Let us now begin our journey for an
understanding of human nature. In many
ways it seems that we are looking for a definition for the term ‘human being’
and when we give a definition for a word – especially when we are talking about
a noun – what we do is list a set of properties that an object should have in
order to be given that name. To use an
old example, a ‘bachelor’ must be (i) unmarried and (ii) a man; if x does not
have one of these properties then it is not a bachelor: a carrot may well be
unmarried but it is not a man and therefore it is not a bachelor; I may be a
man but I am not unmarried and thus I am not a bachelor either. It seems, then, that we are looking for a
particular property or set of properties that all human beings must have, and crucially,
which non-humans will lack (including aliens and robots should any happen to
exist). What could this property or set of properties possibly be? A good way to answer this question would be
to look at the differences between human beings and what is most similar to
them – animals.
It is relatively easy to characterise
human beings in terms of their biology, we are a specific species of hominid
called Homo Sapiens (Latin: ‘wise
man’ or ‘knowing man’) with a specific kind of DNA and with a specific
arrangement of specific body parts.
However, we can give definitions like this for every species of animal;
it seems that what we are looking for is a particular set of properties that
set us aside from all other things, something we have that nothing else has,
especially that no other animal has.
Throughout history it has been argued
that human beings are separated from the animals by possessing certain traits
which mark us out as different from them; some would say that we are very
special kinds of animals whilst others might try to separate us from animals
entirely. The main characteristics which
have been said only to be found in mankind are souls, reason, language, self-consciousness,
freewill, and morality. Consider the
following factors:
1)
Man
appreciates and creates art
2)
Man
develops through culture
3)
Man
can play games
4)
Man
has imagination
5)
Man
uses language
6)
Man
can think in metaphors
7)
Man
has morality
8)
Man
is a creature of politics
9)
Man
has rational thought
10) Man is a
creature of religion
11) Man has rule-governed
behaviour.
12) Man is self-conscious
or has a soul
13) Man makes and
uses tools
14) Man understands
other men’s thoughts and feelings.[1]
Spiritualism
and the soul
The idea that human beings
have souls is extremely widespread and can be found in all major
religions. The belief that human beings
are different from the animals because we have souls can be described as Spiritualism because it takes the view
that human beings have more to them than simple flesh and bone, they also have
a spiritual element. In contrast to this
there is the Naturalist position
which sees human beings as totally natural beings composed of flesh and blood,
who can further be reduced to atoms like everything else in our world. Naturalism generally explains human nature in
terms of evolution and would tend towards determinism meaning that all of our
actions are determined by laws of nature and factors such as our DNA and our
upbringing. Generally the Spiritualist
position will try to explain the existence of consciousness in terms of the
soul, whilst Naturalists will try to explain it in terms of brain
activity.
From a naturalistic
perspective we are just advanced animals, take the structure of the brain for
example, at its centre there is the cerebellum, which is remarkably similar to
the brains found in reptiles and fish; it controls perception of the world,
movement, and instincts such as getting sex and food and fleeing danger. The cerebellum is found in all mammals, along
with a cortex that allows for higher emotional functions, reasoning, and memory
which are necessary for living in groups.
What distinguishes human beings from primates is the neo-cortex which
allows for advanced language, memory, emotions, and reasoning, so from the
Naturalist perspective we are simply very advanced primates, we are essentially
great apes like chimpanzees; at our core is an animal brain with additional
lobes around the outside. There have
been attempts to make a compromise between the two positions, for example, Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) did not
believe in anything religious, but believed in freewill. Whether his position is tenable is a matter
for debate and is discussed below.
Though doctrines on the
nature of the soul may vary between religions (most notably it is very
different in Buddhism), practically every religion believes that human beings
have a spiritual part to their existence, as do some atheists. It is the soul which
survives death and allows for eternal life, and it is often believed that it is
the soul that allows us to be self-conscious and to have moral conscience. The Hindu text the Bhagavad Gita
describes the non-physical nature of the soul by saying “no weapon can cut it,
no fire can burn it, no wind can dry it and no water can drench it”[2] and it puts forward that the soul is not the
same as the body: “as a man casting off old worn-our garments takes new ones,
so the embodied self having cast off old bodies assumes new ones”[3]
In the Book of
Genesis we are informed that God created the world in six days, making a
different aspect of the world each day and creating animals and mankind last. God blesses mankind and puts us in charge of
the animals saying “Be fruitful and increase in
number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the
birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”[4] Some read this as permission to use Earth for
our own ends without concern for the other living things around us, whereas
others view it as an indication that we ought to care for and look after the
world as ‘stewards.’ What is important
to note is that
mankind is given a greater importance and worth than the other animals, and
this is because, as Genesis states “God created man in his own image, in the
image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”[5] It is not generally believed that we actually
look like God, but rather that we share attributes with him such as knowledge,
creativity, self-consciousness, and power:
“The main impact
of the image is that God endues man with some of his divine attributes, thereby
separating and making him different from the beasts. What are these special
Godlike qualities which man is permitted to share? I shall mention six: language,
creativity, love, holiness, immortality and freedom. You will probably be able
to add to this list. All can be summed up by saying that man, like God, has an
intelligence, a mind.”[6]
John Rendle-Short, Man: The Image of God
For many religious thinkers
the words ‘mind’ and ‘soul’ are practically interchangeable, the soul or mind
is the spiritual part of us which allows for thinking, creativity, choice, and
so on. Whether one is a Christian or
not, and whether one takes the Genesis story literally or not, the idea that
human beings have souls is a powerful reason to say that we are different from
and above all other creatures.
However, there are numerous
philosophical problems with the Spiritualist view; firstly there is no concrete
evidence for the existence of a soul; of course it can be shown that we have a
consciousness or ‘mind’ but Naturalist philosophers would argue that this is
simply a product of brain activity and it is not anything to do with a soul or
Spirit. Secondly, if there is a soul in
human beings then it cannot be proven that other animals do not also have souls,
indeed, according to Buddhists and Hindus souls are also to be found in animals
and it is possible for you to become an animal in your next life due to bad
karma.
Thirdly there is the theory of evolution
which seems to suggest that humans and animals are not so different; if human
beings have evolved from apes then it seems likely that if we have souls then
so too should they. And if apes do not have souls then we have to ask, when and
how in the chain of evolution did human beings develop them? At one point there would have been creatures
which were half-ape-half-human… did these have souls? Did souls just appear at some point along the
long chain of evolution; did a soul-less mother give birth to an ensouled son
or daughter? Did God put a soul in to
our race at some point when he thought we were developed enough to deserve
them? Perhaps animals do have souls, but
if so are they lesser in complexity than those of human beings due to our more advanced
consciousness? There are many tricky
questions to answer here which a Spiritualist will have to over come if they
also accept scientific theories such as evolution.
Lastly, there is no clear indication of
what precisely a soul is, for example, is it the same thing as the mind or
not? Catholics believe that even at
conception when you are nothing more than a single celled organism you already
have a soul even though you cannot think or feel or perceive anything yet due to
the lack of a brain or a body with senses; does this view make sense? In the fictional Harry Potter novels by J.K. Rowling the evil wizard Lord Voldemort
hides portions of his soul within physical objects in order to tie himself to
the physical realm and overcome death, and yet his mind remains whole and just
as clever, what he begins to increasingly lack is any form of moral
conscience. The soul is generally
described in negative terms such as not visible, not physical, not destroyable,
and not controlled by physical determining laws, but at no point are we told
what the soul actually is. We are told
what the soul can do – provide moral conscience, awareness, and freewill, and
yet at no point are we told how it does any of these things. Perhaps we humans do indeed have souls, but
from a philosophical perspective in search of certainty having souls is an insufficient
answer to our problem and we must continue to search for an essential quality
that only mankind has.
Self-Consciousness,
Reason, and Language
Reasoning is the ability to think about
things, in particular to weigh up options and consider ideas. Human beings reason all the time when they
make choices or try to solve mathematical problems, or indeed try to work out
how to achieve a task. Reasoning in particular is associated with language
because to a large extent reasoning it is the ability to have a conversation
with yourself in your own mind, just as you would converse with other people. Aristotle
(384-322 BCE) stated that the difference between humans and animals was that
animals do not have ‘logos’ which translates as both speech and rational
thought; for Aristotle thought was internalised speech and speech was
externalised thought. Aristotle states
that animals do not have speech, they simply make noises to indicate pleasure
and displeasure:
“Nature, as we
often say, makes nothing in vain, and man is the only animal
whom she has endowed with the gift of speech. And whereas mere
voice is but an indication of pleasure or pain, and is
therefore found in other animals (for their nature attains to the perception
of pleasure and pain and the intimation of them to one another, and
no further), the power of speech is intended to set forth the expedient and inexpedient, and therefore likewise the just and the unjust.”[7]
Aristotle, Politics
Here Aristotle also indicating that only
human beings can consider what is better and what is worse, and in particular
that only human beings can consider moral issues
“For Aristotle,
logos is something more refined than the capacity to make private feelings
public: it enables the human being to perform as no other animal can; it makes
it possible for him to perceive and make clear to others through reasoned
discourse the difference between what is advantageous and what is harmful,
between what is just and what is unjust, and between what is good and what is
evil.”[8]
Paul Anthony Rahe, Republics Ancient and
Modern
The idea that animals cannot reason or
use language has been espoused throughout the centuries. Rene Descartes
(1596-1650) believed that only human beings were capable of self-awareness and
reflection which he expressed in the well known phrase “I think therefore I am.”
According the Descartes’ work it is only human beings who can be aware of their
own existence and have knowledge. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) argued that
only human beings were capable of rationalising their actions and following
principles rather than just acting on appetites and instincts and therefore
that animals were not ‘persons’ and were not of moral worth. Both Descartes and Kant view animals as having
no proper mental life over and above the mere awareness of sensations and
desires; they cannot speak because they have nothing in their minds to talk
about. This claim warrants
investigation, and since there are differences between reasoning and language I
will investigate them separately.
Sentience and Self-Consciousness
The word ‘conscious’
derives from Latin and means ‘with knowledge’ or in other words ‘awareness.’ Animals are certainly conscious
because they are aware of the world around them which they can see, hear,
smell, touch, and so on, and which they can manipulate and act in. Moreover, they are capable of experiencing
pleasure and pain. All of this is what
we call sentience, and all of this
can be accorded to animals (although there are some who would argue that
animals are not sentient and do not feel pain or emotions, but instead operate
in a purely mechanical way). However,
there is a debate about whether they are self-conscious.Self-consciousness means the ability to reflect on yourself, for example, humans are self-conscious because we are able to place ourselves within the context of society and see our place within it, and we can place ourselves within the context of history: I know where I have come from and how my life has progressed, I can imagine myself continuing to exist in the future, and I have made plans for that future. Moreover, I am capable of defining and analysing myself and seeing myself from other perspectives, I can see whether others think I am entertaining or boring, handsome or ugly, hard working or lazy, and I can reflect on whether I wish to be seen in these ways and modify my behaviour accordingly. Moreover I am aware of my own mortality: I know that one day I will die.
There is also evidence of animal
self-consciousness from the fact that many animals live in hierarchical groups;
animals such as apes and canines have to recognise their position within the
hierarchy and act accordingly, meaning they are required to be aware of their
own roles and select appropriate behaviours, as well as being aware of the
differing roles of other animals in the pecking order; this involves knowing
who everyone is and how they are likely to act towards you. Moreover, animals will often work hard to
change their own fortunes and advance in the group, which requires planning and
a reflective awareness of what you are in comparison to what you could be, and
the reasoning abilities to make plans and get others on side or fool them. It may be asked how any of this can be
achieved without self-consciousness, even if it is little above the level of a
young human child. It is clear that some
animals are more intelligent than others and that they make better plans, but
whether smart or dull surely any form of planning requires a degree of
self-awareness.
Language
As we have read, Aristotle and other
philosophers have denied that animals are capable of any form of speech over
and above a few grunts, however, contrary to this view it seems from modern
research that animals are capable of language.
There are numerous examples: bees dance to indicate the direction and
distance of flowers to their fellow bees, and dogs communicate with body
language such as the ‘play bow.’ This
canine expression with “hind
end up, chest down on the ground, forelegs stretched forward, an eager
expression on the face... [is] used not just by dogs but also by wolves and
coyotes to signal an interest in the romping, pretend-fighting sort of games
that canines of all kinds seem to love.”[9] The expression makes clear that the fight is
a game and not serious, and those which bite too hard will make further
expressions to apologise; those which continually break the rules are
ostracised, perhaps indicating a sense of morality in canines. This expression is just one amongst hundreds
found in dogs, and the signs come so fast that professors like Marc Bekoff from
the
There are many
examples of communication amongst primate species. Vervet monkeys make three separate calls to
represent their three different predators, and these calls result in different
response behaviours; when a snake is seen a call is sent out resulting in the
monkeys standing on their hind legs and scanning the grass. A different call is
made when a leopard is seen and the troupe react by climbing to the smallest
branches of the trees nearby where the heavy leopard cannot get at them. Lastly, a third call is made when an eagle is
spotted resulting in the monkeys either hiding in bushes or climbing trees and
clinging to the trunks for safety. Here
we have a clear case on words with meanings that are understood.
Indeed, it seems that language is not
limited to mammals; Alex, an African gray parrot was able to recognise and
correctly react to over a hundred English words, for example he was able to
correctly identify different colours and shapes. He was even known for making one liners! He was trained by Dr. Pepperberg, a
comparative psychologist at Harvard
University
“Dr. Pepperberg used an
innovative approach to teach Alex. African grays are social birds, and quickly
pick up some group dynamics. In experiments, Dr. Pepperberg would employ one
trainer to, in effect, compete with Alex for a small reward, like a grape. Alex
learned to ask for the grape by observing what the trainer was doing to get it;
the researchers then worked with the bird to help shape the pronunciation of
the words. Alex showed surprising
facility. For example, when shown a blue paper triangle, he could tell an
experimenter what color the paper was, what shape it was, and — after touching
it — what it was made of.”[10]
Benedict Carey in The New
York Times
Finally, many
primates have been taught to communicate with human beings such as Washoe the
chimpanzee who was taught 350 signs in American Sign Language. Washoe was able to fetch items that were
asked for, as well as ask about objects that were missing. Chimpanzees have also been able to lie to their
instructors and Washoe was even able to invent new words to name things which
she did not know the signs for. According
to Noam Chomsky it would be
impossible for human beings to learn language unless it was already programmed
in to our genes in some rudimentary form so that we can recognise speech and
grammar from birth; if we can teach animals to speak then this indicates that
their species already has the ability to use language, or at least that they
can think and are able to label thoughts.
On the other hand it could be argued that chimpanzees like Washoe are
not showing signs of intelligence, they are just doing party tricks, learning
to do specific actions just to get food without understanding their meaning; in
this sense they are simply being conditioned for particular responses like
Pavlov’s dogs. The following lengthy extract is from Richard Van de Lagemaat’s
excellent dialogue on animal language which covers the issue well:
GUY: Well, from
what I’ve read about this experiment, Washoe’s main concern was with getting
food and being tickled. Drilling a chimpanzee in a few bits of sign language
doesn’t seem so very different from training a hungry rat to press a lever that
releases food.
DOLLY: You are
not doing justice to the remarkable linguistic abilities shown by these chimps.
For example, their ability to talk about absent objects shows that they are not
simply reacting automaton-like to things in their immediate environment.
Similarly, the fact that they sometimes tell lies in order to mislead their
trainers suggests that rather than responding instinctively to various cues,
they are using signs intentionally. Perhaps most impressive of all, they
demonstrate genuine creativity by inventing new combinations of signs. To give
a few examples, Washoe came up with the constructions “open food eat” for a
refrigerator, “hot metal blow” for a cigarette lighter, and “listen drink” for
Alka Selzer. Such creativity proves that
far from responding mechanically, Washoe had a genuine understanding of the
meanings of these signs…
GUY: I
don’t think you have grasped my main point. Sure, these chimps are clever, and
their trainers are dedicated; but basically they’ve just been taught a bunch of
party tricks that don’t have a whole lot to do with language. All they are
doing is responding to cues from their trainers in order to get rewards.
Language proper has something called syntax - rules for joining words together
to form complex sentences - words like “but”, “and”, “or” , “not” and “because”
which enable us to articulate complex thoughts. Animals don’t have language
because they don’t have syntax. When we use language, we don’t just talk about
our immediate desires or objects in our environment. We can formulate abstract
thoughts, talk about the distant past and future, and meditate on the meaning
of life. Even the people who work with chimps and gorillas readily admit that
their subjects can do none of these things.[11]
Richard Van De Lagemaat, Dialogue on Animal Language
It may be argued that animals are not
capable of using language as we do because they are able only to use very basic
forms of communication and could not ever understand metaphors, poetry, or
abstract ideas like God, or love, or freedom, or pi. To use an analogy, comparing animal communication
to human language may be like comparing a long-jumper to a bird in flight, or
indeed comparing a typewriter to a modern PC: a chimpanzee might be able to
understand what a banana is and name it with a sign, but it could never
understand what a carbohydrate is, or how many calories are in a banana. Nonetheless it has been thoroughly demonstrated
that some animals are capable of using communicative language, even if it is only
simplistic.
Seeing whether animals can speak or not is a good indication that they have rational minds, however, reasoning is not just the ability to speak, it also includes abilities such as mathematics and the ability to plan which may be possible even without language. It is possible to think without the use of language, for example, we are able to recognise and think of hundreds of different faces without being able to properly describe what people look like, and without knowing many of their names, and similarly we can picture places on a route we take without knowing the names of the roads. Evidently animals are capable of doing these things too as animals know their territory, or can migrate hundred of miles, and can recognise the fellow members of their group as well as recognising friend from foe, recognising foods, and so on. There is evidence that some birds can count up to seven or eight, for example Chinese fishermen use cormorants to catch fish and some allow the bird to eat every eighth fish; the birds are able to keep track and eat every eighth; the birds have a ring around their necks which prevents them from swallowing their catch and after catching the seventh fish they refuse to catch any more until the ring is loosened.[12]
Planning is an important part of
reasoning, it indicates that a being is envisioning a goal in its mind and
imagining a series of events which will lead to that goal; it indicates an
ability to learn from surroundings, to think in terms of cause and effect, and
to consider which means are best for achieving these goals. All animals exhibit behaviour that is geared
towards achieving goals, for example, spiders build webs in order to catch
flies and then eat them, however it could be argued that they do so in a
mindless and robotic way, they build webs out of instinct and they could never
consider catching their prey in any other way.
However, there are clear signs of the ability to plan evident within
species such as apes.
As stated above, chimpanzees have on
numerous occasions lied to their instructors via sign language; lying involves
not only thinking about how to get what you want, but also the realisation that
others have minds as well as you yourself, in other words it requires the
self-consciousness that Descartes denied to all beings but humans. Baboons have been observed to lie to each
other; one baboon saw a vine and wanted to keep the fruit for himself, since
his group had not noticed the vine he started grooming himself, pretending that
he had bugs in his hair so that the group moved on and left him behind without
getting suspicious. One he was safely
out of their sight he proceeded to eat the fruit for himself.[13] In the complexity of primate society it seems
impossible to survive and compete effectively for food and sex without being
able to understand the personalities of others, remember their past actions,
and plan your own actions accordingly. Indeed,
the evidence that animals can reason is mounting: pigs can play simple computer
games guiding a joystick with their snouts; in experiments some birds can
navigate mazes and open gates by tapping with their bills; Japanese crows place
nuts on railway lines to crack them open using the trains and make fake nests
to fool potential exterminators; chimpanzees can use simple tools such as stones
to process food and gorillas have been seen using sticks to test the depth of
water before they cross rivers.[14]
Frans
de Waal has
spent years studying primates such as chimpanzees, and has provided concrete
evidence that primates are capable of reasoning and of planning, which is necessary
for their ability to flourish in a social environment which is, in many ways,
similar to our own. What differentiates
primates from most other mammals is that they are capable of bearing children
all year round; whilst other animals will have a ‘rutting season’ where the
animals fight for the chance to breed – usually in a non-fatal manner –
primates must constantly battle for access to females, and this battle is not
merely physical (though it can be supremely violent and deadly) but also social
and political. De Waal observed
chimpanzees at Arnhem
Eventually Nikkie became wise to
Yeroen’s tactics and prevented him from accessing the females; finally all
three males argued over access to a senior female resulting in a fight where
Yeroen attacked Nikkie; the fight left both seriously injured, thus allowing
Luit to take the place as alpha male again.
For a short while the males were kept under supervision and separated at
night and both Luit and Yeroen were particularly wary of leaving their rival
alone with Nikkie who could potentially cause a change in the power balance; at
this point Dandy, a fourth male, became far more politically active as the
other males tried to make alliances with him.
Nikkie was submissive towards Luit, but Yeroen was less so; weeks later
Yeroen and Nikkie attacked and seriously injured Luit biting off several of his
toes and also his testicles, thus removing him as a threat; he died the next
day.[15]
In all of this we have clear evidence of
reasoning out courses of action can be found in chimpanzees, including
allegiances and even the ability to understand the thoughts and personalities
of other chimps, and to predict their behaviour. Perhaps we cannot accord reasoning skills to
all animals, but they are certainly present in primates such as chimpanzees.
Being
a human Vs being a ‘person’
Aristotle took the view that only human
beings could reason and use language, and as we have seen, this appears not to
be the case. However, there is another
major problem with defining human beings in this way: what if some human beings
cannot reason or speak?
Some humans cannot speak, although they
are likely to communicate in other ways, but there are many who cannot
communicate at all such as those in comas or new born babies. Similarly, those in comas or who are newborn
cannot reason, and those with mental disabilities might also be lacking in
these abilities or at least deficient to some degree. Does this mean that they are not proper human
beings? And does this imply that they
are not worthy of being treated the same way as other human beings with dignity
and rights? Meanwhile it seems that
there are animals who can reason and use language, and (in theory) intelligent
aliens would also be able to reason and use language… does this mean that they
are human? Could a chimpanzee be human?
To clear up this ambiguity a new term
must be introduced, that of a ‘person.’
The word ‘human’ can be taken to refer to our biological genus, so that
foetuses, new born babies, and those in comas are still human beings just as
you and I are. Using this definition we
can see that animals and aliens cannot be humans. Meanwhile the word ‘person’ is used to refer
to an entity which is self-conscious, capable of reasoning and language (to
some degree), and many would add that this indicates an entitlement to moral fair
treatment and rights. The division between
‘human’ and ‘person’ is used in the debate over abortion for there are many who
will argue that although a foetus is certainly a human being it is not a
person: Michael Tooley points out
that a foetus is not self-aware and that it cannot have desires, and therefore
he reaches the conclusion that it is not a person and so does not have a right
to life.[16] As Nina
Rosenstand puts it:
“So
how would we define a person? Usually as
a human being, but one who has certain attributes and capacities, including
(but not limited to) these: self-awareness, ability to communicate,
consciousness, intelligence, capacity for bonding, awareness of time, capacity
for sentience (meaning feeling pain and pleasure), and an understanding of his
or her own place within a group. A Person is someone who counts, morally
and politically.”[17]
Nina Rosenstand, What Does It Mean To Be Human?
Applied to our current considerations it
might be argued that apes, pigs, and elephants (and even aliens and self-aware
robots should they ever come exist) are
not human beings, but that they are
persons. This has important moral
effects because it seems to indicate that these higher animals are deserving of
rights. Of course no one is demanding
that chimpanzees be given the vote, but at the same time it might mean that we
are no longer allowed to kill these animals, experiment on them, or destroy
their habitats for our own gains.
Kant was aware of the problem caused by
non-rational human beings and so he created an intermediary category between
those of ‘person’ and ‘thing’ into which would fall those being which are not
fully rational but deserve protection and guardianship anyway. Kant thought that all human beings deserved
this respect even if they were not rational in the way he proscribed. Perhaps this was an inconsistent attempt for
him to have his cake and eat it, and perhaps Kant should have just allowed that
such human beings were of lesser moral worth. Kant still excluded all animals
from this intermediary category; it is mere speculation, but perhaps if he had
been alive today and was presented with the evidence we now have he would have
included some animals in the intermediary category too.
Our
question redefined: what is ‘humanity’?
Returning to human beings, perhaps our
quest to define the word ‘human being’ is misguided because as soon as we go
beyond the simple biological definitions we will start to find exceptions. We could say that a ‘normal’ human being
speaks and reasons, or that human beings ‘characteristically’ speak and reason,
but the extent to which this is acceptable is debateable, after all we would
not say that a bachelor is ‘characteristically’ unmarried, we would say that if
they are not unmarried then they are not a bachelor. Alternatively we could perhaps move the
goalposts slightly and say that whilst a baby or person in a coma is
biologically a human they lack humanity
meaning that they lack the characteristics which make a human distinctive. By doing this we are changing our question
from “what is a human?” to “what constitutes humanity?” This is
perhaps a wise move because it shows that our question is not completely
neutral and descriptive, but instead that our question is to some degree
normative – it is about what humans should be rather than necessarily are. It also connects with the prevalent intuition
that people without morality or emotion or imagination are in some ways less
human that the rest of us; however, it leaves us with the large moral problem
of how to treat those who have only ‘partial’ humanity or indeed none at all.
Morality,
freewill, and work
So far it seems that human beings are
not so different from animals because they, like us, exhibit intelligence,
self-consciousness, and the ability to use language. However there are still important factors
which mankind might be alone in possessing amongst all of the creatures of our
world such as morality, freewill, and the ability to work beyond mere necessity
and use tools. Arguably it takes a large
amount of intelligence to possess these attributes, and whilst it has been
shown that animals have minds and thoughts just like us, it has also been
suggested that their minds lack the depth that ours possess, which perhaps
allows us to fall in to a category all of our own separated from the animals of
our world.
Morality
Throughout the centuries it has been
argued that animals do not possess morality, but instead within the animal
kingdom only one rule applies: “might makes right.” This essentially means that the strongest are
in charge and can do whatever they want to achieve their goals, no matter how
dire. For example, lions will kill the
cubs of a lioness because this has two effects which it finds favourable – it
stops the cubs from growing up to become a threat and it means that the female
is brought back in to heat and ready to breed again; recognising the strength
of the murderous lion she will mate with
him to get the advantages of his superior genes. From a human perspective this seems like the
absence of morality, however, as we shall see there is a great controversy over
rejecting morality in animals:
“The belief that
humans have morality and animals don't is a long-standing assumption, but there
is a growing amount of evidence that is showing us that this simply cannot be
the case. Just as in humans, the moral nuances of a particular culture or group
will be different from another, but they are certainly there. Moral codes are
species specific, so they can be difficult to compare with each other or with
humans.”[19]
Professor Marc Bekoff
Before we can decide whether animals
have morality or not it is first important to decide on precisely what morality
is. Generally speaking, morality is a
code of conduct for the purpose of controlling behaviour, banning or
discouraging some actions and promoting or requiring other actions. However, this brief definition still leaves a
lot of room for debate. In this section
we will briefly look at several possible definitions for morality and look at
the evidence for animals possessing this form of morals.
1) Morality is when there are some things you
will not do, for example, killing.
It is clear that animals are capable of
regulating their actions in this manner, for example most species avoid incest
and use violence rarely. Anyone with a
pet will know that it is possible to train domesticated animals not to act in
certain ways, your dog will know that he is not to chew your shoes because if
he does then he will be punished. Often
if they do break these rules they are aware they have done wrong and you can
see remorse – or at least feigned remorse – in their body language. But at the same time all of this could be
down to simple self-interest; they are not good because they respect you or
your property, but because they fear the punishment. Beta male primates do not refrain from mating
with the females because they respect the alpha male, but because they are
scared of him. Animals do not refrain
from fighting and killing because they care about their fellow animals, but
rather because they know that limiting fighting allows them to survive
longer. This is the same kind of
reasoning as we find in the work of Thomas
Hobbes (1588 – 1679) put forward as a justification for human laws –
without the law life is violent and short, which is no good for anyone. When there is something to be gained from
breaking these social rules and they think they can get away with it, animals
very often take advantage. It seems,
therefore, that morality is more than just following a code of conduct, but
also has something to do with the motivations behind that code of conduct, and
how good the animals are at sticking to these rules (of course we should note
that we humans are not perfect at sticking to moral rules either).
2)
Morality is looking after people for their own sakes rather than being selfish.
It is often the case that people
regulate their behaviour and do not harm others because they fear the
consequences of transgressing their groups’ social rules, but this can be seen
as selfish. Many people believe that to
be truly moral you have to act for the sake of another person rather than out
of selfish motives. Strictly speaking it
cannot be proven that human beings are capable of this; according to Psychological Egoism human beings are
only capable of being motivated by their own needs, so that even when they are
kind to others they are acting out of their own self interest. According to a widely known anecdote, Abraham
Lincoln was travelling in a horse-drawn coach and was arguing that all human
actions were selfish. He then stopped the
coach when he noticed a sow making terrible noises because he piglets were
stuck in a pond and at risk of drowning.
According to the philosopher David Hume (1711 – 1776) moral evaluations are essentially based in the emotions; to say that you think something is wrong is basically to say that you do not like it. Hume believed that morality was largely based on sympathy because we understand what it is to get hurt and do not want it to happen to ourselves, and so similarly we do not like to see bad things happen to others. Sympathy has been observed in animals and is therefore arguably responsible for moral actions amongst them, for example, in experiments rats were shown not to take actions which would cause pain to other rats. In a test rats were given food, but taking the food meant that another group of rats got an electric shock; the rats with the food stopped eating instead of causing the other rats to be shocked. The same test has been conducted on other mammals to similar effects. Neurologists have identified certain areas of the human brain which are responsible for causing empathy, which has a direct link to moral concern for others; surprisingly, similar structures are not just found in our closest kin such as primates, but also in more distant mammals including mice and whales, indeed, whales have three times as many of the ‘spindle cells’ linked to emotions than humans do.[21]
There are many other examples of sympathy
in animal world: “meerkats in the Kalahari desert
are known to sacrifice their own safety by staying with sick or injured family
members so that the fatally ill will not die alone.”[22] When a chimpanzee loses a fight the other
chimpanzees will comfort them by grooming, embracing, and kissing them. This sympathy seems to extend across species
sometimes: elephants often help each other, but in one famous case in 2003 a
herd of elephants ‘rescued’ a group of antelope who we being held in an
enclosure in South Africa
Of course there are actions of cruelty
and barbarity in these species too, as there are within the human species, but
these destructive trends are clearly counter-balanced by moral emotions without
which these social species could not survive.
Bonding as a group is extremely important for social animals, for
example, orang-utan children remain with their mothers for at least 8 years as
they grow up and their connection is rarely lost in adulthood. Such social species show signs of joy at
being together and grief at loss, even to the point of death; as Lori Gruen
puts it:
“Animals that develop life-long bonds are known to suffer
terribly from the death of their partners. Some are even said to die of sorrow.
Darwin Flint
Lori Gruen, The Moral Status of Animals
In contrast to this, however, it might
be argued that mere instincts of sympathy are not the same as human morality
and cannot be put on a par with it, as our next definition explains.
4)
Morality is acting on reasoned moral principles.
This is the view that Immanuel Kant took, for him morality
was not just about actions, but also about the motivations for those
actions. Kant believed that a shopkeeper
should not be fair to his customers out of liking them, for then he would short
change customers that he didn’t like.
Nor should he be fair to his customers out of his own long term
self-interests (a bad shop keeper won’t get much custom) because then he is
doing it for personal reward and out of selfishness. Rather, the moral shopkeeper is the one who
gives people the correct change and a good service because he believes in
fairness and because he respects them as people. For Kant morality is about principles such as
justice and duty, and most importantly morality is based on what he called ‘The
Categorical Imperative’ which is essentially the idea that before you act on a
principle you should ask yourself “would I be happy to live in a world where
everyone was able to do this, even to me?”
Arguably in order to possess moral principles of this kind it is
necessary to have complex reasoning abilities and language, and as we have
already seen animals appear to lack this level of complexity. Additionally it can be argued that since
animals are not capable of fulfilling duties to humans, human beings ought to
consider themselves as having no duties towards animals (trained guide dogs
might be a counter-example to this, yet they are in some senses not natural but
conditioned by us).
Frans De Waal has conducted experiments
with capuchin monkeys which again seem to display a sense of justice. The capuchins have to cooperate to drag a
heavy tray to get food on it; they quickly figure out how to do the job and
share both the effort and the food. When
the food is placed on only one side of the tray so that only one can reach it,
he does not hog the food for himself but passes it to his companion and shares.[24] In another experiment both monkeys were given
cucumbers to eat, and they were happy with this even though cucumber is not a
favoured food, and yet when one monkey was rewarded with grapes – a preferred
food – the capuchin with the cucumber refused to work anymore, evidently
feeling hard done by. Perhaps this just
shows clever self-interested reasoning (“I will share now so that he shares
with me later”), but it does seem to be evidence of a rudimentary sense of
fairness, as De Wall reports:
“I don't believe
animals are moral in the sense we humans are – with well developed and reasoned
sense of right and wrong – rather that human morality incorporates a set of
psychological tendencies and capacities such as empathy, reciprocity, a desire
for co-operation and harmony that are older than our species. Human morality
was not formed from scratch, but grew out of our primate psychology. Primate
psychology has ancient roots, and I agree that other animals show many of the
same tendencies and have an intense sociality.”[25]
Frans De Waal
For Kant what is important is the
ability to justify your actions, yet Chimpanzees do show signs of this – they
are not just violent without reason. On
one occasion a Luit the chimpanzee showed his erect penis to a female as an
invitation to mate, whilst at the same time hiding it from the alpha male
Nikkie. The alpha became suspicious and
picked up a rock as he made his way towards Luit. Luit lost the erection quickly and showed
Nikkie that there was nothing to worry about, at which point he put down the
stone.[26] This shows conscious decision making in both
chimps, but also that Luit made a moral decision: he could not just use
violence for no reason, but had to justify it to himself, after all, if
violence was used all of the time he and his species would not last long. Similarly, when Luit was murdered a senior
female chased Nikkie up a tree and kept him hiding up there in fear for several
minutes, clearly showing her outrage at his actions. Thus there are signs of moral reasoning in non-human
animals, even if it is only basic.
Freewill
According to Jean-Paul Sartre amongst many others what differentiates mankind
from the animals is our possession of freewill.
Whereas animals are bound to act in a specific way thanks to their
natures, human beings are free to act in any way that we choose. Of course, animal behaviour can be influenced
by environmental conditions such as the area in which they live and training by
human beings, but Sartre would argue that only human beings are independent and
free from all determining factors.
Sartre describes animals as ‘beings in
themselves’ meaning that their essential characteristics are set and that they
are not self-conscious; animals just are what they are and their actions do not
come from decision making processes, but instead from instincts, or from
conditioned responses like Pavlov’s dogs.
Meanwhile Sartre believes that because human beings are self-conscious
(or as he puts it ‘beings for themselves’) we are able to break free from
instincts and even from cause and effect itself and we can control our own
actions and create our own futures and our own nature. An animal will simply eat if it is hungry,
but human beings are capable of overriding such instincts and refraining from
food no matter how hungry we are, we can even starve ourselves to death as
people have done on hunger strike. An
animal will simply do what comes naturally, but we can deny these instincts
choosing instead to diet, or to avoid eating food because of moral principles,
or because of the unhealthy fats and chemicals in may contain. Therefore whilst animals have a set nature
human beings do not, each of us sets our own nature as we go through life.
On the other hand, Determinists argue
that human beings are no more free than animals. Determinists argue that the feeling of human
freedom is simply an illusion and that actually all of our actions are governed
by the laws of nature, just as with animals.
From a Naturalist perspective our brains (which make our decisions) are
no more than chemical computers and they are governed by physical laws. We are the unavoidable products of our DNA
and our upbringing (our DNA programmes us to copy and learn) so our actions are
not free. It is not that we can override
our instincts, it is simply that we have more of them than other animals, and
that being more intelligent we have more options to select from so that more
processing is required and more options have to be computed through before we
act. One powerful argument in favour of
freewill is that our actions spring from our desires and values, and that these
cannot be chosen – they must just be present.
The existence or non-existence of freewill is not an issue that can be
solved in this brief exposition, and it may again be asked why animals could
not be free too if we are. Thus the
extent to this is a distinguishing factor of humanity is something we shall
have to return to.
Work
and tools
It has been argued that what
distinguishes human beings from animals is our ability to use tools and build. Human beings have used tools and built houses
and even cities, and it seems that animals have not done anything
equivalent. At first glance this seems
false since birds build nests, bees build hives, gorillas lay fresh beds of
leaves for themselves every day, and beavers build dams with which they flood
entire areas to extend their territory. However, arguably this can be seen as nothing
next to what human creativity has produced – birds will always create the same
kinds of nests, but human buildings vary almost infinitely in style and
purpose. It has also been shown that
animals use tools such as sticks and rocks to gather and process food (as we
have seen, some primates also use them for violence), but surely this is nothing
in comparison to a power drill or a desktop computer? Perhaps the best statement of the case comes
from Karl Marx:
“Men can be
distinguished from animals by consciousness, by religion or anything else you
like. They themselves begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as
they begin to produce their means of subsistence, a step which is conditioned
by their physical organisation. By producing their means of subsistence men are
indirectly producing their actual material life.”[27]
Karl Marx, The
German Ideology
Animals are bound by necessity but human
beings go far beyond this, whilst animals merely gather enough food to survive
human beings will gather far more than they need to survive. We also produce our own means of subsistence:
animals will forage from the vegetation to gather food, but human beings
actually plant their own crops to gather from; animal predators will hunt down
their prey, but we actually breed our prey.
Animals will use stones and sticks to do basic jobs, but humans will
conjoin many elements to make tools like hand-drills and as technology advances
our tools improve. For Marx this also
allows human beings to be the only economic beings since we produce more than
we need to survive we end up exchanges and bargaining, and with the issue of
how to distribute the surplus that we have created. For Marx this distribution of surplus value is
where class exploitation and struggle begins, with the Feudal ruling classes
creaming off the surplus and exploiting the workers who create it (Marx
believes that Capitalism occurs when the technology improves and the merchant
classes overthrow their Feudal lords). Of
course, human beings are not the only animals who have such a hierarchical
system for distribution as Peter Singer
explains:
“There are clear
hierarchies among most social birds and mammals, including those species most
nearly related to human beings. Farmers
have always known that barnyard flocks of hens develop a ‘pecking order’ in
which each hen has a rank, allowing her to peck at and drive away from food
birds below her in rank, but to be pecked by, and forced to give up food to,
those above her.”[28]
Peter Singer, Marx
So hierarchies for control of resources are present in many animals also, and we might say that animals do play a role in producing their means of subsistence, for example birds drop seeds, bees pollinate flowers which allows the flowers to reproduce, and they also collect pollen to convert in to honey, thereby in a sense making their own food. Marx does have a good point that most animals do not produce their means of subsistence, and also that only human beings can produce to the extent of having a surplus (Marx’s Communism is all about a fair distribution of the surplus, but that is a matter for later), the question is, does this make human beings different enough for them to be considered special and above other animals?
Kind and degree
So far in trying to establish a definition for a ‘human being’ it has been assumed that human beings are different in some way from animals, that there must be some property which we possess which other animals lack, but all attempts to prove this seem to fail, or in the case of souls it is unsubstantiated. So far what we have assumed is that the difference between humans and animals is a difference in kind, but perhaps it is not, perhaps it is a difference in degree?
Living things like plants and animals
are an entirely different kind of thing from inanimate objects like door nails;
living things respire, reproduce, digest materials, excrete waste, and so on,
whereas door nails, stones, and clouds do none of these things. There are essential characteristics which one
set has and the other set lacks which makes them essentially different kinds of
thing. Similarly, plants and animals are
different kinds of thing: all animals move and have senses such as touch, but
plants are stationary and are not sentient; there are also cellular differences
as animal cells do not have vacuoles or cell walls.
However, it could be said that card and
paper are not different kinds of thing, they are the same thing but just with
one variety being thicker than the other.
Or again, it could be argued that two things such as ‘liking’ and
‘loving’ are actually the same thing, only to a different degree or intensity;
when we really really really like something we use the word ‘love’ to indicate
the depth of our feelings. Similarly, a
town is nothing other than a big village.
Could the difference between animals and humans be like this? We are animals, but we are a higher class of
animals? They have a little bit of self
awareness, we have lots. They have basic
emotions, we have complex emotions. They
have simple languages, we have complex languages. They work in a simple manner, we work in a
complex manner. If this is the case then
human beings do not have a special property which makes them stand out from
other animals, it is simply the case that we have some of these factors in
greater abundance. From an evolutionary
perspective this is certainly the case for human beings are simply advanced
apes with more brains and less brawn. Can this be the answer to our question at long
last?
Conclusion
There have been many attempts to
separate mankind from the animals, and we have to be aware of our motives for
separating ourselves: is it so we can mistreat animals? However, it seems that all of the attributes
that we would like to accord only to ourselves can also be found within
animals. Generally these attributes are
found to a lesser degree in animals than in humans, so the question becomes
whether we are different enough to consider ourselves separate: are we nothing
but hyper-intelligent bald apes, or is comparing an ape to a human like
comparing a child's kite to a harrier jump jet? From a Naturalist perspective human beings are advanced animals, and we have been able to evolve thanks not only to cooperation, but also because of the need to lie, steal, and use violence wisely in order to procure sex and resources, reminding one somewhat of the old aphorism “even the most beautiful flower has its roots in the dirt.” Arguably the only way to maintain the view that humans are above animals is through believing in Spiritualism or in freewill, but is belief in a non-physical human soul tenable in our scientific age? And can the existence of freewill actually be proven, or are we just as determined by instincts and nature as we believe animals to be? These are questions you will have to explore for yourself as we continue on our philosophical journey.
Nina Rosenstand, What Does It Mean To Be Human?
Brian King, Arguing About PhilosophyRichard Van De Lagemaat, Dialogue on Animal Language
Richard Gray, Animals Can Tell Right From Wrong
Franz de Waal, Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes
Lori Gruen, The Moral Status of Animals
References:
[1] Brian King, Arguing About Philosophy, from the
chapter What is a Human: Definitions and
Preliminary Discussion.
[2] The Bhagavad
Gita, 2:23.
[3] The Bhagavad
Gita, 2:22.
[4] The Bible
(NIV), Genesis 1:28.
[5] The Bible
(NIV), Genesis 1:27.
[6] John
Rendle-Short, Man: The Image of God,
1981, available at: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/cm/v4/n1/man-image-of-god
(accessed 25/04/11).
[7] Aristotle, Politics, translated by Benjemin Jowett,
book one, part two, available online at: http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.1.one.html
(accessed 04/05/11).
[8] Paul Anthony Rahe, Republics Ancient and Modern: The
Ancien Régime in Classical Greece, University of North
Carolina Press
[9] Michael D.
Lemonick, Honor Among Beasts, published
in Time Magazine, 14th July 2005: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1079521,00.html
(accessed 15/04/11).
[10] Benedict Carey,
Brainy Parrot Dies, Emotive to the End, published
in The New York Times, 11th September 2007, available online at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/11/science/11parrot.html
(accessed 15/04/11).
[11] Dr Richard Van
De Lagemaat, Dialogue on Animal Language,
available online at: www.inthinking.co.uk:
http://www.inthinking.co.uk/files/inthinking/files/richard-van-de-lagemaat/dialogue-animal-language-by-richard-van-de-lagemaat.pdf
(accessed 15/04/11).
[12] Source: Creature
Feature: Cormorants, posted by ‘Kurokarasu’ available online at: http://myths-made-real.blogspot.com/2010/06/creature-feature-cormorants.html
(accessed 03/05/11)
[13] Source: Brian King, Arguing About Philosophy, from the chapter Human Nature: An Evolutionary Perspective.
[14] Wild gorillas seen to use tools, BBC
News, 30th September 2005: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/4296606.stm
(accesses 15/04/11).
[15] Sources: Franz de Waal, Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes, John Hopkins
University Press, 1998;
Franz
de Waal, The Brutal Elimination of a
Rival Among Captive Male Chimpanzees, 1986, available at: http://www.bepress.com/gruterclassics/ostracism/section6/
(accessed 04/05/11);
Paul
R. Ehrlich, Human Natures: Genes,
Cultures, and the Human Prospect, Island
Press, 2002 (pp. 204-206);
Brian
King, Human Nature: An Evolutionary
Perspective.
[16] Michael Tooley,
Abortion and Infanticide, published
in the Philosophy and Public Affairs Journal, volume 2,
1972, pp. 37-65.
[17] Nina
Rosenstand, What Does It Mean To Be
Human: Thoughts on Philosophy of Human Nature, published in Dialogue, Issue
20 (April 2003).
[18] Ibid.
[19] Professor Marc Bekoff, quoted in Richard
Gray, Animals Can Tell Right From Wrong,
printed in The Telegraph, 27th May 2009, available online at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/5373379/Animals-can-tell-right-from-wrong.html (accessed on 03/04/05).
[21] Source: Richard Gray, Animals Can Tell Right From Wrong.
[22] Lori Gruen, The Moral Status of Animals, in the
Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, 2010, available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-animal/
(accessed 03/05/11).
[23] Ibid.
[24] Source: Michael D. Lemonick, Honor Among Beasts.
[25] Frans De Waal, quoted in Richard Gray, Animals Can Tell Right From Wrong.
[26] Source: Brian King, Human Nature: An Evolutionary Perspective.
[27] Karl Marx, The German Ideology, 1845, part 1
section A, available online at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01a.htm#a1
(accessed 03/05/11).
[28] Peter Singer, Marx, Past Masters series, Oxford University Press, 1980, pp. 74-75.
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