OXFORD IB DIPLOMA PROGRAMME
PH I LO S O PH Y:
BEING HUMAN
COURSE COM PAN I ON
Nancy Le Nezet
Guy Williams
Chris White
Daniel Lee
3 Andrew J Elliott & Daniela Niesta: Romantic Red: Red
enhances mens attraction to women, Journal of Personality &
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Social Psychology, Vol 95:5 (20008), pp 11501164, reprinted by
permission of American Psychological Association (APA).
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of
Oxford. It furthers the Universitys objective of excellence in Harry G Frankfurt: Freedom of the Will and the Concept of
research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. a Person, Journal of Philosophy, Vol LXVIII, No 1 ( January, 1971)
Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in pp 520, reprinted by permission of the Journal of Philosophy,
the UK and in certain other countries Columbia University.
Oxford University Press 2014 Jonardon Ganeri: The Concealed Art of the Soul (Clarendon P, 2007/
OUP 2012), reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press.
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
Richelle E Goodrich: Eena, The Dawn and the Rescue (2012),
First published in 2014 copyright Richelle E Goodrich 2012, reprinted by permission
of the author.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in R M Hare: The simple Believer Appendix, Theology and
any form or by any means, without the prior permission in Falsifcation in Essays on Religion and Education (Clarendon Press,
writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted 1992), reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press.
by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate
reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: The Encyclopedia of Philosophy
reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to translated by Gustav E Mueller (Philosophical Library, 1959),
the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address reprinted by permission of the Philosophical Library, Inc.
above.
Charlie Kaufman: Being John Malkovich screenplay (Propaganda
You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must Films, 1999), copyright 1999 Universal City Studios, Inc,
impose this same condition on any acquirer reprinted by permission of Universal Studios and the author.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Kyu Shooku z: Kyus Moral Discourse Continued in Self as
Data available Person in Asian Theory and Practice edited by Roger T Ames, Wimal
Dissanayake and Thomas P Kasuli (SUNY Press, 1994), copyright
978-0-1 9-8392 83-5 1994, reprinted by permission of the publishers, State
University of New York Press.
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Robert Langbaum: Mysteries of Identity: A Theme in Modern
Paper used in the production of this book is a natural, recyclable Literature (OUP, 1977), reprinted by permission of Oxford
product made from wood grown in sustainable forests. University Press, USA.
The manufacturing process conforms to the environmental
regulations of the country of origin. Tessa Livingstone: The New Gender Divide in Times Educational
Supplement (TES) 4. Aug 2008, reprinted by permission of the
Printed by Bell and Bain Limited, Glasgow author.
Acknowledgements Raymond Martin: The Rise and Fall of the Soul and Self: An
Intellectual History of Personal Identity (Columbia University Press,
The authors and the publisher are grateful for permission to 2006), reprinted by permission of the publishers.
reprint extracts from the following copyright material:
Kate Millett: Sexual Politics (Univ of Illinois Press, 2000),
The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV, copyright 1973, copyright 1969, 1970, 1990, 2000 by Kate Millett, reprinted by
1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc., reprinted by permission of permission of Georges Borchardt, Inc, on behalf of the author.
Biblica, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.
Willard A Mullins: Truth and Ideology: Reections on
Saheeh International Version The Quran: English meanings and Mannheims Paradox, History and Theory, Vol 18, No 2 (May, 1979)
Notes, verses 22: 5-7 translated by Umm Muhammad, Aminah p 141, reprinted by permission of Blackwell Publishing Inc.
Assami (Dar Abul-Qasim 19972001, Al Muntada Al-Islami Trust
20112012), reprinted by permission. Thomas Nagel: The View from Nowhere (OUP, 1986), reprinted
by permission of Oxford University Press, USA; What is it like
David Leech Anderson: What is a Person?, The Mind Project, to be a bat?, The Philosophical Review, LXXXIII, 4 (October 1974),
Illinois State University, copyright David L Anderson 2014, reprinted by permission of the author.
reprinted by permission of the author.
Raymond S Nickerson: Confrmation Bias: A Ubiquitous
Jorge Luis Borges translated by Andrew Hurley: Borges and I, Phenomenon in Many Guises, Review of General Psychology, Vol 2: 2
frst published in The Maker (1960), from Collected Fictions (Viking (1998) p 175, reprinted by permission of American Psychological
Penguin, 1998), copyright Maria Kodama 2012, translation Association (APA).
copyright 1998 by Penguin Putnam Inc, reprinted by
permission of the publishers, Penguin Books Ltd, Viking Penguin, Eric Olson: Is there a Bodily Criterion of Personal Identity?
a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, and Penguin Canada, and in Identity and Modality edited by Fraser McBride (OUP, 2006)
of The Wylie Agency. p 242259, copyright Eric Olson 2006, reprinted by permission
of the author.
Ken Browne: Social Inequality in An Introduction to Sociology
(4e, Polity, 2011), p 398, reprinted by permission of Polity Press. Plato: Phaedo translated by David Gallop (OWC, OUP, 1999),
reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press; Philosophy:
Jonathan Cainer: horoscope for 8 Feb 2014, reprinted by A Text with Readings translated by Manuel Velasquez (11e, Cengage,
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Continued on back page.
Contents 1
17
1. Introduction 71
2. Human Nature
125
Man is a rational being
Man is an irrational animal 179
Man is a blank slate 263
3. Personhood 321
Self-consciousness 365
Agency 402
Morality and moral responsibility
Responsibility and authenticity
4. Mind and Body
Concepts of mind and body
The mindbody problem
The problem of other minds
Consciousness
5. The Self and The Other
Self/non-self
Solipsism and inter-subjectivity
Authenticity
6. Freedom
Freedom and determinism
Social conditioning
Existential angst
7. Identity
Personal identity
Identity over time
Social and cultural identity
8. IB Philosophy Assessment
Index
vii
BEING HUMAN
1 Introduction
Welcome to philosophy. The IB D iplomas philosophy course is an
exciting option as part o the Diploma Programme. It is a subject that
seeks to challenge you in ways that are at the heart o the educational
ambitions o the IB Diploma - as critical inquirers, global citizens with
international mindedness, and compassionate action-takers. Philosophy
has these ambitions as part o its practice. This book ocuses on the core
theme o being human that all students undertaking the subject must
complete at part o the prescribed course. The core theme explores the
undamental question o what it is to be human and does so by looking
at the six key concepts that are at the heart o exploring the question.
The key concepts encourage us to seek answers to the ollowing questions:
What does it mean to be human?
Is there such a thing as the sel?
Can we really ever know the other?
Is how we interact with others what makes us human?
Has what it means to be human been changed/shaped by technologies
such as the internet?
What can discoveries in neuroscience tell us about what it is to be
human?1
However, beore this systematic investigation is undertaken, it is
worth reecting on philosophy as both a discipline and as an activity.
This allows you to engage with the ambitions o the course while
preparing yoursel or the fnal assessments rom your frst experience
o philosophy.
What is philosophy?
Philosophers as plumbers
We cannot learn philosophy; or where is it, who is in possession o it,
and how shall we recognise it? We can only learn to philosophize
Immanuel Kant - Critique o Pure Reason
Immanuel Kant, one o the greatest philosophers o all time, provides
a clear insight into the ambitions o the IB Diploma philosophy course.
However, Kant makes it sound as i philosophy is something that j ust
happens and that everyone can do it. In a sense this is true but it does
1 International Baccalaureate, Philosophy Guide (Diploma Programme)
(Geneva: International Baccalaureate Organization, 2014) , p. 15.
1
1 BEING HUMAN
not mean that everyone can do it well. There is a ocus which defnes
philosophy. As Woodhouse has put it,
... what catches the philosophers eye concerning the statement
Ralph told the truth is not the potential issue o whether Ralph
actually told the truth. Instead, the philosophers curiosity is aroused
by the challenge o determining the standards that any sentence in
principle must meet in order to merit the label truth - that is, o
inquiring into the meaning o the concept o truth.2
Woodhouses point is simple; philosophers are interested in what lies
behind the words, ideas and concepts that we tend to use without
thinking about their deeper meaning. Mary Midgley once made a rather
controversial claim that philosophers were like plumbers:
Plumbing and philosophy are both activities that arise because
elaborate cultures like ours have, beneath their surace, a airly
complex system which is usually unnoticed, but which sometimes
goes wrong. In both cases, this can have serious consequences. Each
is hard to repair when it goes wrong, because neither o them was
ever consciously planned as a whole.3
Philosophy and international-mindedness
When Midgley reerred to cultures like ours she is addressing a western
audience but there is no doubt she would now extend her point to all
cultures. Every culture or tradition o thought has a set o concepts that
underpin their understanding o the world around them. Sometimes
they are unique to that culture or tradition though oten comparable
concepts are ound in other cultures as they too seek to respond to
satisy a desire to understand the world and issues that emerge out o
these attempts. Philosophy as a tool is used across cultures and is an
excellent way o increasing your international-mindedness.
While some commentators were concerned that philosophers were
being compared to intellectual sanitation workers, the point she is
making is very insightul. The philosophical plumbing reers to the
network o concepts that underpin our understanding o the world
and thereore the way we live, how we make decisions and interact
with others. Perhaps, the analogy would be more contemporary i it
was replaced with electricity and the electrician. We are usually only
concerned with our electrical supply when the power goes o and our
lights, computers and televisions become obsolete.
Doing philosophy
Perhaps Proessor Simon Blackburn is right when he says [t] he word
philosophy carries unortunate connotations: impractical, unworldly,
2 Quoted from http://philosophy.louisiana.edu/what.html (accessed 20 October 2014) .
3 Mary Midgley, Utopias, Dolphins and Computers: Problems ofPhilosophical Plumbing (Oxford: Psychology
Press, 2000) , p. 1.
2
INTRODUCTION
weird. 4 To a certain extent this is still true. Have you ever had anyone
ask you why you are studying philosophy as part o your Diploma,
or comment that philosophy is impractical? It can be an interesting
conversation.
Still, the word philosophy is a translation o the ancient greek word,
philosophia and is usually translated as the love o wisdom. As a
practice philosophy ound its oundation in Socrates and his dialectic
method o inquiry. However, while the actions o Socrates, and the
writings o his student, Plato, are commonly perceived as the oundation
o the western tradition o thought, each culture has pursued wisdom
using dierent methodologies and with dierent areas o interest.
C onsequently, not all pathways to wisdom require the centrality o
rationality and argumentation to be called philosophy. Instead, wisdom
can be expressed through poetry, storytelling, even in song, while
using analytical strategies that are not based on dispute or reutation to
develop an understanding. There are numerous occasions where the
purpose o thinking and the conceptual rameworks used are so ar apart
there is limited commonality to enable valid contrast between dierent
traditions. Despite these dierences, there are signifcant areas where
direct comparison can occur, enabling a student to look at issues rom
dierent perceptives, bringing insight into these traditions and their
cultures and being able to assess the viability or sustainability o their
own prevailing understandings. These dierent perspectives occur in a
number o the key concepts covered in this book.
The ocus o philosophy is questions that continue to intrigue people;
perennial and perplexing questions (that oten conound us with their
simplicity) . They tend to be big questions with equally big answers.
Oten understanding the question is an equal challenge to understanding
the answer.
Philosophy asks you to think about the questions, how to answer them,
how to present the answers, and to do so as a philosopher. C onsequently,
the emphasis o the Diploma Programme philosophy course is on doing
philosophy, that is, on actively engaging in philosophical activity and
in the process allowing your own philosophical voice to emerge and to
grow into independent thinkers.
This not a straight history o ideas course. It seeks to equip you with the
understanding that will help you to appreciate your own thinking and the
thinking o others. The course will enable you to engage with the debates
that will shape the uture o humankind, the ecosystem, and thereore
the planet. Some o the debates are yet to emerge, as societies ace new
challenges on a number o ronts. Advances in technology and science
impact upon the way we live, and what we can achieve in our lives. The
changing nature o the world through globalisation brings the need to
reect on our morality, our laws, our expectations, and our relationship
with those we are connected with in an increasingly contracting world.
To do so requires sensitivity to dierent ways o thinking, appreciating
the assumptions that are then used to reect upon and oer a particular
solution to an issue.
4 Simon Blackburn, Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) , p. 1.
3
1 BEING HUMAN
What do philosophers do?
Philosophers as conceptual engineers
Perhaps Midgleys association with plumbing is not how we want to
leave our picture o doing philosophy. B lackburn, when asked what he
does, replies that he preers to introduce mysel as doing conceptual
engineering. For just as the engineer studies the structure o material
things, so the philosopher studies the structure o thought.5 The ambition
is thereore to understand these structures or rameworks and
[u] nderstanding the structure involves seeing how parts unction
and how they interconnect. It means knowing what would happen
or better or worse i changes were made. This is what we aim
at when we investigate the structures that shape our view o the
world. Our concepts or ideas orm the mental housing in which we
live. We may end up proud o the structures we have built. Or we
may believe that they need dismantling and starting aresh.6
This is an important endeavor and not one to be taken lightly. It is part
o a dialogue that has been going on or many millennia. O ccasionally,
these structures have been dismantled dramatically and rebuilt
although not all believe these rebuilds have been successul. These
bring about disputes, creating even more dialogue as each participant
pursues greater understanding and clarity o the issues and the
positions being taken.
With this mind, is it air to suggest that philosophy is all about ideas?
Peter Hacker expresses this idea o doing philosophy, while comparing
the knowledge pursued and obtained in science with that in philosophy,
and this leads him to claim that
[p] hilosophy does not contribute to our knowledge o the world
we live in ater the manner o any o the natural sciences. You can
ask any scientist to show you the achievements o science over
the past millennium, and they have much to show: libraries ull
o well- established acts and well- confrmed theories. If you ask a
philosopher to produce a handbook of well-established and unchallengeable
philosophical truths, theres nothing to show. I think that is because
philosophy is not a quest or knowledge about the world, but rather
a quest or understanding the conceptual scheme in terms o
which we conceive o the knowledge we achieve about the world.
One o the rewards o doing philosophy is a clearer understanding
o the way we think about ourselves and about the world we live in,
not resh acts about reality.7
It is hard to believe that ater at least 3 millennia o debate, philosophy
has nothing to show or itsel. However, Hackers point is that the
5 Blackburn, Think, p. 12.
6 Ibid., p. 2.
7 Quoted in Peter Hacker tells James Garvey that neuroscientists are talking nonsense. Originally published in
The Philosophers Magazine but now available at http://jamesgarveyactually.fles.wordpress.com/2011/03/
hackers-challenge.pd (accessed 20 October 2014) .
4
INTRODUCTION
nature o knowledge in philosophy is dierent to the empirical sciences.
Philosophy can change the world, hopeully or the better. Philosophy
should, and oten does, lead to action. Ideas change the world and good
ideas change the world or the better.8
The relationship between TOK and philosophy
As you might realise there are some aspects o TOK evident in this
discussion. The Philosophy Guide explores the relationship o TO K
and philosophy. It is worth reecting on the dierences to ensure
you are aware o their similarities, the dierences and their shared
eatures. The ollowing is an extract rom the Guide:
Philosophy allows us to explore and reect on the nature and
meaning o being human. By presenting an opportunity to engage
in these activities, the DP philosophy course shares many common
concerns with TOK. Like TOK, philosophy places a premium on the
development o critical thinking skills, on encouraging students to
reect on their own perspectives, and engaging with a diverse range
o perspectives and interpretations. However, TO K is not intended
to be a course in philosophy, and care should be taken not to turn
the TOK course into an overly technical philosophical investigation
into the nature o knowledge. While there might be a degree o
overlap in the terms used, the questions asked, or the tools applied
to answer these questions, the approach is quite dierent.9
Why philosophize?
In A Preface to Philosophy, Mark B Woodhouse provides an indication
o the potential benefts o studying philosophy when he asks, whats
in philosophy besides the pursuit o knowledge or its own sake? He
provides a practical response:
A critical involvement with philosophy can change our undamental
belies, including both our general view o the world and our system
o values. The change o these can change our personal happiness
and our goal within a chosen proession or simply our general
liestyle. However, such benefts are generally by-products, and not
the specifc goal o philosophical investigation.10
Philosophy can be empowering, exposing an individual to insights about
the way the world works, generating an understanding into important
matters that aect an individual, their community and global events.
This provides a greater sense o awareness and security. However, what
is particular about philosophy is that it engages with the ideas, and
thereore concepts, that underlie these matters; key concepts such as
8 It is tempting to say that philosophers are not plumbers or engineers but conceptual architects, seeking to
build a better world that also takes into consideration our lived world not just our structural world.
9 IB, Philosophy Guide, p. 8.
10 Mark B. Woodhouse, A Preface to Philosophy (Wadsworth: Cengage Learning, 2003) , p. 31.
5
1 BEING HUMAN
truth, causality, j ustice and beauty. This is why philosophy is regarded as
the frst subject; the subject all others have emerged rom, particularly in
the west. These are the specifc goals o philosophical investigation that
make up the purpose o this textbook.
Philosophy and international-mindedness
A philosophy course is well-placed to support your development o
a global perspective and increase inter-cultural understanding. The
Philosophy guide provides the ollowing insight into this potential:
The DP philosophy course develops international-mindedness
in students by encouraging them to engage with multiple
perspectives and to careully consider alternative points o
view. The course encourages dialogue and debate, nurturing
students capacity to interpret competing and contestable
claims. In addition to encouraging students to explore and draw
upon a wide range o traditions and perspectives, the course
also provides an opportunity to engage in an examination o
concepts and debates o global signifcance.11
Philosophizing with attitude What is philosophy?
( h t t p : //vi m eo.
In Philosophers, contemporary philosopher Georey Warnock asks a co m /143 48757 )
simple but ar-reaching question What is the aim o philosophy? He
answers not with an exact destination but with an expectation, This video makes two
important points:
[t] o be clear-headed rather than conused; lucid rather than obscure;
rational rather than otherwise; and to be neither more, nor less, sure Philosophy is an
o things than is justifable by argument or evidence.12 activity defned by the
use o specifc skills
B ut what do you philosophize about? Any philosopher, including a young which ocuses on a
philosopher such as yoursel, is required to engage with a number o variety o important
dierent traditions o thought as they explore themes, issues and questions themes, issues and
that are becoming more and more pertinent to society in the 2 1 st century. questions.
Issues such as advances in medical research, including transplants and
genome technologies, new claims in science such as the multiverse and Philosophy ocuses
neuroscience, and the issues o consciousness and artifcial intelligence. on the importance o
Many o these are central to the key question o the core theme o the IB ormulating questions
Diploma Course; the question o what it means to be human. In a similar rather than just
expectation o any philosopher, you are expected to take a position on answering them.
these themes and issues as you increase your understanding, develop
your own philosophical voice and sustain an argument on any number
o questions.
It is thereore important to understand the context o philosophical
debates and the way they draw upon the dialogue that has been
established over thousands o years, responding to contributions in the
orm o clarifcations and new perspectives. In order to philosophize
11 IB, Philosophy Guide, p. 6.
12 Quoted in Steve Pyke, Philosophers (London: Zelda Cheatle Press, 1995) .
6
INTRODUCTION
though, knowing how to enter into these debates in equally important. You as philosopher
This can be quite a daunting task at the beginning o the course. The
nature o philosophy is in some ways similar to the Internet there is Philosophy is simply
no clear starting point as each concept or idea is interconnected with thinking hard about lie,
many others. C onsequently, this philosophy textbook aims to equip you about what we have
with not just knowledge o philosophical ideas and concepts involved in learned, about our place
these debates but also with the skills and understanding required to do in the world... Philosophy
philosophy and enter into these debates with confdence. is nothing less than the
attempt to understand
With this in mind, the core theme presents an excellent opportunity who we are and what
to begin an engagement with philosophy and, through reection, we think o ourselves.
start to develop an appreciation o how to think philosophically and And that is just what
understand the interconnected ideas and concepts that make up the great philosophers
philosophy. The study o philosophy is not j ust a matter o reading o history, whom we
a textbook; philosophy as a reective activity is also an attitude. For study in philosophy
philosophy to be truly rewarding, it requires an attitude o inquiry into courses, were doing:
key themes and issues based on reection, looking or connections trying to understand
as well as justifcations while keeping an open mind in order to themselves, their times,
understand dierent perspectives and sources o ideas that could and their place in the
inorm your own. world... But philosophy
is not primarily the
Then, there is philosophy as a discipline, a practice o thinking. Reective study o other peoples
activity involves systematic and critical exploration o concepts and issues. ideas. Philosophy is
This exploration ocuses on the positions taken by philosophers on these frst o all the attempt
themes and issues both their understanding o the themes and issues to state clearly, and
and the justifcation o the positions they have taken on them. In the as convincingly and
process you become part o an ongoing dialogue that has been going on interestingly as possible,
or many millennia and will continue to go on. The exploration involves your own views. That
an analysis and evaluation o the justifcations oered to support the is doing philosophy, not
positions taken. This is an analysis o the assumptions or its oundations; just reading about how
the quality o the argument and its justifcations; as well as an assessment someone else has done it.
o its implications.
Robert C. Solomon13
So, why do philosophy?
Refection Questions
Finally, it is worth returning to the broad question, why do
philosophy?. First o all, philosophy will be an enriching experience. How can understanding
You will be able to not j ust scratch the surace but look behind events, other peoples views rom
understanding their complexities to a much better extent, evaluate dierent times help us
other peoples opinions and as well as your own and develop your understand who we are
understanding o the world. There is a saying that guns dont kill, now?
people do. While this is true to a certain extent, as people do pull the
trigger, it is ideas that prompt them to do so. It is ideas that are at the How should we orm
heart o the many crises that conront humanity at this start o this our own views? Is it
century. It is understanding those ideas - and the concepts they reect - only in relation to other
that is the purpose o philosophy. S imilarly, it is through understanding philosophers views?
the issues that solutions can then start to emerge and change the world
or the better. Can you do philosophy
without having studied
philosophy?
13 Quoted in Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen M. Higgins, The Big Questions: A Short Introduction to Philosophy,
9th edition (Wadsworth: Cengage Learning, 2013) , p. xv.
7
1 BEING HUMAN
Philosophy and leadership Philosophy at work
Peter S inger, Proessor o B ioethics at Princeton University and Over the last ten years
Laureate Proessor at the University o Melbourne, noted in an it has been consistently
article published on the Project Syndicate website that noted that the study o
philosophy is growing
GDI [Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute] recently released a ranked list o and employers are
the top 1 00 Global Thought Leaders or 201 3. The ranking includes increasingly appreciating
economists, psychologists, authors, political scientists, physicists, the qualities that trained
anthropologists, inormation scientists, biologists, entrepreneurs, philosophy student bring
theologians, physicians, and people rom several other disciplines. to their proessional
Yet three o the top fve global thinkers are philosophers: S lavoj role. Stephen Law
iek, Daniel Dennett, and me. GDI classifes a ourth, Jrgen states that the skills
Habermas, as a sociologist, but the report acknowledges that he, too, that are developed and
is arguably a philosopher.14 appreciated by employees
in exciting, innovative
Philosophy can also beneft your achievements in your other Diploma companies are:
subjects. As the frst subject, or the subject rom which all other subjects
emerged, it oers insight into these other subjects. This is primarily done The ability to spot
by providing an understanding o the oundational conceptual rameworks errors in reasoning
used in each discipline (similar to TOK, though with greater range) .
As such, philosophy is oten reerred to as a metadiscipline because it The ability to make a
goes beyond individual disciplines. It is also a subject that ocuses on point with clarity and
the development o your skills in argument and thereore analysis and precision
evaluation. Each o these aspects o philosophy should provide you with
a frm oundation or success across your Diploma. In return, they can The ability to analyze
also provide your studies in philosophy with evidence that can be used to complex issues and
determine positions and make arguments as philosophy requently draws arguments
upon the research done in science, mathematics, literary studies, and so on.
The ability to think
It also can be a worthy contribution to your proessional career. Recently independently and
the Australasian Association o philosophy blog reected on Singers creatively (to think
article where he says that out o the box)
Doing philosophy thinking and arguing about it, not just passively The ability to build a
reading it develops our critical reasoning abilities, and so equips us strong, rigorous case.16
or many o the challenges o a rapidly changing world. Perhaps that
is why many employers are now keen to hire graduates who have
done well in philosophy courses.15
These critical reasoning abilities are transerable skills, not bound to
discipline specifc content-based knowledge. They are skills that allow
you to think outside the box (so you need to know what the box
looks like, why it looks like that, how and what can be changed with
the budget, even when to throw the box out) . These include creative
thinking, or the ability to develop new insights into established issues,
ask new questions o the established issues, even identiy new issues in a
rapidly changing world. These transerrable skills include those skills that
are central to your assessment.
14 Peter Singer, Philosophy on Top, Project Syndicate, 9 April 2014, available at http://www.project-syndicate.org/
commentary/peter-singer-explains-why-the-world-s-leading-thinkers-are-philosophers (accessed 20 October 2014).
15 Ibid.
16 Stephen Law, Why Study Philosophy?, Think 33, no. 12 (Spring 2013) : 5.
8
INTRODUCTION
How do you start philosophizing?
It is now common to hear the claim that everyone is a philosopher,
mostly because they have asked the question Why? While there is
some truth in this broad statement, asking Why? does not necessarily
make you a philosopher. A philosopher adheres to certain standards o
intellectual inquiry and argument.
This defnes a set o skills that are very important to being a good
philosopher. While knowledge is also important to good philosophy,
the emphasis is on the use o this knowledge not just its acquisition and
thereore on argument and the correct use o evidence.
This skill set is outlined in the marking criteria which have been
designed to reward good philosophy in the IB course. (These are
discussed in greater detail in the Assessment chapter.) They are the
skills o philosophizing and getting into the habit o doing philosophy
throughout the course is ideal preparation or your fnal assessments.
Your assessments will ask you to explore concepts in response to
questions by taking a position and assessing its validity, oten in relation
to positions taken by others.
As you proceed through your course it is worth remaining conscious
o the demands o good philosophy. O ne such way o outlining
good philosophy is to require the 6 C s ( 1 ) conceptual clarity,
( 2 ) consistency, ( 3 ) rational coherence, ( 4) comprehensiveness, ( 5 ) compatibility
with well-established acts and theories, and (6) having the support o
compelling arguments.17
These 6 aspects o good philosophy demonstrate the complexity o sound
philosophy. While each o the 6 C s require urther unpacking, above all
they require you to take a position that is sustainable and communicable
and with philosophical reasoning evident in a your work.
The fnal one can cause concern. What is a compelling argument? It is
an argument where philosophical reasoning is supported by the use o
quality evidence.
Argument in philosophy
Oten when reading a philosophers work it is hard to evaluate an
argument being put orward. Sometimes this is due to the complexity
o an argument, or sometimes the abstract nature or the depth
o knowledge being oered. It is important to appreciate what a
philosopher is doing other than asserting an abstract position on an
issue. They are oten seeking to oer a justifcation or this position
based on numerous orms o evidence that leads them to draw a
conclusion about a concept, or a system o concepts. It seems initially
that philosophers only argue with other philosophers, picking over
their arguments, seeking to counter them in a pedantic, overly critical
manner. B ut philosophical argument is oten explanatory as well,
seeking to oer a common sense understanding o the world through the
treatment o an issue, even i the complexity o this explanation can be
17 This list comes from http://faculty.mc3.edu/barmstro/somelogic.html (accessed 20 October 2014) .
9
1 BEING HUMAN
quite challenging. Remember the idea that philosophy is like plumbing.
Given the nature o philosophy, philosophers use a diversity o evidence
rom other disciplines drawing upon them to assemble an understanding
and then invite you to appreciate the validity o this understanding as a
solution to the issue identifed. Observations or empirical evidence is also
important when assessing alternative perspectives with which to contrast
their own position.
A. A. Milne writes:
It had HUNNY written on it, but, just to make sure, he took o the
paper cover and looked at it, and it looked j ust like honey. B ut you
never can tell, said Pooh. I remember my uncle saying once that
he had seen cheese j ust this colour. S o he put his tongue in, and
took a large lick.18
Winnie-the-Pooh uses a variety o evidence to assess that it was
honey in his pot but in the end his recourse is to sense perception or
the experience o honey. In philosophy this is not always possible, so
sometimes a philosopher has to draw a conclusion that seems to ft.
What is evidence?
This leads to the question, what is sound evidence in philosophy?.
Evidence does not only have to come rom the tradition itsel. Evidence
can come rom subjects studied in the IB Diploma such as economics,
anthropology, psychology, physics, biology, history, literature as well as
numerous other disciplines.
Quite simply, all evidence can be valid as long as it is explained, made
relevant and integrated into the argument. Good evidence supports
the points being made that in turn support the argument and are
ultimately judged by the reader as to whether they convince them
that your position is sound. Examples can also be evidence i they are
used correctly.
Understanding the process of philosophical analysis
Philosophy as an activity seeks to identiy issues with our
understanding o the world and oer reasonable, well thought-out
solutions. An analysis o a philosophical issue involves the analysis o
the relevant arguments put orward to identiy the issue, the nature o
the issue, and its solution. Philosophical arguments need to be justifed.
Generally, arguments are j ustifed using evidence that is shown to
support a point that, in turn, supports the argument or at least an
element o the argument.
This expectation, which is a key oundation to doing philosophy, also
defnes the process o analysis. In broad terms, philosophical analysis
involves the systematic investigation o three elements o a philosophical
argument. These are the assumptions, the quality of the argument
and the implications o the argument and resulting position.
18 A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh (London: Methuen & Co., 1926) , pp. 6162.
10
INTRODUCTION
What is analysis?
Analysis has always been key to the philosophical process. At a basic
level it involves dismantling an argument or a position to reveal its
constituent parts and assess them. In philosophy this involves identiying
and understanding the concepts, methodology, and evidence used to
justiy the argument or position taken.
The frst phase o an analysis is the identifcation o the assumptions
on which the argument is ounded. A philosopher, or school o
philosophy, will explicitly or implicitly use these assumptions to engage
with the issue.
The analysis o the assumptions involves looking at the concepts and
resulting conceptual framework involved, the methodology used
or their investigation being utilized, and the nature o the evidence used
to support the argument.
The next stage o analysis is to look at the quality of the argument
and thereore the quality o the justifcation o the position taken by
the philosopher. This allows you to develop an understanding o the
validity o the position being outlined (including the assumptions,
methodologies and evidence) . A key element o any argument is the
quality o the evidence being used to support the point being made,
how successully it is used to support the point, and thereore the
overall argument.
However, you need to measure the quality o an argument and this is
the evaluative ramework. For example, the ollowing questions capture
the idea o an evaluative ramework. What assumptions are valid
assumptions? Which methodology is a valid methodology?
The fnal stage o the analytical process involves the implications o an
argument and thereore position on a philosophical issue. What impact
does the position have on the broader philosophical worldview? This
can be extended to society; such as the recognition o dierence, the
accountability o the actions o individuals and so on.
The best way o understanding philosophical analysis is to think about your
avourite ood treat. What was the best example o that ood treat you have
ever eaten? Ask yoursel, why was it the best? Was it because o the:
Ingredients?
Recipe?
Presentation?
In other words,
Did you like the treat because o the quality o the ingredients?
Did you like the treat because o the way the ingredients are brought
together to produce it?
Did you like the treat because o the way it is presented?
This is analysis breaking something down in an ordered way to better
understand it (with the intention o evaluating it) .
11
1 BEING HUMAN
In exactly the same way, in philosophy when we analyze a philosophical
position we look at the ollowing:
Assumptions (the oundations o the position such as concepts,
methodologies and evidence)
Argument (the quality o the argument/how it is supported. How
well were the concepts, methodologies and evidence used to support
the position?)
Implications (what is the impact o the argument on other
arguments and even on individuals and society?)
Evaluation
Having completed the process o analysis you can now start to argue
the reasons why it was the best treat you had ever tasted. Your analysis
develops into your evaluation and the establishment o a set o criteria to
j udge the argument or position by.
Each o these three phases o analysis produces an understanding o the
argument or position being taken on an issue. This allows an evaluation
o the argument. At a basic level the questions are as ollows:
Are the assumptions valid?
Is the evidence oered sufcient to justiy the argument being made?
Are the implications o the position acceptable?
Developing the skills of analysis
The ollowing activity provides an opportunity to experience
philosophy. It is a simple question and completing this activity
provides an insight into the comments and advice given below about
doing philosophy.
Question: Whose lie is more important your lie or an insects?
What is your answer?
How would you justiy it and demonstrate your philosophical skills
at the same time!
Three sides to the argument
1 . You are more important
2. The insect is more important
3 . You are equal to the insect
Understanding the question and the answer
Undertake analysis
What is important to answering this question rom your given
perspective? Or what are the key concepts, methodologies and
evidence?
12
INTRODUCTION
Undertake evaluation
How do you decide what is important? Or the criteria to judge the
answer by?
Do the three positions agree on what is important in terms o
concepts (and their interpretations) , the methodologies (and their
worth) and relevant evidence (and its signifcance) ?
This is now getting to the heart o good philosophical analysis; an
understanding o the dierent perspectives and their analytical and
evaluative rameworks.
The expectation in philosophy is that you will develop your own position
as part o your study o the philosophers and philosophical schools you
cover in your course o study. These positions, on issues in the topics you
study as part o the core theme, as well as optional themes, prescribed
text, and What is philosophy? (higher level only) , will orm the basis o
your evaluation o these philosophers and philosophical schools.
Your position should be an outcome o your evaluation. In philosophy
you should approach fnding a resolution to an issue with an open
mind. However, when you evaluate something whatever it is you
have to develop a reference point rom which you can judge it. What
should the reerence point be? Well, this is your own philosophically
inormed position on the issue being examined. This position involves a
well-thought out criterion or set of criteria with which to assess the
positions oered on the issue. These enable you to evaluate the validity
o another position or argument, even suggest how to improve an aspect
o it, and equally evaluate your own position with the same intention.
Establishing your own position
It is sometimes hard to know where to start. Oten we have an opinion
about basic issues in society but not necessarily about metaphysical or
epistemological matters. However, as your philosophical investigations
proceed, you will become more aware o the context in which
philosophical debate occurs.
Initially our positions on issues are inuenced, sometimes signifcantly,
by other positions. Yet, the more you do philosophy the more you are
able to understand the elements that contribute to philosophical analysis
and start to be able to take your own positions.
In a similar way to analysing another philosophical position you should
also establish your own position using the Assumptions Quality of
Argument Implications ramework. This involves answering some
basic questions:
Are the assumptions valid?
Is the evidence oered appropriate and, i so, sufcient to justiy the
argument being oered?
Do I accept the implications o the position?
This is the context in which you will be undertaking analysis and
evaluation. When you evaluate something you have to have a
13
1 BEING HUMAN
reerence point with which to measure something. This enables you
to measure the validity o a position or argument, even suggest how
to improve it in some way. What should the reerence point be? Well,
this is your own philosophical position on the issue being examined.
The core theme and this book
The core theme in the DP philosophy course is Being human. It
encourages exploration o the undamental themes, issues, and questions
associated with the question, what it is to be human?, both as individuals
and as members o communities. It is designed to ocus around six key
concepts: Identity, Personhood, Freedom, Mind and B ody, The Sel and
Others, and Human Nature. Each o these is interrelated in a number o
ways and they can be studied in any order. The structure o this book
is not the only way o learning about the central issue o being human.
Nonetheless, as you continue through your course you will start to
recognise the connectedness o the key concepts and start to appreciate
how they contribute to each other and occasionally have a clear overlap.
What do we mean by concepts?
A concept is a eature or characteristic o something. These concepts are
oten expressed in abstract terms but they are requently at work in the
world. Solomon provides a key insight into the nature o philosophy as
well as the role o concepts.
Concepts give orm to experience; they make articulation possible.
But even beore we try to articulate our views, concepts make it
possible or us to recognize things in the world, to see and hear
particular objects and particular people instead o one big blur o
a world, like looking through a movie camera that is seriously out
o ocus. But in addition to defning the orms o our experience,
concepts also tie our experience together.19
O ther than truth, important concepts could include time, beauty,
being, identity, and cause; all evident in everyday lie, they make up
the pipes in Midgleys philosophical plumbing. An equally important
dimension to this investigation as Solomon notes is to understand their
relationships with other concepts; [c] oncepts rarely occur in isolation;
they virtually always tie together into a conceptual framework.20
These conceptual rameworks provide a picture o the world or a
worldview within which we make decisions. As Solomon continues,
These all-embracing pictures and perspectives are our ultimate
conceptual rameworksthat is, the most abstract concepts through
which we rame and organize all o our more specifc concepts.
The term conceptual ramework stresses the importance o concepts
and is thereore central to the articulation o concepts that makes up
most o philosophy.21
19 In Solomon and Higgins, The Big Questions, p. 8.
20 Ibid., p. 8.
21 Ibid., p. 10.
14
INTRODUCTION
The six concepts explored in this textbook
The key concepts that orm the core theme all relate to the central
question o what it means to be human. This textbook is divided
into six main chapters, each ocusing on one o the six key concepts
prescribed by the IB Programme. Although they are all important, it is
not necessary, or even possible, or you to know everything about all six
concepts. Your teacher may choose to ocus on certain chapters, or some
aspects o the chapters.
The more you study the key concepts, the more you will see that they
are deeply connected to one another. Your understanding will deepen
and you will get a better grasp o the complexity that underlines the
question o what it means to be human. In that sense, you could
probably read this textbook in any order and also re-read chapters ater
a ew months, and get a slightly dierent understanding every time, as
you relate the content to your previous knowledge. As outlined in this
introduction, your learning to do philosophy is just as important as what
philosophers have said until now.
Having said that, this textbook was not structured randomly! Despite
the reedom you and your teacher have in choosing what to study and
in what order, there is no doubt that C hapter 2 : Human Nature and
Chapter 3: Personhood are an excellent way to get you started, because
they lay down some important defnitions and ideas that are central
to the entire core theme. E qually, the last two chapters are perhaps a
little more complex and may require a bit o knowledge and experience
beore you dive into them.
Finally, the activities provided in this textbook are there to ensure
that you practise philosophy as well as read about it. They have been
chosen to help you become a philosopher in you own right and make
connections between the history o ideas and their contemporary
application. There is also, o course, a ocus on assessment, with
assessment tips peppered all along the textbook and specifc assessment
exercises at the end o the chapters. You will also fnd a ull assessment
chapter at the end o the textbook, with a bank o stimulus material that
will allow you to practise turning non-philosophical material into good
philosophical arguments.
While assessment is essential at this stage o your lie and school career,
the hope is that this book and IB course will also help you become a
better thinker, a skill that will stay with you long ater you have fnished
taking school examinations.
15
1 BEING HUMAN
References Cited Milne, A. A. Winnie-the-Pooh. London: Methuen &
Co., 1926.
B lackburn, S imon. Think: A Compelling
Introduction to Philosophy. O xford: O xford Pyke, Steve. Philosophers. London: Zelda C heatle
University Press, 1 999. Press, 1 995.
International B accalaureate. Philosophy Guide Singer, Peter. Philosophy on Top. Project Syndicate,
(Diploma Programme) . Geneva: International 9 April 2 01 4. Available at: http://www.proj ect-
Baccalaureate Organization, 201 4. s yn dica te . o rg/ co m m e nta ry/ p e te r- s in ge r-
explains-why-the-world-s-leading-thinkers-are-
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Translated philosophers (accessed 20 October 201 4) .
from the German Kritik der reinen Vernunft,
1781 / 1787. Solomon, Robert C ., and Kathleen M. Higgins. The
Big Questions: A Short Introduction to Philosophy, 9th
Law, S tephen. Why S tudy Philosophy?. Think 3 3 , edition. Wadsworth: C engage Learning, 2 01 3 .
no. 1 2 (Spring 201 3) : 5.
Woodhouse, Mark B . A Preface to Philosophy.
Midgley, Mary. Utopias, Dolphins and Computers: Wadsworth: C engage Learning, 2 003 .
Problems of Philosophical Plumbing. O xford:
Psychology Press, 2000.
16
BEING HUMAN
2 Human Nature
Man is a rational being
Man is an irrational animal
Man is a blank slate
Some essential questions:
What is at the heart of who we are?
Which picture of man is more suitable?
Stimulus 1
What a piece o work is a man! How noble in reason, how infnite
in aculty! In orm and moving how express and admirable! In
action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! The
beauty o the world. The paragon o animals. And yet, to me, what
is this quintessence o dust? Man delights not me. No, nor woman
neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.
Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2
17
2 BEING HUMAN
In this chapter we will look at the notion o Human Nature rom a
number o philosophical perspectives.
The question o human nature is a philosophical problem. We will ask
whether there is anything that we can meaningully call a human nature
shared by all human beings.
One way o thinking about the problem o human nature is to look
or some characteristics that all people share because they are human.
We also need to consider i these eatures are essential in the sense
that they defne human beings. We will explore three ways in which
philosophy has tried to answer these questions.
1. Is man a rational being? In this section we look at the traditional p Michaelangelo depicted
Western view o man. We are creatures with a special git our human beings as next to
minds. The mind is our rational sel, which gives us our ability to the angels pure, rational
have knowledge and to control ourselves. and wise.
Key thinkers:
Plato
Ren Descartes
2. Is man an irrational animal? In this section we look at challenges
to the traditional Western view o man. These ideas rom philosophy,
biology, and psychology argue that we are not in act in control o
ourselves or making choices on the basis o the reasoned evidence
we have, but that we are actually driven by instincts and deep desires
over which we have no control.
Key thinkers:
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
3. Is man a blank slate? In this section p Francisco de Goya painted
we look at challenges to the view o images o human beings
man as an irrational animal. These caricatured as animals
ideas rom philosophy, anthropology, and engaged in acts o
and psychology argue that we have
no human nature. Some argue that p In his scupltures, Giacometti animalistic brutality.
we are ree to choose any possible depicts human beings as a
action and are not constrained by any bare silhouette, unfnished,
built-in nature, while others argue and ull o possibility.
that we are created by our culture and
our experiences, and thereore we are
born without any fxed nature we
can become anything.
Key thinkers:
John Locke
John B . Watson
Karl Marx
Judith Butler
18
H UM AN N ATURE
Rationalism
Rationality as objectivity
What does rational mean? This question has been answered in many
dierent ways and is itsel the subject o considerable debate. We need to
make some assumptions, however, about what we mean by rationality.
Historically one o the core eatures o rationality involves being objective.
By objective we mean capable o considering the world independently o
our particular perspective: without desire, impulse, or instinct.
Being objective, thereore, involves both sel-control and an ability
to justiy our belies according to sound reasons rather than our own
interests. This means that we must be able to separate ourselves
rom any interests or values, and give reasons or our belies that will
persuade not only ourselves but also any other rational being.
The word rational has as its frst component ratio, which means
proportion. So a rational inquiry is one in which the judgments
reached, the conclusions drawn, are proportional to the evidence
the strength o the evidence or them. We mean something quite
serious by rational inquiry. We mean that we are looking very, very
careully at how ar we are licensed to think something on the basis
o all the reasons and all the evidence that we have or sustaining it.1
Plato also defned rationality as involving obj ectivity.
He is oten thought o as a precursor to philosophical rationalism and in
his writings he presents a very rationalist view o human nature. In the
ollowing series o arguments Plato attempts to persuade his audience
that Man is a creature who is dominated by his ability to reason and be
rational. He makes the ollowing claims:
1. All human beings have a soul (soul is not used in exactly the same
way we use it today. It also reers to our mind and our thought) .
2. The human soul has three parts, one o which is unique to human
beings.
3. The uniquely human component o the soul does two key things:
a. It controls the other parts, such as our desire.
b. It has access to truth because it is able to think about the world
obj ectively.
Plato: Chariot self-control For more inormation
about Plato, see
It is the ability to master our impulses and think objectively that Plato Chapter 4, p. 1 37.
emphasizes in his account o man as a rational animal. Plato initially
ocuses on the way that we can control our impulses. He uses the
example o a thirsty man controlling his desire in the ace o poisoned
1 A. C. Grayling, with Richard Dawkins, discussing evidence for the supernatural at Oxford ThinkWeek (2011) ,
available at http://poddelusion.co.uk/blog/2011/02/23/richard-dawkins-ac-grayling-discuss-evidence-for-the-
supernatural-at-oxford-thinkweek/ (accessed 21 October 2014) .
19
2 BEING HUMAN
water. When we exercise control o our impulses, we must be using a
dierent part o ourselves to overcome desire.
Plato argues that there is a second distinction. Not only does desire
compete with reason, but it also competes at times with anger. Imagine
a child who reuses to eat his dinner out o anger, despite a powerul
desire or ood. The resentment and drive or sel-assertion and power are
stronger than the basic desire to eat. On the basis o a similar example,
Plato concludes that there are three parts to the soul: the appetitive part,
which consists o our basic desires; the spirited or passionate part, which
consists o our anger, will or sel-expression and recognition; and our
reason, which consists o our ability to make correct judgments about the
world and to choose a course o action on the basis o good reasons.
This seems like a sensible reason or supposing that we have a higher
nature. We are controlling our desires with something else that thereore
must be fundamentally different in nature. I our sel-control is able to
withstand our desires, then it must be dierent rom desire it must be
an objective and rational sel.
However, we need to think about what really happens in the poisoned
water example. The rational part prevents us rom drinking the water,
but or what reason? In act, it appears that our rational sel is acting on
a desire itsel the desire not to die painully rom drinking poisoned
water. This might suggest that in act our rationality is not an objective and
autonomous soul, but just a more powerul and refned set o impulses.
Our rationality may just be a tool to get the things we want in the smartest
way. Ater all, many animals are able to resist eating and drinking poisoned
ood and drink they too have a part o them that resists their frst impulse
or the sake o a long-term goal. That doesnt mean that they have any
special objective sel just a more refned set o desires. For more on this
see the sections on Darwin and Freud, who are sceptical about rationality.
C learly, the claim that we are all in perect, rational, sel- control seems
astonishing given our experience o, or example, 1 7- year- old students.
However, Plato includes room or irrationality and poor sel- control in
his model. He argues that when we are imbalanced or when our reason
ails to master the two passionate parts o ourselves, then we become
dysunctional, imbalanced persons. Nevertheless, he argues that our
undamental nature, that ideal o man which we aim at, is a rational being.
EXERCISE conscious mind. But surely the mind is only part
o our selves. Can we assume that our human
Think about assumptions in philosophical argument nature lies in the mind and not the body. S ee
Chapter 3: Personhood, to examine problems
In this set o arguments we are arguing that with the assumption that our mind is our sel.
human nature is to do with what kind o mind
you have. Here, being human is thinking Furthermore, rationalists have assumed that
rationally. Thereore, because we have a peculiar we can think o our minds as separate rom our
set o mental skills or abilities that let us do bodies. While this assumption can seem natural
unique things, such as human knowledge, we (which is probably why it is overlooked) , it is
are human beings. thought by many philosophers to be a very
unreasonable one. See C hapter 4: Mind and B ody,
But this involves some big assumptions to examine problems with the assumption that the
immediately we have assumed that what it mind can be thought o as separate rom the body.
means to be a human being is to do with our
20
H UM AN N ATURE
Three parts ofthe soul Philosophical
terms
In his Socratic dialogue Phaedrus Plato continues to describe the soul and
in doing so expands his concept o human nature. Platos analogy o the Phenomenal: Having
chariot is one o his most amous. In this metaphor, expounded here by to do with frst hand
Socrates, the soul is like a chariot with three components. The two horses experience. A phenomenal
provide the drive that pulls the chariot and thereore represent the energetic justifcation is one which
parts o our soul. The white horse, thumos (oten translated as passion or asks you to consider your
spirit) , represents our drive or recognition and sel-expression our desire own subjective experiences
to succeed and compete, and our aggression are part o this impulse. The as evidence.
black horse, epithumetikon (oten translated as appetite) , represents our base Epistemology: The
worldly impulses, such as hunger, lust, and short-term gain. philosophical study o
knowledge. epistemology
These two drives battle or dominance in the pull o lie. The third concerns what we can
component is the charioteer, the natural master o the other two parts. know and how we can
Our reason is without drive, but it is the king o the soul. It is this that is know it.
our core nature and which must master and control our drives in order
to achieve goodness. 21
This argument rom Plato has a powerul phenomenal justifcation.
Everyone experiences the turmoil o the soul the dierent impulses
within us at war with one another. We have all experienced temptation
and been torn between two choices oten one that appeals to our
impulse, while the other requires restraint or the sake o our long-term
well-being. Platos is the earliest surviving articulation o the idea o the
devil and the angel in either ear. One begs or restraint, the other urges
us to act on impulse. We need to master them both, and deny the basic
drives, in order to be in harmony with our nature. Logistikon, the centre o
the sel, seeks one thing truth. For Plato man is the rational truth seeker
and his unique rational soul is what allows him to achieve these heights.
Conclusions
Plato has presented the basic argument that man is essentially a rational
being. He has justifed this view by comparing our irrational drives with
our capacity or sel control. We see that there are dierent selves within
and one o them is much wiser when it comes to understanding the
world and making smart decisions. When presenting the argument that
we are rational you could start by discussing this argument.
It is important to also note what Platos argument does not do. His
argument has demonstrated that we are capable o making decisions
which sacrifce short term gain in avor o long term benefts. This is
not the same as showing that rationality is divine or something over
and above what other creatures can do we can respond that it is just a
more complex orm o sel interested instinct.
In the next section we attempt to justiy the view that rationality is
separate rom ordinary instinct. We look at reasons or thinking that when
we make rational choices it involves something extra: objective knowledge.
Platos epistemology forms and perfect knowledge
How is it possible or us to exercise sel-control? I we make decisions which
sacrifce short-term or long-term beneft, it seems that it must involve a
better understanding o the world, and a better ability to predict the uture
outcomes o our actions. I I decide not to drink the poisoned water, I
must have good knowledge o the nature o poison and what it will do
2 BEING HUMAN
to me much better knowledge than an instinct-driven creature who drinks
the poison. Platos idea o reason as the core o our nature is intimately
connected to his epistemology. Plato was, like the later rationalists, very
sceptical about the world we experience. He thought that because it was
subject to change and decay, and because it was imprecise and uncertain,
the objects we can see the visible world are not genuinely real. In act,
it was only those things that are eternal and unchanging, as well as perect
and complete, which can be said to be real. Lets see how Plato justifes the
claim that the things we see arent the real things.
Mathematics, or example, seems to be a special category o thing. Its
unchanging and eternal truths are the only really true things they are
absolutely true. Plato extends this to other aspects o reason and logic
and argues that abstract philosophy is the path to ultimate truth. I a
thing can change, decay, and one day not be what it is, then or Plato
it isnt actually real enough. He is tantalized by the fnal certainties
that mathematics and logic give us the way they describe absolute
claims and he thinks that only something that participates in the same
fnality, certainty, and inallibility can really deserve the name o truth.
The forms are the purely intellectual objects that never change and are
ultimate reality. They enable us to understand and identiy the changing
world we experience, and our reason helps us to access knowledge that
would be impossible without the orms to pin it down.
For example, consider the dierence between 1 +1 =2 and the words
it is sunny today. The claim it is sunny today is relative to who is
saying it, where, and when. Its truth is location relative its probably
sunny somewhere, isnt it? Its truth is dependent on interpretation and
perspective your sunny might not be the same as my sunny. Its truth
is relative to time it might be true now but that will change. Its truth
is relative to whether or not we are accurately perceiving the world
what i I am dreaming or intoxicated? Finally, the obj ects that we are
talking about, these particular things, are only individual instances o
sunniness. What is sunniness? Is it this day? Or is this day just an
example o it? Plato thought that the particular things that have the
characteristics o sunniness did not amount to sunniness itsel.
The real sunniness is sunniness itsel and must be a dierent sort o
thing rom the objects that have the quality o sunniness. Lots o things
look sunny, but each in a dierent way. Where is the thing that gives
them all that quality and is sunniness? Plato argues that the world we
see is just made o particular instances o sunniness and that none o
these are the thing itsel. The real sunniness is a complete and perect
object what Plato calls a orm. Behind this temporary and ephemeral
world there must be a more perect structure, which is hinted at in our
knowledge o mathematics and reason. It is a world where all the objects
o our world get their nature. A world better than this one, not limited
by time and space, where the perectly real exists without end.
I this idea is a challenge or you, dont worry it is or most people. Platos
orms have the quality o an exotic religious system some philosophers
argue that they are the point o origin or Christian belies about the divine.
A classic example used to illustrate Platos notion o the orms is the
concept o horse. We see lots o particular horses, but are any o them
22
H UM AN N ATURE
the horse? D o any o them encapsulate completely the meaning o the Philosophical
concept horse? No, each particular horse has horseness in a particular terms
way and thereore it does not have everything that makes a thing a
horse. Horses also die. I a horse can become no longer a horse, then it Empirical: Coming rom
isnt the real horse. Plato thinks that there must be something that is the senses. Here it reers
permanent, unchanging, and perect which is the real horse. to the everyday world that
we experience.
Plato has to reconcile the unchanging nature o our concepts with the
changing and contingent nature o the objects we experience. Transcendent: Existing
in, or coming rom,
Platos orms are apparent only intellectually through the exercise somewhere above and
o thought. It is or this reason that Plato argues we have access to beyond the ordinary
a second world o abstract rational mental objects that are ultimate realm o experience. Plato
reality. The orms are the perect, eternal, unchanging things that are saw something divine in
temporarily mirrored in the things we observe in this world. The world human reason.
we experience, says Plato, is a shadow o ultimate reality.
This access to unchanging truth, what Plato thinks is real knowledge, is
what makes us uniquely human. Our ability to reason and grasp the
absolute is the defning characteristic o man.
Conclusions
This argument presents reasons or thinking that mans rationality is
special. The rationalist view holds the key assumption that our reason
is something divine, or at least totally dierent rom the mundane.
Platos argument concerning the perection o our knowledge is really
an attempt to draw a distinction between our reason and the empirical
world around us. Like Hamlet, Plato wants to fnd in human beings a
nature which is more than animal, and this argument helps to widen
the gap between us and them by showing that we have a transcendent
ability to have knowledge o reality.
In the next section we look at very similar arguments rom Descartes, a
much later rationalist, who supports the same conclusion: the character
o human thought is such that we stand apart rom the rest o nature in
our ability to have knowledge o eternal certainties.
Support from later rationalism: Descartes p Mathematical patterns in nature
While Plato is usually not included within the philosophical school o
rationalism he is credited as laying the groundwork on which most o
its ideas were built. The later rationalists alterations to Platos account
o human nature will be discussed in Chapter 4: Mind and Body and
Chapter 6: Freedom. Descartes and other Enlightenment rationalists
rom the late 1 7th century onwards increased the separation between
the rational part o our true selves and the desires and drives.
However, the essential point with respect to our basic nature that we
are autonomous, rational beings remains the same.
D escartes is oten credited to be the ather o modern philosophy. ( S ee
biography on p. 1 00 o C hapter 3 : Mind and B ody.) He is also the frst
o the Enlightenment rationalists who thought in ways broadly similar
to Plato. Descartes was the arch-rationalist and it is not incidental to his
philosophical views that he was also a amous mathematician. It was his
love o mathematics that grounded his belie in the power o reason.
23
2 BEING HUMAN
How can it be that mathematics, being ater all a product o human
thought independent o experience, is so admirably adapted to the
objects o reality?
Albert Einstein2
In this quote, Einstein summarizes what is really special about
mathematics. When mathematicians do research they do so entirely in
their ofces. They dont need to experiment, they dont need to measure
anything, or watch anything. I we had the space we could do maths
completely in our head. And yet mathematicians make discoveries! They
fnd out interesting things about the world. Using their own minds they
realize that black holes exist and that objects accelerate towards the earth
at equal rates. For Descartes this cut to the heart o human nature
it is our ability to do mathematics and unlock what Galileo called the
language o the universe that makes us human. We are able to use our
reason in the pursuit o real knowledge knowledge that is absolute and
certain and reveals the ultimate nature o reality.
Self-evidence and foundationalism
Reason is notoriously difcult to explain. Descartes attempts to explain
it in terms o self-evidence. Sel-evident truths are the oundation
o reason. From these unarguably certain oundations we can build a
whole system o knowledge that we can be sure o because o its basis
in these absolute principles. Descartes thought that these oundational
truths were known because they were indubitable they provided their
own clear evidence and cannot be challenged.
Descartes classic example o a sel-evident truth is the claim that I
exist. The truth o this statement is demonstrated in the very act o
thinking or speaking it. It only needs to be understood in order to be
known as true. Consider the opposite I do not exist. But o course in
the very act o saying or thinking it you guarantee your own existence.
This paradox shows us that I exist is a sel-evident truth its opposite
is impossible.
The ollowing truths are some o the basic logical principles or laws
that are thought by rationalists to be sel-evident and thereore provide
the oundation o philosophical reason. Here they are explained by the
1 9th-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, who useully
included both a complicated and a simplifed version o each in his writing.
Law o identity
A subject is equal to the sum o its predicates, or a = a.
Everything that is, exists.
This is the principle of self-identity. It means that a thing always is itself,
as in 1 = 1 .
2 Albert Einstein, Sidelights on Relativity (London/Montana, USA: Methuen & Co./Kessinger Publishing,
1922/2004) , p. 12. Also available at http://www.ibiblio.org/ebooks/Einstein/Sidelights/Einstein_Sidelights.pdf
(accessed 21 October 2014).
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H UM AN N ATURE
Law o non-contradiction Questions
No predicate can be simultaneously attributed and denied to a Be careul to think about
subject, or a ~a. how each idea can be used
in a discussion o human
Nothing can simultaneously be and not be. nature. What is signifcant
about these ideas is both
This principle says that nothing can be both true and alse at the same time. their certainty Leibniz
believed that no human
Law o excluded middle being could deny the truth
o these principles and
O every two contradictorily opposite predicates one must belong their place in our thinking.
to every subject. For Leibniz and the other
rationalists these basic
Each and every thing either is or is not. principles underpin all o
our knowledge and are
This principle says that everything is either true or alse, theres no third option. the tools with which we
This means it cant be both true and alse, and it cant be neither true nor alse. discover truth.
Principle o sufcient reason Is an implication o Leibniz
argument that doing
Truth is the reerence o a j udgment to something outside it as its philosophy is at the centre
sufcient reason or ground. o human nature?
O everything that is, it can be ound why it is. EXERCISE
This is the principle o causality. It states that there is a sufcient Try this: Ask a riend to
explanation or everything that exists or occurs. This principle is not explain some particular
always included in the list o the laws o thought you will see thing. Maybe ask her
why when you read about David Hume urther on. Gottried to explain her own
Wilhelm von Leibniz was its most amous advocate and summed it existence or to explain
up thus: The principle o sufcient reason, namely, that nothing how your school might
happens without a reason. have come to be. Each
time your riend oers an
Each o these principles was considered by rationalists to be sel-evident explanation check i it is a
to deny them is to state an absurd contradiction. For Descartes and complete explanation by
the other modern rationalists, these principles underpin all o our asking, And how did that
reasoning and allow us to take that all-important, rigidly objective look come about?, reerring to
at the world. Our ability to use them is evidenced by our success in the new explanation. You
mathematics, physics, and philosophy. will annoy your riend
and discover that a total
An example ofa priori reasoning: the Cosmological Argument explanation or anything
is very hard to come by.
In order to better understand this idea o sel-evident reasoning we can
look at an example rom the philosophy o religion. The Cosmological
Argument is an attempt to prove the existence o God using the principle
o sufcient reason.
The Cosmological Argument is an ancient one, but a modern version
was put orward by Frederick Copleston in 1 948 during a BBC radio
debate with his ellow British philosopher Bertrand Russell. During
the debate Copleston argued that everything that exists in the universe
is a contingent being, that it might not have existed and that the
principle o sufcient reason applies to it it demands an explanation.
Copleston argues that when we explain things causally (using the
principle o sufcient reason) we can proceed in a chain o explanations
going back as ar as we like. For example, my parents are the sufcient
reason or my existence, and their parents are the sufcient reason or
both me and my parents existence. In order to get a ull explanation
we need to go back as ar as we can ultimately we end up needing to
explain the big bang in order to have any explanation or existence at all.
25
2 BEING HUMAN
Copleston makes a clever point here in terms o ully explaining
things, or example the law o gravity or the existence o insects, we
end up needing an account o why anything exists at all. Otherwise
these particular things are never given a really ull explanation.
Physics, or example, argues that the laws o nature are the most
undamental explanation or everything that happens on earth, rom
our behaviour, to the weather, to the history o art, but the laws o
nature themselves are contingent things they might have been
dierent and we need an account o how they were made the
way they are. Copleston concludes that in order to explain anything
at all we need to come to a being about which the question and
how did that come about? is no longer needed. He calls this being
a Necessary Being one who is its own sucient reason. God is
this remarkable being the one whose existence is sel-evident and
provides the ultimate explanation or why there is anything at all. I all
there are, are contingent beings requiring explanation, then theres no
explanation o existence at all.
This argument is a good example o reasoning rom logical principles
to urther conclusions. Copleston has used the principle o sucient
reason to demonstrate that there must be some being that is its own
sucient reason.
The early modern rationalist idea o human nature is as a being capable
o recognizing the eternal necessity o these truths and being able to use
them in the discovery o urther knowledge. We are capable o obj ective
knowledge because o our aculty to use reason. These sel-evident
principles and their products are evidence that reason is a transcendent
truth-acquiring tool.
Conclusions
Descartes and Leibniz oundationalism is arguing the same point as
Platos epistemological arguments: reason is special because it gives us
knowledge o eternal certainties. However, whereas Platos argument
depended on obscure esoteric objects called Forms, the later rationalists
are appealing to our everyday reasonings about the world. Accepting
the laws o logic is much more reasonable than accepting transcendent
orms, but or the rationalists, the conclusion is the same we have the
astounding ability to have certain knowledge and we cant explain it
with experience.
Combining self-control and knowledge: objectivity as rationality p A judge in most court
proceedings represents the
The knowledge reached through our powers o reason demonstrate ideal of rationality. They
another eature o rationality. We have the ability to be obj ective. We try to judge the truth of two
all understand the dierence between thinking clearly and clouded arguments objectively, without
judgment. In the rst we assume a position rom which none o our involving any of their own
desires or eelings distorts what we believe about the world. In the feelings and biases.
second we are infuenced and biased by our perspective, values, and
attitudes. We have good reasons to think that human beings are
capable o obj ectivity. Firstly we have our experience o the dierence.
Compare the experience o seeing red with thinking about a
mathematical problem. In the rst case your perception o the world
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H UM AN N ATURE
around you is completely transormed by your emotions your anger
causes you to misinterpret the things you see. In the second case you
have no particular eelings either way, and you dont allow your views,
values, or attitudes to infuence what you think is the right answer.
Your belie is ormed strictly on the basis o the evidence you have.
The success o scientic knowledge, which emphasizes the strict reliance
on evidence alone when making judgments, is a typical example o this
eature o rationalism. The scientic attitude involves an attempt to be
as objective as possible so as to derive belies rom evidence in the most
direct and reliable way.
For Plato and the rationalist view o human nature, our ability to be
objective is connected to our ability to control our emotions and desires.
When the rational part o our selves is in control we are able to have
true knowledge and choose a course o action instead o being compelled
to it by our values. Autonomy, or sel-control, is the third eature o
rationality that we seem to have. We experience ourselves as taking
charge o our impulses and mastering them. We overcome our passions
and choose our actions, on the basis o our understanding o the world
rather than on the basis o a compulsion. (See the discussion o ree will
and determinism in Chapter 6: Freedom.)
Conclusion
According to the rationalist view o human nature, man is a rational
animal whose essential property consists in having the capacity o reason
or rationality, which itsel consists in three key capacities to do with
knowledge and reedom:
1. Man can discover certainty and truth through use o abstract
certainties.
2. Man can separate himsel rom his eelings to make objective
j udgme nts.
3. Man can make choices independently o his impulses.
Assessment tip
In a philosophy essay you are specifcally asked to discuss implications
and assumptions as part o your argument. In this next section we will
contextualize the rationalist perspective by exploring just a couple o
assumptions and implications. When we consider the rationalist view, we
may need to think about it rom a cultural perspective. Why, in the history
o philosophy did such an idea appear? Why was it so popular and what
does that say about the ideas themselves?
When writing an essay on human nature, you can use these implications
to enhance argumentation, discussion, and your personal response.
When we think about whether or not we want to commit to a rationalist
view o human nature, these are some o the concerns, beyond direct
philosophical argument, that we use to decide.
27
2 BEING HUMAN
Why do we believe this?
Most o European philosophy has accepted this idea o man as a rational
animal or the better part o 2,000 years. In various orms this idea o
a human being as a creature with an autonomous, rational soul has
dominated various religious and philosophical views o human beings.
Why has this idea o man dominated or so long?
When we consider Platos account o man as a being whose primary
nature is his core o reason or rationality we appear to have three
intertwining reasons or having believed this idea so oten and or
so long.
Autonomy: We are able to control ourselves. This is an important
piece o phenomenal evidence. Our ability to restrain actions caused
by desire seems a powerul reason or supposing that we are governed
by a separate aculty that is above desire.
O bj ectivity: We seem able to think independently o our perspective,
to consider things as they are without being infuenced by our own
interests.
Knowledge: We are able to understand the world instead o only
responding to it. Most animals respond to stimuli, whereas human
beings consider possibilities and select rom among them.
The good life
The rationalist idea o human nature is strongly tied to the question o
how we ought to live. In act, both Plato and his pupil Aristotle (see
biography on p. 1 40 o Chapter 4: Mind and Body) use arguments about
the good lie to support their claims about our nature.
In Platos S ocratic dialogue Gorgias, Plato argues that the best way to
live is to control our desires, live temperately, and in accordance with
reason. S ocrates adversary, C allicles, suggests that the best way to live is
just to seek pleasure. He thinks that although most people wont admit
it because o the pressure put on them by social norms, everyone knows
that the lie o pleasure is the best one.
Plato responds, through Socrates, with two key arguments:
1. He argues that the pursuit o pleasure is an impossible goal. Pleasures
are never satised they are like a leaky vessel and we would spend
our whole lives rustrated rom never achieving satisaction.
2. Some desires are repulsive or lead to destructiveness. He uses the
example o a catamite, but we might use the example o a sex
oender. To pursue our desires without restraint is clearly not the
same as living the good lie. And so, argues Plato, the good lie
means acting in accordance with rationality, j ustice, and virtue.
Each o these can be seen as an argument or Platos theory o human
nature. For Plato and Aristotle living well was living in accordance
with our nature. This teleological reasoning actually underpins a
surprising amount o philosophy and commonsense wisdom. The
belie that both Plato and Aristotle share is that all things are made
with a kind o purpose or nature. Their telos, or ultimate object, is
what they are supposed to do and amounts to being good. A good
tree is a big, strong, leay one. In short, one that is good at treeness, or
28
H UM AN N ATURE
tree nature. In the same way, a good human is one who is good at
human nature.
Because what is good always comes back to being rational or Plato and
Aristotle, it becomes clear to them that our nature consists in rationality.
Aristotles argument runs in the other direction. Whereas Plato identifed
the good lie and used it to identiy our nature, Aristotle identifes our
nature, and uses it to identiy the good lie. He claims that we can see the
nature o things by examining their tendencies and capacities. Human
beings are good at using reason to think about their world so our reason
must be the core o our nature. This reveals our purpose or telos. We
are reasoning creatures who, by nature, ought to exercise our reason as
well as possible. This means that we must be political and social creatures
because it is in the debate o politics that we most use our reason.
So, or Plato goodness means living in accordance with our reason, and
or Aristotle, living according to our nature is good.
The relationship between the rationalist idea o the good lie and the
rationalist account o human nature is an important one. It hints at a
crucial explanation or the rationalists belies about our nature.
It hints also at an important discussion. Is this ideal too good to be
true? There seem to be a lot o reasons why we might want to believe
that reason is our core sel. We want to believe we are in control o our
actions, that we are able to see the world as it really is, and that we can
access truth. But is this a good reason to think were rational or is it a
reason to be suspicious?
Conclusion
The rationalist view is an old and venerable account o human nature.
It dignifes human beings by granting us a number o special powers,
including the ability to know the world around us. It appeals to our
pride in ourselves, and much o our global culture depends on some
aspect o rationalism.
We have looked at a number o arguments in avour o the rationalist
concept o human nature.
Sel-control
Mathematics
Sel-evidence
A warning
While we will see strong arguments against the rationalist view, it is
important not to dismiss it too easily, i at all. For many perspectives,
the doing o philosophy and the belie in its value may require some
commitment to rationalism, and in giving it up we may also have to
give up our belie in human knowledge. Furthermore, the rationalist
perspective is the oldest and most popular account o our human nature
or a reason. For many historical philosophers it was seen as essential in
the preservation o human dignity and in our ability to know. We should
be careul to consider the implications o holding or o not holding a
philosophical perspective.
29
2 BEING HUMAN
Critiques of the rational view
Reason is less powerful than we imagine: Hobbes and Hume
no one mans reason, nor the reason o any one number o men,
makes the certainty; no more than an account is thereore well cast
up, because a great many men have unanimously approved it.
Thomas Hobbes3
One criticism o the rationalist perspective stems rom some scepticism
about reason itsel. Thomas Hobbes and David Hume have both argued
that reason is a much less powerul aculty than philosophers have so
ar believed.
Thomas Hobbes argued that reason was nothing more than calculation
in which we compare potential costs and benefts o given actions when
choosing what to do next. When we describe the world we give the
objects in it names and meanings we create concepts. For Hobbes,
when we reason we are using these concepts to calculate a judgment
about what will happen in the uture.
For example, we have given the name water to a substance and as part
o that concept we have included the claim that water helps to clean
things. Thereore I can reason that i I soak my shirt in water ater spilling
ood on it, it will help to remove the mess. I have combined what I know
o the world my concepts about it into a prediction o what will happen
next. Rationality, or Hobbes, is j ust using this to pursue our interests.
All o this even a rationalist might agree with but Hobbes adds a key
assumption that undermines the value and useulness o reason. The
trouble is that reasoning always involves using concepts that we have
invented rather than ones that perectly ft the world.
Nominalists such as Hobbes and Hume reject the claim that our concepts
carve up the world as it is our ideas do not necessarily cut nature at the
joints. We derive our concepts rom our experience, according to Hobbes,
and as a result it is based on an account that is limited by our ways o
seeing the world. We see through our own interests and perspective, and
through our particular sense organs eyes, ears, and so on.
Consider that bats conceptualize their world through echolocation, and
some snakes perceive through thermoception. You could also imagine
aliens that see the world not in colour but according to the chemical
elements that compose it. In each case it stands to reason that they
might develop a radically dierent set o concepts by which to organize
their view o the world.
The conclusion o this argument is that reason is a much weaker and
more uncertain tool than the rationalists argue. Hobbes rejects the
claim that reason oers certainty. This is because it is a mundane and
imprecise tool or helping us to navigate lie and get what we want, not
a means o accessing the divine or absolute. I this is the case, what does
3 Quoted in Noel Malcolm (ed.) , The Clarendon Edition ofthe Works ofThomas Hobbes, Volume 3: Leviathan
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) .
30
H UM AN N ATURE
it mean or Hobbes to say that man is rational? Only that he is very good
at pursuing his own interests nothing more.
Biography: Thomas Hobbes in revolutionary England,
(15881679) Hobbes spent much o his
lie in Paris and became a
Hobbes was an English philosopher o the 17th tutor to the exiled Prince
century: an era o intense political turmoil in his o Wales (later, Charles II) .
native country. He grew up in a small West Country Beyond political philosophy,
town and later went to Oxord or his studies. Hobbes was known as a
Travelling through Europe as a young man, Hobbes critic o Descartes and some
learned about developments in continental o his objections were published, with replies,
philosophy and the Enlightenment, and his works in certain editions o the French philosophers
were inormed by classical learning. However, works. Hobbes was sometimes accused o having
his main ocus on political philosophy courted unorthodox religious views but, on his eventual
controversy in his works The Elements ofLaw and, return to England, he was protected at the restored
most amously, Leviathan. Feeling endangered Stuart court.
Biography: David Hume long-term suspicion about
(17111776) his religious belies (or lack
thereo) prevented him
Hume was a Scottish philosopher, a leading rom rising to an academic
gure o the Scottish Enlightenment, and has post. Humes works as a
proved one o the most infuential philosophers philosopher were incredibly
to write in the English language. Hume grew up wide ranging, covering human
in a respectable middle class amily, the son o nature, epistemology, ethics and
lawyer, and the recipient o a good education rom politics. Curiously, although he is now regarded as
an early age at Edinburgh University. Relying on one o the greatest philosophers o all time, in his
his learning (he had no great inherited wealth) , own lie he made his reputation as an historian,
Hume progressed rom his studies to a series o and his best-selling work was the multi-volume
clerical jobs that saw him work in England, France History ofEngland.
and Scotland. He hoped to work as a proessor, but
A century later Hume presented a similar view o reason that can be
seen as more detailed feshing out o Hobbes arguments. Hume was an
empiricist, meaning that he based his philosophy on the principle that
the entire contents o our mind comes rom our experiences. This means
he rejects the rationalist view that we have innate rationality.
Humes argument begins with the same basic claim as Hobbes we derive
our concepts rom experience. His argument or this is to demonstrate that
all o the ideas we have can be broken down into sense experience, or
impressions as he calls them. Hume takes it or granted that the majority
o our ideas can be explained in terms o sense experience. Most o the
things that we think about and talk about are actually things out there in
the world that we have seen or heard. Thereore Hume ocuses on ideas
that are less obviously derived rom experience.
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2 BEING HUMAN
He begins with imaginary ideas. Nothing, at frst view, may seem more
unbounded than the imagination o man, he writes in An Enquiry
Concerning Human Understanding ( 1 748) . 4 Hume notes that the reedom
given to us by our imagination takes us ar beyond our own limited daily
experience we can travel to worlds completely dierent rom our own
inside our heads. At least, this is how it seems. In act, i you consider
the things you can imagine, says Hume, you will fnd that it always has
its roots in your everyday experience. Consider the last sci-f book, flm,
or video game you encountered. Notice how the aliens always look like
some kind o animal rom earth? Maybe a blue human being, or one
with big eyes, or something that looks like an insect. But ultimately the
imagination o Hollywood scriptwriters seems to be limited to combining
the things theyve seen. They havent come up with a truly imaginary
idea at all.
EXERCISE
Try to design a world or a creature that is unlike anything your
classmates have ever experienced. Now share them they may be
new as a whole, but can you show how each part has come rom
something rom your everyday experience?
So ar so good, but rationalists have ound other ideas that they argue
cannot be derived rom sense experience. Here is how Hume deals with
a ew o them:
God: Rationalists argue that the idea o a perect being could not
possibly have come rom our experience because we only have
experience o limited and imperect things. Hume responds that
we simply take qualities that we value in others, such as power,
compassion, and mercy, and amalgamate them without limit.
By this means we have imagined the idea o God.
Morality: Yet another rationalist idea that could not possibly
have come rom experience is our knowledge o right and wrong.
Nowhere in experience do we encounter values such as good and
evil, so we must have intuitive rational access to the moral law on
earth. Hume responds that morality is nothing more than a eeling
o liking or disliking that is so strong that we eel that it must be a
universal truth. We are so convinced o their value that we extend
it to others.
Basic principles of reason: Hume presents an argument that these
are nothing more than complex ideas just like imaginary ideas. He
picks on a key rationalist principle, the law o causation, in order
to undermine the whole rationalist proj ect. He does so mercilessly,
concluding that this pillar o logical thought is in act nothing but
passionate prejudice. This argument is one o Humes most amous
and signifcant, so lets look at it in detail.
4 David Hume, Section II: Of the Origin of Ideas, in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and
Concerning the Principles ofMorals, edited by L. A. Selby-Bigge, 3rd edition revised by P. H. Nidditch (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1975) , p. 18.
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H UM AN N ATURE
Humes critique of necessary causation
The principle that everything must have a cause is one o the most basic
parts o the logical toolkit we use to make reasoned judgments about
the world. The principle underpins all o scientifc inquiry because it
amounts to saying that everything must have an explanation that
every natural act happens or some reason. When Hume attacks
causation he attacks the oundation o every inerence we can make
about the world around us.
A WORLD WITHOUT CAUSATION p When you play pool you are
relying on a lawful universe
Imagine i we could not be certain o the law o causation. When we to predict the result of your
explain events in the natural world we look or the most plausible, shots. For homework go
but i causation is uncertain then it could just happen or no reason. play a game of pool, and
I we dont assume necessary causation, we can never be sure o our explain Humes account to
explanations maybe gravity makes us all towards large bodies, your opponent.
maybe it happens or no reason.
Hume begins by asking i we can actually observe cause and eect when
we look at the world. He uses the example o billiard balls to illustrate
causation in its purest orm. When one billiard ball hits another we see
it cause the other one to move, right? Or do we? Hume asks us to think
careully about what we really do see. I we break our experience down
to its barest parts we actually dont see any cause at all. All we see is a
white circular shape move across our feld o vision, then stop, then we
hear a noise, then we see another contiguous circular shape, this time
red, move in another direction. Nowhere in this catalogue o experience
is any actual experience o the necessary connection between the two
events we dont actually see anything that demonstrates that the one
event caused the other.
The rationalists would argue that the knowledge o cause and eect is
given by our intuition the reasoning nature within ourselves. However,
Hume rejects this in avour o a naturalistic account that argues that our
belie in causation is learned through a kind o training.
Initially when we encounter two events happening contemporaneously
we orm no belie about their relationship. Ater repeatedly experiencing
two events together, what Hume calls constant conj unction, we come
to have a eeling o expectation when we encounter one o them.
For example, i we repeatedly experience a loud rightening noise at
the same time as seeing a rat, we will eventually come to expect the
noise whenever we encounter a rat. Once we have the belie that one
event entails the other, we will have ormed a belie in necessary
connection, that there is a causal relationship between the two events.
This clever argument suggests that our belie in causation is based on
a combination o empirical experience and our eelings in response
to them.
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2 BEING HUMAN
OBJECT PERMANENCE another. This argument mirrors Humes account
o reason by showing that even the most basic
There is a similar debate in psychology principles by which we understand our world
concerning the extent to which our basic are learned through repeated processes. The
reasoning aculties are acquired through game o peek-a-boo is a classic example o an
experience or are innate. Jean Piaget amously object permanence test. Not until our months
presents a similar argument or the acquisition old do babies show evidence o understanding
o rational principles through experience. that the persons ace is hidden.
Object permanence is a basic developmental
stage or babies. It consists o the belie that
objects that they sense continue to exist even
when they cannot be seen. I inants have no
understanding o object permanence, then they
dont understand that objects have a separate
existence or that the world exists beyond
themselves. Piaget argues that children in act
learn to believe in the outside world through
repeated interactions with objects
and coordinated experience experiences
that happen in systematic relation to one
Conclusion Questions
What Hume has really done here is to reduce reasoning down to Its important to think
emotions. He is showing that our belies about cause and eect are not about these ideas in terms
rational, but dependent on our passions which eliminates the clarity of human nature. With
and objectivity that rationalists think our reason has. I Hume is right, his attack on causation
then to call us rational animals is really empty because rationality Hume is really attacking
(or at least a very important part o it the principle o causation) is the idea that knowledge is
based on irrationality. central to human nature.
Whereas Leibniz argued
Furthermore, i our belies about cause and eect are just based on that our thinking had
limited experiences, they can never be considered certain Hume special qualities which
amously declares that there is no reason to be sure that the sun will separate us from the animal
rise tomorrow other than it always has done. Just because it always kingdom, Hume argues
has risen is not sufcient evidence that it must continue to rise. Russell that doing philosophy is a
illustrated the idea with a turkey, the traditional centrepiece o the B ritish combination of guess work
Christmas Day meal. The turkey wakes up every morning or a year and invention.
and gets ed. Christmas Day dawns and the turkey has a years worth o
evidence to support its belie that it will be ed today but it will be sorely How is Hume pulling the
disappointed This thereore calls into question the claim that reason rug out from under the
has the power to give us certain knowledge. We may be rational animals Rationalist view that it
but that doesnt give us any claim to really know the world. is human nature to
do philosophy?
Hobbes and Humes arguments have cast doubt on the status o reason.
It is rom this position o scepticism about the history o philosophy and
rationalism that our next question makes sense: i certainty was never a
plausible goal, what were all those rationalist philosophers really doing?
The philosophers Nietzsche and Michel Foucault provide a philosophical
approach that helps us to reinterpret the rationalist project. They see the
arguments o rationalist philosophers as part o a quest or power in the
battle o ideas.
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H UM AN N ATURE
Relativism
Scepticism about the power and value o rationality oten comes in
the orm o relativism. Relativists make one essential argument: what
constitutes reason and rationality depends on cultural norms, not
on transcendent or universal truth. Thereore, reason itsel, as a basic
set o principles that guide thinking and a standard by which to judge
the validity o arguments, is socially constructed. Furthermore, there
is a plurality o dierent notions o reason and we have no universal
standard or position rom which to judge them. This perspective is a very
common eature o postmodern 20th-century thought but its roots go as
ar back as the sceptics o ancient Greece.
One set o arguments in support o this view uses the history o ideas
and science in order to provide evidence and support or relativism.
Thomas Kuhn and Foucault, although working in dierent philosophical
traditions, developed similar arguments that reason is not a permanent or
fxed thing, but that in act the idea o reason changes depending on the
culture and historical period in which it exists.
Kuhn
The idea o a paradigm shift is central to Thomas Kuhns (1 92296)
philosophy o science. He begins his argument by spelling out the
traditional picture o scientifc progress: or most historians and lay
people, science is seen as a unifed constant progression where ideas
are developed and improved as we proceed linearly towards a ull
understanding o natural history.
This view, argues Kuhn, is ounded on mistaken assumptions and is the
result o an over-optimistic view o scientifc reason. Kuhn rej ects two
assumptions o the traditional view:
Science heads towards the truth: It is a common belie that we will
eventually arrive at a complete and fnal account o the natural world.
Scientifc history is a linear process o improvement. It is also
believed that scientifc discovery builds on and improves the ideas
that came beore.
Kuhn challenges this picture with the notion o paradigm shits.
In this model science is not a single unifed history but a series
o independent, incommensurable pictures o the world that
cannot be understood or meaningully explored rom the perspective
o another. E ach paradigm is sel- contained and its principles and
assumptions determine how scientifc knowledge o the world is
meaningul and valid. These paradigms are so completely dierent
rom one another that it is impossible to evaluate the ideas o one
paradigm rom the perspective o another we cannot make claims
about the truth or alsity o one paradigm without committing
ourselves to it.
So how do we come to switch to a new paradigm? This happens because
anomalies appear in our current way o thinking. As new scientifc
questions appear that are unanswerable in the current paradigm this
stresses our way o looking at the world to the point where it collapses
and a new conceptual ramework is put in its place.
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2 BEING HUMAN
There is no neutral algorithm or theory choice, no systematic
decision procedure which, properly applied, must lead each
individual in the group to the same decision.
Thomas Kuhn5
The upshot o all this is that describing man as a reasoning animal
does not actually describe any essential eature o human beings
because the idea o reason itsel is relative and thereore a constantly
changing notion. I there are dierent conceptions o reason, and we
switch between them on the basis o social convention, then we have
serious reason to doubt the rationalist claim that our reason is a tool or
uncovering truth:
In the sciences there need not be progress o another sort. We may,
to be more precise, have to relinquish the notion, explicit or implicit,
that changes o paradigm carry scientists and those who learn rom
them closer and closer to the truth.
Thomas Kuhn6
Foucault
The French philosopher Michel Foucault (1 92684) took Kuhns ideas
to a relativistic extreme with his concept o episteme. An episteme
is a basic unconscious way o seeing the world and o using reason.
Thereore it runs even urther than the scientifc paradigm; it touches
every thought because it is the ramework or meaning and use
o language.
In any given culture and at any given moment, there is always only
one episteme that defnes the conditions o possibility o all knowledge,
whether expressed in a theory or silently invested in a practice.
Michel Foucault7
Consider the shit rom a teleological worldview to a mechanistic
worldview. B eore the E nlightenment age the very notion o
explanation was radically dierent. From the Enlightenment
onwards, to explain something generally means to give an account o
the causes that bring it into being. However, rom Aristotle until Francis
Bacon the typical way o explaining the natural world is described
5 Thomas Kuhn, The Structure oScientifc Revolutions, 2nd edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970) ,
p. 200.
6 Ibid, p. 170.
7 Michel Foucault, The Order oThings: An Archaeology othe Human Sciences, 2nd edition (London: Routledge,
1970), p. 183.
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H UM AN N ATURE
as a teleological worldview. Rather than inquiring into the physical
causes that came beore, Aristotle and his ollowers would ask what
the purpose o something is. For example, while we might explain the
rising o the sun in terms o gravitational orces and the spinning o the
earth, a teleological explanation sees its cause in terms o its purpose,
such as to enable crops to grow and to allow us to see. These diering
sets o assumptions about the world determine what we mean by
explanation and thereore fx the sorts o things that can count as
an explanation.
An illustration
R. M. Hare provides a useul example to illustrate this idea:
A certain lunatic is convinced that all dons want to murder him. His
riends introduce him to all the mildest and most respectable dons
that they can fnd, and ater each o them has retired, they say, You
see, he doesnt really want to murder you; he spoke to you in a most
cordial manner; surely you are convinced now? But the lunatic
replies, Yes, but that was only his diabolical cunning; hes really
plotting against me the whole time, like the rest o them; I know it
I tell you. However many kindly dons are produced, the reaction is
still the same.8
While this seems obviously insane to us, rom the perspective o the
lunatic all o the evidence presented serves to support a completely
dierent view to our own. Hare called this a blik and while he
used this example to illustrate the nature o a religious perspective we
can apply it to our case. In this case the assumptions that determine
the explanation are not based on reasoning or evidence, but are the
conditions or what counts as reasoning and evidence.
As Hare said, without a blik there can be no explanation; or it is by our
paranoid bliks that we decide what is and what is not an explanation.9
For Hare, everyone has a blik. There are no theory- neutral
observations o the world. You and I bring with us basic assumptions
about reason and evidence every time we make judgments about the
world. They are beyond justifcation because they determine how we
justiy things, and they are an assumption so deep that we never notice
them. O ur blik may seem obviously right to us, but that is only when
seen through our own perspective.
The paranoid man above has what might be called a paranoid blik.
O thers might include the mechanistic blik in which only explanations
based on the physical theory o the universe are legitimate (or example,
religious or metaphysical ones are silly) , or a undamentalist religious
blik in which evidence rom religious authority outweighs the evidence
o science.
8 R. M. Hare, The Simple Believer, Appendix: Theology and Falsifcation, Essays on Religion and Education
(Oxord: Clarendon Press, 1992) , p. 37.
9 Ibid., p. 38.
37
2 BEING HUMAN
In each o these cases you can point to why you do or dont like it, and
why you do or dont fnd the assumptions plausible, but you cannot
justiy your view without frst making some assumptions about what a
good j ustifcation is. Try it.
EXERCISE
Consider this students response to this challenge:
I like the mechanistic blik whereby science inorms us as to why
the universe behaves the way it does. I fnd this legitimate because
these theories have to be backed up with evidence, whereas
religious explanations o the universe are based on narratives
which have no grounding in what is actually happening. They are
just stories based on interpretations a very long time ago.
The trouble with this answer is that it is ull o assumptions. The
student assumes that backed up with evidence improves the quality
o the viewpoint and that what is actually happening is what our
senses tell us is happening note that these are just assumptions
rather than justifable. What other assumptions can you identiy?
Conclusion
Relativism oers three general arguments that we can use when
doing philosophy on the question o human nature. In each we will
be challenging the view that mans nature is as a rational being that is
capable o perceiving objective truth.
1. The pessimistic meta-induction: This argument is a simple one
(in spite o its title) . It argues rom the act that there are multiple
conceptions o reason and rationality depending on time and culture.
Furthermore, we do not have a higher position rom which to judge
them so our own notion o reason has no more authority than any
other conception. Thereore there is no good reason to think we have
the right conception now or that we ever will.
2. The social and ecological construction of reason: Having argued
that dierent times and places have dierent conceptions o reason,
we can argue that these dierences are derived rom something
relative to those cultures and times, and not rom a transcendent
or divine source. Dierent orms o rationality may be the result
o cultural norms and values or the concerns and interests that
dominated the time and place in which people lived. Thereore,
because reason and rationality are the product o mundane causes,
they have no claim to absolute truth or certainty.
3. Feeling sure is not being right: A key argument rom rationalist
philosophers is rom sel-evidence. Reasoned truths are certain
because they are apparently undeniable. By stripping away any
metaphysical oundation or reason and replacing it with the
everyday, relativists can argue that simply because something seems
sel-evident to us that doesnt make it certain. Feeling sure is not
enough justifcation to demonstrate that you are right.
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H UM AN N ATURE
Nietzsches perspectivism
In the frst chapter o Beyond Good and Evil (1 886) , the German philosopher
Nietzsche launches a spectacular attack on philosophy in general and in
particular on the rationalist assumptions that he perceives in nearly the
whole history o philosophy. His critique involves a rejection o the key
tenets o the rationalist perspective on human nature.
Biography: Friedrich Wilhelm this period o time he travelled
Nietzsche (18441900) throughout Europe and
wrote Beyond Good and
Nietzsche was a German philosopher who wrote Evil, On the Genealogy
on numerous subjects including philology,
ancient Greek drama, religion, culture as well as ofMorals, Twilight of
philosophy. Nietzsche became the proessor the Idols, The Antichrist,
o classical philology at the University o Basel and Ecco Homo. His lie
in Switzerland at the age o 24. However, he is was plagued with ill heath that
most amous or his radical critique o western included prolonged migraines, and eventually
philosophy; in particular his radical questioning lose o sight towards the end o his lie. Nietzsche
o the value and objectivity o truth through a sufered a mental breakdown in1889 but lived
rejection o Platos metaphysics. In his early works, until 1900. Nietzsches reception was limited
Nietzsche was a philosopher o pessimism due to during his own lie and his work was distorted by
the inuence o Arthur Schopenhauer and Richard selective publication posthumously o his writings
Wagner on his thinking. However, these inuences by his sister, an avowed anti-Semite hersel, in a
were eventually rejected and the resulting nihilism book called Will to Power. His work is hard to read
with a philosophy o lie-armation. He was due his aphoristic style o writing. Nonetheless,
never tenured as a philosopher. Instead, he chose his inuence has been proound; including the
to retire early rom the University and wrote his philosophy schools o phenomenology and
later works while living of a small pension. During existentialism, numerous movements in the arts,
musicians, writers and poets.
Objectivity and the ability o human beings to use reason in the
discovery o truth are his targets. Nietzsche points out that there are
no philosophical truths yet and ater at least 2500 years youd think a
discipline would have made some progress yet philosophy seems to
have made none. This suggests there is something seriously wrong with
our perception o philosophy as the search for truth and o man
as a creature who searches or it. Rationalists have used the myth o
reason while all the while theyve secretly been trying to push their own
prejudices on to the rest o us.
Nietzsche begins this critique with an argument or what he calls
perspectivism. Nietzsche argues that perspectivity is the most
obvious pre-condition o any kind o knowledge. Perspectivism
reers to the act that any knowledge we may have o the world is an
interpretation that is fltered through our values and ways o seeing.
Our way o seeing the world is based on ourselves on our particular
needs, on our particular values, and on our particular bodies. We dont
see reality rom the perspective o an ant any more than we see it rom
the perspective o a god. A knower can only have a perspective, not a
gods eye view, and as a result our knowledge o the world will always
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2 BEING HUMAN
be incomplete. Consider the act that anything you see must be viewed
rom a perspective we must picture things rom a position. The idea o
seeing without perspective is absurd and Nietzsche ridicules the notion
o obj ectivity in the same way. To be objective is to have a view rom
nowhere an incoherent impossibility and in act Nietzsche goes so ar
as to conclude that perspectivity is the undamental condition o lie.
Our perspective comes rom our nature as beings in the world. Everything
we do is an expression o some deep desire or ear, and the way we create
our belies and knowledge is no exception. We choose all o our belies not
according to rational principles but according to our interests. Nietzsches
perspectives are xed by the human values that underpin them:
the greater part o the conscious thinking o a philosopher is secretly
infuenced by his instincts, and orced into denite channels.10
Thereore the rational theories that we develop are in act vast
alsications and simplications in which we overemphasize what
appeals to us and ignore what doesnt. All knowledge always involves
an interpretation and simplication we attempt to reduce the world, or
describe it in a system that is intelligible to ourselves. But in simpliying
we also make alse.
Nietzsche gives examples o the hidden values behind rationalism. The
emphasis on the lie o the mind rather than lived experience reveals
that rationalists are despisers of the body. Rationalism takes what is
most real daily lived experience and turns it into an illusion.
In Descartes and Platos philosophies sense experience is the great
illusion to be scorned in avour o reason. In this, argues Nietzsche,
they are simply demonstrating their own lack o vitality and lie
their inability to enjoy and succeed in the passions and pleasures o
daily living. He goes on to argue that rationalism is the result o the
resentment elt by the physically earul and weak. Because they are
unable to succeed on the terms o lie, they have used philosophy to
make thinking more important and living less important.
So while dierent philosophers may come to opposing conclusions they
are still chasing one another around the same orbit they share the same
values and assumptions so are nonetheless on the same track, or thinking
rom the same perspective. They still have the same global value set.
Conclusion
Nietzsche rejects the rationalist theory o human nature because the
principles and assumptions on which it rests are incoherent. We cannot
be rational beings because:
All philosophy is derived rom the hidden desires and prejudices o the
men who wrote it.
Philosophical Truth is a myth. This is because obj ectivity is nonsense
there can be no belie that is separated rom the particulars o the one
who writes it.
10 Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, revised edition, translated by R. J. Hollingdale (London: Penguin,
2003), p. 2.
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H UM AN N ATURE
We can thereore say that human beings are not interested in truth or
its own sake; what we seek in an opinion is that it be o use to us:
The alseness o an opinion is not or us any objection to it: it is here,
perhaps, that our new language sounds most strangely. The question
is, how ar an opinion is lie-urthering, lie-preserving, species-
preserving, perhaps species-rearing, and we are undamentally
inclined to maintain that the alsest opinions (to which the synthetic
judgments a priori belong) , are the most indispensable to us, that
without a recognition o logical fctions, without a comparison
o reality with the purely IMAGINED world o the absolute and
immutable, without a constant countereiting o the world by means
o numbers, man could not livethat the renunciation o alse
opinions would be a renunciation o lie, a negation o lie.11
In act we are irrational to the point that in order to ace lie we need to
lie to ourselves:
TO RECOGNISE UNTRUTH AS A CONDITION OF LIFE; that is
certainly to impugn the traditional ideas o value in a dangerous
manner, and a philosophy which ventures to do so, has thereby
alone placed itsel beyond good and evil.12
EXERCISE
C ompare the lyrics o the song Clouds, by Joni Mitchell, with Wallace
S tevens poem Tea at the Palaz of Hoon.
How do Mitchell and Stevens express some o the ideas discussed
in relativism and perspectivism?
How do their poems challenge some o the rationalist arguments
we looked at earlier?
Irrational animal
Darwinian Man, though well behaved,
At best is only a monkey shaved!
W. S . Gilbert, Princess Ida, libretto ( 1 884)
Are human beings no more than a shaved ape? The perspective that
man is an animal is the precise opposite o the rationalist view. Instead
o a being with one oot in heaven and a aculty that separates him rom
the world, the animal view sees us as much more mundane. In this
perspective we lack objectivity, rational knowledge, and sel-control. The
good lie is not one o contemplation or o reasoned moderation and there
is oten nothing to do but control man as you would a beast.
11 Ibid., p. 3.
12 Ibid., p. 3.
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2 BEING HUMAN
When we describe man as an animal it is generally not a compliment.
When most philosophers do so they are saying that he is irrational,
that he makes judgments not on the basis o acts and evidence but on
the basis o his fawed perspective and limited understanding. We are
saying that man is not objective, but subjective, that he is not able to
see the world as it is independently o himsel, but always interprets
according to his own interests. We are arguing that he does not have
sel-control, that he is a creature of impulse and instinct, and it is
those deepest desires that ultimately govern all we do.
This view is as old as the rationalist view. Many o the earliest
philosophers such as Protagoras and Xenophanes had a less hopeul view
o human nature and oten emphasized the irrationality o man. While
there are very early views emphasizing the irrationality o man, the
argument isnt put orward in a really powerul way until biological
theories emerge claiming to demonstrate that man is an animal.
Darwin p A Veritable Orang-outang:
a contribution to unnatural
The dierence in mind between man and the higher animals, great as history: Charles Darwin
it is, certainly is one o degree and not o kind. caricatured in The Hornet (1871)
Charles Darwin (1871) 13
How natural selection works
1. When creatures reproduce they generate variation all o their
ospring are dierent in lots o small subtle ways.
2. Some o these subtle dierences help an organism to survive and
reproduce.
3. The ospring who have these adaptations are the ones who
survive and pass on their genes.
4. The next generation thereore has more o these adaptations.
In 1 858 Darwins account o the biological world in terms o natural p Darwins illustrations o
selection was published in his book On the Origin of Species. It provoked beak variation in the nches
an enormous response because o the way that it challenged the long- o the Galpagos Islands,
established theological account o how the world was created: rather which hold 13 closely
than being made instantaneously by God as the Holy Bible stated, related species that difer
Darwins natural history argued that all organisms were the product o most markedly in the shape
a slow incremental development over millions o years. However, what o their beaks. The beak o
was more deeply upsetting were the briefy suggested implications or each species is suited to its
our theory o human nature. At the end o On the Origin of Species D arwin preerred ood, suggesting
only dared to hint at what the theory o evolution implied about human that beak shapes evolved by
beings: Light will be thrown on the origin o man and his history.14 natural selection.
What Darwin is implying is that with his new theory there is no escape
13 Charles Darwin, The Descent ofMan, revised edition (London: Penguin, 2004) , p. 151.
14 Charles Darwin, On the Origin ofSpecies (John Murray, 1859) , p. 488, now available at http://darwin-online.org.
uk/content/rameset?itemID=F373&viewtype=text&pageseq=1 (accessed 21 October 2014) .
42
H UM AN N ATURE
or human beings. I evolution is true, then it obviously applies to Questions
humans as well, making us just one species among the other animals.
In the light o this new theory people started to look at themselves in a What does a diference
very dierent light and our physical similarity to primates was obvious o degree and not o
even to ordinary people. Debate about Darwins theory was heated, but kind mean?
most o the controversy revolved around this issue, which was never
actually discussed in his book. People saw the clear link between human In your view, are the
beings and primates and were deeply upset by the implication that man ollowing diferences one
was no more than an animal. In the words o Benjamin Disraeli, the o degree or o kind:
British Conservative politician, in 1 864: The question is this Is man
an ape or an angel? My Lord, I am on the side o the angels. I repudiate a. Murder and involuntary
with indignation and abhorrence these new angled theories.15 manslaughter
The rationalist perspective is, at its root, strongly connected with religious b. Adults and children
perspectives on the nature o human beings. For Plato, our reason is the
part that connects us to the absolute and eternal realm o orms. Our c. American and
immortal soul enables us to grasp perect reality. For D escartes, reason is Chinese people
a git rom God that allows us to see the world as it really is.
When Darwin says that man
However, without a divine origin the power o reason becomes dubious. I only difers rom animals
our reason is rom the divine, whether it be the orms o Plato or a theistic in degree, what does that
god, this provides justication or its power it justies the claim that do to the rationalist view o
reason allows us to see eternal truth and that it grants us autonomy. human nature?
Darwins arguments and the whole history o evolutionary arguments
ater him suggest a very dierent origin or reason and a very dierent
idea o human nature.
In the theory o evolution the nature o our bodies is the result o
natural processes. When Darwin considered the behavioural similarities
between human beings and certain animals he came to the conclusion
that our brains and our minds are likely produced by the same
mundane processes.
In a later book, The Descent of Man ( 1 871 ) , D arwin nally had the courage
to apply evolutionary thinking to human beings. When applied to our
bodies this seemed uncontroversial: we share so much o our physiology
with other mammals that it is very reasonable to say that the body o
Homo sapiens is related to them. A more threatening problem or D arwin
was explaining human behaviour.
Our nervous system is just as much a result o evolutionary processes
as the rest o our bodies, and any good biologist would argue that
our nervous system produces our behaviour. Furthermore, behaviour
is at least as important or evolution as our physical state. Ater all,
you can give a lion an excellent body or hunting sharp teeth, good
eyesight, speed, and strength but i it doesnt have any hunting
impulses then its survival is not improved at all. The implication o
evolutionary theory when we look at animal behaviour is that most o
the things animals do, rom pack hunting, to focking, to burrowing,
to mating, all have adaptive value they increase the likelihood
o survival. There is every reason, thereore, rom an evolutionary
perspective, to believe that the large part o human behaviours are also
driven by evolutionary adaptations and not the product o a reasoned
15 Benjamin Disraeli, speech given at the Oxord Diocesan Conerence, 25 November 1864.
43
2 BEING HUMAN
judgment. This shit, rom explaining the physical components o the
biological world, to explaining behaviour using evolution, is known as
evolutionary psychology.
However even many o Darwins supporters could not conceive o our
mind being a product o evolution. Our higher aculties and moral
reasoning, they argued, must remain the domain o God.
Why the resistance?
C harles Lyell and other contemporary scientists could not accept that our
behaviours could be explained through evolution. The sheer complexity
o our mental aculties seemed too much to explain in evolutionary
terms. Furthermore, many scientists used arguments similar to those
proposed by Descartes and others or substance dualism. They argued
that the nature o the mind was such that it couldnt be built through
small increments they argued that the mind was irreducible. Still others
argued that the mind could not possibly be a biological sort o thing that
it must be a spiritual or mental sort o thing. We can also argue that the
large part o the resistance to Darwins theory was about the dignity given
to human beings by the rationalist theory o human nature.
In spite o this resistance Darwin attempted to demonstrate that our
behaviour may have an evolutionary explanation. I this is true, then we
are not guided by a divine light or objectivity but by our selfsh genes,
which have retained behaviours in the orm o instincts. These impulses
exist because they improved our ftness and thereore they do not
necessarily include aculties that are the most rational, moral, or objective.
Evolutionary psychology
In the distant uture I see open felds or ar more important researches.
Psychology will be based on a new oundation, that o the necessary
acquirement o each mental power and capacity by gradation.
Charles Darwin16
Darwin spent a great deal o his text examining behavioural dierences
in the sexes. More recently a large body o research has grown which
supports the claim that we are driven by instincts similar to animals,
stretching rom our basic impulses to our higher reasoning behaviours.
Leda C osmides and John Tooby identiy the assumptions that evolutionary
psychology makes when it applies Darwins ideas to the human mind.
1. The brain is a physical system whose operation is governed solely by
the laws o chemistry and physics. What does this mean? It means that
all o your thoughts and hopes and dreams and eelings are produced
by chemical reactions going on in your head (a sobering thought) .
2. Our brains were designed by natural selection to solve problems that
our ancestors aced during our species evolutionary history. Our
behaviour is thereore designed by natural selection or the same reason.
16 Darwin, Origin ofSpecies, p. 488.
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H UM AN N ATURE
3. Consciousness is just the tip o the iceberg; most o what goes on in
your mind is hidden rom you. As a result, your conscious experience
can mislead you into thinking that thinking is simpler than it really is.
Most problems that you experience as easy to solve are very dicult
to solve they require very complicated neural circuitry.
4. Our modern skulls house a stone age mind.17
Male aggression
One example Darwin picks on is male aggression and competitiveness.
He points out that this must be our natural birth right as men, and
that it has obvious survival and reproductive benets, but that it is not a
rational or moral behaviour. D arwin thereore claimed it as an impulse
built into us rather than something reasoned through and judged.
Darwin gave the ollowing argument about sex dierences in avour o
the claim that man is an animal, both in his physical composition and
in his behaviour. He provides a airly crude account o the dierences
between male and emale behaviour. Male aggressiveness and
competitiveness are the result o the struggle to acquire mates and to
protect them rom competitors. He has also been given a stronger power
o reason to enable him to ashion weapons and outthink his enemies.
Female tenderness and selfessness are the result o the adaptive
maternal instincts which ensure that her young are cared or.
Mating preferences
A symmetrical ace? Wow! That hourglass
What healthy immune
fgure indicates that she is
systems! very ertile and ft enough
to endure childbirth!
17 Adapted from Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, Evolutionary Psychology: A Primer (Santa Barbara, USA: Center
for Evolutionary Psychology, University of California, 1997) , available at http://www.cep.ucsb.edu/primer.html
(accessed 21 October 2014).
45
2 BEING HUMAN
Another idea rom evolutionary psychology is the suggestion that when For a case study about
we choose a mate we are hard wired to seek certain things that make the science o attraction
sense in evolutionary terms. For example, research suggests that men and its philosophical
seek younger partners, which increases the likelihood o ertility. implications, turn to
Chapter 6: Freedom.
Furthermore, what people nd attractive in a mate is thought to indicate
their useul genes. The acial and bodily eatures that are sexually
attractive to people are signs o health, strength, and a sound immune
system. By seeking these eatures, people ensure that they get the best
genes or their ospring. A healthy mate increases the likelihood o
healthy ospring, and this is what attractiveness is really about.
Another aspect o distinct mating preerences is the tendency or
men to preer short-term mating opportunities (yes, that is what
it sounds like) and women to have long-term mating preerences.
This is because o the dierent investments that men and women
have to make as parents. While males can produce millions
o sperm immediately, emales have a limited monthly ertile
window and produce a much smaller number o zygotes at greater
cost. Furthermore, a male can reproduce and walk away and be
reproducing again within minutes. A emale, on the other hand,
can conceive around once per year at best, and is encumbered with
carrying the child and then nursing it thereater. S o the commitment
in terms o energy and time or emales is much greater. Thereore
evolution has programmed males to seek the greatest quantity o
mating opportunities, while it has given women the impulse to seek
the greatest quality mating opportunity evolution made women
more selective about who they have sex with.
Evaluation
Bear in mind that arguments rom evolutionary psychology are
ar rom uncontroversial. Many philosophers and psychologists
argue that they are speculative inventions designed to support a
misogynistic and oppressive politics o gender inequality. Look at
the eminist arguments in the section on man as a blank slate at
the end o this chapter.
Morality
Perhaps the theory most objected to is that which attempts to explain
virtue and vice as evolutionary adaptations. Darwin himsel oered
an account o selfess behaviour in terms o adaptation. Altruism
is a problem or evolutionary theory because, according to the theory,
our behaviour is adapted to increase the likelihood o our survival and
reproduction. Altruism is any behaviour that costs the organism but does
not provide any benet. For example, giving away hard-won resources
or even laying down ones lie to preserve another organism is severely
detrimental to our chances o reproduction, so evolution would have
removed these behaviours through selection.
However, altruism is ound in nature, including in our closest relatives,
chimpanzees. Two evolutionary explanations have been oered or
this behaviour.
46
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Philosophy (Being Human) - Course Companion - Oxford 2014
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