Mike Mertsock

• February 2005
• Techonology and ethics

A critical perspective of the various definitions of human nature is important because they are used to construct systems of morality and justify various religious, political, and social structures. Many philosophies before the twentieth century shared a common approach to defining human nature: focusing on an invariable characteristic of humans. I support an alternative approach, that humans cannot be defined by such characteristics. Instead, we — as individuals and as a whole — can and perhaps must change. By examining the limitations of the common approach and motivation of past philosophies, we will see how the alternative approach could solve some of those problems.

Philosophies and religions of the past sought a definition of human nature as a basis and justification for moral and political frameworks. The common logic is that if there is a constant, universal characteristic shared by humans, then we can define what is human and what is not, interpret our behavior in terms of this universal characteristic, and derive systems of morality and human value. Judeo-Christian religions define human nature through their creation story and then create rigid moral frameworks based on the disparity between human nature and the ideal human. Similarly, philosophers such as Kant choose a defining, required characteristic of humanity and then discuss an ethical framework based on either avoiding the negative aspects of human nature or promoting its positive aspects. Such definitions of human nature, and the moral frameworks based on them, are used to justify religious conflicts, colonial treatment of natives, racism, and patriarchy. The ability to justify and enforce such actions through a rigid definition of human nature seems problematic, so we should examine what all of these definitions have in common and whether there is an alternative approach to discussing human nature.

Judaism and Christianity are based on dualisms that dominated centuries of Western thought. God, the source of all of creation, creates humans “in his own image” [1] and provides their spirit. God is also the source of all moral knowledge [2] and the final judge of humanity. Humans need to seek salvation, given from God, because of the weakness of the body. Our departure from perfection due to the Fall of humanity becomes the inescapable characteristic of “mere human nature” [3] — original sin — used by Paul to demonstrate the need to give oneself to Christianity in order to free the self from the weakness of the body. According to Christianity, original sin is the fundamental component of human nature. The failure of the body and the triumph of the spirit make physical suffering unimportant and justify the power of the church. Science commonly meets opposition from the Catholic Church because worldly knowledge in the hands of a human, who is by nature sinful, cannot lead to good.

Many philosophers from ancient times through the Enlightenment named rationality as the defining characteristic of humanity, often discussing a duality of body and mind. For example, Plato, among others, speaks of the need for bodily desire to be regulated by the intellectual passion and rational intellect [4]. Individual morality is tied to the proper discipline and separation of roles among these parts of the person. Plato calls for a similar class structure in society, with the most knowledgeable generally in a ruling position. The moral task of each person is to do “one of the jobs relevant to the community, the one for which his nature has best equipped him” [5].

Kant also treated the rational faculty of human beings as the seat of our humanity, describing technical, pragmatic, and moral predispositions we have that separate us from animals [6]. Morality again depends on logical principles removed from the influence of passions and bodily reality. A problem with Kant’s thinking, shared by many other philosophers focusing on rationality, was the willingness to exclude women and non-whites from full humanity because of a perceived difference in mental capabilities. In hindsight, this is obviously a problem. Who are we excluding because of a perceived difference in “rational” human nature?

La Mettrie, in Man a Machine, argues that we are machines, qualitatively no different than other animals. Our nature is just an improved capability for language and learning that allows us to experience the social and imaginative reality we call the human experience. Just as our bodies are subject to thought, our minds are subject to the physical condition of the body and environment. Many philosophers of his time saw no objection in causing harm to animals because they devalued them as merely unfeeling machines. By treating us also as machines, La Mettrie makes it easier for us to train ourselves to think of others as merely bodies and have no special attachment to their well-being. One can see this thinking in the ignorance of slave owners and in the class struggles of the industrial revolution.

By defining an intrinsic characteristic universal across time and space to all humans, these philosophies subject the lives and potential of individuals to invented dispositions and constraints. Christianity subjects us to an immoral disposition, requiring a suppression of both physical desire and suffering, and requiring devotion to externally dictated laws and ritual. Kant, Plato, and others restrict our human nature mainly to the intellect, allowing the exclusion from moral consideration and thus loss of dignity of those who do not fit the fashionable definition of “rational”. The rationality argument is also used to stigmatize those who transgress social mores because the “irrational” behavior subverts rationalist morality. All of these approaches to human nature trap the individual within the constraints and deficiencies of that rigid definition of humanity, to which the individual cannot really contribute any improvement.

To escape these problems, modern philosophies, starting especially with post-structuralism, attempt to look at our humanity in terms of the absence of universality. Barthes critiques the notion of any meaningful universality in experiences such as birth and death. The historical and cultural context, which always vary across time and space, are what’s important, and that the only thing universal about these experiences are the “tautological” [7], animal physicality of them.

Anything that a philosopher could define as the intrinsic quality of human nature is subject to historical interpretation. The philosopher making the definition qualifies the definition in his or her own historical and cultural upbringing (e.g. Kant excluding women from his arguments because they are not “rational”). Future societies will reinterpret the philosophy as they see it in the context of history (e.g. we criticize Kant’s rejection of women, but still tend to use rationality to exclude those who fall outside of modern norms). In Foucault’s terms, we construct discourses such as definitions of human nature, and then subject our identities and behavior to them.

In discussing the nature of humanity, we should focus on what human nature is not, rather than defining what it is. It is not about defining humans as possessing a certain trait or disposition, subjecting others to interpretation and thus limitation through this definition, and excluding others from full consideration because they don’t fit our defining characteristic. Humanity instead is about individuals that always have the potential to create a new definition of self. These new conceptions are influenced by historical context but never totally confined to it; human identities consist of components of the past but have the potential to create new ideas for the future.

Our humanity is not a singular, universal nature, but a dynamic plurality. Philosophies of the past were mistaken to construct moral frameworks based on a fixed human nature. These frameworks have always caused problems as they are subject to the limited perceptions of the historical context in which they are conceived and bind society to the constraints of a rigid morality with a limited capacity for individual diversion. To remove these constraints is to allow individuals to define their own humanity on their own terms and thus truly contribute one’s own expression and conception of self to the whole of humanity. [8]