Running Head: Human Nature

Human Nature
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Human Nature
What is the nature of man? And how can we come to understand it? These two questions are vital not only to any complete philosophy, but also to some of the most basic problems that the human mind confronts. What is the true reason for our existence? Where did we come from? Why are we here? And where are we going? Is there a discoverable nature of man as a person with rights and dignity, which can serve as a foundation for our cherished democratic concepts? What is the basis of law? Of human responsibility? of human rights? Is the notion of freedom compatible with the laws of nature? Does man have a nature which includes the spiritual, and how can this be known? In what does man's ultimate happiness consist? Questions of what man should and can be based only on what man is.
It should be obvious that the philosophy of human nature is not just applied metaphysics. The philosopher does not take some preconceived metaphysical principles and from them deduce conclusions about the nature of man. Rather, he begins with the facts of man's experience and behavior, and from these he discovers what kind of a being man is. Since man is a being, it is clear that many of the conclusions will be intelligible in terms of metaphysical principles of being, such as potency and act, essence and existence, substance and accident, and so forth. These concepts are obviously analogous, not univocal. Neither can the philosopher begin with blind assumptions; however, he may legitimately accept as true some things which have been established elsewhere, e.g., in logic or metaphysics, just as the professor of biochemistry may assume the facts of general chemistry and anatomy.
Three decades ago, we used to recognize Marx and Freud together, and then wonder, like the chameleon on the turkey carpet, why life was so confusing. Every age has its pet contradictions. Today there is similar trouble over the question whether or not there is, something called Human Nature. There has even been an explosion of animal behavior studies, and comparisons between animals and men have become immensely popular. People use evidence from animals to decide whether man is naturally aggressive, or naturally territorial; even whether he has an aggressive or territorial instinct. Moreover, we are still much influenced by Freudian psychology, which depends on the notion of instinct. If man has no instincts, all comparison with animals must be irrelevant. On the other hand, many sociologists and psychologists still hold what may be called the Blank Paper view, that man is a creature entirely without instincts. So do Existentialist philosophers.
Man is too complex to study all at once, so it seems logical to take him part by part. This is the method used in such approaches to the study of man as psychophysics, structuralism, behaviorism, operationism, and in most testing. Painstaking work in these fields has contributed much to our knowledge of human activity, through the measurement of individual responses.
Philosophers have not yet made much use of informed comparison with other species as a help in the understanding of man. One reason they have not is undoubtedly the fear of fatalism. Another is the appalling way terms such as instinct and human nature have been misused in the past. A third is the absurdity of some ethological propaganda.
Plato, the first Greek who consistently wrote of the gods as good, was also the first active exponent of the Beast Within. Black horses, wolves, lions, hawks, asses, and pigs recur every time he mentions the subject of evil; they provide the only terms in which he can talk about it. This is not an idle stylistic device: there is no such thing in Plato. His serious view is that evil is something alien to the soul; something other, the debasing effect of matter seeping in through the instinctive nature.
Aristotle, was broadly much more predisposed of man's continuity with the physical world than Plato, makes some evenly odd uses of the difference between human and beast. In a lot of his writings he asks what the accurate purpose of man is, in order to see what his contentment consists in. Concluding that the function is the life of motive because that existence only is peculiar to man. I do not disagree for a second with the conclusion but with the disagreement. If idiosyncrasy to man is the point, why should it not be said that the purpose of man is knowledge, or the sexual goings-on or even exceptional ruthlessness to one's own species? In all these respects man seems to be unique. It must be shown separately that this differentia is itself the best human quality, that it is the point where humanity is excellent as well as exceptional. And it is surely possible a priori that the point on which humanity is excellent is one in which it is not wholly unique-that at least some aspect of it might be shared with other beings. Animals are, I think, used in this argument to point up by contrast the value of reason, to give examples of irrational conduct whose badness will seem obvious to us. But unless we start with a particular view about the importance of reason in conduct, we shall not necessarily agree. If we prefer, among humans, an impulsively generous act to a cold-blooded piece of calculation, we shall not be moved from our preference by the thought that the generous act is more like an animal's. Nor ought we to be. The claims of reason must be made good, if at all, within the boundaries of human life itself. They could be strengthened by contrasts with other species only if it were true, as sometimes seems to be suggested, that animals were, in fact, invariably wicked.
When we say that the philosopher argues from operations to nature, this does not imply that he attempts to decide whether a given trait or need is "natural in a sense of being inherited or acquired” (Richards, 2001). This is a problem for the scientific psychologist. The philosopher is content with the fact that man exhibits the trait, that his nature is clearly capable of this activity, whether because he is born with the capability or is the kind of being which can learn or acquire it. Much controversy among psychologists is thus irrelevant to the philosopher if he properly understands the limits of his investigation. This will be clear from the section below on the broad nature of philosophical knowledge.
It is precisely because the scientist in his theory or model goes beyond data that he can never be sure of exact correspondence of his theory with reality, even though the theory provides more than the mere correlations to which the logical positivist limited him. “Hence the value of a sound philosophy of human nature.” (Plato, 1991) While not productive of scientific theory as such, it can aid the scientist in formulating theory and protect him from the sterility which comes from a faulty perspective in the search for both phenomena and interpretation. Paradoxically, science is more dialectical than is philosophy: the more specialized a scientific investigation becomes, the more it involves hypothesis and deduction. The scientist invents intriguing theories and laboriously tries to substantiate them by analogy with ingenious models. The danger, of course, is of "not being able to see the forest for the trees," (Maslow, 1993) of getting lost in a realm of minute details or theoretical constructs.
Every poet, philosopher, and psychologist has described in his own terms the warring factions within man: Plato, St. Paul, Shakespeare, Freud, Sartre. If man had only one operation, it would be clear that he is one being. Or if he only had one kind of operation, he would only be one kind of being. But in view of the complexity of human operation, the unity of man's nature presents a real problem.  But how can we know anything about man as a being? We saw in the previous paragraphs that the nature of a being as such is not directly observable. We must observe its operations and then draw conclusions about its nature. The question now is, does man operate as many beings or as one being?
A disputed question among Scholastic philosophers is whether men differ only in their bodies, each having the same kind of soul, or whether human souls themselves differ from one another. This difference would be accidental, of course, for all are essentially human. “Some maintain that all individual differences are in the matter, every human soul being of the same kind and in itself of the same degree of perfection.” (Stevenson, 1998) This seems to suit a dualistic conception such as that of Plato or Descartes, where soul is a separate entity.  Others, including St. Thomas, hold that because of the intimate union of soul and matter there is a real though accidental difference in souls. A soul is not just any human soul, but the unique form which unites with matter to form John Smith and no other. It corresponds to the perfection of the body, as act is limited by potency. Human nature is thus better understood as the source of the perceptual judgment, the knowledge characteristic of man, wherein the universal principles of being are seen in sensed objects.  

Resources
Richards, Janet. 2001. Human Nature after Darwin: A Philosophical Introduction. Publisher: Routledge.

Plato. 1991. The Republic of Plato. Publisher: Basic Books.

Maslow, Abraham H. 1993. The Farther Reaches of Human Nature. Publisher: Penguin.

Stevenson, Leslie. 1998. Ten Theories of Human Nature. Publisher: Oxford University Press.