THE SELF AND THE OTHER
So Sartre is rejecting an understanding or an ontology that involves
appearances (what you see) ,
the unknown essences (noumena) , and
concepts required to understand appearances.
According to Sartre, there is no essence hidden behind the appearance
and he rejects the idea that the mind is born with the ability to
understand these appearances as part o a conceptual structure.
However, while he rej ects the existence o a Kantian transcendental
ego, he does not necessarily reject Kants empirical ego.
Sartres consciousness
Sartre holds frm with the idea o conscious being conscious o something
(thereore being unable to exist unless it is conscious o something)
thus rejecting Descartes pure ego. This is the I o I think, thereore
I am. He rejects it because one must exist in a world to be conscious
o something. He thereore rejects the dualism or metaphysics o Plato and
Descartes, as well as Kant. An I that has nothing to think about cannot
exist, thereore dualism is wrong. Descartes I still exists even i it wasnt
thinking (as a soul) ; its ongoing identity was the issue because o non-
existence. Note that Sartre also rejects the position o materialism we are
our body/brain though he believes the body/brain is important. We act
in/through/with our bodies, but there is more than just our bodies.
Sartre argues or a sel that is outside, in the world. It is a being o the world,
like the ego o another.103 There is consciousness but it is not internal,
rather it is external, interconnected with the world. This is a rejection o the
consciousness o the introspective methodology I look inwards or my sel,
which is either in or behind consciousness the transcendental ego.
This is an empirical ego as the sel, an ego experiencing the world
by being part o it, and this includes the other. The ego is a persons
attitude towards the world, and this becomes you (such as your
values) . Remember, it is not in consciousness ( and thereore born with
it/essence/a priori) : it emerges by being conscious o the world, and
choosing how to relate to that world. It is a psycho-physical sel.
Note that consciousness is not an object itsel or an object or itsel it
is not like a chair/an external essence or an essence/internal entity
itsel (like Descartes immaterial, substantial sel and, to a lesser extent,
Lockes immaterial, non-substantial sel) .
Whereas idealism believes the world is constructed by consciousness,
Sartre claims that consciousness has no independent existence; in act,
no existence at all apart rom its world: the ego is neither ormally nor
materially in consciousness: it is outside, in the world.104
Sartre ocuses on a pre-refexive aspect o consciousness, or beore
we use theoretical concepts to understand the world. This is the reexive
sel, or the sel with a structure inherent in it that allows it to understand
the world. I existence precedes essence this cannot be the case.
103 Jean-Paul Sartre, Transcendence ofthe Ego, translated by Forrest Williams (New York: Noonday Press, 1957) ,
p. 31.
104 Ibid.
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5 BEING HUMAN
Sartre stresses the practical and pre-conceptual being-in-the-world more
than the various ways in which we know (conceptualize) the world.
Sartre believes that our being-in-the-world and our encounters with the
world are to be the ocus when considering consciousness. This is the
empirical, psycho-physical, or practical ego.
Imagine you lose yoursel while reading a novel and drinking tea. There
are three acts occurring thinking, reading, drinking but they are the
same, there is not a separate I that is both reading and drinking. You
can lose yoursel in an activity, indicating, or S artre, that the essential
sel does not exist.
There is only consciousness o the novel, not I am conscious o reading
the novel, or the sel refecting on reading. Rather, reading is occurring
and there is a relationship between sel, book, and tea. You do
something, but the doer occurs only ater the doing has been done.
Sartre uses the example o running ater a bus. One does not become
conscious that ones running ater the bus until one has ceased to
run ater the bus. This is because until this point ones consciousness is
ocused on the bus itsel, and not on the act that one is chasing it.
Conscious needs the book in order to be, to exist. It cannot be
conscious o nothing (being and nothingness) .
Being-with-others
The other orces you to realize your sel without the other this would
not happen. Shame becomes a powerul emotion in the existence o the
sel. For example, imagine someone observing an event and they lose
awareness o themselves. Suddenly they are observed and they become
shameul and the I now exists. The idea o recognition can be ound in
Hegels masterslave dialectic (see p. 1 61 in Chapter 4: Mind and Body)
and the need or recognition in order to exist you do not exist unless
you are being recognized. This recognition by the other can be both a
positive and a negative dimension o the sel. Too much emphasis on the
others recognition takes away your reedom, by objectiying you. This
subjective consciousness, which is the oundation o our choices, actions,
and existential essence, is also the ground o human reedom.
Camus p Albert Camus, author of
The Stranger
Albert C amus (1 91 31 960) novel The Stranger (1 942) explores in a literary
orm the philosophical confict between reason and experience and the
concept o consciousness. The novel asks questions about the source
o meaning and the worth o rationality and consciousness in human
nature. Meursault, a man seemingly devoid o emotion who opens his
heart to the benign indierence o the universe, is the central character.
Camus uses Meursault and the events that beall him to explore the alse
dichotomy between reason and emotion. More importantly, he explores
the notions o consciousness and introspection, and the role o the other.
The tradition o Descartes and Locke believed that introspection revealed
the sel. Kants response to Humes no-sel was premised on the belie that
the sel must exist because something behind the experiences must be
uniying them. However, consciousness can also be understood in terms o
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THE SELF AND THE OTHER
the metaphor o the mirror. The mirror is used to see onesel it provides
a reection, enabling close examination o the sel. However, it is not an
introspective examination, rather seeing yoursel as others see you.
The existentialists argue that the sense o reection used by Descartes,
Locke, and Kant is illusionary, or at least very dependent on the mirror
sense o reection and hence the role o the other. This leads to the
question, To what extent is your consciousness your consciousness?
The inuence o Hegel can be seen here he argued that sel-
comprehension depends on the recognition o others.
de Beauvoir
To be onesel, simply onesel, is so amazing and utterly unique an Question
experience that its hard to convince onesel so singular a thing
happens to everybody. How is de Beauvoirs
understanding o the sel
Simone de Beauvoir105 diferent rom Sartres?
Simone de Beauvoir (1 90886) was one o the leading intellectuals Question
o the 2 0th century. S he trained in philosophy alongside her ellow
Frenchman Jean-Paul Sartre, attending lectures with him and reading What did Merleau-Ponty
many o the same texts. Consequently there are many similarities reject in Sartres philosophy
between their philosophical understanding. She too rejected the notion and position on the concept
o solipsistic, isolated sel. Instead, she used her understanding o o the sel?
the existentialist and phenomenological notion o the sel rom her
reading o Hegel and Husserl and inuenced by the work o Sartre and
Heidegger. These inuences are evident in her maj or philosophical work
The Ethics of Ambiguity ( 1 947) . In this seminal work de B eauvoir defnes
the sel as a nothingness and pure subj ectivity, created through action.
REFLECTION QUESTION
I take pleasure in my transormations. I look quiet and consistent,
but ew know how many women there are in me.
Anas Nin106
With reerence to an existential concept o the sel, what is Anas
Nin suggesting in her portrayal o the sel?
Merleau-Ponty: the sel as embodied subjectivity
Phenomenology means the study o what appears to consciousness and in
doing so rejects the notion that there is a more undamental level o reality.
Instead phenomenologists argue that there is only the world discernible
105 Simone de Beauvoir, The Prime ofLife: 1 9291 944 [an autobiography] , translated by Peter Green (New York:
World Publishing, 1962) , p. 27.
106 Anas Nin, The Early Diary ofAnas Nin: 1 9271 931 (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985) , p. 71.
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5 BEING HUMAN
by conscious human experience. As a consequence, understanding
human behaviour and experience cannot reerence this fctitious, more
undamental, reality. Human behaviour can only be understood rom within
this human experience. Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1 9081 961 ) states it as
such: the aim o phenomenology is described as the study o experiences
with a view to bringing out their essences, their underlying reason.107
This is reected in Merleau- Pontys Phenomenology of Perception ( 1 945 ) ,
with reerence to our perception o the world and thereore our
knowledge about it:
C onsciousness must be reckoned as a self-contained system of Being,
as a system o Absolute being, into which nothing can penetrate and
rom which nothing can escape. On the other side, the whole spatio-
temporal world, to which man and the human ego claim to belong
as subordinate singular realities, is according to its own meaning mere
intentional Being, a B eing, thereore, which has the merely secondary,
relative sense o a Being or a consciousness.108
We exist within our consciousness and are confned by it. The world
surrounding the sel appears to exist in time and space as an object that
the consciousness recognizes. However, the consciousness recognizes the
apparent object and it is an object o consciousness. Lived experience
becomes undamental to understanding existence, not a defned
conceptual ramework that might distort an understanding.
In Merleau-Pontys philosophy consciousness is experiencing the world
as part o understanding it it is dynamic not static. This is in contrast
to empiricists such as Hume and Locke, who saw consciousness as a
repository or sensation. For Merleau- Ponty, the body is part o this
experiencing as it is the context or the mind and rejects the dualists
position on the mind/body: There is not a duality o substances but only
the dialectic o living being in its biological milieu.109
A Response to Solipsism: intersubjectivity
Intersubjectivity is a complex concept that emerged out o the
phenomenological tradition, originating in the work o Husserl and argued
in his The Fifth Cartesian Meditation Empathy, Others and Intersubjectivity.
Intersubjectivity can be defned in the number o dierent ways such
as, a concrete sel-other relation, a socially structured lie-world, or a
transcendental principle o justifcation.110 Each o these defnitions share a
common ocus and that is the relation o the sel to the other in the context o
the shared world and another name or the problem o other minds.
107 Quoted in Edo Pivcevic, Husserl and Phenomenology (London: Hutchinson University Library, 2014) , p. 11.
108 Quoted in John F. Bannan, The Philosophy ofMerleau-Ponty (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1967) , p. 10.
109 Ted Toadvine and Lester Embree, Merleau-Pontys Reading ofHusserl (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer
Academic Publishers, 2002) , p. 96.
110 Dan Zahavi, Subjectivity and Selfhood: Investigating the First-Person Perspective (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
2005), p. 178.
250
THE SELF AND THE OTHER
This is an attempt to answer the criticisms o solipsism. While to a certain
extent intersubjectivity is a response to the perceived weaknesses o the
argument rom analogy, it oers a much more nuanced and complex
answer, and one that is central to the phenomenological project. This
project is seeking to overcome the mind/body and subject/object divide
at the heart o Descartes philosophy. While Descartes sel, or the ego,
reerenced its own world, the phenomenological sel reerences the world it
shares with others. Husserl describes this as monadological intersubjectivity.
B y this difcult term he means the shared world o the sel and the other.
The frst word, monad reers to a notion o the discrete sel. The second
word intersubjectivity defnes is an approach to understanding reality
and knowledge that rejects the overly rational, metaphysical world o Plato
and his representational theory o consciousness. The vertical hierarchy
o Platos divided line and his orm o the good is rejected, replaced with
a horizontal emphasis that leads to a quasi-humanist perspective and a
consciousness that is not in the mind, but conscious o something orming
a relation with it. As Husserl argues, in this monadological intersubjectivity
the second ego [the other] is not simply there, and strictly given to
himsel; rather is he constituted as alter ego the ego indicated as one
moment by this expression being I mysel in my owness.111 This is more
simply captured by I cannot obtain any truth whatsoever about mysel,
except through the mediation o another. This understanding is dependent
on phenomenologys defnition o consciousness as being conscious o, or
about, something this is known as intentionality. But this is not an ego
observing the world rom behind a screen, rather a sel-in-a-shared-world
whose existence is dependent on the same consciousness in others.
The most accessible interpretation o this idea comes rom Sartre in his
lecture Existentialism Is a Humanism when he says,
Contrary to the philosophy o Descartes, contrary to that o Kant,
when we say I think we are attaining to ourselves in the presence o
the other, and we are just as certain o the other as we are o ourselves.
Thus the man who discovers himsel directly in the cogito also
discovers all the others, and discovers them as the condition o his own
existence. He recognises that he cannot be anything (in the sense in
which one says one is spiritual, or that one is wicked or jealous) unless
others recognise him as such. I cannot obtain any truth whatsoever
about mysel, except through the mediation o another. The other
is indispensable to my existence, and equally so to any knowledge
I can have o mysel. Under these conditions, the intimate discovery
o mysel is at the same time the revelation o the other as a reedom
which conronts mine, and which cannot think or will without doing
so either or or against me. Thus, at once, we fnd ourselves in a world
which is, let us say, that o inter-subjectivity. It is in this world that
man has to decide what he is and what others are.112
111 Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditation: An Introduction to Phenomenology, translated by Dorion Cairns
(Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999) , p. 94.
112 Quoted in ibid.
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5 BEING HUMAN
With this mode o consciousness (or irreducible intentional state)
as the oundation, the sel overcomes solipsism by transposing
itsel into the other in the orm o empathy which brings the other
person and their mental states together. S artres development
o this phenomenological position includes his radical reedom
and thereore defning the individuals existential sel and identity.
This allows Sartre to claim that when you act you act on behal
o humankind overcoming any subjective or egocentric ethical
decision-making.
Role of culture: the other or the role of the community
In contemporary philosophy, traditional debates have included the role
o culture. This leads to the question, To what extent is our sel, even
our sense o sel, constructed by others?
It is worth returning to the position that this tradition o conceptualizing
the sel is in response to the atomistic sel. Descartes argued that there
is a core sel that is independent o the historical-social context in
which an individual fnds himsel or hersel. This does not mean that
he rejected the inuence o the historical-social context, only that it
existed in distinction to this context. To argue this position, D escartes
tells his reader how he went about understanding himsel better using
the methodology o introspection. To do this he withdrew himsel rom
others, looking within:
Ater I had employed several years studying the book o the
world and trying to acquire some experience, I one day ormed
the resolution o also making mysel an object o study Winter
detained me in a place where I ound no society to divert me and no
cares or passions to trouble me. I remained there the whole day shut
up alone in a stove-heated room, where I had complete leisure to
occupy mysel with my own thoughts.113
In this isolation, Descartes was able to search or his real sel, ound
inside himsel, determining what is true and what is alse:
I shall now close my eyes, I shall stop my ears, I shall call away all my
senses, I shall eace even rom my thoughts all the images o corporeal
things, or at least (or that is hardly possible) I shall esteem them
as vain and alse; and thus holding converse only with mysel and
considering my own nature, I shall try little by little to reach a better
knowledge o and a more amiliar acquaintanceship with mysel.
113 Descartes, Discourse on the Method, available at http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/59?msg=welcome_
stranger#part5 (accessed 21 October 2014) .
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THE SELF AND THE OTHER
I am a thing that thinks, that is to say, that doubts, afrms, denies,
that knows a ew things, that is ignorant o many, that loves, that
hates, that wills, that desires, that also imagines and perceives
In order to try to extend my knowledge urther, I shall now look
around more careully and see whether I cannot still discover in mysel
some other things which I have not hitherto perceived. I am certain
that I am a thing which thinks; but do I not then likewise know what
is requisite to render me certain o a truth? Certainly in this frst
knowledge there is nothing that assures me o its truth, excepting the
clear and distinct perception o that which I state And accordingly it
seems to me that already I can establish as a general rule that all things
which I perceive very clearly and very distinctly are true.114
Descartes makes several claims in this passage. He makes the claim that
the real sel is accessible through the use o reason. He claims that this
real sel, including its qualities such as its willing, desiring, imagining,
and perceiving, exist independently o others and that the best method
o determining this sel is by withdrawing rom others. Lastly, D escartes
claims that only the individual themselves can determine the truth about
their sel. These claims are undamental, even oundational, to Descartes
position. The role o the other is non-existent.
However, there are those philosophers who believe that the historical-
social context is primary in the construction o the sel and thereore the
concept o the sel. Compare Descartes amous phrase I think, thereore
I am with an alternative rom an Arican view o the sel expressed by
the philosophy o Ubuntu (human-ness) : I am because we are, and
since we are, thereore I am.115 In this conception, the role o the other,
oten expressed as community, is essential to the concept o the sel.
There has also been a long tradition o opposing this notion o the sel
in the Western tradition. Aristotle, while reacting to Platos philosophy
and thereore his concept o the sel, asserted that man was a social
animal. In the process, he suggested that the sel was defned in relation
to amily and the city or state and yet remained an essential aspect o
the sel. As Aristotle suggests:
The individual, when isolated, is not sel-sufcing; and thereore he is like
a part in relation to the whole. But he who is unable to live in society,
or who has no need because he is sufcient or himsel, must be either a
beast or a god social instinct is implanted in all men by nature.116
Nonetheless, Platonic and Cartesian concept o the sel remained
dominant until the 1 8th century when the work o Hegel challenged
114 Ren Descartes, Discourse on Method and Meditations, translated by Elizabeth S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross
(New York: Dover Publications, 2003) , p. 7980.
115 John Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophies (New York: Doubleday, 1970) , p. 141.
116 Aristotle, Politics, translated by C. D. C. Reeve (London: Hackett Publishing, 1997) , p. 45.
253
5 BEING HUMAN
this assumption. Hegel purposeully sought to reject the atomistic sel
defned by Descartes. Instead Hegel, using the inuence o Aristotle,
argued or a relational self, which required recognition rom another
sel to exist. In a ascinating passage rom his Encyclopaedia of the
Philosophical Sciences ( 1 81 7 ) , Hegel describes the relationship between
a master and his slave:
Every sel wants to be united with and recognized struggle or reedom. Historically, this struggle is
by another sel [as a ree being] . the basis o the rise o masters and slaves
Yet at the same time, each sel remains an Preerring survival to reedom, the slave gives up
independent individual and so an alien object his attempt to be recognized as ree. The master, on
to the other. The lie o the sel thus becomes a the other hand, is recognized as ree. The master
struggle or recognition sees in the slave the very sign o his reedom.
Each sel is in a struggle to convince the other Independent masters and dependent slaves
that he is [a ree being] worthy o the others together orm a community.
respect and recognition. This mutual struggle or
recognition by the other is mixed with eelings To preserve and protect the lie o his workers
o mistrust and uncertainty. The struggle carries becomes the concern o the master The slave
with it all the dangers and risks that the sel aces learns to work. He acquires habits and skills. At
when it dares to lay itsel open to the other. This the same time he disciplines himsel. In making
lie-and-death struggle can degenerate into a objects [or the master] he also makes himsel.
bloody fght in which one o the combatants is In working together with others he overcomes
killed. But then the whole issue o recognition his isolation and is recognized or his excellence.
will be missed. Recognition requires the survival In this process, the relation o dependence and
o the other as a condition and sign o ones independence is reversed. The independent
reedom. The struggle o the sel is essentially a master becomes dependent on the skills and
virtues o the servant.117
This ormation o the sel occurs through the consciousness o others,
through their recognition. This leads Hegel to claim, an I that is a we
and a we that is an I, or there can be no I without a we. The need
or the other is clear in this ormulation. The sel can only exist by being
recognized by another subject. The impact o this approach can be seen
clearly in the work o Sartre and other existentialists.118
It also has been inuential on a school o philosophy called
communitarianism. The major thinkers in this tradition are Alasdair
MacIntyre, C harles Taylor, Michael Walzer, and Michael Sandel. While
they have taken dierent approaches to this conception o the sel
they are all reacting to the atomistic concept o the sel in modern
philosophical liberalism in the works o John Rawls.
117 Georg Hegel, Encyclopedia ofPhilosophy, translated by Gustav E. Mueller (New York: Philosophical Library,
1959), pp. 215217.
118 However, it is worth noting that Sartres understanding o Hegel was dened by Alexandre Kojves
idiosyncratic but infuential reading o Hegel in the 1930s. Kojve read Hegel through the lens o Marxs
materialism and Heideggers ontology. This is not an orthodox reading o Hegel.
254
THE SELF AND THE OTHER
ASSESSMENT ACTIVITIES
1. Flow chart
Starting with Kant sketch out a ow chart outlining the
development o the sel through to Sartre. What are the
similarities and dierences rom Kant to Sartre?
2. Dialogue
Choose two philosophers and write a debate between them on
the concept o the sel.
In what ways do they end up agreeing with each other?
In what ways do they end up disagreeing with each other?
The postmodern concept of the self
While many o the positions on the sel covered in this chapter
have remained present in philosophical debate in the late 20th and
early 21 st centuries, a new movement emerged that challenged the
assumptions they privileged.
The postmodern self
First is a shit rom sel-as-subject, unconsciously merged with our
ground o perception, to sel-as-object, directly visible to us. Second
is a shit rom natural selsomething to be discoveredto artifcial
sel (not artifcial in the sense o ake but in the sense o something
created, an artiact) .
Walter Truett Anderson119
Postmodernism was a dominant philosophical movement in the late
20th century. There were other movements closely identifed with
postmodernism, such as deconstruction, post-structuralism, and critical
theory. It emerged out o the phenomenological tradition via the critiques o
the dominant essentialism, scientifc-rationalism paradigm defning Western
thought since Plato. The work o Heidegger and Nietzsche were seen as
important to this impetus, which is regarded variously as a reaction to
modernism, an extension o modernism, or even a rejection o modernism.
The major philosophers o the movement are:
Jacques Derrida
Jean-Franois Lyotard
Michel Foucault
Richard Rorty
Jean Baudrillard
Fredric Jameson
119 Walter Truett Anderson, The Future ofthe Self: Inventing the Postmodern Person (New York: J. P. Tarcher, 1997), p. 19.
255
5 BEING HUMAN
Lets look more closely at the postmodern view o the sel. Self and technology
Walter Truett Anderson provides a summary o our dominant How does Facebook
concepts used by postmodernists to discuss the sel. Their consistent conceive of the self?
reerence throughout these concepts is change and multiple identities.
M ultip hrenia: Kenneth Gergen in The Saturated Self ( 1 9 9 1 )
observed that the modern sel makes the notion o the authentic
sel difcult and consequently knowable characteristics become
harder to identiy. The individual is exposed to multiple opinions,
values, and ways o lie in the course o his or her existence. Each
o these impacts on an individuals sense o the sel. Gergen says,
For everything that we know to be true about ourselves, other
voices within respond with doubt and even derision.120 This
makes an essential sel a challenge as our relationships distract,
undermine, and conuse, making a single and consistent sel hard
to identiy.
Protean: The protean sel is able to change in response to
circumstances. As Anderson summarizes, [i] t may include changing
political opinions and sexual behavior, changing ideas and ways o
expressing them, changing ways o organizing ones lie.121 This does
not reute the idea o an essential sel as it can still be seen as a process
towards discovering ones true sel.
The decentred self: This position rejects the possibility o the sel.
The sel is constantly changing, being redefned through a process o
existing. With a ocus on the role o language, this position sees the
sel, and thereore the individual, as constructed by language.
Self-in-relation: This sel is a sel that is connected to other people
and even the culture in which they are contextualized. Feminist
studies oten articulate this concept o the sel.
A theme throughout each o these concepts is that there is no inner
sel determining who the I is as a cohesive whole. According to
postmodern thought, we are shaped by outside orces; in other words,
we are socially constructed.
Conclusion
The sel is a complex issue with numerous positions available or urther
investigation. There is signifcant overlap between the sel and the
other topics covered in the chapters o this book. The sel has had, and
continues to have, a major importance in many societies around the
world. From a philosophical perspective there are a number o broad
conceptual rameworks that have been used to debate and explore
the concept o the sel over a number o years. The Western traditions
initial emphasis on an essential sel was rejected by Humes apparent
no-sel argument. Later on, this essential sel was again rejected by the
120 Kenneth J. Gergen, The Saturated Self: Dilemmas ofIdentity in Contemporary Life (New York: Basic Books,
1991), p. 67.
121 Anderson, Future ofthe Self, p. 41.
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THE SELF AND THE OTHER
existential movement in the early 2 0th century. O ther traditions o
thinking have seen similar debates occur.
The concern throughout these debates is the attempt to fnd something
that contains identity, whether it is the identity o being human or the
identity o an individual. This overlaps with the issue o human nature
and personhood and is taken urther in personal identity when the
question ocuses on the issue o the enduring sel.
FINAL REFLECTION
Given what we know today (scientifc knowledge, psychology, social
philosophy, etc.) do you think the sel is still an important consideration
in modern society? Is there a global identity crisis as argued by Walter
Truett Anderson?
FIND OUT MORE
Research the Posthuman Maniesto and in particular, the
Statements on consciousness, humans and philosophy in Part 2.
This can be ound in Robert Pepperell, The Posthuman Condition:
Consciousness Beyond the Brain ( B ristol, UK: Intellect, 2 003 ) , p. 1 78.
Read through the statements. Which ones make sense to you given
our contemporary context and understanding? What impact do
(will) these have on our concept o the sel?
LINK WITH THE CORE THEME
The self and being human
The sel is a complex issue with numerous positions available or
urther investigation. There is signifcant overlap between the sel and
the other topics covered in the chapters o this book. The sel has had,
and continues to have, a major importance in many societies around
the world. From a philosophical perspective there are a number o
broad conceptual rameworks that have been used to debate and
explore the concept o the sel over a number o years. The Western
traditions initial emphasis on an essential sel was rejected by Humes
apparent no-sel argument. Later on, this essential sel was again
rejected by the existential movement in the early 2 0th century. Other
traditions o thinking have seen similar debates occur.
Indian and Chinese philosophical traditions o thought have a
number o varied approaches to the sel. These cover monist, dualist,
and pluralist concepts. A consistent analogy in both Western and
Eastern traditions has been the chariot. How this analogy has been
used indicates not just the specifcs o a philosophical tradition
but also the nature o the conception its sources, purpose, and
conceptual ramework its fnal maniestation in a world (i at all) .
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5 BEING HUMAN
Assessment tip: Analysing and evaluating a position on the self
The sel is the key concept explored in this chapter. exhaustive. Consult the suggestions outlined early
This key concept also includes associated concepts in the chapter.
o introspection and the other. I you decide
to respond to a non-philosophical stimulus by This allows you to include a discussion and
considering an issue associated with the concept assessment o alternative interpretations or points
o the sel then it is advised to also determine o view. While the number o perspectives is not
an analytical and an evaluative strategy. In prescribed, given the time allocated to complete the
other words, you have to demonstrate a depth o essay in the exam is approximately 50 minutes, it
understanding while taking a position on the issue. is recommended to ocus on two perspectives to
ensure a depth o understanding is demonstrated
Consequently, the initial decisions about the issue in your treatment o them. This should not, however,
must be inuenced by the ability to examine prevent you rom reerencing other philosophers/
the issue comprehensively. This means that the positions/perspectives or the purpose o illustration
issue must be ramed to allow it to be detailed or example, especially i they enable you to illustrate
sufciently as well as providing enough time to your chosen perspectives.
argue your own position.
Practising the phrasing othe issue will help provide
Look at the markscheme accompanying each guidance in the pressure o the exam. The issue
stimulus. For example, the November 2004 should be phrased in a way which provides you with
markscheme gives a suggestion o the sel as clear direction. Consequently, it should encompass
activity versus the sel as substance. This is both perspectives. Using the example given above
ramed as a dichotomy but with a possibility o a you should phrase the question To what extent is the
relationship or an overlap. This chapter has been seldetermined by sel as activity versus the selas
designed to present a number o these dichotomies substance? or Is the sel a consequence oactivity
but the options oered are by no means or substance?
Activities Assessment tip
1. Identify a philosophical issue in response to a past paper stimuli Turn to the assessment
based on an issue of the self that have been explored in this chapter. chapter or a more detailed
account o what analysis
2. Identify relevant philosophical positions in relation to the issue. and evaluation involve, and
what questions can help
3 . Write an essay plan/draft essay in response to the following instructions: you make sure you are on
the right track.
With explicit reference to the stimulus and your own knowledge,
discuss a philosophical issue related to the question of what it means
to be human in relation to the self.
An essay should demonstrate a clear and concise understanding of
philosophical issues and concepts. This requires a detailed knowledge
of arguments and theories. Analysis should include a discussion of
counter-arguments. Evaluation should provide support for a clear
perspective/response.
258
THE SELF AND THE OTHER
Use the following supports to assist you with your planning:
Key inquiry questions
Is the sel an entity, a substance? I it is a substance, what kind o
substance is it?
Is the sel a personality trait, an attitude, or an afectation?
Is the sel an action or a unique set o values?
Is the sel a construction and a story that coheres an individual?
Is it a abrication, a myth, or an illusion?
Is the sel xed or variable, in that does it evolve over time?
How do we know the sel? Is it through introspection or through
other people?
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Brief Intoduction to Phenomenology and
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BEING HUMAN
6 Freedom
Freedom and determinism
Social conditioning
Existential angst
Some essential questions:
Is there such a thing as ree will?
Are reedom and determinism incompatible?
Why did existentialists see reedom as the source o existential angst?
Introduction
Does being human mean being ree? Is reedom an essential part o the
human condition? What is let o our humanity i we remove reedom? Are the
actors that inuence us compatible with some human reedom?
These questions have been prominent in philosophy or centuries.
Each new scientifc discovery uels the debate urther as it is invariably
interpreted as evidence either that human beings do indeed possess
ree will, or that their reedom is limited or inexistent. Recent advances in
neuroscience, genetics and evolutionary psychology, as well as a better
understanding o the sociocultural actors that inuence us, have meant
that the reedom and determinism debate is still very much at the oreront
o philosophy today, and a major part o our quest to understand what it
means to be human.
Stimulus 1
p Dilbert cartoon by Scott Adams
263
6 BEING HUMAN
Stimulus 2
We may regard the present state o the universe as the eect o
its past and the cause o its uture. An intellect which at a certain
moment would know all orces that set nature in motion, and all
positions o all items o which nature is composed, i this intellect
were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would
embrace in a single ormula the movements o the greatest bodies
o the universe and those o the tiniest atom; or such an intellect
nothing would be uncertain and the uture just like the past would
be present beore its eyes.1
Pierre Simon Laplace (1 7491 827) was a French mathematician and TOK link
scientist who lived in the late 1 8th and early 1 9th centuries. Long beore
computers existed, Laplace put orward a strange idea: i an intellect Ways of knowing
or a demon, as it was later reerred to was able to compute all the
data o the universe as it is now, it would be able to predict the uture Do you think your reaction
with absolute certainty. In other words, according to Laplace, the is based on reason,
universe is predictable because it obeys fxed laws: anyone capable o emotion, or perhaps
understanding those laws and knowing the current state o the universe another way of knowing?
would be able to predict the uture. This assumes that the universe does
indeed ollow laws with no exception or surprises. The physical universe
and its rules are entirely predictable because they are, according to
Laplace, entirely determined.
While Laplaces idea might be acceptable when it comes to planets,
the universe and perhaps most o nature, it becomes much more
problematic when we include ourselves in his picture. Are human
beings as predictable as the material world that surrounds them? Do
we obey the same exact laws? Would a greater intellect, demon or
supercomputer be able to predict our behaviour based on what we
are today?
These are some o the questions at the heart o this chapter on
Freedom. They all stem rom one, central question that has preoccupied
philosophers or centuries and is as ar as ever rom being resolved: are
human beings free?
Questions
1. What is your initial reaction to Stimulus 2 and to the Dilbert cartoon
(Stimulus 1) ? Do you think that all our actions are determined?
2. Can you think of some evidence that human beings do have free will?
Conversely, what evidence is there that human beings may not be free?
1 Rephrased from Pierre-Simon Laplace, A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities, with an introductory note by
E. T. Bell, translated from the French by Frederick William Truscott and Frederick Lincoln Emory (New York: Dover
Publications, 1995) , p. 4.
264
FREEDOM
Philosophical terms and theories
Determinism reers to the idea that everything by external actors such as our environment,
has a cause or a set o causes. It also means situation, heredity, and so on, but we still have
that, given that cause or set o causes, what some choice and the power to decide whether
happened had to happen and nothing else to ollow one course o action over others. Sot
could have happened instead. This can reer determinists, because they believe in ree will,
to natural events and the laws o nature, but also believe in moral responsibility.
also to humans: some determinists believe
that our choices do not really come rom our Libertarianism is the theory according to
ree will, but rom a series o causes that made which human beings are ree agents. Although
them inevitable and, theoretically at least, the material world around us is determined
predictable. Determinism comes in many by the laws o nature and causation, human
orms, and not all determinists have such choices are not subjected to such laws. O
strong views. D eterminists agree, however, that course, libertarians recognize that human
human actions and decisions are the result o beings are at least, partly material beings
a chain o causes: some determinists believe and that they are limited by certain laws o
that human ree will exists but is restricted by nature (or instance, gravity) . Libertarians
certain actors, while others believe that ree also agree that human beings are infuenced
will doesnt exist at all. by certain actors such as their sociocultural
environment and their biology. They
Hard determinism is the theory according maintain, however, that ree will can always
to which every human action and choice is be exercised: an element o choice always
the inevitable result o a set o causes, which remains, and most human actions are the
eliminates the possibility o human reedom. result o a choice made reely.
Most hard determinists are materialists who
base their belies on the act that human beings Fatalism is the idea that at least some events
are material beings subjected to the laws o are set in advance and there is nothing we can
the material world. Since the material world do to change them. For instance, some atalists
ollows inescapable natural laws, so must believe that the time and manner o our death
human beings. One o the consequences o is already set. Fatalists tend to ocus on an
hard determinism is that it may be dicult inevitable end. However much reedom we may
to hold people to their actions: moral have or think we have in the run up to that end,
responsibility, which stems rom reedom, it is meaningless given that the nal result o our
seems to disappear. actions is already predetermined.
Soft determinism is the theory according Compatibilism is the idea that determinism and
to which there are many external actors ree will are compatible. Sot determinists are
infuencing our decisions, but an element o compatibilists.
reedom still remains. Sot determinists tend to
agree that all events are the inevitable result Incompatibilism is the idea that determinism
o a set o causes. However, they also point out and ree will are incompatible and cannot
that some o those causes are internal causes, coexist. Either we are completely ree, as
causes that we have some control over. We are libertarians claim, or we are not ree at all, as
able to determine ourselves, at least partially, hard determinists claim.
out o ree will. Our choices may be limited
265
6 BEING HUMAN
EXERCISE which, thereore, is an excuse or them. He
thinks that man is responsible or his passion.
Match the ollowing extracts with one or two o Neither will an existentialist think that a
the philosophical terms explained above. Explain man can fnd help through some sign being
your answer. vouchsaed upon earth or his orientation:
or he thinks that the man himsel interprets
1. Mans lie is a line that nature commands the sign as he chooses. He thinks that every
him to describe upon the surace o the man, without any support or help whatever, is
earth, without his ever being able to swerve condemned at every instant to invent man.
rom it, even or an instant. He is born
without his own consent; his organization Jean-Paul Sartre3
does in nowise depend upon himsel; his
ideas come to him involuntarily; his habits 3. Liberty and Necessity are consistent; as in
are in the power o those who cause him to the water, that has not only liberty but a
contract them; he is unceasingly modifed by necessity o descending by the channel; so
causes, whether visible or concealed, over likewise in the actions which men voluntarily
which he has no control, which necessarily do: which, because they proceed rom their
regulate his mode o existence, give the hue will, proceed rom liberty, and yet, because
to his way o thinking, and determine his every act o mans will, and every desire,
manner o acting. He is good or bad, happy and inclination proceed rom some cause,
or miserable, wise or oolish, reasonable or and that rom another cause, in a continual
irrational, without his will being or any chain (whose frst link is in the hand o God
thing in these various states. the frst o all causes) they proceed rom
necessity. S o that to him that could see the
Paul-Henri Thiry2 connection o those causes, the necessity o
all mens voluntary actions, would appear
2. For i indeed existence precedes essence, maniest. And thereore God, that sees and
one will never be able to explain ones disposes all things, sees also that the liberty
action by reerence to a given and specifc o man in doing what he will is accompanied
human nature; in other words, there is no with the necessity o doing that which God
determinism man is ree, man is reedom. will, & no more, nor less. For though men
Nor, on the other hand, i God does not may do many things, which God does not
exist, are we provided with any values command, nor is thereore Author o them;
or commands that could legitimise our yet they can have no passion, nor appetite
behaviour. Thus we have neither behind us, to any thing, o which appetite Gods will is
nor beore us in a luminous realm o values, not the cause. And did not his will assure the
any means o justifcation or excuse. We necessity o mans will, and consequently o
are let alone, without excuse. That is what I all that on man will dependeth, the liberty
mean when I say that man is condemned to o men would be a contradiction, and an
be ree. Condemned, because he did not create impediment to the omnipotence and liberty
himsel, yet is nevertheless at liberty, and rom o God. And this shall sufce (as to the
the moment that he is thrown into this world matter in hand) o that natural liberty, which
he is responsible or everything he does. The only is properly called liberty.
existentialist does not believe in the power o
passion. He will never regard a grand passion Thomas Hobbes4
as a destructive torrent upon which a man
is swept into certain actions as by ate, and
2 Thiry, The System ofNature, p. 88; available at http://www.gutenberg.org/fles/8909/8909-h/8909-h.
htm#link2H_4_0022 (accessed 22 October 2014) .
3 Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism, p. 34, also available at https://www.marxists.org/reerence/archive/
sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm (accessed 28 October 2014) .
4 Quoted in Malcolm (trans.) , Clarendon Edition . . .: Leviathan,
266
FREEDOM
What do we mean by a cause? Question
Since determinism is based on the idea that every event has a cause Can you think of examples of
or a set o causes, it is worth spending some time examining the idea events that have no cause?
o cause. Although cause is a term we all use rom time to time, its
philosophical meaning can be rather complex.
We can start with an interesting question: is there such a thing as an
uncaused event? To a large extent, the idea that some things may not
have a cause is much harder to accept than the idea that everything
has a cause. E ven when it comes to human behaviour, fnding causes
is pretty easy, whereas arguing that a particular behaviour has no
cause at all is a airly difcult task. Lets imagine, or example, that
your riend starts screaming at the top o his voice or no apparent
reason. When you ask him why he screamed, he answers: I have no
idea. It was just random screaming. Even i you believe that he is
telling the truth, you will probably start looking or a possible cause:
you may think he is going mad, or is angry but doesnt realize he
is. The act is, as much as most human beings dislike being told that
they are determined, they also attribute causes to everything, all the
time, including to human behaviour. The idea that some events and
behaviours may have no cause at all is pretty disturbing: causes and
their eects help us make sense o the world and predict what may
happen next. A random world where nothing can be predicted would
be a very conusing place!
So, how can we reconcile our longing or reedom with the act that we
tend to look or causes everywhere?
One way is to stop thinking that causes necessarily eliminate the
possibility o reedom. Free will and causation are, in theory, perectly
compatible: it all depends on the type o cause we are talking about.
Causes dont necessarily need to be external to my mind, they could be
internal to it: theoretically, I may well be the cause o my own actions.
In act, libertarians themselves do not claim that actions are uncaused:
instead, they claim that they are oten caused by internal causes.
Lets get back to your screaming riend and
imagine that his explanation, instead o being
I have no idea, is the ollowing: I screamed
because I just elt like it. That may not seem
like much o an explanation, but somehow
it seems better than the random screaming
answer we frst explored. This time, your riend
wanted to scream, which causes his screaming.
The cause o his behaviour is simply his ree
will, his voluntariness, his wanting to scream.
According to some philosophers, that is enough:
behaviour is sometimes entirely caused by our
will. Those philosophers believe that ree will can
be a sufcient causal condition o our actions:
in other words, ree will is enough to cause
certain actions and no other explanation
is needed.
267
6 BEING HUMAN
Denition o ree will by diferent schools o thought Libertarianism
Soft determinism
Free will is the main cause o human choices and actions. Actions are Hard determinism
unpredictable because people are choosing rom a set o options, and that
choice is ree. Despite some external inuences, ree will has the fnal word
and can override external causes.
Some actions are entirely determined by external causes and do not involve
choice. Other actions are the result o internal causes such as personal desires
and preerences, but those internal causes are also, ultimately, determined.
Free will is never, in itsel, the cause o human choices or actions. Actions
are caused by external actors we have no control over. Free will is just a
eeling and an illusion.
O course, the question remains as to why your riend elt like screaming
in the rst place: the idea that the will can be so ree that it can generate
its own reasons to act without requiring urther justication is still quite
hard to accept. Instead, the will can be seen as choosing a course o action
between a range o possible options. Those options may well be caused
by external actors, and may be limited. In that sense, actions are not
uncaused, or even caused exclusively by internal causes: they are the
result o the will selecting a certain path over another. The big dierence
between libertarians and sot determinists is that, according to libertarians,
the will is able to choose a path reely, somewhat transcending infuences
and causes external to itsel. Sot determinists, on the other hand, believe
that the will itsel, although it does choose between alternative paths, is
infuenced and determined by a variety o actors.
This leads us to two obvious problems: sot determinism is oten
criticized by incompatibilists because it tries to maintain two
contradictory ideas as compatible, without convincingly explaining how
the will can make actual choices i it is determined. Libertarianism, on
the other hand, has to deend the idea that the will can be ree, in a
material world that we know is ruled by causation.
This brings us back to problems explored in Chapter 4: Mind and Body:
i we are entirely material beings, then our will to perorm actions must
be a physical process, which must have a cause, since physical processes
cannot just start themselves (as ar as we know) . Free will coming out o
nothing seems impossible in that materialist scenario. On the other hand,
i we are made o both material and immaterial elements (or instance, a
body and an immaterial mind or soul) , ree will is a possibility, but we are
aced with the old mindbody problem: how can something immaterial
have a causal relationship with something material? At what point does
your riends immaterial will to scream turn into an actual, physical
scream? How can the connection possibly happen?
Another problem is that we know that our decisions are oten infuenced
by many actors other than our will. Just because we do not understand
the external cause o an action doesnt mean that there isnt one. Given
the number o infuences that can aect it, how can we know that our
will is truly ree? Isnt there always a possible cause, external to our will,
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FREEDOM
that can explain every one o our decisions? To what extent is our ree will
undermined by the multitude o other possible causes o our behaviour?
As we understand more and more about human cultures and societies,
psychology, neuroscience, and the infuence o genetics and evolution, ree
will sometimes seems to shrink.
And yet, as we will see, ree will remains: it is still strangely attractive,
despite all the blows it has received over the centuries. It stands on its
own, like an odd possibility that reuses to disappear, perhaps supported
by its strongest ally: the act that we feel ree.
Other interesting points about causation
Cause and eect are related by a causal relationship: they do not happen
together by chance, but because the cause precedes the eect and
produces the eect.
A causes B
For example: I drop the ball causes the ball alls on the foor
A possible implication o this causal relationship is that the cause must
trigger the eect: in other words, i the cause happens, the eect MUST
ollow, and there is no other alternative.
I A happens, then B must happen
I I drop the ball, then it must all on the foor p If I drop the ball...
This seems pretty obvious but this being philosophy, o course, things are
not actually that simple. Some philosophers, including some empiricists,
point out that causation o this type only works given the laws ofnature that
are applicable in the circumstance: my dropping the ball causes it to all on the
foor given the law o gravity. I I were to drop a ball in a space station where
the law o gravity doesnt apply, then it wouldnt all on the foor. Thereore,
it isnt strictly true to say that i I drop the ball, then it must all on the foor,
as one premise is missing. The correct ormulation could thereore be:
I A happens
In a situation where the law A-type events cause B-type
events applies
Then B will happen
I I drop the ball
In a situation where the law o gravity applies
Then the ball will all to the foor
This can be seen as weakening the causal relationship that existed
between the ball being dropped and its alling on the foor: it isnt that
strong i it only works in certain situations!
Another point worth making is that A causes B is not the same as
saying that B can only happen i A happens: B could have a multitude o
possible causes. It could be that C or D could also cause B. For instance,
the ball alling on the foor could be caused by the wind blowing it o a
table, or a cat pushing it o a shel.
269
6 BEING HUMAN
O course, things become even more complex when we start considering p What caused the cat to push
the chain o causes that led to a certain event: the ball?
What caused the wind to blow in the exact manner that made the ball FIND OUT MORE
roll o the table? This question could perhaps be answered by a team
o expert meteorologists and physicists. They would then encounter Listen to the ollowing
more causes needing an explanation. podcast: Thomas Pink on
ree will
What caused the cat to push the ball o the shel? This becomes http://philosophybites.
much more dicult than the wind example, because it involves com /2 008/03 /thom as-
understanding the inner workings o the mind o a cat in order to pink-on.html
explain the sources o its behaviour. Even or a pure materialist, trying
to explain the multitude o brain events that led to the cat pushing the
ball would be a massive task.
This leads us to the human example: what caused me to drop the
ball? Can my action be explained using the language o neuroscience,
brain chemistry, and my material body alone? Will the chain o causes
eventually lead to something intangible, like a soul or a spirit? Is
that even possible? What external infuences make their way into
the internal workings o my mind until they, too, can be counted as
causes o my behaviour?
Those questions show that A causes B is oten much too simplistic to
account or human choices and actions. One o the main problems is
that the laws o human behaviour are not as easily understood as the
laws o nature: as discussed above in the case o the ball and the law o
gravity, causation can only be established within the context o certain
laws. But can we even be certain that such laws exist in the realm o
human behaviour? Is behaviour subjected to mechanisms that are as
reliable as the laws o nature and work every time, without exception?
There are still many questions and mysteries surrounding determinism
and the concept o human ree will, but one thing is certain: the
infuences that may cause us to behave in certain ways orm an
extremely complex and varied network, and very ew human
behaviours are the result o a single, simple cause.
In the rest o this chapter, we will explore some o the main infuences that
may impact on our behaviour and determine us, but rst, we will examine
the notion o human reedom as it is proposed by some o the philosophers
who champion it.
Libertarianism
Libertarianism is the philosophical position according to which human
beings possess ree will, which means that they are able to choose between a
range o alternatives, without their choice being determined or predictable.
Most libertarians are incompatibilists, because they do not believe that
ree will is compatible with determinism. Although some libertarians are
slightly closer to sot determinism and willing to acknowledge that human
beings are subjected to a variety o infuences, they still maintain that ree
will remains the ultimate cause o every human choice.
Libertarians do not deny that circumstances may prevent us rom acting
according to our choice: reedom o action is not the same as reedom
o will. What they claim instead is that the choices we make are ree
ones: we are able to deliberate about them consciously and rationally.
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FREEDOM
Situations may not allow us to ollow those choices but at least the will, FIND OUT MORE
or desire, is ree. No law or necessity can rule the human will.
An excellent resource on
Deliberation is an important part o what it means to be ree. It is the gap libertarianism:
that exists between causes and eects, the gap in which reedom exercises
itsel. Our conscious sel seems to be able to stop at a crossroads and consider http : / / www2 . su nysuo lk.
options beore choosing one. Sometimes, decisions are very quick, almost edu/ p eco rip / S C C C WE B /
instantaneous. Other times, though, it may take months to make a decision, E TE XTS / INTRO _TE XT/
especially i it is a lie-changing one like what university to attend or what Chapter% 207% 20
lie-partner to choose. I human beings were determined, wouldnt such Freedom/Freedom_
decisions be much easier to make? Would it take such a long time, such Libertarianism.htm
eort, such calculations, and emotional turmoil, to come to a conclusion?
Richard Taylor ( 1 91 92 003 ) is a contemporary philosopher who
argues that human beings are ree agents capable o causing their
own behaviour. According to Taylor, there is no such thing as sot
determinism: once we assume that behaviour results rom causes that
are besides the agent himsel or hersel (in other words, when we believe
that the agent cannot be a sufcient cause or his or her behaviour) , we
are already in the same territory as hard determinists. There cannot be a
halway house between reedom and determinism. The belie in human
agency is essential to Taylor and other libertarians.
Here is an extract summarizing his take on causation:
There must, moreover, not only be this reerence rather dierent rom what they seem to mean;
to mysel in distinguishing my acts rom all those namely, that it has been the frm conviction o
things that are not acts, but it must be a reerence most philosophers or generations that in the case
to mysel as an active being. Another perectly o any event that occurs, another event must be
natural way o expressing this notion o my at least part o its cause.
activity is to say that, in acting, I make something
happen, I cause it, or bring it about. I, accordingly, it is true that I am the cause o
my acts, as it evidently is, then in view o this
Now it does seem odd that philosophers should principle we must suppose that the real cause
construe this natural way o expressing the matter is some event intimately associated with me
as really meaning, not that I, but rather some and then, o course, the chase is on to fnd it or,
event, process, or state not identical with mysel ailing that, at least to give it a name and create a
should be the cause o that which is represented semblance o having ound it.
as my act. It is plain that, whatever I am, I am
never identical with any such event, process, or The alternative I urge is that I am sometimes the
state as is usually proposed as the real cause o cause o my own actions, that such an assertion is
my act, such as some intention or state o willing. neither incomplete nor metaphorical and hence
has no real meaning dierent rom, much
Hence, i it is really and unmetaphorically true, as less inconsistent with, itsel as it stands. In that
I believe it to be, that I sometimes cause something case, however, we must conclude that the word
to happen, this would seem to entail that it is alse cause in such contexts has not the ordinary
that any event, process, or state not identical with meaning o a certain relationship between events,
mysel should be the real cause o it. but has rather the older meaning o the efcacy
or power o an agent to produce certain results.
But it is not, in act, hard to see why philosophers This idea can be otherwise expressed by saying
should want to insist that these natural ways o that an agent is something that originates things,
expressing the matter really mean something produces them, or brings them about.5
5 Richard Taylor, Action and Purpose (Englewood Clifs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1966) , p. 111; extract also available at 271
http://www.inormationphilosopher.com/solutions/philosophers/taylorr/ (accessed 28 October 2014) .
6 BEING HUMAN
Existentialism and reedom Questions
Existentialism is a vast and varied philosophical school o thought. 1. What is the main idea
There are several dierent types o existentialism but ocus largely on Taylor is trying to
Sartres atheist existentialism because it is the one that is the most radical convey?
when it comes to reedom.
2. What are some o the
Main existentialist philosophers and their infuences ideas he is criticizing in
this extract?
Kant Kierkegaard Heidegger Sartre
3. Why might it be difcult
Hegel Nietzsche Husserl or determinists to
accept Taylors ideas on
Chronology causation and agency?
Philosophers who infuenced existentialism:
Pascal: 1 7th century
Kant: 1 8th century
Hegel: early 1 9th century
Nietzsche: late 1 9th century (arguably an existentialist philosopher
himsel)
Husserl: late 1 9th/early 20th centuries
Main existentialist philosophers:
Kierkegaard: 1 9th century
Heidegger: 20th century
Sartre: 20th century
Main existentialist terms and ideas
Existentialism is difcult to defne. However, there are some eatures
and themes that are typical o various orms o existentialism. In short,
existentialists are concerned with what being means or humans.
The frst truly existentialist philosopher was Kierkegaard, a Christian
existentialist. However, existentialism is most oten associated with
atheism (the belie that God does not exist) . Some o the central themes
o existentialism, like reedom and responsibility, seem even more acute
i human beings are completely let to their own device, without a God.
Existentialism is a postmodern philosophical movement: it deconstructs,
criticizes, and oten rejects some o the pillars o modern philosophy
such as the reliance on human reason and objective values. As such,
existentialism involves a move away rom absolute claims based on religion,
nature, human nature, or transcendent values like the orms in Platos
philosophy. Nothing is given rom birth, nothing is innate, and nothing is
given by religion (even or Christian existentialists) : human beings are let
to fgure everything out on their own. Existentialists tend to see the loss
o absolutes as a traumatic event. We have no ground to defne ourselves
or understand the meaning o our lives. Humanity is abandoned. Every
single one o us is ultimately alone in our quest or values. We have to fnd
our own meaning, alone. This generates anguish, existential anxiety, or
what Sartre calls nausea. This vocabulary is typical o existentialism and
expresses the eeling o abandonment and lack o given meaning.
272
FREEDOM
For existentialists, peoples identity is not defned by a set o
unchanging properties, but by the very way they change and develop
through lie. Thereore people are what they make o themselves. This
involves great responsibility, but also great reedom. That notion
o identity as what we make o ourselves is a very important point.
According to existentialists, we are what we do, not what we could have
done or wish to do. Again, it is a huge responsibility. We are sel- creating
beings. E ach choice we make in lie defnes our identity.
Regarding reedom and determinism, existentialists stand on the side
o reedom. Human beings are seen as ree agents who must take ull
responsibility or their actions. Freedom is not an easy, light ability to do
what we want: it is almost a burden, a responsibility we cannot escape.
As S artre wrote: We are condemned to be ree. 6
Biography: Jean-Paul Sartre release in 1943. Sartres work
(19051980) was heavily inuenced by
Heideggers Being and Time,
Sartre was born in Paris in 1905 and was introduced an existentialist classic
to literature, mathematics, and philosophy at an written 15 years earlier.
early age by his grandather. Sartre studied at the In Being and Nothingness,
prestigious Ecole Normale Suprieure in Paris, Sartre lay down all the
where he met other uture philosophers such as oundations o his existentialist
Raymond Aaron and Simone de Beauvoir. Beauvoir philosophy and radical notion o reedom. Being
would become the love o his lie, as well as an and Nothingness, however, is a long and complex
iconic and visionary eminist author. read, and Sartres ideas became much more
accessible when he published his lecture notes on
Sartre himsel quickly became an iconic gure in the same topics, Existentialism is a Humanism, in
Parisian circles, and his ame grew all his lie. Sartre 1946. Although Sartre rened and reuted some
was always politically active and he participated o his own ideas in later works such as Critique
in socialist groups and publications, writing about ofDialectical Reason (1960) , Existentialism is a
current aairs and taking part in social movements Humanism remains his most popular philosophical
rom his student years until his death. work thanks to its engaging simplicity.
During the second world war, Sartre spent several Sartre was a prolic writer o philosophy, but
months as a political prisoner. Interestingly, he also plays, short stories, novels, articles, and
planned his rst major philosophical work while in biographies. Works such as No Exit (a play) and
captivity, and his philosophy became centred on the Nausea (a novel) were designed as very engaging
existence o ree will. Sartre later claimed that he had and efcient ways to explore existentialist themes
never been so ree as when he was a prisoner: he without having to read complex philosophical texts.
was put in a position o such meaningulness that he
saw it as a orm o reedom. In addition, Sartre could Sartre received the Nobel Prize or Literature, which
choose how to view his situation, how to live that he reused, in 1964. Thanks to his controversial
experience, how to describe it later and how to react political activism and diverse body o work, Sartre
to those who had imprisoned him. In other words, was a real intellectual celebrity by the time he died
although he had lost his reedom o action, he kept in 1980. He remains one o the most important
his all-important perspective and reedom o will. gures o 20th-century philosophy.
Sartre published his rst major philosophical
work, Being and Nothingness, two years ater his
6 For Sartres original discussion, see Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, translated rom the French by 273
Hazel E. Barnes (New York: Philosophical Library, 1956) .
6 BEING HUMAN
Radical freedom: Sartre
Sartre is one o the most important architects o atheist existentialism,
along with Heidegger. Atheism is key in S artres philosophy: it alters
ones whole perception o human lie. The consequence o the complete
absence o God and absolutes is that lie is absurd, as it literally makes
no sense (at least initially) . There can be no external oundation or
values and meaning: we choose those or our own lives and that choice
is the only possible oundation.
S artres starting point is a belie that existence comes beore essence or,
i you will, that we must begin rom the subjective.7 This means that,
as there is no God, there is no human nature and no given meaning o
lie. People exist beore they are defned and determined: they are born
with complete reedom and with the enormous task o creating their
own essence. They do not discover the meaning o their lie: they create
it. Human beings must take complete responsibility or their own lives.
Freedom is rightening and might not be what most people want to
have to ace.
According to Sartre, although there is no human nature, there is a
human condition that he describes at length: human beings are
condemned to be free, they cannot stop being ree, and they are, thereore,
infnitely responsible or their own destiny. This reedom comes rom an
ability to conceive o what is not the case (nothingness) and to desire
it. We are able to envisage what is not and we are able to want it to be:
we are intentional beings who project ourselves in the uture and make
plans (being-for-itself) . This ability to conceive o what isnt the case is
necessarily part o the human condition and human consciousness.
Human reedom is radical and double: it is a freedom of mind (to
imagine what might be) and a freedom of action (to try to make it
be) . Psychological determinism is totally rejected with little regard or
the possibility o the unconscious as a determining orce. Even emotions
are under our control. People can make themselves become a type o
person, through some sort o training. The challenge o lie is to build our
personality without hiding behind excuses o what makes us behave in
such or such a way. People have ull responsibility or their actions and
or who they are. Their childhood traumas, social circumstances and even
genetic make-up should not be used as excuses not to take on that huge
responsibility o building their identity through actions.
Our reedom is supreme and no excuse can be made not to exercise it.
Even the way others perceive us is something that we can change. We
are the creators o our own personality and image, and we should never
use them as excuses. Statements such as it isnt my ault i I am always
late, thats j ust who I am would horriy Sartre and existentialists! We
are constantly making choices and we always have a choice. Even when
we are just carrying on with the same routine we are choosing to do
so, because we could always have chosen another path. In that sense,
[existentialism] conronts man with a possibility o choice.8
7 Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism and Humanism, translated from the French by Philip Mairet (London: Methuen,
1948), p. 26.
8 Ibid., p. 25.
274
FREEDOM
Sartre would say that you make the choice to go to school or to work
every day. You might eel like you have no choice because that is what
society expects, or because your parents want you to, or because you
need money, but you still have a choice. You choose to conorm to what
society expects, you choose to obey your parents, and you choose money
over poverty and living in the street. These are choices too, choices you
make every single day. We might not always be aware o the meaning
o the choices we make (we might just be ollowing the crowd) but we
are still making choices. To reuse to make a choice is itsel a choice
constituting my identity. I am the totality o what I do, and thereore not
doing something also constitutes my identity, in a negative way.
This radical reedom creates an anguish that does not come rom
external actors but rom the ear that we might not be strong enough
to make the right choices and to stick by them, as we are painully
aware that these choices entirely determine our identity. As we want to
escape anguish, we are tempted to escape reedom but that is impossible.
Hence the excuses we constantly make to try and justiy our choices and
behaviour. This is what S artre calls bad faith. We pretend we are not
ree, lying to others and mainly to ourselves. The identities we assume
have been chosen reely: we are like actors playing a part but we oten
end up believing ( in bad aith) that we are the character we are playing.
We might use the part as an excuse or our behaviour, as i the part
werent reely chosen in the frst place.
Although human beings are radically ree, they are thrown into a
cultural, social, and historical context that constitutes their givenness
(the circumstances they are born into) . But humans have the ability to
transcend this givenness by shaping their own identity through choice
and action. To be human is to interpret our givenness, go beyond it, and
achieve a certain degree o transcendence.
Although it is hard or philosophers who claim that there are no
absolutes to prescribe anything, Sartre advocates that human beings
turn away rom bad aith and try to live more authentically, ully aware
o their reedom, responsibility, and o the importance o each o their
choices in the ormation o their identity. The anguish generated by
our reedom needs to be embraced rather than avoided, and our radical
reedom needs to be afrmed and exercised consciously. Thereore,
Sartre alls short o prescribing values, but he encourages certain
attitudes towards our human condition: honesty, courage, responsibility,
authenticity. Human beings must make a multitude o choices but also
choose a general direction and project or their lives.
Questions
1. Can you think of times when you made excuses for yourself (i.e.
reasons for not doing your homework, reasons for being late, etc.)
but when it was actually your fault?
2. What do you think would happen if everyone took responsibility for
their actions instead of blaming them on external factors?
3. Do you agree that freedom can be a burden? Explain your answer.
275
6 BEING HUMAN
Dostoevsky once wrote: I God did not exist, believe in the power o passion. He will never
everything would be permitted; and that, or regard a grand passion as a destructive torrent
existentialism, is the starting point. Everything upon which a man is swept into certain actions
is indeed permitted i God does not exist, and as by ate, and which, thereore, is an excuse or
man is in consequence orlorn, or he cannot them. He thinks that man is responsible or his
fnd anything to depend upon either within or passion. Neither will an existentialist think that
outside himsel. He discovers orthwith, that he is a man can fnd help through some sign being
without excuse. For i indeed existence precedes vouchsaed upon earth or his orientation: or he
essence, one will never be able to explain ones thinks that the man himsel interprets the sign as
action by reerence to a given and specifc human he chooses. He thinks that every man, without
nature; in other words, there is no determinism any support or help whatever, is condemned at
man is ree, man is reedom. Nor, on the other every instant to invent man. As Ponge has written
hand, i God does not exist, are we provided with in a very fne article, Man is the uture o man.
any values or commands that could legitimise That is exactly true. Only, i one took this to mean
our behaviour. Thus we have neither behind that the uture is laid up in Heaven, that God
us, nor beore us in a luminous realm o values, knows what it is, it would be alse, or then it
any means o justifcation or excuse. We are would no longer even be a uture. I, however, it
let alone, without excuse. That is what I mean means that, whatever man may now appear to be,
when I say that man is condemned to be ree. there is a uture to be ashioned, a virgin uture
Condemned, because he did not create himsel, that awaits him then it is a true saying. But in
yet is nevertheless at liberty, and rom the moment the present one is orsaken.
that he is thrown into this world he is responsible
or everything he does. The existentialist does not Sartre9
A few common criticisms (and counter-criticisms) FIND OUT MORE
of existentialism
For a good summary and
Some authors consider that existentialism oers a wild, anything- interesting links:
goes kind o reedom. It verges on nihilism and its reusal to give any
direction can be very unsettling. http://www2.
sunysuffolk.edu/
Existentialism can seem particularly poor in terms o ethics as it seems p eco rip / S C C C W E B /
to value individual reedom above the search or what is right or good. E TE XTS /IN TRO _TE XT/
It is a very postmodern position: there is certain loss o values that Chapter% 207% 20
breaks away rom classical and modern philosophy. In act, an authentic Freedom/Freedom_
individual might well be a killer or a Nazi (it is interesting to note that Existentialism.htm
Heidegger joined the Nazi party and that Sartre was a radical communist
or some time: there is obviously no consistency in existentialism, given For more inormation
that their philosophies were so close to each other) . about Sartres notion o
bad aith (podcast) :
However, the sel- ormation that existentialism encourages stems rom
ancient philosophies (Greeks, Stoics, etc.) and is not supposed to lead http://philosophybites.
to sel- absorption or lack o concern or others. O n the contrary, people co m /2 009 /02 /s eb astian-
are encouraged to teach themselves how to be better people with others gardner-on-j eanpaul-
in mind. Being authentic should help people be more comortable sartre-on-bad-faith.
html
9 Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism, reproduced from http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/
works/exist/sartre.htm (accessed 28 October 2014) .
276
FREEDOM
with themselves and thereore with others, making better and more
consistent decisions.
Existentialism also calls or honesty and thereore or an individual
judgment: an authentic being will be unable to blame others or her
behaviour. She will have to consider the consequences o her actions
and will make each choice with the conscience that her essence is being
ormed by her actions. Excuses like thats just who I am or I had a
difcult childhood cannot be used. The authentic person will be used to
living with ull awareness o her responsibility.
Most existentialists insist on the importance o society and community,
even i individuals also need to be independent. Reusing to blend
in with the crowd and to systematically make the choices that are
dictated by society is very dierent rom reusing to take others into
account at all.
Finally, the notions o independence and responsibility, which can
be seen as the most important legacy o existentialism, are values in
themselves and would probably encourage people to act in a more
ethical way.
Another criticism is that existentialists are too worried about death and
their philosophy is morbid. However, a counter- criticism is that death is
a reality or all humans and needs to be addressed and conronted as an
issue. It would be naive or deceitul to pretend that death is not a huge
concern or most humans, especially or those who do not believe in
God or in any kind o lie ater death.
Others accuse existentialists o being too emotional and o being
irrationalists. They try to exacerbate human emotions o anxiety
and helplessness, denying the importance o reasoning or the human
race. However, some o these criticisms are based on stereotypical ideas
about existentialism. The origin o these criticisms is oten the act
that existentialism is rather a dramatic philosophy, because it is trying
to shake people out o their complacent ways in order to make them
react and seek authenticity. According to most existentialists, strong
emotions are required in order to give up the acticity o ordinary
everyday lie.
Some authors also portray existentialism as a philosophy according to
which everything is absurd. This is, again, a stereotypical view: atheist
existentialists believe existence is absurd in the sense that there is no
given meaning. It is up to the individual to give meaning to his or
her lie and world. There is meaning, but it is just not pre-given or
predetermined.
One o the most problematic criticisms or existentialists is the claim
that existentialism is a bourgeois and elitist philosophy. The ocus on
existential anxiety can mask much bigger suering. People are only able
to eel and concentrate on their existential anxiety i theyre not actually
really suering or fghting or survival. In other words, people who are
trying to fnd something to eat certainly have no time to worry about
the meaning o their lie. According to Marxist criticisms, existential
anxiety might just be typical o those who belong to the bourgeoisie and
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6 BEING HUMAN
not at all a eature o the whole human race. Existentialism might just be
a luxury or intellectuals and academics. The idea o authenticity is out
o touch with most o the world populations worries.
Finally, it could be argued that existentialism has become an untenable
position given how much we now know about the actors that
determine us. Heidegger and Sartre had very little knowledge about
the way the brain unctions or the devastating (and very physical)
eects o an abusive childhood. The ollowing extract illustrates how
it may seem dicult to reconcile existentialism with contemporary
knowledge:
Because existentialism and ethic o personal existentialist ideology. Those who are poor are
responsibility appeal to some people due to their assumed to be lacking in virtue or initiative due
nature, those people embrace existentialism and to incompetence, immorality, or irresponsibility
personal responsibility and expect others to do rather than a nature and upbringing that not
so. Their existentialism by denition precludes only makes success dicult, but makes choosing
them rom recognising or acknowledging that to transcend said nature and upbringing
non-existentialists are not o a nature such that dicult, i not biologically and psychologically
they can embrace or practise existentialism. This impossible.
leads to unrealistic expectations on the part o
existentialists. Their own seeming transcendence This existentialist belie that denies nature
o their nature is in act an expression o their altogether either denies neuroscience and
nature, but they nonetheless expect other people asserts that consciousness comes rom
to be able to do the very same thing despite something immaterial or requires that our
lacking natures avourable to sel-transcendence. brains act independently o their own structure.
The typical existentialist response to the In either case, it is extremely unreasonable, and
existence o these inherently non-existentialist leads to equally unreasonable consequential
individuals is one o condemnation their belies that require the impossible rom
unwillingness to take personal responsibility is ones ellow man. It is sel-delusive and a
deemed an intellectual or moral ailing, when philosophical dead end. It leads to a total
in act it is a consequence o their nature, as misunderstanding o the nature o man and o
immutable as the existentialists own ability to mans possibilities. It would be wise to put it
decide to see a situation or a act in a dierent aside and resume the age old discussion o what
light. A person inclined to sel-transcendence elements in mans nature are most critical in
is every bit as locked into that behaviour as understanding what mans limits are and how
a person who is disinclined is locked into man can best organise societies and projects in
disinclination. consequence o and in accordance with those
limits. It is no more sensible to reject mans
What is the result? The widespread belie by behavioural limits than it is to reject mans
those with the inherent natural psychological inability to fy or subsist underwater. B etter
ability to overcome dicult upbringings or to recognise those limits and devise tools and
unavourable genetic backgrounds that those structures that help us to surmount them than
who dont have ailed to take responsibility and to jump o o clis and hope to will ourselves
are themselves decient. This leads to a lack o to survive the splat.
sympathy and a lack o compassion, and our
political policies refect the dominance o the Benjamin Studebaker10
10 Benjamin Studebaker, A Critique of Existentialism, 5 September 2012; available at http://benjaminstudebaker.
com/2012/09/05/a-critique-of-existentialism/ (accessed 28 October 2014) .
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Questions
1. Which o the criticisms above do you think is the most damaging or
existentialism, and why?
2. What are the positive things we can learn rom existentialism?
Nature versus nurture: comparing the
infuence o social determinism to that o
biological determinism
When studying reedom, philosophers also oten spend a great deal
o time thinking about what may limit it. There are many orms o
determinism, and many actors that may infuence our behaviour and
threaten our reedom. In the rest o this chapter, we will have an
in- depth look at two maj or actors: biology and society.
Is it nature or nurture? is a phrase you have most probably heard
many times beore, as the nature versus nurture debate has been one
o the most prominent and popular debates in the history o ideas.
Nature reers to biological infuences and nurture to social infuences
and, in particular, education. The nature versus nurture debate is
thereore closely related to the two types o determinism we will ocus
on in this chapter.
Understanding that this debate has ramed many ideas or centuries is
important because it can help you place certain philosophical theories
in their context. When Rousseau developed his theory o the state o
nature, or instance, he wanted to show that human corruption was
caused by nurture and not nature. Darwin, on the other hand,
would have argued that human beings owe many o their traits to
nature because they have inherited them biologically: human societies
may refect human beings, but they do not shape them to the same
extent as nature does. As or Sartre, he believed that nature had
very little to do with human beings: they are ultimately ree beings,
although they oten give up their reedom to give in to society and
nurture. Those ideas are thereore useul ones and can denitely aid
comprehension.
Traditionally, the two notions were presented as mutually exclusive:
behaviours and personality traits were presented as either infuenced by
nature or by nurture. However, this view has now become rather
obsolete and recent research tends to suggest that nature and nurture
are much more integrated than was previously thought.
Focus topic 1: biological determinism
Biological determinism is the theory according to which our choices and
actions are oten strongly infuenced by aspects o our biology. These can
include the structure and unctioning o our brain, hormones, genes,
and evolutionary traits that have been passed down rom our ancestors.
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6 BEING HUMAN
Recent discoveries in the elds o neuroscience and genetics make it very
dicult to deny that biology infuences our behaviour. The extent to
which this infuence encroaches on our reedom, however, remains an
open question. Does our biology merely give us natural tendencies that
we can choose to ollow or resist, or does it compel us to act in ways we
cannot truly control?
You will get a chance to explore this question in this section, as we
examine biological explanations o behaviours and emotions such as
attraction, impulsiveness, and aggressiveness.
Human beings, animals, and instinct: before Darwin
For a long time, human beings seemed to believe that they were a
separate species rom the rest o the animal kingdom and didnt think
o themselves as animals. This is exemplied in the Creation stories
o many traditions, and is particularly obvious in the Judeo-Christian
account o Creation.
Abrahamic aiths ( Judaism, C hristianity, Islam) share a common
understanding o the C reation and mans place in the natural world.
Although the ollowing extract is rom the Torah and thereore Judeo-
Christian, the Islamic tradition is very similar when it comes to the
Creation story:
Then God said, Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness,
so that they may rule over the sh in the sea and the birds in the sky,
over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures
that move along the ground.
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image o God he
created them; male and emale he created them.
God blessed them and said to them, Be ruitul and increase in
number; ll the earth and subdue it. Rule over the sh in the sea and
the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the
ground.
Then God said, I give you every seed-bearing plant on the ace o the
whole earth and every tree that has ruit with seed in it. They will be
yours or ood. And to all the beasts o the earth and all the birds in
the sky and all the creatures that move along the groundeverything
that has the breath o lie in itI give every green plant or ood.
And it was so.
Genesis 1:2630 (NIV)
In Genesis 2, Adam gets to name all the other animals God has created,
again showing that he is dierent rom them. In the Islamic tradition,
angels bow down beore Adam, emphasizing the special status God has
given human beings.
One o the important implications o these Creation stories is that
human beings, because they were set apart rom animals, may not
be subjected to the same rules. So, while it is generally accepted that
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animals have basic instincts and needs that determine their behaviour,
human beings are oten seen as having the ability to rise above their
instincts and ree themselves rom their bodily needs.
Ancient Greek philosophers such as Plato reinorced the idea that
human beings have a unique ability to control their animal instincts,
unlike other animals. Human beings do have a body that belongs to
the natural world and wants to behave in an animalistic way, but they
also have a soul that belongs to a higher world and is able to control the
body, or at least rein in its instincts.
Later, D escartes also made a radical distinction between animals and
human beings, claiming that animals are little more than machines,
whereas human beings are defned by their mind, an immaterial
entity that is essentially dierent rom the body and superior to it in
every way.
The soul, spirit, or mind is where human reedom resides: in the
Western, dualistic tradition, the body is oten likened to a material
prison, subjected to the laws o nature, whereas the mind is ree rom
such laws and able to control itsel.
In the Judeo-Christian tradition, ree will is granted by God and is,
essentially, what dierentiates human beings rom animals. In the Platonic
tradition, reedom belongs to the immaterial and ideal world o orms
and is present in human beings souls. In the Cartesian tradition, reedom
comes with the mind and its ability to think. In all cases, reedom orms an
integral part o what distinguishes human beings rom animals, and what
makes them superior to the rest o nature. That is why the distinction
between animals and humans is so important: closing the gap between
animals and humans is compromising, and perhaps even negating, the
possibility o human reedom.
Darwin
Closing the gap between animals and humans is exactly what Darwin
did, which explains why his ideas were and still are, in some instances
met with such ferce resistance.
Darwin knew that his ideas about animal evolution would be controversial,
i only because they went directly against a literal reading o the Genesis
Creation story: while Genesis claims that animals were created in
two days and that God was pleased with his work, evolution requires
millions o years o trial and error beore getting to the animals we see
around us today.
The controversy regarding animals, however, was nothing in comparison
to what Darwin would ace when applying his theory to human beings.
That is probably why he chose to avoid the subject o human evolution
altogether when he frst outlined his theory in On the Origin of Species
(1 859) . The only sentence he included about human beings was: Light
will be thrown on the origin o man and his history. 11 That small
sentence already set critics ablaze!
11 Darwin, On the Origin ofSpecies; available at http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/
frameset?itemID=F373&viewtype=text&pageseq=1 (accessed 21 October 2014) .
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6 BEING HUMAN
Philosophical terms and theories
Darwins theory of evolution More individuals are born than can possibly
survive, which creates a competition or survival
Darwin was a 1 9th-century British naturalist that will see the ttest, best-adapted individuals
who was made amous by his revolutionary survive. As the individuals with the advantageous
theory o evolution. Ater discovering that certain traits thrive, they reproduce with each other
animal species seemed to have adapted to their and pass down their traits (large lungs, padded
surroundings by developing traits that helped hooves, etc.) to their ospring. Through this
them survive in a particular environment, Darwin process, undesirable traits are gradually eliminated
came up with a new hypothesis. According to (smaller lungs, hard hooves, etc.) , while more
Darwin, there are natural, random variations advantageous ones are kept. Although the traits
within species (i.e. imagine that some early are passed down through genes, it is important to
antelopes were aster than others thanks to remember that Darwin had no idea about genes,
specic physical traits like large lungs and as they were not discovered until later and genetic
padded hooves) . Some o these variations are an explanations were only merged with evolutionary
advantage, because they help individuals survive explanations at the beginning o the 2 0th century.
and reproduce in a particular environment
(i.e. aster antelopes can escape predators more Though the end result may give the impression
eciently) . Through a process Darwin called that animals and indeed, human beings have
natural selection, the individuals with the most been designed to t in their environment perectly,
advantageous traits survive and reproduce, while evolution really needs no designer: the process
others die or ail to reproduce: this is also known is random and indiscriminate. What we observe
as the survival o the ttest (the ttest antelopes now is the result o millions o years o evolution,
are the astest ones, and they survive better than which involved the death and disappearance o
the slower ones that are caught by predators) . countless individuals and species.
It took Darwin over a decade to write about the logical extension o FIND OUT MORE
his theory to human beings in The Descent of Man ( 1 8 7 0 ) , a book that
caused much scandal at the time. Some o Darwins most ervent For an in-depth
supporters suddenly deserted him, unable to accept what Darwin analysis o some
was saying: human beings are animals. They share a common o the implications
ancestry with all other animals and are nothing more than animals o Darwinism or
themselves. They might be a very well-evolved species, but they philosophy, watch the
remain animals. ollowing video:
One o the implications is that human beings are, to an extent, http ://www.op en.edu/
determined by nature: they are part o the larger process o evolution openlearn/history-
and a result o that process. It means that human beings have developed in-the-arts/culture/
traits and characteristics that helped them survive and that have been philosophy/darwin-
passed down rom generation to generation. All human beings are and-philosophy
thereore born with certain traits that infuence their behaviour and are
out o their control. It is in that sense that they are determined.
Darwinism has redened what being human means, grounding human
beings more rmly in nature and amongst other animals. Being human
is no longer being detached rom nature and being able to transcend it:
instead, nature becomes a possible explanation or much o what we are
and what we do. Some o the actions that make us eel and think we are
ree could in act be the result o natural tendencies that have been ne-
tuned over generations.
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FREEDOM
Case study: evolutionary psychology and
the science of attraction
Evolutionary psychology is a branch o psychology that can provide
plenty o examples o human behaviour that has evolved through the
process o natural selection and passed down rom our ancestors. A lot o
psychologists, or instance, are interested in the way we are attracted to
the opposite sex and the evolutionary actors that can infuence our choice
o a mate. Although we eel like we are making a conscious choice when
we select a boyriend or girlriend, this might not be the case ater all.
In a 201 1 article, Anthony C. Little et al. reviewed current research on
the acial traits that we tend to nd attractive or evolutionary reasons.
Theoretically, they write, preerences guide us to choose mates who
will provide the best chance o our genes surviving.12 Some acial
characteristics may give us clues about the genetic quality and health
o potential mates, and we may have evolved to pick those clues up in
order to make the best decision. For these reasons, some acial eatures
can seem particularly attractive. Some studies, or instance, suggest that
acial symmetry is attractive because it could be an indicator o genetic
strength. Other studies ocus on averageness as an indicator o genetic
diversity, which is more attractive to us than the more extreme acial
eatures that tend to characterize less genetically varied individuals.
While there are more acial traits that we nd attractive, most seem to
suggest that the tastes and preerences that we think make us so unique
are in act genetically inherited to help us make the choices that will
keep our ospring strong and competitive.
FIND OUT MORE
To read the ull article and explore other acial eatures that are
supposed to be attractive or evolutionary reasons, visit
http ://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p mc/articles/PMC 3 1 3 03 83 /
Another good example is the research that Andrew J. Elliot and Daniela
Niesta conducted in 2008, concluding that men naturally tend to nd
women who wear red more attractive! The discussion surrounding their
research was again strongly linked to evolutionary psychology and,
thereore, to the idea that we are at least partly determined by nature
(in the sense that nature and evolution have shaped our behaviour
beyond what we are conscious and aware o) :
For human emales, ovulation is not advertised behavioral markers o reproductive status.
in a conspicuous manner, but researchers As with other emale primates, womens
are beginning to document the presence estrogenprogesterone ratio is elevated
o subtle physiological, psychological, and near ovulation, which enhances blood fow.
12 Anthony C. Little, Benedict C. Jones, and Lisa M. DeBruine, Facial Attractiveness: Evolutionary Based Research,
Philosophical Transactions ofthe Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 366, No. 1571 (12 June 2012) : 1640;
available at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3130383/ (accessed 28 October 2014) .
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6 BEING HUMAN
In addition, womens general skin tone lightens posit that the societal use o red is not random,
mid-cycle, and women near ovulation tend to but actually derives rom the biologically based
wear clothing that leaves more skin visible) . predisposition to perceive red as a sexual
Furthermore, women at mid-cycle report more signal. For example, the aorementioned use o
sexual interest and are more easily sexually red lipstick and rouge may represent, at least
aroused, meaning the red blush o firtation in some instances, an attempt to mimic the
and the red fush o sexual excitation are more vascularization present during ovulation and
prevalent at this time. As such, it is likely that sexual excitation. Likewise, red may be used
women, like other emale primates, display in red-light districts because it is the color that
red more oten and more prominently when appears on the aroused emale body. As these
nearing ovulation. We also think it reasonable examples illustrate, the societal use o red can
to posit that men, like their more primitive male be seen as not only reinorcing the inherent
relatives, are predisposed to interpret a display o meaning o red, but also as extending the
red by a emale conspecic as a sexual signal and application o this meaning beyond the tether o
to respond accordingly. natural bodily processes. Thus, we posit that or
men, red not only carries sexual meaning when
In sum, red is clearly linked to sex in the context displayed on a womans body via vascularization,
o heterosexual interaction, and this link is but also when displayed articially on a womans
viewed as emerging rom both societal use o body with cosmetics and when exhibited on her
red and a biologically engrained predisposition clothing, accessories, or even in close proximity
to red. These two sources may contribute to to her person.13
the redsex link in joint ashion. That is, we
The reasons we have to choose a partner may seem ree and personal
to us, but research like that mentioned above suggests otherwise.
The suggestion is that our biology determines our choices to a large
extent, without our being aware o the infuences that are at play.
Philosophically, this is highly signicant as it directly challenges the idea
that we are entirely ree to make our own choices.
Questions
1. Do you think the choice o a partner is as determined by nature
as is claimed by evolutionary psychology? What role do you think
nurture plays in such a choice?
2. Do you think evolutionary explanations o behaviour leave room
or human reedom? In other words, is it possible to take a sot
determinist approach and believe in both ree will and evolutionary
infuences?
Biological determinism in individuals
One o the eatures o evolutionary explanations is that they tend
to ocus on the human race as a species, and thereore as a whole.
Evolutionary traits we have inherited are human traits that we
13 Andrew J. Elliot and Daniela Niesta, Romantic Red: Red Enhances Mens Attraction to Women, Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology 95, No. 5 (2008) : 1151.
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share, despite some variations, and they can help us understand
human nature.
This brings a new question: i human beings share evolutionary traits
that unite them as a species, why are individuals still so dierent rom
one another? Even when people come rom the same area, and are
thereore the product o the same survival needs, they still seem to have
a unique personality.
We sometimes assume that individuality is the mark o human reedom;
that, despite being rom the same species, we still have the reedom
to behave like individuals, make our own choices, and build our
own personality. It is an attractive explanation! However, biological
determinists have their own, simple explanation: we are biologically
and genetically unique, which gives us individuality. In the same way
that our genes give us a unique physical appearance, they also give us
an individual personality, and that personality may well be entirely
determined by biology. In other words, individuality is not necessarily
a sign o reedom.
This kind o biological determinism is
philosophically signicant, because it suggests
that we do not build our personality out o ree
choice but that many o our traits are actually
predetermined. This does not necessarily mean that
we are entirely pre-programmed to act in a certain,
ully predictable way, but that we have tendencies
to act in a certain way. The philosophical problem
here is to determine the extent to which these
tendencies affect our free will. The greater
infuence they have, the less reedom we possess.
In recent years, many research studies have been
conducted to look or a direct link between one
biological actor and a certain type o behaviour or
personality trait. Scientists have made claims about
the biological roots o everything rom addiction,
homosexuality, and intelligence, to impulsive
behaviour, attention disorders, and depression.
Criminal behaviour is an area o research that has
been o particular interest to scientists, and has
captured the mind o the public.
Case study: criminal behaviour
Stimulus 3
Composite portraits showing eatures common
among men convicted o crimes o violence,
by Francis Galton, with original photographs.14
14 See DNA Learning Centre, Criminals Common Features, F. Galton, available at http://www.dnalc.org/
view/15781-Criminals-common-features-F-Galton.html (28 October 2014) .
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6 BEING HUMAN
In the late 1 9th century, Francis Galton ( 1 82 2 1 91 1 ) who was,
incidentally, D arwins cousin invented a new technique allowing
the layering and combination o dierent photographs. He used his
technique to combine portraits o criminals, hoping he could help
identiy acial eatures o the typical criminal.
Physiognomy, the discipline that establishes links between peoples
appearance and their personality, was popular at the time, and many
researchers tried to fnd scientifc roots or it. The belie that criminals
were born with certain acial eatures that could help identiy them was
widespread, suggesting that some people were natural born criminals.
Physiognomy strongly supported biological determinism, since it was
based on the idea that character and physical traits were innate as well
as ultimately linked.
As no one managed to identiy eatures that could predict criminal activity
or other behaviours accurately, and as theories o human rights and equality
spread in the 20th century, physiognomy was gradually abandoned.
Today, however, there is a resurgence o scientifc theories linking
biological actors to criminal behaviour:
In 1 989, Markku Linnoila established a link between low levels o
serotonin (one o the chemicals responsible or passing messages
between neurons in the brain) and impulsive behaviour. Linnoila
studied over 1 ,000 arsonists in the mental institutions and prisons o
New York. He ound that those who had committed crimes impulsively,
acting beore they could think, had low levels o serotonin. On the
other hand, criminals who had planned their actions and had reasons
to turn to crime, such as the need or money, had normal levels o
serotonin. Serotonin helps people control their impulses, and those
with low serotonin can literally be out o control. In 2000, Dee Higley
made a very similar discovery, but this time on monkeys: those with
low levels o serotonin were more likely to take risks, act impulsively,
and hurt themselves through reckless behaviour and fghts.
In 1 994, Adrian Raine conducted another study on prisoners, this
time comparing the brain scans o 41 murderers with those o
normal citizens. Raine discovered that the scans o murderers
showed much less activity in the prefrontal cortex than the normal
scans. The prerontal cortex, much like serotonin, helps us control
our emotions and impulses. It is responsible or decision-making,
planning, problem-solving and moral reasoning. In later studies, Raine
also established that some murderers not only had less activity in
certain areas o the brain, but even suered rom a reduction in grey
matter: in other words, their brains unctioned dierently, but were
also physically dierent rom normal brains.
In 2 009, fnally, Rose McD ermott ocused on genetics and studied the
MAOA gene, also commonly called the warrior gene. Scientists have
claimed that those who have the low-activity orm o the MAOA gene
and those missing the gene altogether are more likely to be aggressive.
McDermott conducted a study based on participants taking revenge on
strangers or taking their money. Participants were led to believe that
they could give unpleasant spicy sauce to the culprits as punishment
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(though everything was done remotely and the thieves were actually TOK and Optional
imaginary) . McDermott ound that, when they believed a large amount Theme LInk: Ethics
o money had been taken rom them, participants carrying the low-
activity orm o the MAOA gene were more than twice as likely to When reporting on Rose
administer the maximum amount o punishment as those carrying McDermotts study on the
the high-activity orm o the gene. In other words, she established a warrior gene, or instance,
direct link between a certain gene and aggressive behaviour. some journalists simplifed
fndings to point out that
EXERCISE the orm o the gene that
is linked with aggressive
Beore you read the ollowing section, try to list some o the behaviour is not evenly
philosophical and practical implications o the kind o research distributed around the
listed above. world: while only about hal
o Westerners carry the
Some philosophical and practical implications gene in question, as many
as two-thirds o people carry
The philosophical implications o establishing biological oundations or it in areas that have been
criminal behaviour are ar-reaching. S ome o these implications are very plagued by warare.
practical ones and highlight the very real impact philosophy can have
on society. Lawmakers and policymakers can take completely dierent What are some o the ethical
paths depending on their philosophical perspective. implications o research into
genetics and behaviour?
Freedom
First o all, there is the issue o reedom we have been ocusing on.
I an individual is born with key brain areas that are impaired, with
low serotonin, or with the low-activity orm o the MAOA gene, he
or she will have a tendency to behave in an impulsive, perhaps even
aggressive manner. This raises many philosophical questions. For
instance, how dicult is it or such an individual to resist those natural
tendencies? Imagine that a man possesses all three biological actors,
or instance, to what extent will he be able to control his behaviour? In
other words, how much reedom is let over once natural tendencies
are taken into account? Some philosophers and psychologists argue that
people are always, ultimately, able to exercise ree will and choose one
path over another. It may be more dicult or some because o their
biological make-up, but an element o ree choice is always present.
O thers, however, would point out that a strong willpower may also be
the result o a combination o biological elements, making the ability
to resist temptation just as determined as other behaviours. In other
words, the man who resists his aggressive urges may choose to do so
out o his own ree will, or may have a set o genes and brain traits that
counterbalance his aggressive tendencies eciently. The ability to resist
some o our own tendencies may not be the expression o ree will, but
another determined trait. It seems very hard to know exactly where
reedom ends, and whether there is much room let or it or not.
While we can speculate blindly about what really causes behaviour,
many o the gaps in our knowledge are being lled by psychological
and neurobiological research, and this research sometimes seems to be
squeezing reedom out o the equation. The more we know about the
biological actors that infuence human behaviour, the more we may be
tempted to think that reedom only plays a small, or even non-existent,
role in our choices.
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Still, most people are reluctant to let go o the idea o human reedom.
This brings up another set o important questions: why are we so
unwilling to give up human reedom? What are the philosophical and
practical consequences o a hard determinist view?
Ethical and social implications: responsibility and punishment
Here, again, the example o criminal behaviour can help answer those
questions. One o the main problems with hard biological determinism
is that it eliminates the notion o responsibility. Indeed, i people
have no real reedom to act, they cannot be held responsible or their
actions. The man whose brain or genes make him act violently may
be no more to blame than the man who is orced to be violent because
someone has put a gun to his head. This possibility means that we may
need to rethink the reasons why we punish criminals, and the way
we do so. Should criminals who are diagnosed with brain, hormonal,
or genetic abnormalities be punished as severely as i they were in
control o their actions? Should they be treated like patients rather
than criminals? Should punishment be retribution or simply a way or
society to protect itsel? Could treatments be ound to help people with
abnormal biological traits stay away rom crime?
Raine, the British psychologist (mentioned earlier) who discovered
a correlation between certain brain patterns and criminal behaviour,
addressed some o these questions in a webcast flmed at the University
o Pennsylvania. Here is an extract rom the transcript:
One o the challenges that society is acing with balance mercy with j ustice? B ecause, in a way,
new neuroscience knowledge is how we deal i you buy into the argument I gave in court,
with prisoners who have a brain basis to their arent you going to buy into anything? I you do
behaviour One brie example: I deended something wrong, theres a reason why you do
a murderer and rapist who killed and raped something wrong, theres always a cause. Is that
a wonderul young woman in C olorado. We going to excuse your behaviour, my behaviour,
brain-scanned him using the same techniques we everyone elses behaviour? Thats one o the
had used to brain-scan the other 41 murderers issues that were having to ace with now
with, and we showed that he had much poorer
unctioning in the prerontal cortex; that Just one last point: its not a throw away the
emergency brake on behaviour [was] just not key approach. Yes, there is a biological basis
there in that individual. But where do we go with to crime and violence, at least in part, but that
that? This man was ound guilty o frst-degree doesnt mean we throw away the key. There
deliberate murder, but the three- j udge panel who are beginning clues to how we might be able
decide punishment did not execute him, they did to, i you like, repair the brain, partly at least,
not give him the death penalty. They brought in o antisocial violent oenders. For example,
the brain-imaging data and they also brought in one study gave fsh oil to prisoners and, ater
his awul psycho-social history Really, all the fve months, they showed much reduction in
boxes were checked on this individual, he had violent oending within the prison; and there
all the social defcits, the amily defcits, the brain are several other studies o aggressive behaviour
defcits: he was a walking time-bomb waiting in children showing that fsh oil Omega 3 can
to explode. Is it any surprise he goes and kills reduce aggressive behaviour We know O mega 3
and rapes somebody? So he didnt get the worst is critical or brain structure and brain unction
punishment, but is that really just? Where do we Could it be in the uture that there are treatments
288
FREEDOM
or the brain bases to antisocial and violent are they truly responsible or their actions? Do
behaviour that we are currently uncovering? they know, in terms o eelings, the dierence
between right and wrong? How moral is it o us
Thats in the uture. Right now, weve got to to punish them as harshly as we do i they lack
deal with those dicult issues about how do the neural circuitry underlying appropriate moral
we deal, in court, with individuals who have all decision-making?
the biological, genetic and social boxes checked:
Questions FIND OUT MORE
1. Identiy one hard-determinist argument and one sot-determinist Watch the ull webcast on
argument outlined in Adrian Raines speech.
http ://www.
2. What actor, besides biological actors, does Raine identiy to help youtube.com/
explain violent criminal behaviour? w atc h? v= u z G fZ aI6 itg
3. Can you spot one contradiction in Raines speech?
4. Identiy one example that shows that biological determinism can
actually help change peoples behaviour, instead oaccepting it as xed.
A counter-argument: Taylors take on pretending that the questions that interested me
psychology and determinism did not exist, simply took them all or granted,
speaking unabashedly o goals, reedom, the ego,
I then thought I must nd out more about and so on, with hardly the least hint o an attempt
psychology. There was certainly an abundance o to connect these things with what was described
books on this subject, and I thought that i any in the aorementioned books. It seemed that these
people actually know something about human diverse approaches had almost nothing whatever
nature they must surely be ound among the in common except the name o them, that between
authors o those books. I ound, however, that the them there yawned an abyss o human ignorance,
questions that interested me were simply ignored by and that, alas! it was in that vast terra incognita that
these writers, that ever so many interesting things all my philosophical torments lay.15
were said about brains and nerves and glands, all
the names o these being duly given, and about What problems does Taylor, a contemporary
conditioning and refexes and the like, but nothing philosopher, identiy with a strictly psychological
whatever about things so elementary as, say, a approach to human behaviour?
voluntary act o choice. It seemed almost as i there
were a conspiracy in this branch o psychology to TOK link
pretend that such things do not exist; or at least,
not unless they could be twisted to resemble the What does this tell you about the diference between
model o an electrical circuit or exhibited in the psychology and philosophy as areas oknowledge?
perectly comprehensible picture o a stimulus and What questions do they respectively deal with?
a response. Psychological works, on the other hand, In what ways can knowledge be enhanced and
which dealt with practical problems o human impaired by mixing the two disciplines?
motivation, with neurosis and the like, ar rom
15 Taylor, Action and Purpose, p. viii; also available at http://www.inormationphilosopher.com/solutions/
philosophers/taylorr/ (accessed 28 October 2014) . http://www.inormationphilosopher.com/solutions/
philosophers/taylorr/
289
6 BEING HUMAN
Further ethical and philosophical considerations: are some
individuals more determined than others?
As we have seen, whereas Darwinism tends to ocus on the characteristics
o each species, more modern discoveries have highlighted the dierences
that exist between people.
This leads us to an ethical and philosophical consideration raised by
research into biology and criminal behaviour. This type o research
tends to ocus on abnormal behaviour, providing explanations or
it. Although normal subjects are used or comparison and control
purposes, their normal behaviour rarely seems to be explained,
because it is seen as not requiring an explanation. Philosophically,
this is signifcant because it can give the impression that abnormal
behaviour is more biologically determined than normal behaviour.
While criminals are viewed as individuals who cannot escape their
biology and are compelled to act by actors such as low serotonin or
brain abnormalities, non-criminals are not described as being compelled
by anything. I this is the case and non-criminals really are reer than
criminals, because they are not subjected to the same tyranny o a
deective biological make-up, what could be the consequences or the
human race? We live in an era where equality between human beings
a relatively recent notion is taken or granted in many countries.
People may be unequal in practice, or many reasons, but we like to
think that they are equal in theory: they are o equal worth, because
they are all human beings. Being human is the only condition and it
grants everyone equality.
O nce we start unpacking what a human being actually is, however, this
becomes problematic. Do we grant equality and worth to all individuals
simply because they are o the same biological species? Or do we grant
them equality and worth because they are persons? I personhood is the
criterion, rather than simple biological humanity, what are the elements
that make someone a person? Free will and agency are usually
considered important parts o personhood. Does this mean, then, that
people who are less ree, like biologically determined criminals, have
less personhood, or even humanity, than others? Are they, thereore,
not really as worthy o the equality and value we usually grant other
human beings?
These questions could apply to any o the qualities that orm part o
personhood and humanity, and lead us to another, bigger question:
should all human beings be considered equal, regardless o the extent
to which they possess the qualities that defne humanity? Perhaps
an inclusive answer could think o all human beings and persons as
potentially ree, rational, moral, and so on. Individuals may only possess
some o those qualities, and no human will possess them all to their
higher degree: imperection and incompleteness are defnitely very
human traits! In that sense, people who have less control over their own
behaviour can be seen as possessing the same degree o personhood and
humanity as the most ree individuals o all.
There is another way to approach this, though perhaps not quite as
attractive to most people: rather than seeing criminals as less ree
than non-criminals, it may make more sense to see all individuals as
290
FREEDOM
biologically determined in dierent ways. Just as some criminals are
naturally destined to be impulsive and violent, non-criminals are simply
biologically determined to have a calmer, more rational approach. This
does not mean they are ree. High serotonin or a well-unctioning
prerontal cortex may give the illusion that some individuals make ree
choices ater considering all options, but hard biological determinists
would simply say that they are just as determined as those out o
control criminals: determined to take the more sensible and peaceul
route and perhaps, even, determined to eel ree.
ACTIVITY
Getting back to the nature versus nurture debate
One major problem with biologically deterministic approaches is that
they tend to be reductionist: they ocus on one type o explanation
(biology) and ignore other possible actors.
In the case o criminal behaviour, or instance, nurture
(sociocultural actors) is also crucially important.
Later in this chapter, we will study some o the social actors that
tend to lead to criminal behaviour. In the meantime, draw up your
own list o actors that are not biological but that could lead to
criminal behaviour.
Focus topic 2: social determinism
Social determinism is the theory according to which peoples choices
and behaviours are strongly infuenced by their social and cultural
environment. Social infuences include amily values, the education
we receive at home and at school, the area we live in, the religious and
cultural groups we belong to, our riendship groups, the media, and so
on. In the past, social determinism was very much based on geography
and social status: the main infuences in peoples lives were the values
present in the area they lived in and the local social circles they belonged
to. Today, however, the internet and the globalization o the media mean
that a much wider range o social actors and values, including those we
come into virtual contact with, can also infuence us.
According to social determinists, the sociocultural web o infuences is
a particularly inescapable one, because it is everywhere around us and
seems normal to us. We tend to adopt values and behaviours rom
the society that surrounds us without being aware o it, all the while
convinced that we are reely choosing one set o values over another.
Could it be that our most intimate belies and convictions are simply
the product o the environment we live in? How much reedom do we
exercise when we choose the values that orm our personality and
dictate our behaviour?
In this section, you will explore the philosophies o Rousseau and Marx,
the nature versus nurture debate, as well as contemporary examples
such as the social construction o gender.
291
6 BEING HUMAN
EXERCISE
1. Make a spider diagram o all the social and cultural actors that
may infuence you. Thinking about all the dierent groups you
belong to may be a good start.
2 . To what extent do you think these infuences dene you as a
person?
Stimulus 4: extract from The Great a nice girl meaning a girl who was born
Gatsby (1925) in the upper social classes. Gatsby and Daisys
personalities are intimately linked to their social
In this extract, Gatsby, a millionaire who was status, a status rom which they never manage
born poor, tells the narrator how he met D aisy, to ree themselves.
She was the rst nice girl he had ever known. care o her. As a matter o act he had no
In various unrevealed capacities he had come such acilitieshe had no comortable amily
in contact with such people but always with standing behind him and he was liable at the
indiscernible barbed wire between. He ound whim o an impersonal government to be
her excitingly desirable. He went to her house, blown anywhere about the world.
at rst with other ocers rom C amp Taylor,
then alone. It amazed himhe had never been But he didnt despise himsel and it didnt turn
in such a beautiul house beore. But what gave out as he had imagined. He had intended,
it an air o breathless intensity was that Daisy probably, to take what he could and gobut
lived thereit was as casual a thing to her as now he ound that he had committed himsel
his tent out at camp was to him to the ollowing o a grail. He knew that Daisy
was extraordinary but he didnt realize just
But he knew that he was in Daisys house by how extraordinary a nice girl could be. She
a colossal accident. However glorious might vanished into her rich house, into her rich, ull
be his uture as Jay Gatsby, he was at present lie, leaving Gatsbynothing.
a penniless young man without a past, and at He elt married to her, that was all.
any moment the invisible cloak o his uniorm
might slip rom his shoulders. So he made the When they met again two days later it was
most o his time. He took what he could get, Gatsby who was breathless, who was somehow
ravenously and unscrupulouslyeventually betrayed. Her porch was bright with the bought
he took Daisy one still October night, took her luxury o star-shine; the wicker o the settee
because he had no real right to touch her hand. squeaked ashionably as she turned toward
him and he kissed her curious and lovely
He might have despised himsel, or he had mouth. She had caught a cold and it made her
certainly taken her under alse pretenses. I voice huskier and more charming than ever
dont mean that he had traded on his phantom and Gatsby was overwhelmingly aware o the
millions, but he had deliberately given Daisy youth and mystery that wealth imprisons and
a sense o security; he let her believe that he preserves, o the reshness o many clothes and
was a person rom much the same stratum o D aisy, gleaming like silver, sae and proud
as herselthat he was ully able to take above the hot struggles o the poor 16
16 F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (New York: Charles Scribners, 1925) , Chapter 8; reproduced here from
http://texts.crossref-it.info/text/the-great-gatsby/chapter-8 (accessed 28 October 2014) .
292
FREEDOM
Assessment tip
Your internal assessment requires you to write a philosophical analysis
o a non-philosophical stimulus. Similarly, the core theme examination
involves a stimulus, either philosophical or non-philosophical, that needs
to give rise to a philosophical refection and discussion.
Use non-philosophical material you encounter around you, such as The
Great Gatsby extract above, to practise thinking philosophically about
non-philosophical material. Cartoons, articles, adverts, photographs,
material studied in other classes, and even simple objects can all be used
as triggers to great philosophical thinking!
Society and the individual
Although The Great Gatsby is set in an environment where social standing
was perhaps particularly important, social determinists believe that
individuals are always the product o the environment they live in,
whatever that environment might be. Even in a society where people
are seemingly ree to progress socially, express their individuality, and
make unpopular choices without being in danger, social infuences still
shape who we are and what we believe in. Social determinists do not
believe that we can simply contemplate a range o available opinions
and pick the ones that suit us best: a multitude o pervasive and invisible
pressures will eventually lead us towards a certain option, leaving very
little room i any or real ree will.
Not all social determinists are hard determinists, however. In act,
it seems that social determinism oers a certain amount o hope that
is much harder to contemplate when we view the world through
the lens o biological determinism: while it may seem very dicult
to change biological actors such as our genetic make- up, society,
at least, can be changed. I society determines who we are, the
transormation o society inevitably leads to the transormation
o individuals.
That is why, traditionally, many social determinists are also social
reormists or even revolutionaries. A corrupt society, they argue,
corrupts people, and the improvement o society would directly benet
people. For these philosophers, the rst step is oten consciousness-
raising: i we become aware o the social infuences that shape us, we
can start reeing ourselves rom them and moving towards a model
that is more suitable. Although society shapes individuals, educated
individuals can at least choose the society that shapes them, thereore
exercising a certain degree o reedom.
Some thinkers, like Rousseau or Marx, criticize society as it currently
exists and suggest new models that they claim would ree human beings
rom such negative social infuences. I human beings are a refection
o the society they live in, then a better society will mean better human
beings, which is why social determinism oten calls or political refection
and action.
293
6 BEING HUMAN
Rousseau
Rousseau was a social contract theorist. Like philosophers such as
Hobbes and Locke, Rousseau used the idea o a state o nature
to explain what human beings would be like without society, and
developed the notion o a social contract that people enter into
voluntarily in order to orm society.
Rousseau depicted human beings in the state o nature as utterly
ree, peaceul, and dignifed. Whereas Hobbes believed that the state
o nature was a state o war o man against every man, Rousseau
wrote that War, then, is a relation, not between man and man,
but between State and State, and individuals are enemies only
accidentally, not as men, nor even as citizens, but as soldiers [. . . ] . 17
In other words, human beings are naturally peaceul until they enter
society through the social contract.
S ociety, because it is not the right type o society and gives the wrong
kind o education, perverts human beings and changes them or
the worse. It is in that sense that Rousseau can be linked to social
determinism: human beings lose part o their reedom once they
become part o society, and society alienates human beings. They start
adopting values that go against their nature and they become corrupt.
When Rousseau says that Man was born ree, and everywhere he is in
chains,18 the chains he reers to are society itsel. Man alienates himsel
through the social contract and the only thing that can make him ree
and dignifed again is a new type o society and education that Rousseau
seeks to construct.
Rousseaus philosophy is a good example o the relative optimism
that sometimes comes with social determinism, while it oten eludes
biological determinism. S ocial determinism, as mentioned earlier,
seems a little easier to ree onesel rom. Society is a human construct
ater all, something we have a little more control over than our
b i o l o g y.
According to Rousseau, the solution to the current situation is
or individuals to rethink education and social values, to act as
morally as possible, to cultivate reason, and to respect and love each
other. More importantly, society needs to be transormed until it is
based on a social contract: existing societies are not based on a real
social contract, which is the cause o their corruption. In a proper
social contract, the power is in the hands o the citizens rather
than the government. Each citizen works or the general will and
submits to it.
Rousseaus call or a deep reorm o society inspired revolutionaries, who
used a rather radical reading o his ideas to uel theirs, notably during
the French Revolution o 1 789.
17 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract, Or Principles ofPolitical Right (France, 1762) , Book I,
Chapter 4; available at http://www.constitution.org/jjr/socon_01.htm (accessed 28 October 2014) .
18 Ibid., Book I, Chapter 1.
294
FREEDOM
Biography: Jean-Jacques Rousseau Rousseau was an opinionated
(17121778) man who ofended a number
o important people in
Eighteenth-century philosopher, writer, and composer his lietime, including
Rousseau was born in Geneva and spent most ohis members o his own
lie living in France and Switzerland. Although well- amily and ormer riends
educated, Rousseau was poor or most o his youth. like Diderot. The provocative
Ater he moved to Paris, Rousseau beriended French religious ideas he proposed in
philosopher Diderot and contributed many articles Emile (1762) triggered a massive backlash against
to his great Encyclopaedia. In 1750, Rousseau won him in France and Geneva, where his books were
an essay competition with his Discourse on the Arts banned. Rousseau had to take reuge in a saer part
and Sciences, where he rst developed the argument o Switzerland, and then in Great Britain, helped by
he would elaborate on or the rest o his lie: society ellow-philosopher Hume.
and civilization have corrupted human beings. He
continued with this theme in urther essays such as his Rousseau nally made it back to Paris, in a ragile
amous Discourse on the Origins ofInequality (1755) mental state, and had to live in relative secrecy,
and the even more amous Social Contract (1762). unable to publish new books. His Confessions, or
instance, was only published ater his death.
Civilised man is always moving, sweating, is, that the savage lives within himsel, while
toiling and racking his brains to fnd still more social man lives constantly outside himsel, and
laborious occupations: he goes on in drudgery only knows how to live in the opinion o others,
to his last moment, and even seeks death to put so that he seems to receive the consciousness o
himsel in a position to live, or renounces lie to his own existence merely rom the judgment o
acquire immortality. He pays his court to men others concerning him. It is not to my present
in power, whom he hates, and to the wealthy, purpose to insist on the indierence to good and
whom he despises; he stops at nothing to have evil which arises rom this disposition, in spite o
the honour o serving them; he is not ashamed our many fne works on morality, or to show how,
to value himsel on his own meanness and their everything being reduced to appearances, there is
protection; and, proud o his slavery, he speaks but art and mummery in even honour, riendship,
with disdain o those, who have not the honour virtue, and oten vice itsel, o which we at length
o sharing it. What a sight would the perplexing learn the secret o boasting; to show, in short,
and envied labours o a European minister o State how, always asking others what we are, and never
present to the eyes o a Caribbean! How many daring to ask ourselves, in the midst o so much
cruel deaths would not this indolent savage preer philosophy, humanity and civilisation, and o such
to the horrors o such a lie, which is seldom even sublime codes o morality, we have nothing to
sweetened by the pleasure o doing good! But, or show or ourselves but a rivolous and deceitul
him to see into the motives o all this solicitude, appearance, honour without virtue, reason
the words power and reputation, would have to without wisdom, and pleasure without happiness.
bear some meaning in his mind; he would have It is sufcient that I have proved that this is not
to know that there are men who set a value on by any means the original state o man, but that
the opinion o the rest o the world; who can be it is merely the spirit o society, and the inequality
made happy and satisfed with themselves rather which society produces, that thus transorm and
on the testimony o other people than on their alter all our natural inclinations
own. In reality, the source o all these dierences
Jean-Jacques Rousseau19
19 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin and Basis ofInequality Among Men [Second Discourse]
(France, 1755) , Part 2; available at http://www.constitution.org/jjr/ineq_04.htm (accessed 28 October 2014) .
295
6 BEING HUMAN
That men are actually wicked, a sad and continual men are orced to caress and destroy one another
experience o them proves beyond doubt: but, at the same time; when they are born enemies
all the same, I think I have shown that man is by duty, and knaves by interest. It will perhaps
naturally good. What then can have depraved be said that society is so ormed that every man
him to such an extent, except the changes gains by serving the rest. That would be all very
that have happened in his constitution, the well, i he did not gain still more by injuring
advances he has made, and the knowledge he them. There is no legitimate prot so great, that it
has acquired? We may admire human society as cannot be greatly exceeded by what may be made
much as we please; it will be none the less true illegitimately; we always gain more by hurting our
that it necessarily leads men to hate each other neighbours than by doing them good. Nothing is
in proportion as their interests clash, and to do required but to know how to act with impunity;
one another apparent services, while they are and to this end the powerul employ all their
really doing every imaginable mischie. What can strength, and the weak all their cunning
be thought o a relation, in which the interest o
every individual dictates rules directly opposite to What, then, is to be done? Must societies be totally
those the public reason dictates to the community abolished? [Men like me] will respect the sacred
in general in which every man nds his prot bonds o their respective communities; they will
in the misortunes o his neighbour? There is not love their ellow-citizens, and serve them with
perhaps any man in a comortable position who all their might: they will scrupulously obey the
has not greedy heirs, and perhaps even children, laws, and all those who make or administer them;
secretly wishing or his death; not a ship at sea, they will particularly honour those wise and good
o which the loss would not be good news to princes, who nd means o preventing, curing or
some merchant or other; not a house, which even palliating all these evils and abuses, by which
some debtor o bad aith would not be glad to see we are constantly threatened; they will animate
reduced to ashes with all the papers it contains; the zeal o their deserving rulers, by showing them,
not a nation which does not rejoice at the disasters without fattery or ear, the importance o their
that beall its neighbours. Thus it is that we nd oce and the severity o their duty. B ut they will
our advantage in the misortunes o our ellow- not thereore have less contempt or a constitution
creatures, and that the loss o one man almost that cannot support itsel without the aid o so
always constitutes the prosperity o another many splendid characters, much otener wished or
Let us penetrate, thereore, the supercial than ound; and rom which, notwithstanding all
appearances o benevolence, and survey what their pains and solicitude, there always arise more
passes in the inmost recesses o the heart. Let us real calamities than even apparent advantages.
refect what must be the state o things, when
Jean Jacques Rousseau20
Questions
1. What are the characteristics o existing civilized societies Rousseau
describes? How do these characteristics infuence civilized man?
2. Do you think Rousseaus analysis o society is still valid today? Find
concrete examples to support your answer.
3. In what ways can Rousseau be called a social determinist?
4. What elements o Rousseaus philosophy indicate that he is only a
sot determinist?
20 Ibid., Appendix; available at http://www.constitution.org/jjr/ineq_05.htm (accessed 28 October 2014) .
296
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