexist.
Insisting women are as rational as men still assumes that “male reason” is better than female desires and emotions; saying desires and emotions are as good as reason still allows that because males have reason they should rule females, who have emotions and desires.

2.3 : The mind-body problem?

The Dualist View of Human Nature

Descartes said we can think of the self without a body, so it is not a body; we cannot think of the self without thinking, which is not a material act.
- This is the dualist view.
So, the self must be a thinking, immaterial mind with a material body.
But how can something that has no physical dimensions act on or be acted on by something that does?
Leibniz agreed that mind and body can’t interact but said they run in parallel order like two synchronized clocks.
Malebranche also agreed that mind and body can’t interact, but he said that God moves the body for the mind and affects the mind for the body.

The Materialist View of Human Nature

The materialist Hobbes said the mind could be reduced to the physical actions of a material body.
The “identity theory of the mind” proposed by Smart says mental states, such as thinking, are contingently identical with states of the brain, a material organ.
Malcolm objects that mental states have no location in space but that brain states do, and that thoughts require surroundings such as practices, agreements, and assumptions but that brain events don’t, so mental states are not identical to brain states.

The Behaviourist View of Human Nature

Behaviourists like Ryle say mental activities and states can be explained and defined in terms of our observable behaviors.
But critics like Putnam say we can have an idea in mind without any externally observable behavior.

The Functionalist View of Human Nature

Functionalists like Armstrong say mental states can be explained in terms of sense inputs and behaviour outputs
Critics argue that if two people experience colors differently, they may link the same behavior outputs to the same sense inputs, yet they don’t have the same mental states, as functionalism asserts.

The Computer View of Human Nature

Turing said the mind is a computer following a program that generates certain outputs when given certain inputs.The “%%Turing Test%%” says that if the outputs a computer gives to certain inputs cannot be distinguished from the outputs a human would make to the same inputs, the computer is equivalent to the human mind.
Searle objects that a computer following a program is not conscious. His “%%Chinese Room%%” example is a person in a room who follows a program that outputs the right Chinese characters when given certain Chinese inputs. This passes the Turing Test, yet the person is not conscious of knowing Chinese.

Eliminative Materialism

“Eliminative materialism” says that mental conscious states (such as pains) don’t even exist but that our “folk psychology” makes us think that we feel pains, desires, and emotions.
Critics say that eliminative materialism denies the existence of what we all know we experience, and so gets rid of the very thing that has to be explained.

The New Dualism

Chalmers argues we can conceive of “zombies” who are physically like us and act like us but have no consciousness. So, mental properties such as consciousness are not physical properties.This is “property dualism.”

2.4 : Is there an enduring self?

We believe we remain the same person throughout our lives, unless, perhaps, exceptional events such as brain damage or Alzheimer’s disease afflict us.
Some philosophers say that what makes us the same person today that we were ten years ago is the continuity of our body.
But critics point out that sometimes we say that a person with brain damage has the same bodily continuity but is not the same person as before.
Also, if bodily continuity was required to make a person the same from one moment to another, then the idea of life after death should be incomprehensible.
%%In thought experiments where a mind is put in a new body, we say the body is now the person whose mind was transferred, not the person whose body was used.%%
So, bodily continuity does not make someone the same person over time.

The Soul as an Enduring Self

A Traditional view such as Descartes’ holds that the soul makes a person remain the same person as time passes.
Critics object that we can know that a person remains the same person from one day to another without being able to see his or her soul.

Memory as the enduring self

Locke proposed that what makes a person remain the same person from one time to another is her memory of those times.
Reid objected: Suppose at age 20 I remember myself at 10, and at 30 I remember myself at 20 but not at 10.Then on Locke’s view at 20 I am the same person I was at 10, and at 30 I am the same person I was at 20. So at 30 I must be the same person I was at 10. Yet Locke’s view also says at 30 I am not the person I was at 10!

The no-self view

The no-self view gets rid of the self altogether.
Buddhism holds that nothing in the universe, not even the self, remains the same from one moment to the next. %%Everything consists of aggregates of elements that are in constant flux.%%
Hume also held that there is no self. He argues that only what we perceive exists. But we never perceive a self in the constant flow of changing sensations, so there is no self.
But if there is no enduring self, then all the care we take for our future makes no sense.

2.5 : Are we independent or self-sufficient individuals?

The Atomistic Self

Many hold the view that the self is and should be independent of others and self-sufficient.
Descartes said the self exists and can be known independently of others and that only the self can judge the truth about what it is.
Kant argued that the core of the real self is the ability to choose for oneself.

The Rational Self

Taylor objects that we depend on others for our very self because we need others to define for us who our real self is.
Aristotle argued that I depend on others not just to exist but to be the human that I am.
Hegel denied the independent self, arguing that who one is depends on one’s relationships with others and that we can know we are free and independent only if others recognize us as such.

Power & Hegel’s view

Everyone struggles to get from others the recognition each needs to be independent and free. Some emerge as slaves, others as masters, yet the master becomes dependent on the slave, and the slave comes to see himself as more competent than the master.
Thus, the slave is slave because that is what others see him as being, and the master is master because others recognize him as such.
Hegel implies that the powerful and powerless classes in society are created by the qualities \n we are willing to recognize in them.

Culture & Self-Identity

Hegel also argues that a person gets through his culture the recognition that makes him free or enslaved.

Search for the real self

So, the self is not independent and self-sufficient, but depends on others for his or her existence as the kind of person he or she is.
But if one has many relationships with others, does this mean one has many selves?
And aren’t many of our basic physical, mental, and personality traits independent of others?