essay about the human person in society

The Human Person: Nature, Ethical and Theological Viewpoints

Philosophical meaning of Person . The Person as a living concrete reality: its origin and constitutive elements. Logical, ethical and social consequences. Theological implications .

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The concept of Person needs to be clearly established by philosophical considerations that go farther than the merely measurable parameters of the physical sciences. We use the term in everyday life and we seem to be clear about its meaning, even if we do not define it explicitly: a person is not a thing in the wide sense that includes mostly inanimate objects, but a living reality, thus implying a source of activity that is self-originated and that shows a spontaneity not found in the physical laws by themselves.

But this is just the first step. Nobody thinks of microbes, insects, fish or even other larger and marvelous living things as persons. While there is a common tendency to describe some animals –mostly in mythological or poetic terms- as fictional characters speaking and acting as we do, we do not take this seriously, except –perhaps- when regarding house pets or primates as basically so similar to ourselves that we uncritically attribute to them our own vices and virtues.

In our experience and common language we encounter persons, and describe them as such, only when we consider human beings. Something new is present in the way Man acts that is the common root of self-appreciation, culture (both in the sciences, the humanities, the different religions) and of the structure of society at all levels. This basic and universal root we call human rationality and thus we define Man as a Rational Animal .

A Person is thus defined by an activity in which ends are freely sought after being known as concepts (containing information that goes past the data of the senses), and valued as good. Rationality is expressed and realized in the search for Truth, Beauty and Goodness, a multiple activity that corresponds to the two powers of the human spirit: intelligence and free will, to know and to love. Knowledge in this case is not a mere reaction to an external stimulus (this is the first source of our acquaintance with the world, through sense impressions), but a process where the data are consciously analyzed to obtain ideas of universal value, and inferences or deductions that apply to them well beyond the direct experience.The person is conscious of multiple possibilities, both of representing reality and of acting, and looks for the best explanation of facts and for the consequences of various courses of action, either as ends in themselves or as means to other ends. This leads to value judgments that embody purpose and free choice . Thus we apply to the person’s activity the categories of truth-error and of suitability and “goodness” that presuppose ends and means in acordance with the nature of things.

The philosophical concept of nature expresses the essence of a given reality in so far as it is the sufficient reason for its activities: acting should be tied to what the agent is. This is applied in science when we define matter –at any level- precisely by its form of interacting with other matter, including our laboratory instruments. An unnatural behavior has the connotation of error, it is something wrong and inappropriate, that is never found in the simple processes of the inanimate world, but that can be due -in the case of a person- to a free decision. In such a case we speak of right and wrong, the basis or moral judgments and of the concepts of rights and duties both at the personal level and also in the context of society.

Only Man, in our known Universe, has the power to know and choose in this way. While animals exhibit wonderful behavior, their acting cannot be attributed to a free choice arising from the conscious and free selection of alternative paths. A genetic program, coupled with conditioned responses from experience, rules animal activity. Consequently, no animal is bound by “duties” nor can it be the subject of corresponding rights, but we can be bound by duties towards animals even those that are not considered property of another human person.

Summing up : t he human animal is “Person” because human activity includes new concerns , due to intellectual powers and free will. By itself, intelligence is not a new way of acting but of knowing, and it is this new knowledge that should direct the free actions of the subject. Because the activity is not automatically predetermined, Man is held accountable for those free acts and is judged ethically good or evil. But the coexistence of biological conditioning and personal traits makes the human animal a profound mystery, frequently expressed in the terms of “the Mind-Body problem”, where the findings of different sciences have to be brought together into a satisfactory synthesis. We need to look at rationality –personhood- from different viewpoints to inquire about its origin and consequences, at the individual and the social level.

Inputs from the fields of Biology, Metaphyics, Ethics, Theology and History, will lead to a better understanding of how the concept of Person has been incorporated in different cultures, in codes of Law and in patterns of behavior. From Biology we should clarify the role of bodily structures, of genetic programming and conditioning,, of possible malfunctions at the organic level that will influence human behavior. From physical and metaphysical considerations we have to establish a logically sufficient reason for the traits that define a person, thus providing a basis for the concepts of rights and duties (human dignity and responsibility).

This will be clarified and extended by the theological ideas of personal relationships with a Creator who is also personal in nature, and both the first source of being and the final end that constitutes our eternal destiny. How these ideas have in fact appeared in different cultures through human history should be taken into account as well, not to make our reasoning depend upon a kind of democratic consensus, but rather to see the limitations and even errors of restricted ways of thinking in merely natural terms. It is obvious that a complete development of this outline would require a very extensive treatment by different experts in all those fields, something clearly not possible within the limits of this essay.

SOURCES OF PERSONAL ACTIVITY – THE ORIGIN OF MAN

We are part of the panoply of life forms at the animal level here on planet Earth, the only place where we have data and where scientific studies are possible. It is well established from biology that there is an intimate relationship among all living beings in the sense that all use the same set of aminoacids with the same chirality, the same cell size, the same basic chemistry in a liquid medium (carbon compounds in water). From the first cells of 3500 million years ago an unbroken process of development can be traced up to the present variety of orders, genres and species, culminating in the primate level that includes Man. Even if five great extinction events (some of astronomical origin) have eliminated perhaps 90% of all previous living forms, there are no indications of multiple starts from inanimate matter. The tree of life has lost many branches and has sprouted new ones, but there is only one trunk. Both the geological record and comparative anatomy support this view of a common origin and progressive development (evolution), even if many details have to be worked out to establish genetic descent and the concrete steps that led to each species.

The two key questions that cannot be answered in a scientific way by the available data concern the steps from inorganic material to the first living cell and from non-intelligent primates to Man. We are interested at this point in the second one: what is there that explains the difference between instinctive behavior (no matter how wonderful) and the new way of knowing that leads to purposeful and responsible acts, thus establishing the personal character of the human animal. Is it logically possible to say that organic evolution suffices to expect the emergence of intelligence and free will as the natural outcome of brain development and other anatomical changes? This is the hotly debated problem of Body and Mind, that we can clarify by accurately defining both terms with the methodology of the physical sciences and our own subjective experience.

The study of the material world begins with our sense reactions to external stimuli that impinge upon our sense organs. This implies a form of energy , understanding this term as the capacity to change in some way the state of a recipient (doing work). In fact, all of physics –from astronomy to chemistry and atomic theory- is the study of interactions ruled by conservation laws , the most basic of them being that in any material process there is never a creation from nothing nor a reduction to nothing, but only some change of a previous reality of the material world. The effect of material activity can only be found in something that will have material properties and that will be able, in turn, to cause further material interactions: from matter, one can only expect to obtain matter.

Modern science attributes all interactions to 4 “forces”: gravitational, electromagnetic, strong nuclear and weak nuclear. They have different intensities, ranges and outcomes, as well as the possibility of affecting only specific types of particles under concrete conditions. A common view that makes science possible as an objective description of the material world is stated as the “Cosmological Principle”: matter is the same everywhere in the Universe and it follows the same ways of acting under the same circumstances, so that the “Laws of Nature” are applicable everywhere and at all times. No cultural or personal conditionings or preferences will change the outcome of an experiment: human psychology has no influence outside the human person when we study the physical world. Scientific methodology requires that all processes be reproducible by any scientist using the correct experimental technique.

The only logical basis for this view is that human thought and free will cannot be considered as matter, endowed with the energies that cause the 4 interactions previously mentioned. This is also underlined by the obvious fact that neither can be measured in any experiment, since there are no parameters of mass, electrical charge, spin, wavelength, or anything else that physics uses to describe the components of matter. And if we deal with a new reality that is immaterial , we have to admit a source for it that is also immaterial: a human spirit that cannot be the result of organic evolution, even if it is found after matter has evolved to the highest degree of structure and complexity in the human brain.

A new spiritual element in Man needs a creating Spirit, a Creator who with a free act determines when and where the first Man appears on Earth after evolution has prepared the suitable organic structure. We can infer the presence of this new element in the life chain from evidence of rationality in the assembly of complex tools, the decoration of instruments and caves, the burials that include offerings for a mysterious life beyond the grave. Once the organic basis is sufficiently developed to be joined to the spirit, it is out of the realm of science to decide if the first Man had to be only one or several, at one point on Earth or many. The biological compatibility of all humans presently on Earth is a persuasive argument towards the acceptance of a single origin, geographically and in time. We are thus led to the statement that all human beings on Earth share the same nature, belong to the same species, have the same basic abilities and are subjects of the same rights and duties. They are Persons in the full sense of the word, without distinction of color, race, or culture.

Our conscious identity implies the unity of subject for all processes, material and intellectual, so that body and soul –matter and spirit- form a single unit in a mysterious but undeniable whole, excluding any accidental dualism. The human Person has to include the totality of Man, with mutual conditioning between matter and spirit, but with end-products of two clearly distinct levels. Any attempt to reduce Man to just spirit or just matter is unacceptable when applied to our total experience. Since our reasoning leads to a non-material (spiritual) reality as the source of thought and free will , we have the required reason for considering Man as a Person.

One rarely finds a denial of our body, but in some environments it seems logical to say that intelligence and free will can be explained in terms of electrical currents in the brain or quantum-mechanical effects in cellular structures. This is to reduce the real problem of sufficient reason to ways of detecting the presence of mental activity or of purposeful behavior. One cannot attribute the informational content of a TV show (interesting or boring) to the properties of the electrical currents in the receiver, or the poetic meaning of a literary work to the cellulose and ink of a book. The simple bending of an arm when I want is more important than the release of energy in the muscles and the leverage exerted by tendons and bones. The dependence upon a free decision excludes the deterministic process of simple physical forces, and the obvious fact that our will is not random but purposeful makes its operations incompatible with the probabilistic fluctuations of quantum-mechanical systems.

We know ourselves, and the world, by experience, by reasoning from sense inputs, and by acquiring knowledge from others. We first become aware of our thinking and of bodily changes from interactions between sense organs and “forces” in our surroundings. When the senses perceive and quantify inputs beyond their normal range of responses –with the help of instruments- we enter into the methodology of “science”, as applied to the properties and interactions of matter.

Intelligence looks for relations of cause, order (Beauty) and desirability (Goodness) in the data. This implies the use of the principles of identity, non contradiction and sufficient reason , that necessarily underlie all aspects of rational thought, be it in the development of science or in philosophy or theology. From the principle of identity we derive the constancy of behavior in non-living matter: things are what they are, and their properties determine their activity, thus supporting the objectivity and constancy of the laws of nature. The principle of non-contradiction requires self-consistency and the absence of absurd consequences in any reasoning process, so that in pure Math the only criterion of correct deductions is that they do not lead to a contradiction in their development or necessary consequences.

The search for a sufficient reason leads to hypothesis that should be examined in their theoretical sources, their logical consequences, and in the actual experimental checks when these are possible. We never accept as a sufficient reason a “just because” that doesn’t satisfy even a small child. This is frequently the real meaning of attributing to “chance” a physical result for which we have no known cause, as is the case when we try to establish a relationship between events that really have no logical connection. We should remember that chance is not experimentally measurable, it is not a parameter of any elementary particle or material structure, it can never be the cause of any event, and still less of order at any level.

The innate desire to find order in our knowledge is expressed in the search for patterns –physical or conceptual- where one finds the special satisfaction that we express with the general word beauty or harmony . It can be the simplicity and power of a mathematical expression or a generalized understanding of diverse aspects of nature previously unconnected in our experience: we can appreciate the beauty of the Law of Gravitation, applying to common objects, to planets and galaxies, and expressed with a simple equation by Newton. It is not uncommon for scientists to judge a hypothesis or theory in terms of its beauty: it introduces nothing superfluous or contrived or, on the contrary, seems cumbersome and arbitrary.

The same is true in the world of nature or art: combinations of shapes, volumes, lines and colors can give the pleasure of balance, proportion, contrast, gradual development, even just marvelous complexity at the microscopic level or overwhelming majesty in the grandeur of the heavens. It has been said that science develops from the sense of wonder that the thinking person cannot avoid feeling when studying nature at all levels. And it is well known that cave Man left paintings of great skill and beauty, as well as carvings and even primitive musical instruments: activities that have no relationship with mere survival or other practical concerns. They might have been considered of some magical value, but this is precisely the new “spiritual” aspect of human activity that includes symbols and concepts that are not found in any other species in the living world.

The search for Goodness is due to a value judgment regarding the suitability of some action to obtain a desirable end. Anything that is consonant with our needs, either at the biological or spiritual level, constitutes a good, from survival (which includes food, shelter, rest) to the fulfillment of our desire for affection, companionship and even knowledge and beauty, can be classified as a good that attracts and leads to activities ordered to obtain it. Whether those activities are consonant with human dignity –of the subject and of others- or opposed to it, determines the ethical value of an action.

ETHICAL CONSEQUENCES

Since the human person has some activities of a private order, while others impinge upon other members of the human family, the way human activity is subjected to norms and value judgments will address the question of what is consonant with human nature at both levels.

The development of rationality requires the constant search for Truth: no responsible decision can be based on wrong knowledge. This implies rights and duties concerning education, beginning with the family and continued at higher levels, made possible by society, not to impose any “brain washing” but to open all legitimate avenues of learning. Professional activities require competence that has to be acquired by learning in the proper institutions, and that then implies the right to compensation for services in any field.

The right to the necessary sustenance, to health care, to housing and work opportunities, will also be a consequence of the need to develop the individual, both physically and culturally. Society needs laws that ensure that this is the case for all citizens. International bodies are legitimately entitled to regulate commerce, travel, exchange of information, in order to achieve equal opportunities for everybody. Echoing Pope John Paul II at the UN, “society is for the individual, not the other way around”.

This is stated in the Declaration of Human Rights signed by members of the UN in 1948. These rights are not due to some concession by any kind of government, and they cannot be legitimally abrogated or conculcated. Because those rights are rooted on the very nature of the human person, they have to be respected at any stage of natural life , from conception to death, even if age, sickness or genetic disabilities make the full use of intelligence and free will impossible in some cases or circumstances.

The Person can never be reduced to the level of a “thing” to be manipulated or disposed of for economic or scientific reasons. This is especially relevant in the fields of Medicine or Biology: no treatment can be allowed for any other purpose than the good of the patient. Laws that ignore this norm cannot be legally binding, but must be resisted and repelled.

Because ethical considerations flow necessarily from the sense of dignity and responsibility of an intelligent subject, this aspect of human life must be present from the very moment that Man appears on Earth. Primitive burials are a clear sign of the conviction that other humans are different from animals and that somehow their existence after death must be helped by rites and objects that must accompany the deceased. The evidence of protracted care for the sick (for instance, when people subjected to a trepanning of the skull lived long enough for the bone to heal and close the opening) is another indication of family and social ties that imply a common feeling of dependence and duties for those unable to survive by themselves.

Still, in a primitive world where small groups lived in almost total isolation from other tribes, ethical norms developed in many different ways. Science, philosophy, art and ethical norms, form human culture , that is not inherited genetically, but transmitted by signs, endowed -arbitrarily and freely- with meaning : sounds (speech), visible forms (writing, comprehensible images) or gestures that convey information, a new category not found by any experiment. Because cultures evolved independently, different places and times gave rise to codes of ethics and laws that –in many cases- contradicted each other.

We can simply mention how all over the world we find indications of past slavery,, caste systems, denials of rights to women and children, human sacrifices, war as the common state of confrontation with nearby groups. But this kind of behavior is akin to the modern control of the individual by totalitarian regimes (Nazi Germany, Communist societies) and it is necessary to state that a significant number of signatories of the UN “Declaration of Human Rights” still fail to comply with the solemn compromise accepted in 1948. In those the human Person is rather considered only as a productive element for the impersonal State, and it is subjected to a control that restricts even the most basic rights of education, work, marriage and free movement, the practice of religion and association for legitimate ends.

In modern times, where the constant exchange of information and world-wide travel tend to create a uniform way of life, the final outcome of such contacts might lead to a common “culture” where the individual is led to think that whatever others do is correct for everybody. An implicit “relativism” will finally deny that there are ethical norms that arise from human nature itself and that anything that is not forbidden by law is morally acceptable. This is the underlying justification for abortion, euthanasia, genetic manipulation: instances where the person is degraded to the level of laboratory guinea pigs, useful as “things” to be manipulated for the benefit of others or destroyed when they become cumbersome and unprofitable for society.

A common statement that expresses this attitude is that “all cultures are equally to be respected”. If the word “culture” is not defined, the statement is meaningless: it can mean the way a group builds homes or entertains their citizens with music and dances. The most basic meaning should rather be the “system of common ideas that structure a given society”. Those ideas should determine personal and social behavior, thus being incorporated into codes of law, administrative and practical structures, rules of personal behavior. Over the course of time, the “way of life” transmitted from one generation to another within a human group, can also be termed a “culture” in so far as it incorporates commonly held values and concerns.

But the appreciation of a culture cannot simply rest upon its existence through a short or long time. If the culture leads to the denial of human rights to any kind of member of the group, or it incorporates a negative and hostile attitude toward other groups, the culture has no right to be respected and preserved. We must remember again and again that the human person is the subject of rights and duties by the dignity that is rooted upon the unique power to think and act freely. No external imposition can legitimately deprive a single person of what nature implies. Even civil disobedience might become a moral duty, no matter what the consequences, when moral good and evil are concerned.

One should also mention that the right of every person to have access to education, health care, modern developments of a kind that improves substantially human life, should take precedence upon considerations of an egotistical nature even if they seem to be justified by the desire to maintain primitive tribes in their original state to allow for their scientific study. To deny to a sick child the life saving attention that it needs and the opportunity to learn and develop fully as a human being is not acceptable from the moral viewpoint, either in a slum of a modern city or in the jungle of the heart of Africa. We might be unable to provide that help everywhere, but it should be our impossibility and nor a false respect for a primitive culture the deciding factor.

Governments everywhere have the duty to eradicate every type of exploitation of the weak and poor, be it through some kind of slave labor or its equivalent, or the demeaning traffic of drugs and prostitution, or racial and religious intolerance. The human person –every person- is the highest value we find on Earth.

Global concerns –about climate, overpopulation, famine, migration – are clearly in need of ethical rules that should look at the good of the persons affected, now and in the future, but destroying lives or condemning undeveloped nations to hunger and ignorance cannot be an option. The resources of our planet are more than sufficient to give every human being a level of nutrition, housing, education and medical care suitable for human dignity.

THEOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS

The human spirit, created by a Personal Creator, intelligent and free, appears as the apex of the development of the Universe. The Anthropic coincidences, at the very first instant of the Big Bang, can only be explained by a purposeful plan of the Creator to establish a meaningful relationship with personal beings. To invoke for their existence either a childish ”just because”, or to have recourse to chance within an unverifiable multitude of universes, is unscientific and totally empty of explanatory power. On the other hand, an intelligent and infinite Creator will not act without a purpose, and this cannot be an empty desire to watch how stars burn or lizards scurry over a planet. A Person is not satisfied with anything less than other persons.

This means that the “deistic” God accepted by some scientists as the final reason “why there is something instead of nothing” ends up by being absurd. Such a Supreme Creator would create a marvelous Universe just as a banal exercise of omnipotence, without caring for the persons who are able to reason to a First Cause and to be grateful for their existence. This is still more absurd if we extrapolate the evolution of the Universe to remote future ages when all the stars will be dead cinders and no life can survive anywhere.

In some Eastern philosophies, the final state implies the dissolution of individual persons into an undiferentiated “something”, not truly divine in a transcendent sense, where personal identity is lost. This is philosophically untenable and incompatible with the true idea of a Creator who is always infinitely superior and different from any creature: one cannot take seriously the proposal that finite and infinite will become an undifferentiated mixture and that the very notion of person will no longer be applicable. The same can be said of the recycling of human beings through reincarnations where the distinction between persons and animals is erased. And the final state, after the supposed purification attained in those reincarnations is described once more as the cessation of personal existence and activity.

In the Christian Creed, God is confessed as a Trinity, where the concept of Person surpasses our philosophical intuitions by presenting a unique Nature realized in three distinct Persons, with only one intelligence and will, so necessarily related that no single Person can exist or be described without reference to the other two. Thus the unicity of the Divinity is insisted upon, while stressing the divine life as a total and necessary communication of the entire nature from the Father to the Son and from both to the Holy Spirit. We cannot understand this, but we cannot understand matter either, when we try to reconcile the particle-wave duality into a single picture of elementary units of everyday matter.

No human philosophy or poetic effort could have imagined the Trinity, and we can only accept it through a Revelation that was not present in the Old Testament books of the Bible but that was gradually uncovered in the teachings of the New Testament. As we develop Theology –the effort to understand the revealed truths- we come to appreciate the depth of this mystery where the most intimate nature of the Godhead, while still incomprehensible, appears as the logical source of God’s relationship to humankind. If in the creation of finite spirits (angels) God can be said to seek living images of the divine nature, endowed with intelligence and free will and existing without constraints of space and time, their perfectly simple nature is so completely indivisible and self-contained that the communication of life –the very essence of the Trinity- cannot be shared by the created beings. They are incomplete images of the living God in that respect.

The creation of matter does provide the possibility of finding complex structures that can give part of themselves as a seed for new members of the species. But matter cannot have intelligence and free will, thus precluding the existence of Persons within the realm of pure matter. Without those attributes, there can be no meaningful relationship with the Creator.

The further step of joining matter and spirit in Man does achieve the complete image of God as a reality endowed with intelligence, free will and the ability to communicate life. Thus we find the description of the origin of Man in the poetic language of Genesis. Everything leads to the masterpiece of divine power, an Image and Likeness of the Creator, destined to share the divine happiness in a final state of intimate knowledge and love, outside the limits of space and time.

The Incarnation adds another mystery regarding the concept of Person, while underlining the infinite love of God and the dignity of Man. Christ, as God-Man, is adored as God, while being true Man, with soul and body on a par with ours. But we profess only one Person, divine, as the ultimate subject of activity and attribution, so that human activities are attributed to God and divine activities to the Man Jesus. Again, we cannot truly understand the mystery, but we can say that God has entered the human family, and that no greater glory can be imagined for any possible created being than to have God as brother.

It is true that we cannot do more than to accept a mystery that has baffled the best minds through the centuries, giving rise to all kinds of efforts to avoid the true divinity of Christ or to attribute to his humanity a nature that ultimately would deny his common descent from other human members of our race. Councils and Church Fathers were adamant in their insistence on the dual nature of Christ in the unity of a divine Person. Only thus could the reality of the Incarnation and Redemption be truly maintained.

Christ’s Resurrection is the final act of the saving and transforming plan of God for all mankind. A divine Person, with a body taken from the ashes of stars that formed our Earth and with a human mind and will, encompasses all levels of existence and carries our human nature to the intimate essence of the Godhead as the first fruits of the new kind of life that God wants for all of us. As individual persons, we are destined to exist forever, attaining the fullness of life with unlimited knowledge satisfying our minds and infinite love giving us the happiness proper of God in an unchanging eternity. The incredible variety of each human being through all of history will be a galaxy of lights, each different in a unique way of reflecting the perfection of the Creator, thus expressing as persons the multiple ways of sharing in the generosity of the Father from whom all good things come.

In terms of physical laws, the future of the Universe, with its predictable final state of emptiness, darkness and cold, seems to make its existence pointless, and the fact of the creation by God so that human persons will appear would no longer seem its sufficient reason. The only answer to the apparent absurd could be found in the immortality of the human spirit, not tied to the laws of physics by its very nature. But Theology goes farther, asserting for the human Person, body and soul, this new life inchoated by Christ’s resurrection and promised to all those who are joined to Him in a new kind of activity that is proper to God alone and that will be shared outside the limits of space and time.

Only in Christian Theology, based upon clear concepts of God and Man, of matter and spirit, is the unique dignity of each Person conserved.

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6.1: The Individual and Society

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What does it mean to be a member of a community, to “belong” to the society in which you live? In response to such questions, philosophers propose theories about what ought to be the case; in contrast, social scientists describe what  is  the case. Social and political philosophy, like Ethics, is a normative pursuit, and a conception of what constitutes moral actions for individuals is integral to how they relate to the community (the larger social group) to which they belongs. A conception of “the good” is central to understanding what makes a society just, or fair, for its members. As we look at how specific philosophers view the relationship of the individual to society, and what makes a society good, notice that a particular conception of human nature will underly theories on the relationship between individuals and their society, be it a local community or a nation.

6.1.1 Aristotle and “The Good Life”

Man is social by nature.

In his work  Politics ,  Aristotle (384 – 322 BCE)  explained how virtuous lives of individual citizens are supported by the political community itself. He believed that achieving virtue and acquiring a sense of self-identity require social interaction and working with others. Being a member of society (using his term,”the city”) is the natural state of man. Humans are, by nature, social creatures who live in groups, and life in a community (the city) is necessary for a complete human life. Note that for Aristotle, “the city” represents the pinnacle of societal structure; it starts with families, families form villages, and villages grow to become cities, the centers of culture.

The interest of the city is more important than that of an individual. Public interests take precedence over individual ones. From  Politics, Book I, Chapter II :

Besides, the notion of a city naturally precedes that of a family or an individual, for the whole must necessarily be prior to the parts, for if you take away the whole man, you cannot say a foot or a hand remains, unless by equivocation, as supposing a hand of stone to be made, but that would only be a dead one; but everything is understood to be this or that by its energic qualities and powers, so that when these no longer remain, neither can that be said to be the same, but something of the same name. That a city then precedes an individual is plain, for if an individual is not in himself sufficient to compose a perfect government, he is to a city as other parts are to a whole; but he that is incapable of society, or so complete in himself as not to want it, makes no part of a city, as a beast or a god. There is then in all persons a natural impetus to associate with each other in this manner, and he who first founded civil society was the cause of the greatest good; for as by the completion of it man is the most excellent of all living beings, so without law and justice he would be the worst of all, for nothing is so difficult to subdue as injustice in arms: but these arms man is born with, namely, prudence and valour, which he may apply to the most opposite purposes, for he who abuses them will be the most wicked, the most cruel, the most lustful, and most gluttonous being imaginable; for justice is a political virtue, by the rules of it the state is regulated, and these rules are the criterion of what is right.

A precise explanation of Aristotle’s conception of a “just state” is elusive. Recall, from the Ethics unit topic of Virtue Ethics, Aristotle’s concept of virtuous actions and acquiring virtuous character. An individual with a well-developed virtuous character understands if a particular situation is just or not. The just society has no fixed rules, but the virtuous person chooses just actions and understands why such actions are just.

Aristotle Summary

Aristotle’s view and his picture of human nature is that humans are social, political creatures in their natural state of nature. Capabilities for speech (communication) and reason foster a cooperative life with others. There is no “pre-social” state of nature; humans by nature are social and expand their social organization beyond the family. Together, individuals build cities, and the best interest of the city (or society) is more important than the interests of individuals.

A supplemental resource is available (bottom of page) on Aristotle’s politics.

Aristotle’s view that humans are social by nature stands in contrast to that of other philosophers who see human nature (often articulated as the “state of nature”) as less than social, possibly even chaotic. The agenda of each philosopher we will meet next is to justify the government bodies and/or social principles essential for members of a society to enjoy a good, or just, life.

6.1.2 Social Contract Theory in the Age of Reason

What is social contract theory.

Social contract theory  is the view that political structure and legitimacy of the state stem from explicit or implicit agreement by individuals to surrender specified rights in exchange for the stability of social order and/or for the protection of government. Social contract theory is “theoretical.” The “idea” of a contract is offered as an explanation or justification of a relationship between the individual and the larger society or government. Social contract theories demonstrate why members of a society would rationally find it in their best interests to comply with and uphold the principles and regulations of their society. A social contract theory attempts to justify a particular political system (a currently existing one or an ideal one) by showing why members of society would consent to it. Members of society freely relinquish something they value (for example, aspects of their freedom) in exchange for something else they also value (for example, a sense of security.)

Human reason is a key element in social contract theories. First, the underlying view of human nature includes that we are rational beings and therefore can understand why and how regulations and principles make life better. Further, given that humans are rational, the contract itself needs to express what a rational person would agree to.

Social contract theories put forth by philosophers typically refer to contracts between a nation and its citizens. Consent to such contracts is meant to occur tacitly, or implicitly, by virtue of being a citizen of the state. (An exception to this might be the case of an immigrant becoming a naturalized citizen, and here, there would be an actual oath of compliance, or consent.) The social principles and political structure of a society that are established by its members’ consent come to represent that society’s standard for what is good, or just.

Several philosophers proposed social contract theories during the period in European history known as the Age of Enlightenment, or the Age of Reason, the late 1600s through early 1800s. As we look at three of these philosophers, keep in mind that: (1) each has a specific view of man’s “state of nature” (human nature prior to socialization), and (2) each argues for a social contract that assumes his view of human nature.

Thomas Hobbes: Man is Self-Centered and Mean

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)  was a British philosopher who lived during the English Civil War (1642-1648). The work that expresses his political thought most completely is Leviathan  (1651). Hobbes’ underlying epistemological and metaphysical beliefs contribute to his socio-political views; he was a materialist and committed to laws of causality and the motion of bodies. He held vividly pessimistic views of humans in their state of nature and of the social contract that is required for living in a relatively untroubled society.

The following excerpt from Chapter XIII of  Leviathan  demonstrates Hobbes’ picture of man in his naturally combative state.

From Equality Proceeds Diffidence From this equality of ability, ariseth equality of hope in the attaining of our Ends. And therefore if any two men desire the same thing, which neverthelesse they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies; and in the way to their End, (which is principally their owne conservation, and sometimes their delectation only,) endeavour to destroy, or subdue one an other. And from hence it comes to passe, that where an Invader hath no more to feare, than an other mans single power; if one plant, sow, build, or possesse a convenient Seat, others may probably be expected to come prepared with forces united, to dispossesse, and deprive him, not only of the fruit of his labour, but also of his life, or liberty. And the Invader again is in the like danger of another.

From Diffidence Warre And from this diffidence of one another, there is no way for any man to secure himselfe, so reasonable, as Anticipation; that is, by force, or wiles, to master the persons of all men he can, so long, till he see no other power great enough to endanger him: And this is no more than his own conservation requireth, and is generally allowed. Also because there be some, that taking pleasure in contemplating their own power in the acts of conquest, which they pursue farther than their security requires; if others, that otherwise would be glad to be at ease within modest bounds, should not by invasion increase their power, they would not be able, long time, by standing only on their defence, to subsist. And by consequence, such augmentation of dominion over men, being necessary to a mans conservation, it ought to be allowed him.

Againe, men have no pleasure, (but on the contrary a great deale of griefe) in keeping company, where there is no power able to over-awe them all. For every man looketh that his companion should value him, at the same rate he sets upon himselfe: And upon all signes of contempt, or undervaluing, naturally endeavours, as far as he dares (which amongst them that have no common power, to keep them in quiet, is far enough to make them destroy each other,) to extort a greater value from his contemners, by dommage; and from others, by the example.

So that in the nature of man, we find three principall causes of quarrel. First, Competition; Secondly, Diffidence; Thirdly, Glory.

The first, maketh men invade for Gain; the second, for Safety; and the third, for Reputation. The first use Violence, to make themselves Masters of other mens persons, wives, children, and cattell; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other signe of undervalue, either direct in their Persons, or by reflexion in their Kindred, their Friends, their Nation, their Profession, or their Name.

This very brief passage from Chapter XIV provides a glimpse of Hobbes reasoning toward a contract among men to relinquish some rights in return for safety.

What it is to lay down a Right? To Lay Downe a mans Right to any thing, is to Devest himselfe of the Liberty, of hindring another of the benefit of his own Right to the same. For he that renounceth, or passeth away his Right, giveth not to any other man a Right which he had not before; because there is nothing to which every man had not Right by Nature: but onely standeth out of his way, that he may enjoy his own originall Right, without hindrance from him; not without hindrance from another. So that the effect which redoundeth to one man, by another mans defect of Right, is but so much diminution of impediments to the use of his own Right originall.

Hobbes Summary

In Hobbes view, in the state of nature humans are selfish, destructive, unprincipled, and at war with each other. But because humans are also rational, they realize that their lives will be better if they cooperate with others and live under the protection of a Sovereign authority, namely the British monarchy. This social contract, according to Hobbes, is about giving up some freedom in exchange for safety. Political structure is required if there is to be peace and cooperation.

John Locke: Man Has Natural Rights

John Locke (1632-1704) , a British empiricist philosopher we met first in the unit on Epistemology, had a more upbeat view of human nature than that of Hobbes. In their natural state, according to Locke, men are notably rational and possess inalienable rights to pursue life as they choose. In his work,  Second Treatise on Government  (1690) Locke details his views of the social contract, the purpose and structure of government, and his picture of the ideal relationship between an individual and the government.

The following brief excerpts from Locke’s  Second Treatise on Government  exemplify Locke’s view that humans, by nature, possess rights, which entail the responsibility to not invade the rights of another:

Sect. 4. TO understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.

A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being nothing more evident, than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection, unless the lord and master of them all should, by any manifest declaration of his will, set one above another, and confer on him, by an evident and clear appointment, an undoubted right to dominion and sovereignty

Sect. 7. And that all men may be restrained from invading others rights, and from doing hurt to one another, and the law of nature be observed, which willeth the peace and preservation of all mankind, the execution of the law of nature is, in that state, put into every man’s hands, whereby every one has a right to punish the transgressors of that law to such a degree, as may hinder its violation: for the law of nature would, as all other laws that concern men in this world ‘be in vain, if there were no body that in the state of nature had a power to execute that law, and thereby preserve the innocent and restrain offenders. And if any one in the state of nature may punish another for any evil he has done, every one may do so: for in that state of perfect equality, where naturally there is no superiority or jurisdiction of one over another, what any may do in prosecution of that law, every one must needs have a right to do.

Locke Summary

John Locke used the social contract to justify the authority of the state. However, he thought that the role of the government was to be the ‘servant’ of its citizens and protect peoples’ natural rights. The right to private property, among those natural rights, is central to Locke’s case for civil government; property ownership is subject to contention, and the contract expects civil authority to protect property and other rights of the individual. Locke believed that all people have  natural rights  no matter what the culture or circumstances. Natural rights constitute a basic moral law; moral requirements are imbedded in his conception of human nature; every person has these rights, simply by virtue of being human. In Locke’s view, the right to life, liberty, health, and property are inalienable. His ideas were instrumental in forming the basis of America’s Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Man is Compassionate (but Corruptible)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)  was a Swiss philosopher who wrote at the height of the Enlightenment period. He saw humans in the state of nature as compassionate and essentially moral beings. However. when removed from this literally “natural” state into urban chaos, humans are subject to corruption and loss of their natural compassion; having private property, for example, encourages less admirable characteristics such as greed and self interest. Rousseau moved from a social contract position that aligned with his picture of humans in their original compassionate state of nature to a new normative theory for social contract meant to improve the state of mankind in the wake of accelerating social change.

Rousseau Summary

Rousseau thought society ought to be ordered such that people give up some individual freedom and rights for collective liberty. His view of social contract involved uniting together to express a single collective will. In this way, the state (or society) acts as a moral person, rather than just a collection of individuals. The general will is the will of a politically unified group of people that defines the common good, determines right and wrong, and is established by passing laws. Majority vote democratically confirms general will.

Supplemental resources are available (bottom of page) on the social contract theories of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau.

The Enlightenment-era philosophers we have met claim to imagine humans in a “state of nature” that is prior to socialization. Do you think a pre-social conception of human nature is possible? Why or why not? And if this is possible, would it be a useful starting position for understanding the individuals’ best interests in defining a relationship with a governing body? Why or why not?

Note:  Submit your response to the appropriate Assignments folder.

6.1.3 Rawls: Social Contract in the Just Society

John Rawls (1921-2002)  was an American political philosopher whose work,  A Theory of Justice  (1971), proposes a hypothetical variation on the social contract theory. Unlike prior social contract theorists, Rawls made use of neither a specific historical context in need of reform nor an original “state of nature” from which people emerge to enter a social contract. Rawls regards the principles of justice that structure the society as what requires agreement. Though Rawls describes no pre-social “state of nature,” he relies on a view of human nature, a Kantian view that humans are rational and can reason from a universal point of view. The essential feature of this capability for Rawls is that a rational person is able, from an impartial perspective, to judge and accept principles of society that would treat everyone with equality and fairness.

The following concepts from  A Theory of Justice  are central to Rawls hypothetical conception of social contract theory:

Original Position:  From this perspective, persons have no knowledge of their particular circumstances, are rational, and are disinterested in one another’s well-being. This is the hypothetical position, or standpoint, from which the nature of justice can be discovered.

Veil of Ignorance:  Rawls uses this term to characterize the epistemological status of one in the Original Position: no knowledge of personal situation.

Justice as Fairness:  Rawls’ characterization of his theory that principles of justice are agreed to from an original-bargaining position that is fair.

The Two Principle of Justice:  These are the basic, most fundamental principles that would be chosen from the Original Position (from behind the Veil of Ignorance) to regulate a just society:

Note:  Treatment of Rawls’s principles of justice includes material adapted from information in a Wikipedia.org article found at  Wikipedia: John Rawls .  [CC-BY-SA]

• This principle is known as the  Liberty Principle . For Rawls, basic liberty includes freedoms of conscience, association and expression, as well as democratic rights. Rawls defends a personal property right that is about moral capacity and self-respect, rather than the natural right of self-ownership advocated by John Locke.
• Rawls refers to this second principle as the  Difference Principle. Any principle devised and accepted behind a veil of ignorance will provide equal advantage for everyone, including for those who turn out to be the least advantaged members of society. The aim is to guarantee liberties that represent meaningful options for everyone and ensure distributive justice. Certain freedoms such as political voice or freedom of assembly have little value to those who are desperately poor and marginalized. While it is impossible to demand the exact same effective opportunities of everyone while maintaining basic liberties for all, at the very least we should ensure that those least well off have enough freedom to pursue personal goals and a life worth living.

Supplemental resources (bottom of page) explore Rawls’s concepts and provide a lively discussion of his theory of justice.

Why, according to Rawls, should talented and hard-working poor children have the same chances of success as rich children? Do you agree with him?

Do you believe that taxing the rich to pay what it costs to provide equal educational opportunity for all is required as a matter of justice?

Note:  Post your response in the appropriate Discussion topic.

Supplemental Resources

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP).  Aristotle: Politic s . Read section 7c.

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP).  Social Contract Theory . Read section 2a on Hobbes.

Thomas Hobbes .  This video on Hobbes (6+ minutes) includes relevant details of Hobbes’ personal background as well as the historical context of Hobbes version of the social contract.

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP).  Social Contract Theory .  Read section 2b on Locke.

John Locke . In addition to providing context for Locke his political philosophy, this video describes Locke’s use of Hobbes’ idea of “state of nature” which diverges from Hobbes’ picture of it; his view entails a form of government different from Hobbes’ Sovereign. The last 2 minutes of this 9-minute video are interesting, though not pertinent to Locke’s political philosophy.

Social Contract Theory Lecture Final . This video, which runs for 20 minutes, is a slower and more detailed lecture/presentation on Locke’s social contract theory. The lecturer points out the intentional parallels between the TV show “Lost” and Locke’s conception of social contract.

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP).  Social Contract Theory . Read section 2c on Rousseau.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau . This 7+ minute video helps to get inside Rousseau to understand the culture and times contributing to his political thought.

Enlightenment Contract Theories Compared

Social contract theories . This video (8+ minutes) summarizes and compares the social contract theories of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau.

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP).  Social Contract Theory . Read section 3a on Rawls.

The video selections that follow are lectures from Michael Sandel’s Harvard University course called “Justice.” The videos include interactions between Sandel and his students and between students whose opinions on these issues differ.

Lecture 14: A Deal is a Deal . This lecture introduces and explains Rawls’  A Theory of Justice , as a development of Kantian ethical philosophy.

Lecture 15: What’s a Fair Start? . This lecture provides deeper investigation of the meaning of fairness and equality.

• 6.1 The Individual and Society. Authored by : Kathy Eldred. Provided by : Pima Community College. License : CC BY: Attribution
• John Rawls. Provided by : Wikipedia. Located at : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rawls . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike

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Human Nature

Talk of human nature is a common feature of moral and political discourse among people on the street and among philosophers, political scientists and sociologists. This is largely due to the widespread assumption that true descriptive or explanatory claims making use of the concept of human nature have, or would have, considerable normative significance. Some think that human nature excludes the possibility of certain forms of social organisation—for example, that it excludes any broadly egalitarian society. Others make the stronger claim that a true normative ethical theory has to be built on prior knowledge of human nature. Still others believe that there are specific moral prohibitions concerning the alteration of, or interference in, the set of properties that make up human nature. Finally, there are those who argue that the normative significance derives from the fact that merely deploying the concept is typically, or even necessarily, pernicious.

Alongside such varying and frequently conflicting normative uses of the expression “human nature”, there are serious disagreements concerning the concept’s content and explanatory significance—the starkest being whether the expression “human nature” refers to anything at all. Some reasons given for saying there is no human nature are anthropological, grounded in views concerning the relationship between natural and cultural features of human life. Other reasons given are biological, deriving from the character of the human species as, like other species, an essentially historical product of evolution. Whether these reasons justify the claim that there is no human nature depends, at least in part, on what it is exactly that the expression is supposed to be picking out. Many contemporary proposals differ significantly in their answers to this question.

Understanding the debates around the philosophical use of the expression “human nature” requires clarity on the reasons both for (1) adopting specific adequacy conditions for the term’s use and for (2) accepting particular substantial claims made within the framework thus adopted. One obstacle to such clarity is historical: we have inherited from the beginnings of Western philosophy, via its Medieval reception, the idea that talk of human nature brings into play a number of different, but related claims. One such set of claims derives from different meanings of the Greek equivalents of the term “nature”. This bundle of claims, which can be labelled the traditional package , is a set of adequacy conditions for any substantial claim that uses the expression “human nature”. The beginnings of Western philosophy have also handed down to us a number of such substantial claims . Examples are that humans are “rational animals” or “political animals”. We can call these claims the traditional slogans . The traditional package is a set of specifications of how claims along the lines of the traditional slogans are to be understood, i.e., what it means to claim that it is “human nature” to be, for example, a rational animal.

Various developments in Western thought have cast doubt both on the coherence of the traditional package and on the possibility that the adequacy conditions for the individual claims can be fulfilled. Foremost among these developments are the Enlightenment rejection of teleological metaphysics, the Historicist emphasis on the significance of culture for understanding human action and the Darwinian introduction of history into biological kinds. This entry aims to help clarify the adequacy conditions for claims about human nature, the satisfiability of such conditions and the reasons why the truth of claims with the relevant conditions might seem important. It proceeds in five steps. Section 1 unpacks the traditional package, paying particular attention to the importance of Aristotelian themes and to the distinction between the scientific and participant perspectives from which human nature claims can be raised. Section 2 explains why evolutionary biology raises serious problems both for the coherence of this package and for the truth of its individual component claims. Sections 3 and 4 then focus on attempts to secure scientific conceptions of human nature in the face of the challenge from evolutionary biology. The entry concludes with a discussion of accounts of human nature developed from a participant perspective, in particular accounts that, in spite of the evolutionary challenge, are taken to have normative consequences.

1.1 “Humans”

1.2 unpacking the traditional package, 1.3 essentialisms, 1.4 on the status of the traditional slogan, 2.1 the nature of the species taxon, 2.2 the nature of species specimens as species specimens, 2.3 responding to the evolutionary verdict on classificatory essences, 3.1 privileging properties, 3.2 statistical normality or robust causality, 4.1 genetically based psychological adaptations, 4.2 abandoning intrinsicality, 4.3 secondary altriciality as a game-changer, 5.1. human nature from a participant perspective, 5.2.1. sidestepping the darwinian challenge, 5.2.2. human flourishing, 5.3. reason as the unique structural property, other internet resources, related entries, 1. “humans”, slogans and the traditional package.

Before we begin unpacking, it should be noted that the adjective “human” is polysemous, a fact that often goes unnoticed in discussions of human nature, but makes a big difference to both the methodological tractability and truth of claims that employ the expression. The natural assumption may appear to be that we are talking about specimens of the biological species Homo sapiens , that is, organisms belonging to the taxon that split from the rest of the hominin lineage an estimated 150,000 years ago. However, certain claims seem to be best understood as at least potentially referring to organisms belonging to various older species within the subtribe Homo , with whom specimens of Homo sapiens share properties that have often been deemed significant (Sterelny 2018: 114).

On the other hand, the “nature” that is of interest often appears to be that of organisms belonging to a more restricted group. There may have been a significant time lag between the speciation of anatomically modern humans ( Homo sapiens ) and the evolution of behaviourally modern humans, i.e., human populations whose life forms involved symbol use, complex tool making, coordinated hunting and increased geographic range. Behavioural modernity’s development is often believed only to have been completed by 50,000 years ago. If, as is sometimes claimed, behavioural modernity requires psychological capacities for planning, abstract thought, innovativeness and symbolism (McBrearty & Brooks 2000: 492) and if these were not yet widely or sufficiently present for several tens of thousands of years after speciation, then it may well be behaviourally, rather than anatomically modern humans whose “nature” is of interest to many theories. Perhaps the restriction might be drawn even tighter to include only contemporary humans, that is, those specimens of the species who, since the introduction of agriculture around 12,000 years ago, evolved the skills and capacities necessary for life in large sedentary, impersonal and hierarchical groups (Kappeler, Fichtel, & van Schaik 2019: 68).

It was, after all, a Greek living less than two and a half millennia ago within such a sedentary, hierarchically organised population structure, who could have had no conception of the prehistory of the beings he called anthrôpoi , whose thoughts on their “nature” have been decisive for the history of philosophical reflection on the subject. It seems highly likely that, without the influence of Aristotle, discussions of “human nature” would not be structured as they are until today.

We can usefully distinguish four types of claim that have been traditionally made using the expression “human nature”. As a result of a particular feature of Aristotle’s philosophy, to which we will come in a moment, these four claims are associated with five different uses of the expression. Uses of the first type seem to have their origin in Plato; uses of the second, third and fourth type are Aristotelian; and, although uses of the fifth type have historically been associated with Aristotle, this association seems to derive from a misreading in the context of the religiously motivated Mediaeval reception of his philosophy.

A first , thin, contrastive use of the expression “human nature” is provided by the application of a thin, generic concept of nature to humans. In this minimal variant, nature is understood in purely contrastive or negative terms. Phusis is contrasted in Plato and Aristotle with technē , where the latter is the product of intention and a corresponding intervention of agency. If the entire cosmos is taken to be the product of divine agency, then, as Plato argued (Nadaf 2005: 1ff.), conceptualisations of the cosmos as natural in this sense are mistaken. Absent divine agency, the types of agents whose intentions are relevant for the status of anything as natural are human agents. Applied to humans, then, this concept of nature picks out human features that are not the results of human intentional action. Thus understood, human nature is the set of human features or processes that remain after subtraction of those picked out by concepts of the non-natural, concepts such as “culture”, “nurture”, or “socialisation”.

A second component in the package supplies the thin concept with substantial content that confers on it explanatory power. According to Aristotle, natural entities are those that contain in themselves the principle of their own production or development, in the way that acorns contain a blueprint for their own realisation as oak trees ( Physics 192b; Metaphysics 1014b). The “nature” of natural entities thus conceptualised is a subset of the features that make up their nature in the first sense. The human specification of this explanatory concept of nature aims to pick out human features that similarly function as blueprints for something like a fully realised form. According to Aristotle, for all animals that blueprint is “the soul”, that is, the integrated functional capacities that characterise the fully developed entity. The blueprint is realised when matter, i.e., the body, has attained the level of organisation required to instantiate the animal’s living functions (Charles 2000: 320ff.; Lennox 2009: 356).

A terminological complication is introduced here by the fact that the fully developed form of an entity is itself also frequently designated as its “nature” (Aristotle, Physics 193b; Politics 1252b). In Aristotle’s teleological metaphysics, this is the entity’s end, “that for the sake of which a thing is” ( Metaphysics 1050a; Charles 2000: 259). Thus, a human’s “nature”, like that of any other being, may be either the features in virtue of which it is disposed to develop to a certain mature form or, thirdly , the form to which it is disposed to develop.

Importantly, the particularly prominent focus on the idea of a fully developed form in Aristotle’s discussions of humans derives from its dual role. It is not only the form to the realisation of which human neonates are disposed; it is also the form that mature members of the species ought to realise ( Politics 1253a). This normative specification is the fourth component of the traditional package. The second, third and fourth uses of “nature” are all in the original package firmly anchored in a teleological metaphysics. One question for systematic claims about human nature is whether any of these components remain plausible if we reject a teleology firmly anchored in theology (Sedley 2010: 5ff.).

A fifth and last component of the package that has traditionally been taken to have been handed down from antiquity is classificatory. Here, the property or set of properties named by the expression “human nature” is that property or property set in virtue of the possession of which particular organisms belong to a particular biological taxon: what we now identify as the species taxon Homo sapiens . This is human nature typologically understood.

This, then, is the traditional package:

The sort of properties that have traditionally been taken to support the classificatory practices relevant to TP5 are intrinsic to the individual organisms in question. Moreover, they have been taken to be able to fulfil this role in virtue of being necessary and sufficient for the organism’s membership of the species, i.e., “essential” in one meaning of the term. This view of species membership, and the associated view of species themselves, has been influentially dubbed “typological thinking” (Mayr 1959 [1976: 27f.]; cf. Mayr 1982: 260) and “essentialism” (Hull 1965: 314ff.; cf. Mayr 1968 [1976: 428f.]). The former characterisation involves an epistemological focus on the classificatory procedure, the latter a metaphysical focus on the properties thus singled out. Ernst Mayr claimed that the classificatory approach originates in Plato’s theory of forms, and, as a result, involves the further assumption that the properties are unchanging. According to David Hull, its root cause is the attempt to fit the ontology of species taxa to an Aristotelian theory of definition.

The theory of definition developed in Aristotle’s logical works assigns entities to a genus and distinguishes them from other members of the genus, i.e., from other “species”, by their differentiae ( Topics 103b). The procedure is descended from the “method of division” of Plato, who provides a crude example as applied to humans, when he has the Eleatic Stranger in the Statesman characterise them as featherless bipeds (266e). Hull and many scholars in his wake (Dupré 2001: 102f.) have claimed that this simple schema for picking out essential conditions for species membership had a seriously deleterious effect on biological taxonomy until Darwin (cf. Winsor 2006).

However, there is now widespread agreement that Aristotle was no taxonomic essentialist (Balme 1980: 5ff.; Mayr 1982: 150ff.; Balme 1987: 72ff.; Ereshefsky 2001: 20f; Richards 2010: 21ff.; Wilkins 2018: 9ff.). First, the distinction between genus and differentiae was for Aristotle relative to the task at hand, so that a “species” picked out in this manner could then count as the genus for further differentiation. Second, the Latin term “species”, a translation of the Greek eidos , was a logical category with no privileged relationship to biological entities; a prime example in the Topics is the species justice, distinguished within the genus virtue (143a). Third, in a key methodological passage, Parts of Animals , I.2–3 (642b–644b), Aristotle explicitly rejects the method of “dichotomous division”, which assigns entities to a genus and then seeks a single differentia, as inappropriate to the individuation of animal kinds. Instead, he claims, a multiplicity of differentiae should be brought to bear. He emphasises this point in relation to humans (644a).

According to Pierre Pellegrin and David Balme, Aristotle did not seek to establish a taxonomic system in his biological works (Pellegrin 1982 [1986: 113ff.]; Balme 1987, 72). Rather, he simply accepted the everyday common sense partitioning of the animal world (Pellegrin 1982 [1986: 120]; Richards 2010: 24; but cf. Charles 2000: 343ff.). If this is correct, Aristotle didn’t even ask after the conditions for belonging to the species Homo sapiens . So he wasn’t proposing any particular answer, and specifically not the “essentialist” answer advanced by TP5. In as far as such an answer has been employed in biological taxonomy (cf. Winsor 2003), its roots appear to lie in Neoplatonic, Catholic misinterpretations of Aristotle (Richards 2010: 34ff.; Wilkins 2018: 22ff.). Be that as it may, the fifth use of “human nature” transported by tradition—to pick out essential conditions for an organism’s belonging to the species—is of eminent interest. The systematic concern behind Mayr and Hull’s historical claims is that accounts of the form of TP5 are incompatible with evolutionary theory. We shall look at this concern in section 2 of this entry.

Because the term “essentialism” recurs with different meanings in discussions of human nature and because some of the theoretical claims thus summarised are assumed to be Aristotelian in origin, it is worth spending a moment here to register what claims can be singled out by the expression. The first , purely classificatory conception just discussed should be distinguished from a second view that is also frequently labelled “essentialist” and which goes back to Locke’s concept of “real essence” (1689: III, iii, 15). According to essentialism thus understood, an essence is the intrinsic feature or features of an entity that fulfils or fulfil a dual role: firstly, of being that in virtue of which something belongs to a kind and, secondly, of explaining why things of that kind typically have a particular set of observable features. Thus conceived, “essence” has both a classificatory and an explanatory function and is the core of a highly influential, “essentialist” theory of natural kinds, developed in the wake of Kripke’s and Putnam’s theories of reference.

An account of human nature that is essentialist in this sense would take the nature of the human natural kind to be a set of microstructural properties that have two roles: first, they constitute an organism’s membership of the species Homo sapiens . Second, they are causally responsible for the organism manifesting morphological and behavioural properties typical of species members. Paradigms of entities with such natures or essences are chemical elements. An example is the element with the atomic number 79, the microstructural feature that accounts for surface properties of gold such as yellowness. Applied to organisms, it seems that the relevant explanatory relationship will be developmental, the microstructures providing something like a blueprint for the properties of the mature individual. Kripke assumed that some such blueprint is the “internal structure” responsible for the typical development of tigers as striped, carnivorous quadrupeds (Kripke 1972 [1980: 120f.]).

As the first, pseudo-Aristotelian version of essentialism illustrates, the classificatory and explanatory components of what we might call “Kripkean essentialism” can be taken apart. Thus, “human nature” can also be understood in exclusively explanatory terms, viz. as the set of microstructural properties responsible for typical human morphological and behavioural features. In such an account, the ability to pick out the relevant organisms is simply presupposed. As we shall see in section 4 of this entry, accounts of this kind have been popular in the contemporary debate. The subtraction of the classificatory function of the properties in these conceptions has generally seemed to warrant withholding from them the label “essentialist”. However, because some authors have still seen the term as applicable (Dupré 2001: 162), we might think of such accounts as constituting a third , weak or deflationary variant of essentialism.

Such purely explanatory accounts are descendants of the second use of “human nature” in the traditional package, the difference being that they don’t usually presuppose some notion of the fully developed human form. However, where some such presupposition is made, there are stronger grounds for talking of an “essentialist” account. Elliott Sober has argued that the key to essentialism is not classification in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions, but the postulation of some “privileged state”, to the realisation of which specimens of a species tend, as long as no extrinsic factors “interfere” (Sober 1980: 358ff.). Such a dispositional-teleological conception, dissociated from classificatory ambitions, would be a fourth form of essentialism. Sober rightly associates such an account with Aristotle, citing Aristotle’s claims in his zoological writings that interfering forces are responsible for deviations, i.e., morphological differences, both within and between species. A contemporary account of human nature with this structure will be discussed in section 4 .

A fifth and final form of essentialism is even more clearly Aristotelian. Here, an explicitly normative status is conferred on the set of properties to the development of which human organisms tend. For normative essentialism, “the human essence” or “human nature” is a normative standard for the evaluation of organisms belonging to the species. Where the first, third and fourth uses of the expression have tended to be made with critical intent (for defensive exceptions, see Charles 2000: 348ff.; Walsh 2006; Devitt 2008; Boulter 2012), this fifth use is more often a self-ascription (e.g., Nussbaum 1992). It is intended to emphasise metaethical claims of a specific type. According to such claims, an organism’s belonging to the human species entails or in some way involves the applicability to the organism of moral norms that ground in the value of the fully developed human form. According to one version of this thought, humans ought be, or ought to be enabled to be, rational because rationality is a key feature of the fully developed human form. Such normative-teleological accounts of human nature will be the focus of section 5.2 .

We can summarise the variants of essentialism and their relationship to the components of the traditional package as follows:

Section 2 and section 5 of this entry deal with the purely classificatory and the normative teleological conceptions of human nature respectively, and with the associated types of essentialism. Section 3 discusses attempts to downgrade TP5, moving from essential to merely characteristic properties. Section 4 focuses on accounts of an explanatory human nature, both on attempts to provide a modernized version of the teleological blueprint model ( §4.1 ) and on explanatory conceptions with deflationary intent relative to the claims of TP2 and TP3 ( §4.2 and §4.3 ).

The traditional package specifies a set of conditions some or all of which substantial claims about “human nature” are supposed to meet. Before we turn to the systematic arguments central to contemporary debates on whether such conditions can be met, it will be helpful to spend a moment considering one highly influential substantial claim. Aristotle’s writings prominently contain two such claims that have been handed down in slogan form. The first is that the human being (more accurately: “man”) is an animal that is in some important sense social (“zoon politikon”, History of Animals 487b; Politics 1253a; Nicomachean Ethics 1169b). According to the second, “he” is a rational animal ( Politics 1253a, where Aristotle doesn’t actually use the traditionally ascribed slogan, “zoon logon echon”).

Aristotle makes both claims in very different theoretical contexts, on the one hand, in his zoological writings and, on the other, in his ethical and political works. This fact, together with the fact that Aristotle’s philosophy of nature and his practical philosophy are united by a teleological metaphysics, may make it appear obvious that the slogans are biological claims that provide a foundation for normative claims in ethics and politics. The slogans do indeed function as foundations in the Politics and the Nicomachean Ethics respectively (on the latter, see section 5 of this entry). It is, however, unclear whether they are to be understood as biological claims. Let us focus on the slogan that has traditionally dominated discussions of human nature in Western philosophy, that humans are “rational animals”.

First, if Pellegrin and Balme are right that Aristotelian zoology is uninterested in classifying species, then ascribing the capacity for “rationality” cannot have the function of naming a biological trait that distinguishes humans from other animals. This is supported by two further sets of considerations. To begin with, Aristotle’s explicit assertion that a series of differentiae would be needed to “define” humans ( Parts of Animals 644a) is cashed out in the long list of features he takes to be their distinguishing marks, such as speech, having hair on both eyelids, blinking, having hands, upright posture, breasts in front, the largest and moistest brain, fleshy legs and buttocks (Lloyd 1983: 29ff.). Furthermore, there is in Aristotle no capacity for reason that is both exclusive to, and universal among anthropoi . One part or kind of reason, “practical intelligence” ( phronesis ), is, Aristotle claims, found in both humans and other animals, being merely superior in the former ( Parts of Animals , 687a). Now, there are other forms of reasoning of which this is not true, forms whose presence are sufficient for being human: humans are the only animals capable of deliberation ( History of Animals 488b) and reasoning ( to noein ), in as far as this extends to mathematics and first philosophy. Nevertheless, these forms of reasoning are unnecessary: slaves, who Aristotle includes among humans ( Politics 1255a), are said to have no deliberative faculty ( to bouleutikon ) at all ( Politics 1260a; cf. Richter 2011: 42ff.). Presumably, they will also be without the capacities necessary for first philosophy.

Second, these Aristotelian claims raise the question as to whether the ascription of rationality is even intended as an ascription to an individual in as far as she or he belongs to a biological kind. The answer might appear to be obviously affirmative. Aristotle uses the claim that a higher level of reason is characteristic of humans to teleologically explain other morphological features, in particular upright gait and the morphology of the hands ( Parts of Animals 686a, 687a). However, the kind of reason at issue here is practical intelligence, the kind humans and animals share, not the capacity for mathematics and metaphysics, which among animals is exercised exclusively by humans. In as far as humans are able to exercise this latter capacity in contemplation, Aristotle claims that they “partake of the divine” ( Parts of Animals 656a), a claim of which he makes extensive use when grounding his ethics in human rationality ( Nicomachean Ethics 1177b–1178b). When, in a passage to which James Lennox has drawn attention (Lennox 1999), Aristotle declares that the rational part of the soul cannot be the object of natural science ( Parts of Animals 645a), it seems to be the contemplative part of the soul that is thus excluded from biological investigation, precisely the feature that is named in the influential slogan. If it is the “something divine … present in” humans that is decisively distinctive of their kind, it seems unclear whether the relevant kind is biological.

It is not the aim of this entry to decide questions of Aristotle interpretation. What is important is that the relationship of the question of “human nature” to biology is, from the beginning of the concept’s career, not as unequivocal as is often assumed (e.g., Hull 1986: 7; Richards 2010: 217f.). This is particularly true of the slogan according to which humans are rational animals. In the history of philosophy, this slogan has frequently been detached from any attempt to provide criteria for biological classification or characterisation. When Aquinas picks up the slogan, he is concerned to emphasise that human nature involves a material, corporeal aspect. This aspect is, however, not thought of in biological terms. Humans are decisively “rational substances”, i.e., persons. As such they also belong to a kind whose members also number angels and God (three times) (Eberl 2004). Similarly, Kant is primarily, indeed almost exclusively, interested in human beings as examples of “rational nature”, “human nature” being only one way in which rational nature can be instantiated (Kant 1785, 64, 76, 85). For this reason, Kant generally talks of “rational beings”, rather than of “rational animals” (1785, 45, 95).

There is, then, a perspective on humans that is plausibly present in Aristotle, stronger in Aquinas and dominant in Kant and that involves seeing them as instances of a kind other than the “human kind”, i.e., seeing the human animal “as a rational being” (Kant 1785 [1996: 45]). According to this view, the “nature” of humans that is most worthy of philosophical interest is the one they possess not insofar as they are human, but insofar as they are rational. Where this is the relevant use of the concept of human nature, being a specimen of the biological species is unnecessary for possessing the corresponding property. Specimens of other species, as well as non-biological entities may also belong to the relevant kind. It is also insufficient, as not all humans will have the properties necessary for membership in that kind.

As both a biologist and ethicist, Aristotle is at once a detached scientist and a participant in forms of interpersonal and political interaction only available to contemporary humans living in large, sedentary subpopulations. It seems plausible that a participant perspective may have suggested a different take on what it is to be human, perhaps even a different take on the sense in which humans might be rational animals, to that of biological science. We will return to this difference in section 5 of the entry.

2. The Nature of the Evolutionary Unit Homo sapiens and its Specimens

Detailing the features in virtue of which an organism is a specimen of the species Homo sapiens is a purely biological task. Whether such specification is achievable and, if so how, is controversial. It is controversial for the same reasons for which it is controversial what conditions need to be met for an organism to be a specimen of any species. These reasons derive from the theory of evolution.

A first step to understanding these reasons involves noting a further ambiguity in the use of the expression “human nature”, this time an ambiguity specific to taxonomy. The term can be used to pick out a set of properties as an answer to two different questions. The first concerns the properties of some organism which make it the case that it belongs to the species Homo sapiens . The second concerns the properties in virtue of which a population or metapopulation is the species Homo sapiens . Correspondingly, “human nature” can pick out either the properties of organisms that constitute their partaking in the species Homo sapiens or the properties of some higher-level entity that constitute it as that species. Human nature might then either be the nature of the species or the nature of species specimens as specimens of the species.

It is evolution that confers on this distinction its particular form and importance. The variation among organismic traits, without which there would be no evolution, has its decisive effects at the level of populations. These are groups of organisms that in some way cohere at a time in spite of the variation of traits among the component organisms. It is population-level groupings, taxa, not organisms, that evolve and it is taxa, such as species, that provide the organisms that belong to them with genetic resources (Ghiselin 1987: 141). The species Homo sapiens appears to be a metapopulation that coheres at least in part because of the gene flow between its component organisms brought about by interbreeding (cf. Ereshefsky 1991: 96ff.). Hence, according to evolutionary theory, Homo sapiens is plausibly a higher-level entity—a unit of evolution—consisting of the lower-level entities that are individual human beings. The two questions phrased in terms of “human nature” thus concern the conditions for individuation of the population-level entity and the conditions under which organisms are components of that entity.

The theory of evolution transforms the way we should understand the relationship between human organisms and the species to which they belong. The taxonomic assumption of TP5 was that species are individuated by means of intrinsic properties that are individually instantiated by certain organisms. Instantiating those properties is taken to be necessary and sufficient for those organisms to belong to the species. Evolutionary theory makes it clear that species, as population-level entities, cannot be individuated by means of the properties of lower-level constituents, in our case, of individual human organisms (Sober 1980: 355).

The exclusion of this possibility grounds a decisive difference from the way natural kinds are standardly construed in the wake of Locke and Kripke. Recall that, in this Kripkean construal, lumps of matter are instances of chemical kinds because of their satisfaction of intrinsic necessary and sufficient conditions, viz. their atoms possessing a certain number of protons. The same conditions also individuate the chemical kinds themselves. Chemical kinds are thus spatiotemporally unrestricted sets. This means that there are no metaphysical barriers to the chance generation of members of the kind, independently of whether the kind is instantiated at any contiguous time or place. Nitrogen could come to exist by metaphysical happenstance, should an element with the atomic number 14 somehow come into being, even in a world in which up to that point no nitrogen has existed (Hull 1978: 349; 1984: 22).

In contrast, a species can only exist at time \(t_n\) if either it or a parent species existed at \(t_{n-1}\) and there was some relationship of spatial contiguity between component individuals of the species at \(t_n\) and the individuals belonging to either the same species or the parent species at \(t_{n-1}\). This is because of the essential role of the causal relationship of heredity. Heredity generates both the coherence across a population requisite for the existence of a species and the variability of predominant traits within the population, without which a species would not evolve.

For this reason, the species Homo sapiens , like every other species taxon, must meet a historical or genealogical condition. (For pluralistic objections to even this condition, see Kitcher 1984: 320ff.; Dupré 1993: 49f.) This condition is best expressed as a segment of a population-level phylogenetic tree, where such trees represent ancestor-descendent series (Hull 1978: 349; de Queiroz 1999: 50ff.; 2005). Species, as the point is often put, are historical entities, rather than kinds or classes (Hull 1978: 338ff.; 1984: 19). The fact that species are not only temporally, but also spatially restricted has also led to the stronger claim that they are individuals (Ghiselin 1974; 1997: 14ff.; Hull 1978: 338). If this is correct, then organisms are not members, but parts of species taxa. Independently of whether this claim is true for all biological species, Homo sapiens is a good candidate for a species that belongs to the category individual . This is because the species is characterised not only by spatiotemporal continuity, but also by causal processes that account for the coherence between its component parts. These processes plausibly include not only interbreeding, but also conspecific recognition and particular forms of communication (Richards 2010: 158ff., 218).

Importantly, the genealogical condition is only a necessary condition, as genealogy unites all the segments of one lineage. The segment of the phylogenetic tree that represents some species taxon begins with a node that represents a lineage-splitting or speciation event. Determining that node requires attention to general speciation theory, which has proposed various competing criteria (Dupré 1993: 48f.; Okasha 2002: 201; Coyne & Orr 2004). In the case of Homo sapiens , it requires attention to the specifics of the human case, which are also controversial (see Crow 2003; Cela-Conde & Ayala 2017: 11ff.). The end point of the segment is marked either by some further speciation event or, as may seem likely in the case of Homo sapiens , by the destruction of the metapopulation. Only when the temporal boundaries of the segment have become determinate would it be possible to adduce sufficient conditions for the existence of such a historical entity. Hence, if “human nature” is understood to pick out the necessary and sufficient conditions that individuate the species taxon Homo sapiens , its content is not only controversial, but epistemically unavailable to us.

If we take such a view of the individuating conditions for the species Homo sapiens , what are the consequences for the question of which organisms belong to the species? It might appear that it leaves open the possibility that speciation has resulted in some intrinsic property or set of properties establishing the cohesion specific to the taxon and that such properties count as necessary and sufficient for belonging to it (cf. Devitt 2008: 17ff.). This appearance would be deceptive. To begin with, no intrinsic property can be necessary because of the sheer empirical improbability that all species specimens grouped together by the relevant lineage segment instantiate any such candidate property. For example, there are individuals who are missing legs, inner organs or the capacity for language, but who remain biologically human (Hull 1986: 5). Evolutionary theory clarifies why this is so: variability, secured by mechanisms such as mutation and recombination, is the key to evolution, so that, should some qualitative property happen to be universal among all extant species specimens immediately after the completion of speciation, that is no guarantee that it will continue to be so throughout the lifespan of the taxon (Hull 1984: 35; Ereshefsky 2008: 101). The common thought that there must be at least some genetic property common to all human organisms is also false (R. Wilson 1999a: 190; Sterelny & Griffiths 1999: 7; Okasha 2002: 196f.): phenotypical properties that are shared in a population are frequently co-instantiated as a result of the complex interaction of differing gene-regulatory networks. Conversely, the same network can under different circumstances lead to differing phenotypical consequences (Walsh 2006: 437ff.). Even if it should turn out that every human organism instantiated some property, this would be a contingent, rather than a necessary fact (Sober 1980: 354; Hull 1986: 3).

Moreover, the chances of any such universal property also being sufficient are vanishingly small, as the sharing of properties by specimens of other species can result from various mechanisms, in particular from the inheritance of common genes in related species and from parallel evolution. This doesn’t entail that there may be no intrinsic properties that are sufficient belonging to the species. There are fairly good candidates for such properties, if we compare humans with other terrestrial organisms. Language use and a self-understanding as moral agents come to mind. However, whether non-terrestrial entities might possess such properties is an open question. And decisively, they are obviously hopeless as necessary conditions (cf. Samuels 2012: 9).

This leaves only the possibility that the conditions for belonging to the species are, like the individuating conditions for the species taxon, relational. Lineage-based individuation of a taxon depends on its component organisms being spatially and temporally situated in such a way that the causal processes necessary for the inheritance of traits can take place. In the human case, the key processes are those of sexual reproduction. Therefore, being an organism that belongs to the species Homo sapiens is a matter of being connected reproductively to organisms situated unequivocally on the relevant lineage segment. In other words, the key necessary condition is having been sexually reproduced by specimens of the species (Kronfeldner 2018: 100). Hull suggests that the causal condition may be disjunctive, as it could also be fulfilled by a synthetic entity created by scientists that produces offspring with humans who have been generated in the standard manner (Hull 1978: 349). Provided that the species is not in the throes of speciation, such direct descent or integration into the reproductive community, i.e., participation in the “complex network […] of mating and reproduction” (Hull 1986: 4), will also be sufficient.

The lack of a “human essence” in the sense of intrinsic necessary and sufficient conditions for belonging to the species taxon Homo sapiens , has led a number of philosophers to deny that there is any such thing as human nature (Hull 1984: 19; 1986; Ghiselin 1997: 1; de Sousa 2000). As this negative claim concerns properties intrinsic both to relevant organisms and to the taxon, it is equally directed at the “nature” of the organisms as species specimens and at that of the species taxon itself. An alternative consists in retracting the condition that a classificatory essence must be intrinsic, a move which allows talk of a historical or relational essence and a corresponding relational conception of taxonomic human nature (Okasha 2002: 202).

Which of these ways of responding to the challenge from evolutionary theory appears best is likely to depend on how one takes it that the classificatory issues relate to the other matters at stake in the original human nature package. These concern the explanatory and normative questions raised by TP1–TP4. We turn to these in the following three sections of this article.

An exclusively genealogical conception of human nature is clearly not well placed to fulfil an explanatory role comparable to that envisaged in the traditional package. What might have an explanatory function are the properties of the entities from which the taxon or its specimens are descended. Human nature, genealogically understood, might serve as the conduit for explanations in terms of such properties, but will not itself explain anything. After all, integration in a network of sexual reproduction will be partly definitive of the specimens of all sexual species, whilst what is to be explained will vary enormously across taxa.

This lack of fit between classificatory and explanatory roles confronts us with a number of further theoretical possibilities. For example, one might see this incompatibility as strengthening the worries of eliminativists such as Ghiselin and Hull: even if the subtraction of intrinsicality were not on its own sufficient to justify abandoning talk of human nature, its conjunction with a lack of explanatory power, one might think, certainly is (Dupré 2003: 109f.; Lewens 2012: 473). Or one might argue that it is the classificatory ambitions associated with talk of human nature that should be abandoned. Once this is done, one might hope that certain sets of intrinsic properties can be distinguished that figure decisively in explanations and that can still justifiably be labelled “human nature” (Roughley 2011: 15; Godfrey-Smith 2014: 140).

Taking this second line in turn raises two questions: first, in what sense are the properties thus picked out specifically “human”, if they are neither universal among, nor unique to species specimens? Second, in what sense are the properties “natural”? Naturalness as independence from the effects of human intentional action is a key feature of the original package (TP1). Whether some such conception can be coherently applied to humans is a challenge for any non-classificatory account.

3. Characteristic Human Properties

The answer given by TP2 to the first question was in terms of the fully developed human form, where “form” does not refer solely to observable physical or behavioural characteristics, but also includes psychological features. This answer entails two claims: first, that there is one single such “form”, i.e., property or set of properties, that figures in explanations that range across individual human organisms. It also entails that there is a point in human development that counts as “full”, that is, as development’s goal or “telos”. These claims go hand in hand with the assumption that there is a distinction to be drawn between normal and abnormal adult specimens of the species. There is, common sense tells us, a sense in which normal adult humans have two legs, two eyes, one heart and two kidneys at specific locations in the body; they also have various dispositions, for instance, to feel pain and to feel emotions, and a set of capacities, such as for perception and for reasoning. And these, so it seems, may be missing, or under- or overdeveloped in abnormal specimens.

Sober has influentially described accounts that work with such teleological assumptions as adhering to an Aristotelian “Natural State Model” (Sober 1980: 353ff.). Such accounts work with a distinction that has no place in evolutionary biology, according to which variation of properties across populations is the key to evolution. Hence, no particular end states of organisms are privileged as “natural” or “normal” (Hull 1986: 7ff.). So any account that privileges particular morphological, behavioural or psychological human features has to provide good reasons that are both non-evolutionary and yet compatible with the evolutionary account of species. Because of the way that the notion of the normal is frequently employed to exclude and oppress, those reasons should be particularly good (Silvers 1998; Dupré 2003: 119ff.; Richter 2011: 43ff.; Kronfeldner 2018: 15ff.).

The kinds of reasons that may be advanced could either be internal to, or independent of the biological sciences. If the former, then various theoretical options may seem viable. The first grounds in the claim that, although species are not natural kinds and are thus unsuited to figuring in laws of nature (Hull 1987: 171), they do support descriptions with a significant degree of generality, some of which may be important (Hull 1984: 19). A theory of human nature developed on this basis should explain the kind of importance on the basis of which particular properties are emphasised. The second theoretical option is pluralism about the metaphysics of species: in spite of the fairly broad consensus that species are defined as units of evolution, the pluralist can deny the primacy of evolutionary dynamics, arguing that other epistemic aims allow the ecologist, the systematist or the ethologist to work with an equally legitimate concept of species that is not, or not exclusively genealogical (cf. Hull 1984: 36; Kitcher 1986: 320ff.; Hull 1987: 178–81; Dupré 1993: 43f.). The third option involves a relaxation of the concept of natural kinds, such that it no longer entails the instantiation of intrinsic, necessary, sufficient and spatiotemporally unrestricted properties, but is nevertheless able to support causal explanations. Such accounts aim to reunite taxonomic and explanatory criteria, thus allowing species taxa to count as natural kinds after all (Boyd 1999a; R. Wilson, Barker, & Brigandt 2007: 196ff.). Where, finally , the reasons advanced for privileging certain properties are independent of biology, these tend to concern features of humans’—“our”—self-understanding as participants in, rather than observers of, a particular form of life. These are likely to be connected to normative considerations. Here again, it seems that a special explanation will be required for why these privileged properties should be grouped under the rubric “human nature”.

The accounts to be described in the next subsection (3.2) of this entry are examples of the first strategy. Section 4 includes discussion of the relaxed natural kinds strategy. Section 5 focuses on accounts of human nature developed from a participant perspective and also notes the support that the pluralist metaphysical strategy might be taken to provide.

Begin, then, with the idea that to provide an account of “human nature” is to circumscribe a set of generalisations concerning humans. An approach of this sort sees the properties thus itemised as specifically “human” in as far as they are common among species specimens. So the privilege accorded to these properties is purely statistical and “normal” means statistically normal. Note that taking the set of statistically normal properties of humans as a non-teleological replacement for the fully developed human form retains from the original package the possibility of labelling as “human nature” either those properties themselves (TP3) or their developmental cause (TP2). Either approach avoids the classificatory worries dealt with in section 2 : it presupposes that those organisms whose properties are relevant are already distinguished as such specimens. What is to be explained is, then, the ways humans generally, though not universally, are. And among these ways are ways they may share with most specimens of some other species, in particular those that belong to the same order (primates) and the same class (mammals).

One should be clear what follows from this interpretation of “human”. The organisms among whom statistical frequency is sought range over those generated after speciation around 150,000 years ago to those that will exist immediately prior to the species’ extinction. On the one hand, because of the variability intrinsic to species, we are in the dark as to the properties that may or may not characterise those organisms that will turn out to be the last of the taxon. On the other hand, the time lag of around 100,000 years between the first anatomically modern humans and the general onset of behavioural modernity around the beginning of the Upper Palaeolithic means that there are likely to be many widespread psychological properties of contemporary humans that were not possessed by the majority of the species’ specimens during two thirds of the species’ history. This is true even if the practices seen as the signatures of behavioural modernity (see §1.1 ) developed sporadically, disappeared and reappeared at far removed points of time and space over tens of thousands of years before 50,000 ka (McBrearty & Brooks 2000; Sterelny 2011).

According to several authors (Machery 2008; 2018; Samuels 2012; Ramsey 2013), the expression “human nature” should be used to group properties that are the focus of much current behavioural, psychological and social science. However, as the cognitive and psychological sciences are generally interested in present-day humans, there is a mismatch between scientific focus and a grouping criterion that takes in all the properties generally or typically instantiated by specimens of the entire taxon. For this reason, the expression “human nature” is likely to refer to properties of an even more temporally restricted set of organisms belonging to the species. That restriction can be thought of in indexical terms, i.e., as a restriction to contemporary humans. However, some authors claim explicitly that their accounts entail that human nature can change (Ramsey 2013: 992; Machery 2018: 20). Human nature would then be the object of temporally indexed investigations, as is, for example, the weight of individual humans in everyday contexts. (Without temporal specification, there is no determinate answer to a question such as “How much did David Hume weigh?”) An example of Machery’s is dark skin colour. This characteristic, he claims, ceased to be a feature of human nature thus understood 7,000 years ago, if that was when skin pigmentation became polymorphic. The example indicates that the temporal range may be extremely narrow from an evolutionary point of view.

Such accounts are both compatible with evolutionary theory and coherent. However, in as far as they are mere summary or list conceptions, it is unclear what their epistemic value might be. They will tend to accord with everyday common sense, for which “human nature” may in a fairly low-key sense simply be the properties that (contemporary) humans generally tend to manifest (Roughley 2011: 16). They will also conform to one level of the expression’s use in Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40), which, in an attempt to provide a human “mental geography” (1748 [1970: 13]), lists a whole series of features, such as prejudice (1739–40, I,iii,13), selfishness (III,ii,5), a tendency to temporal discounting (III,ii,7) and an addiction to general rules (III,ii,9).

Accounts of this kind have been seen as similar in content to field guides for other animals (Machery 2008: 323; Godfrey-Smith 2014: 139). As Hull points out, within a restricted ecological context and a short period of evolutionary time, the ascription of readily observable morphological or behavioural characteristics to species specimens is a straightforward and unproblematic enterprise (Hull 1987: 175). However, the analogy is fairly unhelpful, as the primary function of assertions in field guides is to provide a heuristics for amateur classification. In contrast, a list conception of the statistically normal properties of contemporary humans presupposes identification of the organisms in question as humans. Moreover, such accounts certainly do not entail easy epistemic access to the properties in question, which may only be experimentally discovered. Nevertheless, there remains something correct about the analogy, as such accounts are a collection of assertions linked only by the fact that they are about the same group of organisms (Sterelny 2018: 123).

More sophisticated nature documentaries may summarise causal features of the lives of animals belonging to specific species. An analogous conception of human nature has also been proposed, according to which human nature is a set of pervasive and robust causal nexuses amongst humans. The list that picks out this set would specify causal connections between antecedent properties, such as having been exposed to benzene or subject to abuse as a child, and consequent properties, such as developing cancer or being aggressive towards one’s own children (Ramsey 2013: 988ff.). Human nature thus understood would have an explanatory component, a component internal to each item on the list. Human nature itself would, however, not be explanatory, but rather the label for a list of highly diverse causal connections.

An alternative way to integrate an explanatory component in a statistical normality account involves picking out that set of statistically common properties that have a purely evolutionary explanation (Machery 2008; 2018). This reinterpretation of the concept of naturalness that featured in the original package (TP1) involves a contrast with social learning. Processes grouped together under this latter description are taken to be alternative explanations to those provided by evolution. However, learning plays a central role, not only in the development of individual humans, but also in the iterated interaction of entire populations with environments structured and restructured through such interaction (Stotz 2010: 488ff.; Sterelny 2012: 23ff.). Hence, the proposal raises serious epistemic questions as to how the distinction is precisely to be drawn and operationalised. (For discussion, see Prinz 2012; Lewens 2012: 464ff.; Ramsey 2013: 985; Machery 2018: 15ff.; Sterelny 2018: 116; Kronfeldner 2018: 147ff.).

4. Explanatory Human Properties

The replacement of the concept of a fully developed form with a statistical notion yields a deflationary account of human nature with, at most, restricted explanatory import. The correlative, explanatory notion in the original package, that of the fully developed form’s blueprint (TP2), has to some authors seemed worth reframing in terms made possible by advances in modern biology, particularly in genetics.

Clearly, there must be explanations of why humans generally walk on two legs, speak and plan many of their actions in advance. Genealogical, or what have been called “ultimate” (Mayr) or “historical” (Kitcher) explanations can advert to the accumulation of coherence among entrenched, stable properties along a lineage. These may well have resulted from selection pressures shared by the relevant organisms (cf. Wimsatt 2003; Lewens 2009). The fact that there are exceptions to any generalisations concerning contemporary humans does not entail that there is no need for explanations of such exception-allowing generalisations. Plausibly, these general, though not universal truths will have “structural explanations”, that is, explanations in terms of underlying structures or mechanisms (Kitcher 1986: 320; Devitt 2008: 353). These structures, so seems, might to a significant degree be inscribed in humans’ DNA.

The precise details of rapidly developing empirical science will improve our understanding of the extent to which there is a determinate relationship between contemporary humans’ genome and their physical, psychological and behavioural properties. There is, however, little plausibility that the blueprint metaphor might be applicable to the way DNA is transcribed, translated and interacts with its cellular environment. Such interaction is itself subject to influence by the organism’s external environment, including its social environment (Dupré 2001: 29ff.; 2003: 111ff.; Griffiths 2011: 326; Prinz 2012: 17ff.; Griffiths & Tabery 2013: 71ff.; Griffiths & Stotz 2013: 98ff., 143ff.). For example, the feature of contemporary human life for which there must according to Aristotle be some kind of blueprint, viz. rational agency, is, as Sterelny has argued, so strongly dependent on social scaffolding that any claim to the effect that human rationality is somehow genetically programmed ignores the causal contributions of manifestly indispensable environmental factors (Sterelny 2018: 120).

Nevertheless, humans do generally develop a specific set of physiological features, such as two lungs, one stomach, one pancreas and two eyes. Moreover, having such a bodily architecture is, according to the evidence from genetics, to a significant extent the result of developmental programmes that ground in gene regulatory networks (GRNs). These are stretches of non-coding DNA that regulate gene transcription. GRNs are modular, more or less strongly entrenched structures. The most highly conserved of these tend to be the phylogenetically most archaic (Carroll 2000; Walsh 2006: 436ff.; Willmore 2012: 227ff.). The GRNs responsible for basic physiological features may be taken, in a fairly innocuous sense, to belong to an evolved human nature.

Importantly, purely morphological features have generally not been the explananda of accounts that have gone under the rubric “human nature”. What has frequently motivated explanatory accounts thus labelled is the search for underlying structures responsible for generally shared psychological features. “Evolutionary Psychologists” have built a research programme around the claim that humans share a psychological architecture that parallels that of their physiology. This, they believe, consists of a structured set of psychological “organs” or modules (Tooby & Cosmides 1990: 29f.; 1992: 38, 113). This architecture is, they claim, in turn the product of developmental programmes inscribed in humans’ DNA (1992: 45). Such generally distributed developmental programmes they label “human nature” (1990: 23).

This conception raises the question of how analogous the characteristic physical and psychological “architectures” are. For one thing, the physical properties that tend to appear in such lists are far more coarse-grained than the candidates for shared psychological properties (D. Wilson 1994: 224ff.): the claim is not just that humans tend to have perceptual, desiderative, doxastic and emotional capacities, but that the mental states that realise these capacities tend to have contents of specific types. Perhaps an architecture of the former kind—of a formal psychology—is a plausible, if relatively unexciting candidate for the mental side of what an evolved human nature should explain. Either way, any such conception needs to adduce criteria for the individuation of such “mental organs” (D. Wilson 1994: 233). Relatedly, if the most strongly entrenched developmental programmes are the most archaic, it follows that, although these will be species-typical, they will not be species-specific. Programmes for the development of body parts have been identified for higher taxa, rather than for species.

A further issue that dogs any such attempts to explicate the “human” dimension of human nature in terms of developmental programmes inscribed in human DNA concerns Evolutionary Psychologists’ assertion that the programmes are the same in every specimen of the species. This assertion goes hand in hand with the claim that what is explained by such programmes is a deep psychological structure that is common to almost all humans and underlies the surface diversity of behavioural and psychological phenomena (Tooby & Cosmides 1990: 23f.). For Evolutionary Psychologists, the (near-)universality of both developmental programmes and deep psychological structure has an ultimate explanation in evolutionary processes that mark their products as natural in the sense of TP1. Both, they claim, are adaptations. These are features that were selected for because their possession in the past conferred a fitness advantage on their possessors. Evolutionary Psychologists conceive that advantage as conferred by the fulfilment of some specific function. They summarise selection for that function as “design”, which they take to have operated equally on all species specimens since the Pleistocene. This move reintroduces the teleological idea of a fully developed form beyond mere statistical normality (TP3).

This move has been extensively criticised. First, selection pressures operate at the level of groups and hence need not lead to the same structures in all a group’s members (D. Wilson 1994: 227ff.; Griffiths 2011: 325; Sterelny 2018: 120). Second, other evolutionary mechanisms than natural selection might be explanatorily decisive. Genetic drift or mutation and recombination might, for example, also confer “naturalness” in the sense of evolutionary genesis (Buller 2000: 436). Third, as we have every reason to assume that the evolution of human psychology is ongoing, evolutionary biology provides little support for the claim that particular programmes and associated traits evolved to fixity in the Pleistocene (Buller 2000: 477ff.; Downes 2010).

Perhaps, however, there might turn out to be gene control networks that do generally structure certain features of the psychological development of contemporary humans (Walsh 2006: 440ff.). The quest for such GNRs can, then, count as the search for an explanatory nature of contemporary humans, where the explanatory function thus sought is divorced from any classificatory role.

There has, however, been a move in general philosophy of science that, if acceptable, would transform the relationship between the taxonomic and explanatory features of species. This move was influentially initiated by Richard Boyd (1999a). It begins with the claim that the attempt to define natural kinds in terms of spatiotemporally unrestricted, intrinsic, necessary and sufficient conditions is a hangover from empiricism that should be abandoned by realist metaphysics. Instead, natural kinds should be understood as kinds that support induction and explanation, where generalisations at work in such processes need not be exceptionless. Thus understood, essences of natural kinds, i.e., their “natures”, need be neither intrinsic nor be possessed by all and only members of the kinds. Instead, essences consist of property clusters integrated by stabilising mechanisms (“homeostatic property clusters”, HPCs). These are networks of causal relations such that the presence of certain properties tends to generate or uphold others and the workings of underlying mechanisms contribute to the same effect. Boyd names storms, galaxies and capitalism as plausible examples (Boyd 1999b: 82ff.). However, he takes species to be the paradigmatic HPC kinds. According to this view, the genealogical character of a species’ nature does not undermine its causal role. Rather, it helps to explain the specific way in which the properties cohere that make up the taxon’s essence. Moreover, these can include extrinsic properties, for example, properties of constructed niches (Boyd 1991: 142, 1999a: 164ff.; Griffiths 1999: 219ff.; R. Wilson et al. 2007: 202ff.).

Whether such an account can indeed adequately explain taxonomic practice for species taxa is a question that can be left open here (see Ereshefsky & Matthen 2005: 16ff.). By its own lights the account does not identify conditions for belonging to a species such as Homo sapiens (Samuels 2012: 25f.). Whether it enables the identification of factors that play the explanatory roles that the term “human nature” might be supposed to pick out is perhaps the most interesting question. Two ways in which an account of human nature might be developed from such a starting point have been sketched.

According to Richard Samuels’ proposal, human nature should be understood as the empirically discoverable proximal mechanisms responsible for psychological development and for the manifestation of psychological capacities. These will include physiological mechanisms, such as the development of the neural tube, as well as environmentally scaffolded learning procedures; they will also include the various modular systems distinguished by cognitive science, such as visual processing and memory systems (Samuels 2012: 22ff.). Like mere list conceptions (cf. §3.2 ), such an account has a precedent in Hume, for whom human nature also includes causal “principles” that structure operations of the human mind (1739–40, Intro.), for example, the mechanisms of sympathy (III,iii,1; II,ii,6). Hume, however, thought of the relevant causal principles as intrinsic.

A second proposal, advanced by Paul Griffiths and Karola Stotz, explicitly suggests taking explanandum and explanans to be picked out by different uses of the expression "human nature". In both cases, the “nature” in question is that of the taxon, not of individual organisms. The former use simply refers to “what human beings are like”, where “human beings” means all species specimens. Importantly, this characterisation does not aim at shared characteristics, but is open for polymorphisms both across a population and across life stages of individual organisms. The causal conception of human nature, what explains this spectrum of similarity and difference in life histories, is equated by Griffiths and Stotz with the organism-environment system that supports human development. It thus includes all the genetic, epigenetic and environmental resources responsible for varying human life cycles (Griffiths 2011: 319; Stotz & Griffiths 2018, 66f.). It follows that explanatory human nature at one point in time can be radically different from human nature at some other point in time.

Griffiths and Stotz are clear that this account diverges significantly from traditional accounts, as it rejects assumptions that human development has a goal, that human nature is possessed by all and only specimens of the species and that it consists of intrinsic properties. They see these assumptions as features of the folk biology of human nature that is as scientifically relevant as are folk conceptions of heat for its scientific understanding (Stotz 2010: 488; Griffiths 2011: 319ff.; Stotz & Griffiths 2018: 60ff.). This raises the question as to whether such a developmental systems account should not simply advocate abandoning the term, as is suggested by Sterelny (2018) on the basis of closely related considerations. A reason for not doing so might lie in the fact that, as talk of “human nature” is often practised with normative intent or at least with normative consequences (Stotz & Griffiths 2018: 71f.), use of the term to pick out the real, complex explanatory factors at work might help to counter those normative uses that employ false, folk biological assumptions.

Explanatory accounts that emphasise developmental plasticity in the products of human DNA, in the neural architecture of the brain and in the human mind tend to reject the assumption that explanations of what humans are like should focus on intrinsic features. It should, however, be noted that such accounts can be interpreted as assigning the feature of heightened plasticity the key role in such explanations (cf. Montagu 1956: 79). Accounts that make plasticity causally central also raise the question as to whether there are not biological features that in turn explain it and should therefore be assigned a more central status in a theory of explanatory human nature.

A prime candidate for this role is what the zoologist Adolf Portmann labelled human “secondary altriciality”, a unique constellation of features of the human neonate relative to other primates: human neonates are, in their helplessness and possession of a relatively undeveloped brain, neurologically and behaviourally altricial, that is, in need of care. However they are also born with open and fully functioning sense organs, otherwise a mark of precocial species, in which neonates are able to fend for themselves (Portmann 1951: 44ff.). The facts that the human neonate brain is less than 30% of the size of the adult brain and that brain development after birth continues at the fetal rate for the first year (Walker & Ruff 1993, 227) led the anthropologist Ashley Montagu to talk of “exterogestation” (Montagu 1961: 156). With these features in mind, Portmann characterised the care structures required by prolonged infant helplessness as the “social uterus” (Portmann 1967: 330). Finally, the fact that the rapid development of the infant brain takes place during a time in which the infant’s sense organs are open and functioning places an adaptive premium on learning that is unparalleled among organisms (Gould 1977: 401; cf. Stotz & Griffiths 2018: 70).

Of course, these features are themselves contingent products of evolution that could be outlived by the species. Gould sees them as components of a general retardation of development that has characterised human evolution (Gould 1977: 365ff.), where “human” should be seen as referring to the clade—all the descendants of a common ancestor—rather than to the species. Anthropologists estimate that secondary altriciality characterised the lineage as from Homo erectus 1.5 million years ago (Rosenberg & Trevathan 1995: 167). We are, then, dealing with a set of deeply entrenched features, features that were in place long before behavioural modernity.

It is conceivable that the advent of secondary altriciality was a key transformation in generating the radical plasticity of human development beginning with early hominins. However, as Sterelny points out, there are serious difficulties with isolating any particular game changer. Secondary altriciality, or the plasticity that may in part be explained by it, would thus seem to fall victim to the same verdict as the game changers named by the traditional human nature slogans. However, maybe it is more plausible to think in terms of a matrix of traits: perhaps a game-changing constellation of properties present in the population after the split from pan can be shown to have generated forms of niche construction that fed back into and modified the original traits. These modifications may in turn have had further psychological and behavioural consequences in steps that plausibly brought selective advantages (Sterelny 2018: 115).

5. Human Nature, the Participant Perspective and Morality

In such a culture-mind coevolutionary account, there may be a place for the referents of some of the traditional philosophical slogans intended to pin down “the human essence“ or “human nature”—reason, linguistic capacity ( “ the speaking animal”, Herder 1772 [2008: 97]), a more general symbolic capacity ( animal symbolicum , Cassirer 1944: 44), freedom of the will (Pico della Mirandola 1486 [1965: 5]; Sartre 1946 [2007: 29, 47]), a specific, “political” form of sociality, or a unique type of moral motivation (Hutcheson 1730: §15). These are likely, at best, to be the (still evolving) products in contemporary humans of processes set in motion by a trait constellation that includes proto-versions of (some of) these capacities. Such a view may also be compatible with an account of “what contemporary humans are like” that abstracts from the evolutionary time scale of eons and focuses instead on the present (cf. Dupré 1993: 43), whilst neither merely cataloguing widely distributed traits ( §3.2 ) nor attempting explanations in terms of the human genome ( §4.1 ). The traditional slogans appear to be attempts to summarise some such accounts. It seems clear, though, that their aims are significantly different from those of the biologically, or otherwise scientifically orientated positions thus far surveyed.

Two features of such accounts are worth emphasising, both of which we already encountered in Aristotle’s contribution to the original package. The first involves a shift in perspective from that of the scientific observer to that of a participant in a contemporary human life form. Whereas the human—or non-human—biologist may ask what modern humans are like, just as they may ask what bonobos are like, the question that traditional philosophical accounts of human nature are plausibly attempting to answer is what it is like to live one’s life as a contemporary human. This question is likely to provoke the counter-question as to whether there is anything that it is like to live simply as a contemporary human, rather than as a human-in-a-specific-historical-and-cultural context (Habermas 1958: 32; Geertz 1973: 52f.; Dupré 2003: 110f.). For the traditional sloganeers, the answer is clearly affirmative. The second feature of such accounts is that they tend to take it that reference to the capacities named in the traditional slogans is in some sense normatively , in particular, ethically significant .

The first claim of such accounts, then, is that there is some property of contemporary humans that is in some way descriptively or causally central to participating in their form of life. The second is that such participation involves subjection to normative standards rooted in the possession of some such property. Importantly, there is a step from the first to the second form of significance, and justification of the step requires argument. Even from a participant perspective, there is no automatic move from explanatory to normative significance.

According to an “internal”, participant account of human nature, certain capacities of contemporary, perhaps modern humans unavoidably structure the way they (we) live their (our) lives. Talk of “structuring” refers to three kinds of contributions to the matrix of capacities and dispositions that both enable and constrain the ways humans live their lives. These are contributions, first, to the specific shape other features of humans lives have and, second, to the way other such features hang together (Midgley 2000: 56ff.; Roughley 2011: 16ff.). Relatedly, they also make possible a whole new set of practices. All three relations are explanatory, although their explanatory role appears not necessarily to correspond to the role corresponding features, or earlier versions of the features, might have played in the evolutionary genealogy of contemporary human psychology. Having linguistic capacities is a prime candidate for the role of such a structural property: human perception, emotion, action planning and thought are all plausibly transformed in linguistic creatures, as are the connections between perception and belief, and the myriad relationships between thought and behaviour, connections exploited and deepened in a rich set of practices unavailable to non-linguistic animals. Similar things could be claimed for other properties named by the traditional slogans.

In contrast to the ways in which such capacities have frequently been referred to in the slogan mode, particularly to the pathos that has tended to accompany it, it seems highly implausible that any one such property will stand alone as structurally significant. It is more likely that we should be picking out a constellation of properties, a constellation that may well include properties variants of which are possessed by other animals. Other properties, including capacities that may be specific to contemporary humans, such as humour, may be less plausible candidates for a structural role.

Note that the fact that such accounts aim to answer a question asked from the participant perspective does not rule out that the features in question may be illuminated in their role for human self-understanding by data from empirical science. On the contrary, it seems highly likely that disciplines such as developmental and comparative psychology, and neuroscience will contribute significantly to an understanding of the possibilities and constraints inherent in the relevant capacities and in the way they interact.

5.2. Human Nature and the Human ergon

The paradigmatic strategy for deriving ethical consequences from claims about structural features of the human life form is the Platonic and Aristotelian ergon or function argument. The first premise of Aristotle’s version ( Nicomachean Ethics 1097b–1098a) connects function and goodness: if the characteristic function of an entity of a type X is to φ, then a good entity of type X is one that φs well. Aristotle confers plausibility on the claim by using examples such as social roles and bodily organs. If the function of an eye as an exemplar of its kind is to enable seeing, then a good eye is one that enables its bearer to see well. The second premise of the argument is a claim we encountered in section 1.4 of this entry, a claim we can now see as predicating a structural property of human life, the exercise of reason. According to this claim, the function or end of individual humans as humans is, depending on interpretation (Nussbaum 1995: 113ff.), either the exercise of reason or life according to reason. If this is correct, it follows that a good human being is one whose life centrally involves the exercise of, or life in accordance with, reason.

In the light of the discussion so far, it ought to be clear that, as it stands, the second premise of this argument is incompatible with the evolutionary biology of species. It asserts that the exercise of reason is not only the key structural property of human life, but also the realization of the fully developed human form. No sense can be made of this latter notion in evolutionary terms. Nevertheless, a series of prominent contemporary ethicists—Alasdair MacIntyre (1999), Rosalind Hursthouse (1999), Philippa Foot (2001) and Martha Nussbaum (2006)—have all made variants of the ergon argument central to their ethical theories. As each of these authors advance some version of the second premise, it is instructive to examine the ways in which they aim to avoid the challenge from evolutionary biology.

Before doing so, it is first worth noting that any ethical theory or theory of value is engaged in an enterprise that has no clear place in an evolutionary analysis. If we want to know what goodness is or what “good” means, evolutionary theory is not the obvious place to look. This is particularly clear in view of the fact that evolutionary theory operates at the level of populations (Sober 1980: 370; Walsh 2006: 434), whereas ethical theory operates, at least primarily, at the level of individual agents. However, the specific conflict between evolutionary biology and neo-Aristotelian ethics results from the latter’s constructive use of the concept of species and, in particular, of a teleological conception of a fully developed form of individual members of the species “ qua members of [the] species” (MacIntyre 1999: 64, 71; cf. Thompson 2008: 29; Foot 2001: 27). The characterisation of achieving that form as fulfilling a “function”, which helps the analogy with bodily organs and social roles, is frequently replaced in contemporary discussions by talk of “flourishing” (Aristotle’s eudaimonia ). Such talk more naturally suggests comparisons with the lives of other organisms (although Aristotle himself excludes other animals from eudaimonia ; cf. Nicomachean Ethics 1009b). The concept of flourishing in turn picks out biological—etymologically: botanical—processes, but again not of a sort that play a role in evolutionary theory. It also seems primarily predicated of individual organisms. It may play a role in ecology; it is, however, most clearly at home in practical applications of biological knowledge, as in horticulture. In this respect, it is comparable to the concept of health.

Neo-Aristotelians claim that to describe an organism, whether a plant or a non-human or human animal, as flourishing is to measure it against a standard that is specific to the species to which it belongs. To do so is to evaluate it as a more or less good “specimen of its species (or sub-species)” (Hursthouse 1999: 198). The key move is then to claim that moral evaluation is, “quite seriously” (Foot 2001: 16), evaluation of the same sort: just as a non-defective animal or plant exemplifies flourishing within the relevant species’ life form, someone who is morally good is someone who exemplifies human flourishing, i.e., the fully developed form of the species. This metaethical claim has provoked the worry as to whether such attributions to other organisms are really anything more than classifications, or at most evaluations of “stretched and deflated” kinds that are missing the key feature of authority that we require for genuine normativity (Lenman 2005: 46ff.).

Independently of questions concerning their theory of value, ethical Neo-Aristotelians need to respond to the question of how reference to a fully developed form of the species can survive the challenge from evolutionary theory. Three kinds of response may appear promising.

The first adverts to the plurality of forms of biological science, claiming that there are life sciences, such as physiology, botany, zoology and ethology in the context of which such evaluations have a place (Hursthouse 1999: 202; 2012: 172; MacIntyre 1999: 65). And if ethology can legitimately attribute not only characteristic features, but also defects or flourishing to species members, in spite of species not being natural kinds, then there is little reason why ethics shouldn’t do so too. This strategy might ground in one of the moves sketched in section 3.1 of this entry. It might be argued, with Kitcher and Dupré, that such attributions are legitimate in other branches of biological science because there is a plurality of species concepts, indeed of kinds of species, where these are relative to epistemic interests. Or the claim might simply rest on a difference in what is taken to be the relevant time frame, where temporal relevance is indexed relative to the present. In ethics we are, it might be claimed, interested in humans as they are “at the moment and for a few millennia back and for maybe not much longer in the future” (Hursthouse 2012: 171).

This move amounts to the concession that talk of “the human species” is not to be understood literally. Whether this concession undermines the ethical theories that use the term is perhaps unclear. It leaves open the possibility that, as human nature may change significantly, there may be significant changes in what it means for humans to flourish and therefore in what is ethically required. This might be seen as a virtue, rather than a vice of the view.

A second response to the challenge from evolutionary biology aims to draw metaphysical consequences from epistemic or semantic claims. Michael Thompson has argued that what he calls alternatively “the human life form” and “the human species” is an a priori category. Thompson substantiates this claim by examining forms of discourse touched on in section 3.2 , forms of discourse that are generally taken to be of mere heuristic importance for amateur practices of identification, viz. field guides or animal documentaries. Statements such as “The domestic cat has four legs, two eyes, two ears and guts in its belly”, are, Thompson claims, instances of an important kind of predication that is neither tensed nor quantifiable. He calls these “natural historical descriptions” or “Aristotelian categoricals” (Thompson 2008: 64ff.). Such generic claims are not, he argues, made false where what is predicated is less than universal, or even statistically rare. Decisively, according to Thompson, our access to the notion of the human life form is non-empirical. It is, he claims, a presupposition of understanding ourselves from the first-person perspective as breathing, eating or feeling pain (Thompson 2004: 66ff.). Thus understood, the concept is independent of biology and therefore, if coherent, immune to problems raised by the Darwinian challenge.

Like Foot and Hursthouse, Thompson thinks that his Aristotelian categoricals allow inferences to specific judgments that members of species are defective (Thompson 2004: 54ff.; 2008: 80). He admits that such judgments in the case of the human life form are likely to be fraught with difficulties, but nevertheless believes that judgments of (non-)defective realization of a life form are the model for ethical evaluation (Thompson 2004: 30, 81f.). It may seem unclear how this might be the case in view of the fact that access to the human life form is supposed to be given as a presupposition of using the concept of “I”. Another worry is that the everyday understanding on which Thompson draws may be nothing other than a branch of folk biology. The folk tendency to ascribe teleological essences to species, as to “races” and genders, is no indication of the reality of such essences (Lewens 2012: 469f.; Stotz & Griffiths 2018: 60ff.; cf. Pellegrin 1982 [1986: 16ff., 120] and Charles 2000: 343ff., 368, on Aristotle’s own orientation to the usage of “the people”).

A final response to evolutionary biologists’ worries aims equally to distinguish the Neo-Aristotelian account of human nature from that of the sciences. However, it does so not by introducing a special metaphysics of “life forms”, but by explicitly constructing an ethical concept of human nature. Martha Nussbaum argues that the notion of human nature in play in what she calls “Aristotelian essentialism” is, as she puts it, “internal and evaluative”. It is a hermeneutic product of “human” self-understanding, constructed from within our best ethical outlook: “an ethical theory of human nature”, she claims,

should force us to answer for ourselves, on the basis of our very own ethical judgment, the question which beings are fully human ones. (Nussbaum 1995: 121f.; cf. Nussbaum 1992: 212ff.; 2006: 181ff.; McDowell 1980 [1998: 18ff.]; Hursthouse 1999: 229; 2012: 174f.)

There can be no question here of moving from a biological “is” to an ethical “ought”; rather, which features are taken to belong to human nature is itself seen as the result of ethical deliberation. Such a conception maintains the claim that the key ethical standard is that of human flourishing. However, it is clear that what counts as flourishing can only be specified on the basis of ethical deliberation, understood as striving for reflective equilibrium (Nussbaum 2006: 352ff.). In view of such a methodological proposal, there is a serious question as to what work is precisely done by the concept of human nature.

Neo-Aristotelians vary in the extent to which they flesh out a conception of species-specific flourishing. Nussbaum draws up a comprehensive, open-ended catalogue of what she calls “the central human capacities”. These are in part picked out because of their vulnerability to undermining or support by political measures. They include both basic bodily needs and more specifically human capacities, such as for humour, play, autonomy and practical reason (Nussbaum 1992: 216ff.; 2006: 76ff.). Such a catalogue allows the setting of three thresholds, below which a human organism would not count as living a human life at all (anencephalic children, for instance), as living a fully human life or as living a good human life (Nussbaum 2006: 181). Nussbaum explicitly argues that being of human parents is insufficient for crossing the first, evaluatively set threshold. Her conception is partly intended to provide guidelines as to how societies should conceive disability and as to when it is appropriate to take political measures in order to enable agents with nonstandard physical or mental conditions to cross the second and third thresholds.

Nussbaum has been careful to insist that enabling independence, rather than providing care, should be the prime aim. Nevertheless, the structure of an account that insists on a “species norm”, below which humans lacking certain capacities count as less than fully flourishing, has prompted accusations of illiberality. According to the complaint, it disrespects the right of members of, for example, deaf communities to set the standards for their own forms of life (Glackin 2016: 320ff.).

Other accounts of species-specific flourishing have been considerably more abstract. According to Hursthouse, plants flourish when their parts and operations are well suited to the ends of individual survival and continuance of the species. In social animals, flourishing also tends to involve characteristic pleasure and freedom from pain, and a contribution to appropriate functioning of relevant social groups (Hursthouse 1999: 197ff.). The good of human character traits conducive to pursuit of these four ends is transformed, Hursthouse claims, by the addition of “rationality”. As a result, humans flourish when they do what they correctly take themselves to have reason to do—under the constraint that they do not thereby cease to foster the four ends set for other social animals (Hursthouse 1999: 222ff.). Impersonal benevolence is, for example, because of this constraint, unlikely to be a virtue. In such an ethical outlook, what particular agents have reason to do is the primary standard; it just seems to be applied under particular constraints. A key question is thus whether the content of this primary standard is really determined by the notion of species-specific flourishing.

Where Hursthouse’s account builds up to, and attempts to provide a “natural” framework for, the traditional Aristotelian ergon of reason, MacIntyre builds his account around the claim that flourishing specific to the human “species” is essentially a matter of becoming an “independent practical reasoner” (MacIntyre 1999: 67ff.). It is because of the central importance of reasoning that, although human flourishing shares certain preconditions with the flourishing, say, of dolphins, it is also vulnerable in specific ways. MacIntyre argues that particular kinds of social practices enable the development of human reasoning capacities and that, because independent practical reasoning is, paradoxically, at core cooperatively developed and structured, the general aim of human flourishing is attained by participation in networks in local communities (MacIntyre 1999: 108). “Independent practical reasoners” are “dependent rational animals”. MacIntyre’s account thus makes room on an explanatory level for the evolutionary insight that humans can only become rational in a socio-cultural context which provides scaffolding for the development and exercise of rationality ( §4 ). Normatively, however, this point is subordinated to the claim that, from the point of view of participation in the contemporary human life form, flourishing corresponds to the traditional slogan.

MacIntyre, Hursthouse and Nussbaum (Nussbaum 2006: 159f.) all aim to locate the human capacity for reasoning within a framework that encompasses other animals. Each argues that, although the capacities to recognise reasons as reasons and for deliberation on their basis transform the needs and abilities humans share with other animals, the reasons in question remain in some way dependent on humans’ embodied and social form of life. This emphasis is intended to distinguish an Aristotelian approach from other approaches for which the capacity to evaluate reasons for action as reasons and to distance oneself from ones desires is also the “central difference” between humans and other animals (Korsgaard 2006: 104; 2018: 38ff.; cf. MacIntyre 1999: 71ff.). According to Korsgaard’s Kantian interpretation of Aristotle’s ergon argument, humans cannot act without taking a normative stand on whether their desires provide them with reasons to act. This she takes to be the key structural feature of their life, which brings with it “a whole new way of functioning well or badly” (Korsgaard 2018: 48; cf. 1996: 93). In such an account, “human nature” is monistically understood as this one structural feature which is so transformative that the concept of life applicable to organisms that instantiate it is no longer that applicable to organisms that don’t. Only “humans” live their lives, because only they possess the type of intentional control over their bodily movements that grounds in evaluation of their actions and self-evaluation as agents (Korsgaard 2006: 118; 2008: 141ff.; cf. Plessner 1928 [1975: 309f.]).

We have arrived at an interpretation of the traditional slogan that cuts it off from a metaphysics with any claims to be “naturalistic”. The claim now is that the structural effect of the capacity for reasoning transforms those features of humans that they share with other animals so thoroughly that those features pale into insignificance. What is “natural” about the capacity for reasoning for humans here is its unavoidability for contemporary members of the species, at least for those without serious mental disabilities. Such assertions also tend to shade into normative claims that discount the normative status of “animal” needs in view of the normative authority of human reasoning (cf. McDowell 1996 [1998: 172f.]).

The most radical version of this thought leads to the claim encountered towards the end of section 1.4 : that talk of “human nature” involves no essential reference at all to the species Homo sapiens or to the hominin lineage. According to this view, the kind to which contemporary humans belong is a kind to which entities could also belong who have no genealogical relationship to humans. That kind is the kind of entities that act and believe in accordance with the reasons they take themselves to have. Aliens, synthetically created agents and angels are further candidates for membership in the kind, which would, unlike biological taxa, be spatiotemporally unrestricted. The traditional term for the kind, as employed by Aquinas and Kant, is “person” (cf. Hull 1986: 9).

Roger Scruton has recently taken this line, arguing that persons can only be adequately understood in terms of a web of concepts inapplicable to other animals, concepts whose applicability grounds in an essential moral dimension of the personal life form. The concepts pick out components of a life form that is permeated by relationships of responsibility, as expressed in reactive attitudes such as indignation, guilt and gratitude. Such emotions he takes to involve a demand for accountability, and as such to be exclusive to the personal life form, not variants of animal emotions (Scruton 2017: 52). As a result, he claims, they situate their bearers in some sense “outside the natural order” (Scruton 2017: 26). According to such an account, we should embrace a methodological dualism with respect to humans: as animals, they are subject to the same kinds of biological explanations as all other organisms, but as persons, they are subject to explanations that are radically different in kind. These are explanations in terms of reasons and meanings, that is, exercises in “Verstehen”, whose applicability Scruton takes to be independent of causal explanation (Scruton 2017: 30ff., 46).

Such an account demonstrates with admirable clarity that there is no necessary connection between a theory of “human nature” and metaphysical naturalism. It also reinforces the fact, emphasised throughout this entry, that discussions of “human nature” require both serious conceptual spadework and explicit justification of the use of any one such concept rather than another.

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Aquinas, Thomas | Aristotle, General Topics: biology | Aristotle, General Topics: ethics | ethics: virtue | evolution | Kant, Immanuel | Locke, John: on real essence | naturalism: moral | natural kinds | psychology: evolutionary | species

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Michelle Hooge, Maria Kronfeldner, Nick Laskowski and Hichem Naar for their comments on earlier drafts.

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Human Persons as Social Entities

• Lynne Rudder Baker

The aim of this article is to show that human persons belong, ontologically, in social ontology. After setting out my views on ontology, I turn to persons and argue that they have first-person perspectives in two stages (rudimentary and robust) essentially. Then I argue that the robust stage of the first-person persective is social, in that it requires a language, and languages require linguistic communities. Then I extend the argument to cover the rudimentary stage of the first-person perspective as well. I conclude by enumerating ways in which human persons differ from nonhuman animals.

Different philosophers construe social ontology in different ways – for example, in terms of collectivities, or institutional facts, or group agents (see, for example, Gilbert 1989; Searle 2006; Ikäheimo and Laitinen 2011; Hindriks 2013). The subjects of study of social ontology are typically plural entities, not individuals. My aim here is to contribute to an expansion of social ontology that includes individual human persons, as well as plural entities or institutions.

Let me begin with a quick sketch of how I understand ontology. [1] Ontology simpliciter is a complete inventory of all the entities, kinds and properties that ever exist or are instantiated. Since I believe that there is ontological novelty in the world, I think that we are in no position to consider ontology simpliciter (there may be some addition to ontology later); rather we have to deal with ontology relativized to time. Ontology at time t comprises all the entities and properties that have existed at time t or before.

In order to be in ontology at time t, a concrete entity, property, or primary kind must be (ontologically) [2] irreducible and ineliminable without loss of completeness (at time t). An item is irreducible and ineliminable (at time t) if and only if it is not reducible and not eliminable (at time t). An entity (or property) is reducible if and only if it is entailed by local microphysical properties. More colloquially, an entity (or property) is reducible if and only if it is “really something else” (Fodor 1987, p. 97). An entity (or property) is eliminable if and only if a complete ontology does not entail that it exists (or is instantiated). Primary kinds belong in ontology, because kinds that are reducible or eliminable are not primary kinds. [3]

Social ontology, as I construe it, is part of ontology simpliciter. As part of ontology, social ontology should include all social entities, social kinds and social properties that are irreducible and ineliminable. A social property is one for which social or linguistic communities are necessary for its instantiation. A community is one whose members bear significant intentional relations to one another. I say ‘significant’ to rule out an aggregate of people waiting to cross the street as a community. They may all happen to have curly hair, but they are not a community. A community is a group of persons with a measure of cohesion, with common intentional properties or relations such as shared interests or values or language. A social property belongs in social ontology if and only if it is irreducible and ineliminable. An entity is social entity if and only if it has a social property, and a kind is a social kind if and only if it has social entities as members.

Over the course of three books (Baker 2000, 2007a, 2013), I have developed a metaphysical view of human persons. Here, I want to focus on the facets of my view that have implications for social ontology.

What is a Human Person?

On my view, every concrete entity is of some primary kind or other. Person is a primary kind; physician is not. Any entity of primary kind person is a person at every moment that she exists. An entity of (nonprimary) kind physician is not always a physician: she acquires the property of being a physician after arduous training, and thus has the property contingently. (For greater detail on primary kinds generally, see Baker 2007a, p. 33–39.)

A human person is a person who begins existence constituted by an organism, but is not identical to the organism that constitutes her. For purposes here, I shall leave the essential feature of embodiment aside. What matters here is another essential property of persons, a first-person perspective. A first-person perspective is a primary-kind property that members of the kind person have essentially. A first-person perspective is a dispositional property with two stages – rudimentary and robust. [For convenience, I shall sometimes drop the reference to stages and talk directly about rudimentary and robust first-person perspectives. Nevertheless, the two stages are not distinct first-person perspectives. Indeed, sameness of exemplification of first-person perspective is what makes a person a unified individual over time (Baker 2012).]

A human person comes into existence when a human organism develops to the point of supporting a first-person perspective at a rudimentary stage, a nonconceptual capacity for intentional behavior that requires consciousness and intentionality. When a human organism gets to that point, a new entity – a person, who has a first-person perspective essentially – comes into being. During the developmental process, a person learns a language, and as she does, she (standardly) moves to the robust stage of the first-person perspective, a conceptual capacity to conceive of herself as herself from the first-person.

Many nonhuman mammals – those capable of intentional behavior – also have rudimentary first-person perspectives. However, there is a difference, even at the stage of a rudimentary first-person perspective, between persons and nonhuman mammals. Although human persons begin existence with only rudimentary first-person perspectives, if there were no robust first-person perspectives, there would be no human persons. In the absence of robust first-person perspectives, there would be no significant distinction between human persons and nonhuman primates. For human persons, a rudimentary first-person perspective is a preliminary to a robust first-person perspective. But for nonhuman animals, a rudimentary first-person perspective is not a preliminary for anything; it is the end of the first-person line.

For human persons, in contrast to nonhuman animals, the rudimentary first-person perspective comes with a piggybacked second-order capacity for a robust first-person perspective – that is, with a capacity to develop a capacity to conceive of oneself as oneself from the first-person. (A remote (or second-order) capacity may fail to be realized, and never become an in-hand capacity. To take an example far afield, an infant may have a remote capacity to ride a bicycle, and never learn to ride. But if nobody ever learned to ride a bicycle, there would be no bicycle-riders. Similarly, if nobody ever acquired a robust first-person perspective, there would be no persons.] So, in the case of a human person, the rudimentary first-person perspective brings with it a second-order capacity to develop a robust first-person perspective.

Let us now consider robust first-person perspectives in greater detail. One acquires a robust first-person perspective as she acquires a natural language. To conceive of oneself as oneself in the first-person, one needs a self-concept – a nonqualitative way to think about oneself. I take concepts to be inextricably linked to language. There’s no self-concept, and hence no robust first-person perspective, outside a language. Learning a language is learning concepts, and learning concepts is learning about reality. After a child acquires a battery of concepts like water , mommy , ball , want , toy , chair and so on, she is ready to understand a concept like mine , which she uses to apply to what belongs to her – conceived of as herself, from the first-person perspective.

A robust first-person perspective – an ability, not just to recognize oneself as distinct from everything else, but to conceive of oneself as oneself in the first person – makes possible almost all our characteristic human activities. To name a few: One can deliberate about what to do and can attempt to rank preferences and goals, and try to resolve conflicts among them (and thus is a rational agent); one can reflect on her motives; one can have a life of moral significance; one can have an inner life; one can conceive of herself as having a past, some of which is accessible to memory, and as having a future, some of which is accessible to intention. Robust first-person perspectives enable us to realize that we are agents, to take responsibility for things that we do, to recognize that we are subjects of experience, to care about the future, to change our habits in light of rational assessment of our goals. These abilities – made possible by our robust first-person perspectives – are unique (as far as we know) in the universe (Baker 2000, p. 147–164; Baker 2011).

We have ample linguistic evidence of first-person perspectives in the use of first-person pronouns embedded in first-person sentences whose main verbs are linguistic or psychological verbs – ‘I am glad that I have such good friends’, ‘I wish that I were not in pain,’ ‘I told you that I was in pain’, and so on. If I think or say that I am glad that I have such good friends, I am conceiving of myself from the first-person, without needing a name, description or other third-person referential device to refer to myself. I’ll call such complex first-person thoughts ‘I*-thoughts’.

There are a couple of features of I*-thoughts worth noticing: First, they are not limited to “Cartesian” thoughts about what one is thinking; they include mundane thoughts like “I wish that I* were in the movies”. Second, I*-thoughts need no recourse to any peculiar object like a self, or a soul, or an ego. My I*-thoughts refer to me, a person – the same entity that you refer to by saying, “Lynne Baker”. There is no special object, distinct from a whole embodied person, that is a self. All I*-thoughts are manifestations of robust first-person perspectives. Our ability to think such thoughts depends crucially on language.

To sum up: The first-person perspective is a dispositional property with two stages (rudimentary and robust). This property is manifested in countless different ways, in much more sophisticated ways at the robust stage. (Your causal powers expand as you acquire more concepts.) Throughout its indefinitely many diverse manifestations, your exemplification of the first-person perspective remains constant. You are the same person as a certain toddler in virtue of the fact that there is a single exemplification of the first-person perspective shared the adult and the toddler – albeit manifested in vastly different ways.

Elsewhere (Baker 2013) I argued that persons and their essential properties (viz., first-person perspectives, bodies) are irreducible and ineliminable, and hence part of ontology. It remains to show that they are social in that they could not exist in a world without social or linguistic communities. The relevant essential property of persons is the first-person perspective, with its two stages, rudimentary and robust. I want to show that the first-person perspective belongs in social ontology – in virtue of its robust stage. A property belongs in social ontology if and only if: (i) social or linguistic communities are necessary for its instantiation; (ii) it is not reducible; (iii) it is not eliminable.

As I argued earlier, there would be no human persons if there were no robust stage of the first-person perspective. The robust stage of the first-person perspective is necessary and sufficient for the existence of the kind human person, but not for the existence of each human person. [4] (A person may die before reaching the robust stage.) Or, to put it another way, instantiation of the robust stage of the first-person perspective is sufficient for there to be human persons.

Human Persons in Social Ontology

Let’s begin with the robust first-person perspective. Here is my overall argument for the place of the robust first-person perspective in social ontology:

P1. The first-person perspective (in its robust stage) is a social property. P2. The first-person perspective (in its robust or rudimentary stage) is not ontologically reducible. P3. The first-person perspective (in its robust or rudimentary stage) is not eliminable. P4: If P1, P2, and P3, the first-person perspective in its robust stage belongs in social ontology.

∴ 5. The first-person perspective in the robust stage belongs in social ontology.

The argument is valid; let me consider the premises.

P1: Having a robust first-person perspective requires having a language in which one can conceive of oneself as oneself in the first-person. Mastering a language requires a linguistic community. Wittgenstein pegged why a person who did not already have a language could not make up a language in isolation: If you did, then there would be no standards of correctness. If you came to identify another item of some kind that you thought you had seen before, there would be no difference between getting it right and getting it wrong. “One would like to say: whatever is going to seem right to me is right. And that only means that here we can’t talk about ‘right.’” (Wittgenstein 1958, par. 258) So, whatever one did in isolation, it would not be to invent a language – public or private. Suppose that a theretofore nonlinguistic Robinson Crusoe found himself on an isolated island. He amuses himself by pointing to various fish and uttering sounds. One day, he points at a shark and says, ‘shark.’ There are many sharks and dolphins that are similar in appearance in the vicinity. Without a linguistic community, what would make it the case that our lifelong-solitary Crusoe referred to sharks rather than sharks-or-dolphins. If Crusoe said, “shark” when he pointed at a dolphin, what would be the difference between his incorrectly identifying a dolphin as a shark, and his correctly identifying a shark-or-dolphin? [5] There would be no way for our lifelong Crusoe to be right or wrong. (For extended argument, see Baker 2007b,c.) A linguistic community is generally required for learning concepts, and a self-concept is no exception. And since mastering a self-concept is required for the robust first-person perspective, the robust first-person perspective requires mastery of a self-concept, and hence is a social property. P2. The first-person perspective (in its robust or rudimentary stage) is not ontologically reducible. In its rudimentary stage, the first-person perspective is manifested in behavior that exhibits consciousness and intentionality, neither of which is entailed by local microproperties. In its robust stage, the first-person perspective requires a self-concept. In (Baker 2013), I argue that a self-concept, unlike the concept phlogiston , cannot be empty. If the self-concept is not empty, it expresses the property of conceiving of oneself as oneself in the first person. The self-concept that I use when I directly manifest a robust first-person perspective – expressed by ‘I*’ – itself expresses the just-mentioned property, which I manifest. This property is not entailed by microproperties inasmuch as microproperties are non-first-personal. [Not everyone agrees: John Perry thinks that the first-person indexical is essential, but that all facts are objective. However, he cannot satisfactorily make out the connection between the non-first-personal properties and first-person concepts (Perry 2002, p. 239; Baker 2013, p. 51–56)]. Since a complete inventory of the world must contain not just objects, but irreducible properties as well, a complete inventory must include the self-concept, which expresses the property of conceiving of oneself as oneself in the first person. [6] In its robust stage, the first-person perspective is directly manifested in thoughts like this: (i)“I wonder how I’m going to die”. Such a thought is reducible if and only if it is entailed by local microphysical properties. Well, since microphysical properties are expressible in the third-person, (i) is reducible only if it is entailed by third-person statements. I do not believe that any I*-thought is deducible from any third-person statements. Compare: (ii)“I wonder how LB is going to die”. (iii)“LB wonders how LB is going to die”. It is easy to think of circumstances in which (i) is false while (ii) and (iii) are true (Baker 1982). Hence, (i) is not deducible from (ii) or (iii). As we saw earlier, what distinguishes (i) from (ii) and (iii) is that (i) expresses a self-concept – a concept of oneself from one’s own point of view. Any time one thinks of oneself as oneself from one’s own point of view, one deploys a self-concept – a nonqualitative concept that manifests one’s robust first-person perspective, and thoughts containing a self-concept cannot be deduced from third-person thoughts, or replaced by third-person thoughts without cognitive loss. So, the robust first-person perspective is not reducible. P3. The first-person perspective (in its robust or rudimentary stage) is not eliminable. The intentionality exhibited by human infants and many nonhuman animals is not eliminable inasmuch as the behavior manifesting it would be inexplicable in a wholly nonintentional world. If intentionality were eliminated from ontology, we would have no reasonable explanation for your dog’s behavior when you repeatedly throw a stick and your dog repeatedly fetches it. In its robust stage, the first-person perspective is even more perspicuously ineliminable. Elimination of the robust first-person perspective would make many, if not most, characteristic human activities – celebrating anniversaries, seeking fame, signing contracts – literally impossible. An ontology with no room for a first-person perspective would be woefully incomplete. P4. This premise follows from the characterization of social ontology.

So, the first-person perspective in its robust stage belongs in social ontology.

An Objection?

Someone may object: It is properties (or entities or kinds of entities) that belong in ontology; it is not stages of properties, and the conclusion of the above argument is only that the first-person perspective in its robust stage belongs in social ontology.

I think that the objector is correct about my conclusion, but my argument can be supplemented to avoid the objection. The easiest response would be to hold that the ontological status of the highest level of a multi-level property is accorded to the property as a whole. So, if the first-person perspective in its robust stage belongs in social ontology (line 5), then the whole property of being a first-person perspective – without regard to stages – belongs in social ontology. Then, we can conclude that the first-person perspective belongs in social ontology.

Another way to defuse the objection is to note that the reason that the conclusion of the argument pertains only to the first-person perspective in its robust stage is that it is unclear whether the first-person perspective in its rudimentary stage belongs in social ontology. So, let us take a closer look at the rudimentary stage of the first-person perspective. Although I gave examples that suggest that consciousness and intentionality are irreducible and ineliminable, I admit that the examples are just examples; it is unclear that they are conclusive evidence for the claim that the first-person perspective in its rudimentary stage is in the social ontology.

Even though I do not have a theory of social communities, I think that we intuitively distinguish social communities, which share some salient feature (like aims or values) from mere groups, which – like the sum of insects within a certain square inch – do not share any salient feature in virtue of their spatial location. Although I am confident that evolution by natural selection requires groups for the rudimentary first-person perspective to have evolved, and I believe that social communities existed at the dawn of the first-person perspective, I am less confident that social communities that share salient properties in virtue of their communal membership were actually required for the development of the rudimentary first-person perspective in its rudimentary stage.

Nevertheless, let me urge that we can see how the rudimentary first-person perspective could have evolved by natural selection (or descent with modification). Here is a Just-So story: The evolution of a rudimentary first-person perspective required many generations of many species, each adding a bit toward sentience (consciousness) and the capacity to direct attention and bodily behavior (intentionality). Finally, perhaps a species developed what is clearly intentional behavior. The last step was a step from almost having a rudimentary first-person perspective to clearly having a first-person perspective.

“Evolution will occur whenever and wherever three conditions are met: (1) replication, (2) variation (mutation), (3) differential fitness (competition)” (Dennett 2006, p. 341). In order for there to be differential fitness, there must be groups. And some of these groups had developed into social communities by the dawn of intentional behavior. There is a great deal of empirical evidence about intentional behavior that is clearly social (e.g., grooming) among nonhuman primates (e.g., Gazzaniga 2008, p. 95).

So, I am optimistic that the first-person perspective in its rudimentary, as well as a robust, stage belongs in social ontology. Admittedly, the reasons that the rudimentary and robust stages are both social are quite different: For the robust stage, language is required; and language is social. For the rudimentary stage, natural selection among groups is required, and, over generations, the relevant groups developed social behavior. However, even if one is dubious about the place of the rudimentary first-person perspective in social ontology, it is clear that the first-person perspective in its robust stage most assuredly does belong in social ontology. And what sets human persons apart is their robust first-person perspectives. There would be no human persons without the first-person perspective in its robust stage. So, human persons are social entities.

We can see how deeply social human persons are by considering the range of characteristic human activities. Any activity that one could not engage in without a language, or without a robust first-person perspective, requires us to be social entities. Even an unshared activity, like keeping a diary, presupposes, not only the existence of a social community, but also the diary-keeper’s robust first-person perspective.

We share with several species the ability to communicate with conspecifics; but only we persons have a fully articulated language with resources for considering necessity and possibility. Only we worry about the paradox of the heap.

We share with several species the trait of having a perspective on our environments; but only we persons have rich inner lives, filled with counterfactuals. (“ . . . if only I had locked the door. . . ”)

We share with several species methods of rational inquiry (The dog sniffs around where he saw the bone being buried yesterday and digs there); but only we persons deliberate about what to do and attempt to rank preferences and goals, and try to resolve conflicts among them (and thus be rational agents).

We share with several species activities like self-grooming; but only we persons have self-narratives.

We share with several species the ability to make things that we need (for example, nests), but only we persons make things that we don’t need (for example, enough nuclear warheads to eliminate the human race many times over).

We share with several species the property of having social organization, but only we persons have war crimes, international courts, and human rights.

We share with other species the property of having a rudimentary first-person perspective, but only we persons develop a robust first-person perspective that makes us moral and responsible agents.

All these differences between persons and other entities rest on our having robust first-person perspectives. Robust first-person perspectives bring with them a cascade of new kinds of abilities: We can plan for our futures; we can deceive ourselves; we can try to reform; we can go on diets; we can have rich or empty inner lives. And on and on. With respect to the range of what we can do (from trying to control our destinies to fantasizing about the future) and with respect to the moral significance of what we can do (from assessing our goals to confessing our sins), it is obvious that beings with robust first-person perspectives are unique. The extent of the difference that the robust first-person perspective makes is a mark that we persons are ontologically different from animals. [7]

Whereas our rudimentary first-person perspectives tie persons to the seamless animal kingdom, our robust first-person perspectives set us apart from everything else in the natural world. They also insure that we are unalterably social entities.

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The Importance of Being Human

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Humans imperfectly but incessantly try to address the unique problems in our contexts in ways that enable us as a society to embrace the multitude of actions, behaviors, and processes that bring us together. When we as individuals reach out to those in our immediate contexts to consider new ideas and value propositions, we engage others in remedying our unique issues and evolving new solutions that continuously improve society. Many new ideas may be rejected or become failed solutions. But each of these failures and rejections brings the entire service ecosystem closer to a solution through a series of feedback loops. It is when this happens that innovation comes to fruition. Grit and perseverance make innovation possible. When humans take risks, they open the service ecosystem to infinite possibilities. This improves plasticity in the service ecosystem so that it can take new forms and retain new forms. This is the most promising way for the service ecosystem to respond to continuous disruption. Because of technology, humans have taken on some functions of the organization and now—despite technology—play a new enhanced role in today’s twenty-first-century economy than they did in yesteryear.

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Chandler, J.D. (2020). The Importance of Being Human. In: Innovation, Social Networks, and Service Ecosystems. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47797-4_6

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Personhood: An Essential Characteristic of the Human Species

Frederick j. white.

Institutional Ethics Committee, Willis-Knighton Health System, Shreveport, LA, USA

This essay postulates that human social order recognizes the personhood of human beings within two competing constructs—an existential construct that personhood is a state of being inherent and essential to the human species, and a relational construct that personhood is a conditional state of value defined by society. These competing constructs establish personhood in both individual and interpersonal contexts. Within the individual context existential personhood may be posited as a distinctly human state within the natural order, intrinsic to human life, and independent of the status of the human being. In the interpersonal context the existential construct holds that personhood is not a creation of the society, is not a right, and may not be altered or removed by human fiat. Relational theory presents contra assertions in these two contexts. The Christian view is taken as a particular case of existential personhood. Arguments concerning the nature of human personhood are metaphysical and consist of philosophical beliefs which may be properly asserted in either construct. The interpersonal context of personhood lends itself to comparative analysis of the empirical results associated with both the existential and the relational constructs. This essay provides an overview analysis of the existential and relational constructs of personhood in the interpersonal context and finds a broad range of results that are manifestly superior under existential theory. Such empiricism supports a normative conclusion that the good rests in the existential construction of human personhood, and gives credence to a claim of truth that personhood is an essential characteristic of the human species and is not a conditional state dependent upon circumstance, perception, cognition, or societal dictum.

“What is man, that thou art mindful of him?” 1 With these words, the Psalmist poses a transcendent question. It is a question raising wonder that God gives of the Divine mind to humanity, and a question recognizing in humanity a wondrous essential nature. What is it of a human being that could draw the mind of God? And what is it of human nature that could reflect the Divine? For the Christian, the answer has always been the imago Dei —that which Augustine defined as “that principle within us by which we are like God, and which is rightly said in Scripture to be made ‘after God's image’” (Augustine ca. 397/2002). And yet it is not just the Christian who recognizes the transcendent nature of humanity. The secular mind has also found in humanity that which extends beyond the physical. Plato argued that “when the person has died, his soul exists” (Plato ca. 380 B.C./1999), and in that argument found man as “having a share of the divine attributes” (Plato ca. 387 B.C./2005).

For the Christian, the notion that something reflective of the divine exists in all of humanity is foundational to human personhood. Personhood manifests the unity of the spiritual and the corporeal in human existence, and thereby is an essential characteristic of the human species. Personhood gives to the human individual a universal worth and an exceptional standing. And in the transcendent nature of personhood we find the inalienable substance of human rights and the genesis of society and law.

But the Christian view of human personhood has been increasingly questioned in our time, as has been the notion that any theory of personhood may be superior to others. This essay postulates that human social order recognizes the personhood of human beings within two competing constructs—an existential construct that personhood is a state of being inherent and essential to the human species, and a relational construct that personhood is a conditional state of value defined by the society. These competing constructs establish personhood in both the individual and interpersonal contexts. Within the individual context existential personhood may be posited as a distinctly human state within the natural order, intrinsic to human life, and independent of the status of the human being. In the interpersonal context the existential construct holds that personhood is not a creation of the society, is not a right, and may not be altered or removed by human fiat. The relational construct presents contra assertions in these two contexts. The Christian view is taken as a particular case of existential personhood.

Arguments concerning the nature of human personhood are metaphysical and consist of philosophical beliefs which may be properly asserted in either construct. 2 The interpersonal context of personhood lends itself to comparative analysis of the empirical results of both the existential and the relational constructs. This essay provides an overview analysis of the existential and relational constructs of personhood in the interpersonal context and finds a broad range of results that are manifestly superior under existential theory. Such empiricism supports a normative conclusion that the good rests in the existential construction of human personhood, and gives credence to a claim of truth that personhood is an essential characteristic of the human species and is not a conditional state dependent upon circumstance, perception, cognition, or societal dictum.

An Examination of Personhood in the Individual Context

What is it that makes a human being human ? And what is it that defines a human being as a person ? These questions, and the corollary interplay between qualities of humanity and qualities of personhood, challenge us to reflect on the most basic aspects of our existence.

Personhood as a Distinctly Human State within the Natural Order

The postulate that personhood is a distinctly human state within the natural order is basically an assertion of human exceptionalism. However, for many in our time, the controlling dogma of human existence rests upon the notion that humanity is nothing more than a highly developed animal state. The idea of the human species as relatively indistinct from other animals predates modern thought by millennia. In an early expression of naturalistic thought, Pliny the Elder described man as animal in being, though he viewed man as “the animal destined to rule all others.” 3 Pliny spoke of man comparatively, being the least of the animals in the frailties of birth and early development, though perhaps superior by virtue of self-awareness. 4 Even so, Pliny believed that both man and other animals were the result of some creative force. 5

The concept of man solely as an animal form derived by indifferent acts of the laws of nature reached a later expression in the nineteenth century thought of Charles Darwin. Citing trans-species similarities in embryologic development, in anatomic structure and function, and in the geologic record, Darwin (1874, 694) concluded that ‘man is the co-descendant with other mammals of a common progenitor’. Adopting an expressly naturalistic explanation for human existence as a part of the animal world, Darwin (1874, 693–694, 695) stated that

the great principle of evolution stands up clear and firm, when these groups of facts are considered in connection with others…. He who is not content to look like a savage, at the phenomena of nature as disconnected, cannot any longer believe that man is the work of a separate act of creation…. Through the means just specified, aided perhaps by others as yet undiscovered, man has been raised to his present state.

However, Darwin (1874, 696) went further than classical naturalism. Of mankind he held that ‘the high standard of our intellectual powers and moral disposition’ also reflected evolutionary advancement. The former, Darwin (1874, 696–697) stated, could easily be explained as a natural refinement of the mental powers of higher animals. The latter, moral, nature of man Darwin (1874, 697) admitted as “a more interesting problem.” 6 Nonetheless, he construed the moral nature of man to be founded in a combination of the expression of social instincts common to lower animals, such as an enjoyment of the company of other individuals, and an expression of higher intellectual powers, such as the ability to recall past experiences with the ability to generalize them to future events, all refined by the naturally selective processes of evolution (Darwin 1874, 697–700). Finally, Darwin held that the nearly universal conviction of mankind in the existence of a powerful Deity was merely a further development in the evolution of morally relevant social and cognitive behaviors. The construct of a Deity allowed man to transform those behaviors into customs extending beyond the confines of a given social context, thus becoming ‘habitual convictions controlled by reason’ (Darwin 1874, 700). The construct of the Divine as a manifestation of social evolution minimized the relevance of an immortal soul and dismissed as invalid the observation that ‘the belief in God has often been advanced as not only the greatest but the most complete of all distinctions between man and the lower animals’ Darwin (1874). 7 For Darwin, humanity, as characterized by morality and personhood, required no divine principle, nor imago Dei , but only the relentless force of natural selection. 8

So, then, do we humans exist only as an exalted mammalian phenomenon, driven to our current state by the invisible power of natural selection? Certainly many think not. Plato found intelligence to be the obvious distinctive between man and animal. As Grube (1958) noted, Plato found intelligence as “the most divine thing in man, the most essentially human because [it is] the only part of himself which he does not share with the animal kingdom….” 9

Aristotle also found man, though animal in nature, still distinct from other animals. Randall (1960, 68) noted that Aristotle held physiology to be common to all living things, and sensing and responding to stimuli as common to man and animals. 10 However, Aristotle held the nous as distinctive to man, being “the power of responding to universals and meanings, the power of acting with deliberation, with conscious forethought, or acting rationally” Randall (1960, 68). 11 In the Metaphysics , Aristotle (ca. 350 B.C./2008) held that among animals “endowed with sense” humans were distinct in that “the human race exists by means of art also and the powers of reasoning”. St. Thomas Aquinas combined these three functions—nutritive, sensory, and rational— into his unitary construct of humanity, with rationality forming the distinctive nature of the human person (Kretzmann and Stump 1998). And it was here that St. Thomas found company with St. Augustine in holding this distinctive rationality as the central virtue of the imago Dei (O'Callaghan 2007 12 ).

And yet it is that rationality per se is not sufficient to establish the essence of personhood, or for the Christian, the imago Dei . In his exploration of human identity, Kavanaugh (2001) has written that ‘if nonhuman animals…are discovered to have reflexive consciousness, and thereby embodied self-consciousness, they would be persons—even if not of the human variety…’. The members of the Great Ape Project have advocated for the personhood of certain species of apes, maintaining that the chimpanzee, the gorilla, and the orangutan “have mental capacities and an emotional life sufficient to justify inclusion within the community of equals” (Cavalieri et al. 1994). Admitting the controversial nature of animal language studies, nonetheless language and rational thought may be more reflective of the natural order than supposed in prior eras. And if animals have some form of rational thought, then a conception of human exceptionalism and of human personhood based in solely in rationality would need re-examination.

But it is what follows from rationality that makes humans distinctive in the natural order. St. Thomas was careful to construe the capacities of animals to the sensitive soul, with no per se operation of its own and no subsistence (Aquinas ca. 1274/1952). 13 As for man, the International Theological Commission has written that for St. Thomas ‘the image of God is realized principally in an act of contemplation in the intellect’ (International Theological Commission 2009). Lee and George (2008) note that it is the free choice and moral agency that flow from human rationality that are distinctive of humans. 14 Pope Benedict XVI has said that the specific distinction between human beings and animals is that God has made humans “capable of thinking and praying.” 15 Here then we find something divinely distinctive. Human beings, unlike even the most highly developed animals, have the capacity to relate to God, to understand a moral code, and to choose to live by it.

As Berry (2007) points out, the divine image distinguishing humans from other animals transcends naturalism, and “is not a genetic or anatomical trait.” As Berry writes, it is as if at some point God in a specific act of creation transformed Homo sapiens to Homo divinus , “biologically unchanged but spiritually distinct.”

Even Darwin in later years felt that the existence of the world as a function of natural processes was not incompatible with the transcendental, and that the rationality of humans implied the possibility of a higher entity subsuming the natural order. As Darwin observed,

Another source of conviction in the existence of God, connected with the reason and not with the feelings, impresses me as having much more weight. This follows from the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist…. I cannot pretend to throw the least light on such abstruse problems. The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic (Darwin 1887/2005).

Here Darwin not only recognized a central limitation of his theory, but also the constraint placed on its extrapolation by the Kantian distinction between the a priori judgments of conceptual philosophy and the a posteriori conclusions of empirical science. 16 And herein we find a final point concerning the human state—that a broad application of the divide between the work of conceptual philosophy and empiric science places the naturalistic arguments of the Darwinians in proper perspective. The Darwinian arguments are relevant as to the origin of species, but are simply not determinative as to whether there is or was an Originator. Although empiric evidence may be relevant to species development, such evidence has no bearing on the non-testable concept of a First Cause. Naturalism does not have standing to conclusively refute the doctrine of imago Dei , nor to defeat the assertion, founded in human exceptionalism, that personhood is a distinctly human state within the natural order.

Personhood as Intrinsic to Human Life

A more recent argument against a distinctive nature of human personhood in general and the imago Dei in particular holds that personhood is solely a behavioral characteristic based on physiologic processes and is in no way intrinsic to human life. As a biologic iteration of the philosophic principles of reductionism, the belief that we are merely complex physiologic machines—both in our existence and in our actions—is now gaining as a cultural norm. The human being is held to be a strictly physical entity in the totality of its existence—an expression of its genome and a product of its ongoing biochemistry. Here, there is nothing intrinsic or transcendent to human personhood, and nothing distinctive about a human being. Human existence has no true metaphysical basis, and cannot survive physical death.

Venturing beyond the older propositions that humanity may be reduced to a naturalistically derived higher animal form, these modern arguments seek to strip away any metaphysical residual of personhood. Building on the classic atomistic tradition of Democritus and modifying the teachings of Cartesian dualism, 17 these modern thinkers dismiss the concept of the person as a unity of body and soul as espoused by St. Thomas Aquinas, and propose that all of human existence, both the physical and the metaphysical, may be reduced to the actions of the physical substrate of the body at various levels of function. Arguing to ‘put consciousness back in the brain’, Searle (2007) has maintained that conscious phenomena are concrete, non-abstract, and exist within the brain in space and time as a function of neuronal activity.

Sir Francis Crick (1995) has explicitly taken the argument beyond consciousness to a frank rejection of the concept of an innate soul. He began his recent examination of the human soul with what he termed as “the Astonishing Hypothesis,” stating that

“You,” your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules (p. 3).

He goes on to say that “a modern neurobiologist sees no need for the religious concept of a soul to explain the behavior of humans and other animals” (p. 6). Modern neurobiological reductionists simply dismiss the soul as archaic, irrelevant, and unnecessary. Personhood is for the neurobiologist a purely material and natural phenomenon.

Is personhood, then, a dependent expression of the biologic state of human life, and not an intrinsic foundation of that life? Are we simply maintained by the sprightly contortions of atoms within the cohabitations of our genes? Again, many think not.

Platonic and Christian teachings assert that the human person is a unity of the separable entities of body and soul, and that that the soul is intrinsic to human life. For Plato it was clear that the essence of a human being transcends its physical substrate, both in physical life and after death. When Socrates was asked how he should be buried, Plato reported his reply as, “However you wish, provided you catch me.” 18 Socrates went on to say, “When I drink the poison, I shall no longer remain with you, but shall go off and depart for some happy state of the blessed….” 19 Grube (1958, 149) held that for Plato the function of the soul is “the fusion of the intelligible with the physical.” Grube (1958) described this Platonic construct of the soul further:

It alone can apprehend the universal, it alone can initiate the harmonious and rhythmical motions that are life. The Forms do not depend, it is true, upon it for their existence, but without it they can be neither apprehended nor realized to any extent at all. Without soul the physical world on the other hand could not even exist.

St. Thomas Aquinas succinctly stated that “it belongs to the notion of man to be composed of soul, flesh, and bones.” 20 St. Thomas found the soul to be “the first principle of life of those things which live.” 21 He held that the soul has progressive expression, such that in man “the sensitive soul, the intellectual soul, and the nutritive soul are numerically one soul.” 22 While “the body is necessary for the action of the intellect,” he also held it as true that “the intellectual principle which we call the mind or the intellect has an operation per se apart from the body.” 23 And of the qualities of the intellect, he found it to be both “incorporeal and subsistent.” 24

Swinburne (1998) notes that “in more modern times, the view that humans have souls has always been understood as the view that humans have an essential part, separable from the body as depicted by Plato and Aquinas.” Finding human intellectual capacity inseparable from the life force, associated with but divisible from the body, and persisting after death, Plato and Aquinas recognized in the human individual a distinctive nature. In that distinction the personhood of the human individual is intrinsic to human life and is uniquely transcendent within the natural order. Plato and Aquinas would find the Astonishing Hypothesis to be just that—and would reject it as a clear inversion of truth and reality.

Bennett and Hacker (2003, 399–408) have recently argued that the application of a modified Cartesian dualism, and subsequently of reductionism, to the physiologic studies of neuroscience marks the beginning of a mistaken intrusion of philosophy into the field. They maintain that neuroscience should properly be confined to that which it can empirically measure and study. 25 Echoing Kant (and Darwin), they argue that, “ No neuroscientific discoveries can solve any of the conceptual problems that are the proper province of philosophy, any more than the empirical discoveries of physicists can prove mathematical theorems” (Bennett and Hacker, 2003, 407). Understanding this, any deterministic assault of biologic reductionism upon the assertion that personhood is intrinsic to human life, or upon the doctrine of the imago Dei , is simply inconclusive.

So, that which makes a human being human , and that which defines an individual human being as a person , remains subject to competing arguments of philosophy and belief. It is thus proper to assert that nature evidences human personhood as not only distinct within the natural order, but also intrinsic to human life.

Personhood as Independent of the Status of a Human Being

Even among those who accept personhood as a distinctly human state within the natural order, and intrinsic to human life, there is argument as to whether personhood remains a conditional expression of human existence. Does a human being exist as a person sui generis , by the simple virtue of being human? Or does personhood follow after the human condition, existing as a disparate state among humans—more fully expressed in some than others, and perhaps not existing in others at all?

John Locke accepted the concept of soul, but viewed personhood of the individual as a distinct state, closely tied to consciousness—“Socrates asleep, and Socrates awake, is not the same person…. For if we take wholly away all consciousness of our actions and sensations, especially of pleasure and pain, and the concernment that accompanies it, it will be hard to know wherein to place personal identity” (Locke, 1849). In our time, Swinburne (1986, 161, 177) has addressed this question, finding that “conscious persons consist of body and soul”, that personal identity is “constituted by sameness of soul”, and that “persons continue to exist while asleep” because the sleeping body “will again by normal processes give rise to a conscious life, or can be caused to give rise to a conscious life….” Swinburne (1986, 179) noted that under certain circumstances, such as those of a comatose patient, this construction could allow a person and his soul to cease to exist and then come to exist again.

Dennett (1981, 268–269) has proposed that personhood, though “an intuitively invulnerable notion,” is a state consisting of both a metaphysical and a moral element, and is subject to several necessary conditions. Among the conditions he applies to personhood are rationality, consciousness, the attitude or stance taken by society, capacity for reciprocity, capability for verbal communication, and a self-consciousness (Dennett 1981, 269–271). 26 Dennett observes that, in application of necessary conditions to personhood,

we recognize conditions that exempt human beings from personhood, or at least some very important elements of personhood. For instance, infant human beings, mentally defective human beings, and human beings declared insane by licensed psychiatrists are denied personhood, or at any rate crucial elements of personhood (Dennett 1981, 267).

This conditional concept of personhood, defined by society, allows a relativistic application of human rights which reverberates through human life from beginning to end. Absent an absolute and inviolable attachment of personhood to the human condition, the status of many humans becomes questionable.

Discussing conditional personhood as pertaining to end-of-life issues, the Honorable Barry Schaller (2008), an Associate Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court, noted that such questions were central to the recent case of Terri Schiavo.

The case of Terri Schiavo…raised a virtual cascade of questions that concern the state of American society and culture. What is the nature of personhood and when does it end? What level of respect and, with it, autonomy accompanies an individual into old age or incapacity?

As the human body deteriorates, does personhood devolve? Is an ill or dying human being accorded less status as a person than others? Such propositions directly question whether personhood is a conditional state rather than an innate characteristic of human beings. If personhood can end before life ends, then human nature becomes a fragile expression of self-awareness, and is not a robust and inalienable foundation of human rights and culture.

The Apostle Paul directly addressed the transcendence of human personhood by teaching that personal identity survives physical death, stating that “we are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” 27 Speaking of the end of life, Tertullian held that human personhood was not removed in impending death but rather limited in its fullest expression. Tertullian (ca. 209/1903) held that

when death is a lingering one, the soul abandons its position in the way in which itself is abandoned. And yet it is not by this process severed in fractions: it is slowly drawn out; and whilst thus extracted, it causes the last remnant to seem to be but a part of itself. No portion, however, must be deemed separable because it is the last; nor, because it is a small one, must it be regarded as susceptible of dissolution.

Lee and George (2008) have come to a similar conclusion. They note that “if the moral status-conferring attribute varies in degrees,” then “it will follow that some humans will possess the attribute in question in a higher degree than other humans, with the result that not all humans will be equal in fundamental moral worth, that is, dignity ” (p. 85).

Conditional personhood is flawed in its argument that a lesser expression alters the very state of personhood. It is as if one argued that the dim light of a candle is a different light (or is not light at all) due to the existence of the light of the sun. Light is light suapte natura in whatever expression it is found, and so is human personhood in its expression.

Similar questions at the beginning of life have been highly controversial in our culture, but date to antiquity. The Pythagoreans expressly believed that the embryo was a living being, ensouled from the moment of conception, and that ensouled human life, as divine in part, was to be inherently respected and protected until natural death. 28 Similar teachings regarding the beginning of life were proffered in the early Christian church by Tertullian and Gregory of Nyssa, finding in the embryo human dignity not only by virtue of ensoulment but also by virtue of respect for the more fully developed human being yet to come. 29

Levine (1988) recently reflected on similar points as they pertain to the social implications of the beginning of life:

As we consider how we ought to treat the human fetus or embryo, the most constructive questions are: When does a developing human begin to acquire the entitlements of membership in the moral (human) community? When does it begin to count as one of us? When should it become enfranchised by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution? These are metaphysical questions, and, thus, are not susceptible to resolution using the devices of ethics. Practical answers, if any, will issue from the political process (p. 300).

It is of profound importance to recognize that the relation of personhood to the status of the individual human being at any stage of life is essentially a metaphysical concern. For thereby, just as the prior questions of personhood as a distinctly human state within the natural order and personhood as intrinsic to human life, so also questions relating personhood to the status of the individual human are subject to competing philosophies, beliefs, and assertions.

In our time, Pope John Paul II preached to the world of the innate value and dignity of human life at all times and in all states. As Coughlin (2003) has noted, “The belief that each human being possesses a metaphysical value simply in the fact of his or her existence remains at the root of John Paul II's indefatigueable defense of human dignity.” John Paul II (1995) stated in Evangelium Vitae that “Man has been given a sublime dignity , based on the intimate bond which unites him to his Creator: in man there shines forth a reflection of God himself.” And John Paul II (1998) held firmly that this dignity was unconditionally innate and essential to the human existence, teaching that “the sacredness of the human person cannot be obliterated, no matter how often it is devalued and violated, because it has its unshakeable foundation in God as Creator and Father.”

So, the assertion of personhood as independent of the status of the human being is a rational and metaphysical argument, and an entirely proper proposal, even for those who cannot ground their approach in the Christian tradition. Any attempt to dismiss the imago Dei as inconsistent with personhood is simply founded in differences in belief and is not subject to any support in empiricism.

The assertion that personhood is independent of the status of the human being thereby forms a third principle for understanding personhood in the individual context. Along with personhood as a distinctly human state within the natural order, and personhood as intrinsic to human life, these three conceptual foundations proffer an understanding of personhood as an essential of the existence of the human individual. For the Christian, these principles rest on and evidence the imago Dei , and for the greater society they form a basis for understanding personhood in the interpersonal context.

An Examination of Personhood in the Interpersonal Context

How do human beings recognize others as individuals? And how does a human community relate to individuals as humans and as persons? These questions are rooted in the metaphysical concepts of the human as an individual, but have profound practical importance in all aspects of human life. From such primary applications as the recognition of human rights to such practical applications as daily decisions in health care, personhood forms the fundamental basis of the human community. And, unlike personhood in the individual context, the application of concepts of personhood in the interpersonal, or social, context is subject to empiric observation. Competing metaphysical concepts of the personhood of individuals will have differing concrete practical applications and associated results, and will lend themselves to comparative analysis. This analysis begins with two fundamental assertions: that personhood is a distinctly human state within the natural order, intrinsic to human life, and independent of the status of the human being—an assertion of existential personhood —and the antithetical position that personhood is a conditional state dependent upon circumstance, perception, cognition, or societal dictum—an assertion of relational personhood . In existential thought, characteristics of human personhood are innate and are to be discovered. For relational theorists, the characteristics of human personhood are to be defined by the society.

Personhood is Not a Creation of the Society

Existential personhood places certain demands upon a society. It calls upon a society to recognize the dignity and worth of the individual by reason of the life of the individual. It places the dignity and worth of the individual above the collective power of the society, as a superior virtue and it demands prima facie a societal rejection of the relational construct of personhood.

Certainly many have argued against such demands of the existential construction. Lindsay (1935/1992) maintained that Plato would assert ‘the distinction between what man is in himself and what he is in society’ as “invalid and unreal”. Cooley (1902/2009, 37) similarly spoke, holding that ‘“society” and “individuals” do not denote separable phenomena, but are simply collective and distributive aspects of the same thing’. Others more expressly believe that society maintains a “super organic” role, holding power to actually determine what constitutes a valid person. 30 Mauss (1985) proposed that the concept of self had “slowly evolved” through a succession of forms in different societies. Mauss (1985, 20) said of the notion of the person that “far from existing as the primordial innate idea, clearly engraved since Adam in the innermost depths of our being, it continues here slowly, and almost right up to our own time, to be built upon….” Karl Marx (1875, 1998) used a relational construct of personhood as foundational to his thought, stating that “the essence of man is no abstraction inherent in each separate individual. In its reality it is the ensemble (aggregate) of social relations.”

The construct that the individual is indistinct from the greater society and that personhood is a relational state within society—being granted by society on terms agreed upon by the group—has observable and measurable associated results. This construct allows the person to be respected and valued by society in a subjective and variable ethic. It allows political structures, even those founded in democratic principles, to produce decidedly anti-democratic results—establishing distinctions among persons by fiat and validating arbitrary class hierarchies. And in so doing, the relational construct undermines justice and corrupts its application.

The relational construct found an early expression in Aristotle's views on slavery. Aristotle held that some persons possess certain natural characteristics—a childlike demeanor, for example—that make them slaves by nature (Rist 1982). And he held that other individuals are masters by virtue of being a certain type of person by nature, and not by virtue of knowledge or skill (Schofield 1999). The society is, in Aristotelian thought, acting properly and intuitively in establishing slavery based upon these differences. A more recent expression of this application of relational personhood was found in the nineteenth century United States Supreme Court ruling in Dred Scott v. Sanford , explicitly affirming the ability of a “dominant race” to grant rights to “a subordinate and inferior class of beings.” 31

The concept that the powerful members of a society may declare a class of individuals to be an “inferior class of beings” bereft of constitutional rights and privileges demonstrates a relational construct of personhood in political application. Here, an ostensibly democratic society turns to its fundamental conception of persons as the explicit basis for political subjugation of individuals.

Socialism and communism both rest on a similar subjugation of the individual, but subjugated to the state as opposed to some superior class of persons. In Marxist social structures, there is no conception of existential personhood. There is no recognition of the existence and authority of God, nor of the imago Dei of persons. As Marx said, a “higher phase of Communist society” would exist “after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and…after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want…” (Marx 1875/2008). In Warning to the West , Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn struck directly at the ends derived from the relativistic origins of communism and its arbitrary class structures when he noted that ‘Communism considers morality to be relative, to be a class matter. Depending on circumstances and the political situation, any act, including murder, even the killing of hundreds of thousands, could be good or bad. It all depends upon class ideology’ (Solzhenitsyn 1976). 32

Genocide finds origin in relational personhood, seizing class ideology and turning it upon entire populations. Hitler (1925/2010) held that “in this world everything that is not of sound racial stock is like chaff.” Nazi genocide found its nascent expression in the sterilization law of 1933, directed toward the mentally and physically disabled as a population considered to be inferior and excluded from German society (Friedlander 1995). 33 Once the walls of personhood were breached, the Final Solution quickly followed. In evaluating the Nazi program to eliminate the Jews, Goldhagen (1997) has noted that at the essence of the German policies was the objective to “turn the Jews into ‘socially dead’ beings…and, once they were, to treat them as such.”

Analyzing the roots of genocide under the Khmer Rouge, Alexander Laban Hinton noted that dehumanization was a central strategy:

Genocidal regimes manufacture difference in a number of important and interrelated ways…. First, genocidal regimes construct, essentialize, and propagate sociopolitical categories, crystallizing what are normally more complex, fluid, and contextually variable forms of identity. …Genocidal perpetrators often manufacture difference by transforming their victims into caricatures of these dehumanizing images (Hinton 2005).

It is important to note that this dehumanization permissively builds upon a foundation of relational personhood, here expressed as a social norm of “contextually variable forms of identity” (Hinton 2005).

Compare these results with those of existential personhood. That portion of the concept of existential personhood which is manifested by an immortal soul was held as a virtue of the individual at the conclusion of the Republic :

But if you will listen to me, and believe that the soul is immortal and able to endure all evil and all good, we shall always hold to the upper road, and in every way follow justice and wisdom (Plato ca. 380 B.C./1992). 34

Though viewing personhood of the individual as tied to consciousness, John Locke nonetheless held that “all men by nature are equal” (Locke 1821). From this assertion, and its corollary concept of natural freedom, he developed arguments regarding the derivation of government from the consent of the governed and regarding the limitation of slavery. 35

But the fullest expression of existential personhood is in the teachings of the Christian church. Here, in profoundly absolute declarations, we find that “being in the image of God the human individual possesses the dignity of a person, who is not just something, but someone” 36 and that “social justice can be obtained only in respecting the transcendent dignity of man. The person represents the ultimate end of society, which is ordered to him.” 37

Herein we find powerful applications of the imago Dei. In A.D. 1435 Pope Eugene IV unequivocally condemned the slavery of “persons” taken by “advantage of their simplicity” with penalty of excommunication. 38 In our time Pope John Paul II criticized the minimization of the human person by socialism. He held that “socialism considers the individual person simply as an element, a molecule within the social organism, so that the good of the individual is completely subordinated to the functioning of the socio-economic mechanism.” 39 He then exposed the relativistic underpinnings of socialism, holding that ‘the denial of God deprives the person of his foundation, and consequently leads to a reorganization of the social order without reference to the person's dignity and responsibility’. 40 And as to the relativistic evils of genocide, John Paul II, citing “fraternal sentiments, rooted in faith” from the teachings of St. Paul, stated that “the church firmly condemns all forms of genocide as well as the racist theories that have inspired and claimed to justify them.” 41

So, a comparative analysis finds that an existential construct of personhood places demands upon the society, requiring it to respect the essential dignity of the human individual as a person, to recognize the equality of individuals in creation, and to thereby promote the causes of justice and freedom. A relational construct of personhood allows supremacy of the society, the subjection of individuals to unjustly promoted relativistic societal definitions and demands, and arbitrary imperilment of the worth and well-being of persons. This empirical analysis, at least in the context of the practical rationality of natural law theory, finds manifestly superior results associated with the application of an existential construct of personhood, and supports the conclusion that the good rests in the existential assertion that personhood is not a creation of society. 42

Personhood is Not a Right

Existential personhood exalts human rights, but it does not exalt them in the highest. A close corollary to the prior conclusion that personhood is not a creation of society is the understanding that personhood is not defined by or dependent upon the conceptualization of rights. Existential personhood views rights as possessions of the individual and not as properties which define the individual. Some rights are intrinsic to the human condition, such as the right to maintain and defend life, and others are created and dispensed by the society, such as the political right to speak freely. But none, either singly or in combination, are constitutive of personhood.

Relational theory allows for an individual right to personhood, and thereby rejects the existential proposition of the person, though probably with good intentions. In discussing human rights in the context of the European Social Charter, Heringa (1998), Dean of the Maastricht Faculty of Law, referred to “the right to personhood and the equality principle” as “mixed rights: liberty as well as social right.” Others have construed a right to personhood in Articles 1 and 2 of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (Heldrich and Rehm 2001).

In the United States, the concept of a right to personhood has not been well propounded. Even in Roe v. Wade , the issue for all concerned was whether the fetus is a person, not whether the fetus has a right to personhood.

The appellee and certain amici argue that the fetus is a “person” within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support of this, they outline at length and in detail the well-known facts of fetal development. If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment. The appellant conceded as much on reargument. On the other hand, the appellee conceded on reargument that no case could be cited that holds that a fetus is a person within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. 43

Justice Blackmun explicitly noted that “the Constitution does not define “person” in so many words.” 44 Roe finally turned on fetal development and not on personhood. Justice Blackmun held that the State

has legitimate interests in protecting both the pregnant woman's health and the potentiality of human life, each of which interests grows and reaches a “compelling” point at various stages of the woman's approach to term. 45

In Roe , the fetus gained no recognition of personhood, and the rights of the fetus were not recognized or established. Its interests were held to grow with fetal development, such that those interests progressively express in rough concert with the ability of the fetus to survive. The political rights of personhood seem to vest with viability. While avoiding confusion over a right to personhood, the closest that Justice Blackmun came to an identity for the fetus was ‘the potentiality of human life’. 46

By contrast, the argument for existential personhood and against a specific right to personhood is probably most clearly and expressly made in distinctions drawn in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed… (United States 1776/1911).

Herein we find an existential testament that ‘all men are created equal’ and an acknowledgment that all individuals possess by endowment inalienable rights by virtue of the fact of human existence. Existential personhood is clearly manifested in this testament by the expression of its demand for equality. And personhood is distinguished in concept in the text by its separation from the subsequent delineation and discussion of rights.

To be ‘created equal’ is a state of being. This state of equality in creation transcends the concept of rights and cannot be constrained as a right belonging to a human being. Acknowledgement of this in forms of government is a political recognition of one of the principles of the imago Dei . And the recognition that inalienable rights of humans endow due to equality in creation is further support to the conclusion that the good rests in the existential construct of personhood.

Personhood is Inviolable

A final expression of existential personhood is the observation that personhood is inviolable. That personhood is not a creation of the society, but rather an expression of the imago Dei , demands that personhood be held as sacred by individuals, the society, and the state. Persons created in equality, whose human rights vest not on societal distinctions but in existence as individuals, may not have their rights arbitrarily violated. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes that human rights are possessed by ‘all human beings’ by virtue of birth, and that no distinction among human beings may remove those rights. 47

The cause of justice demands that the weak and the strong, the greatest and the least, the healthy and the dying, all enjoy the same benefit of the respect and dignity of persons. As Pope John XXIII taught:

Any well-regulated and productive association of men in society demands the acceptance of one fundamental principle: that each individual man is truly a person. His is a nature, that is, endowed with intelligence and free will. As such he has rights and duties, which together flow as a direct consequence from his nature. These rights and duties are universal and inviolable, and therefore altogether inalienable. 48

This, perhaps more than any other concept discussed thus far, has daily practical importance. John XXIII asserted that personhood, by virtue of its attendant inviolable rights, placed both fundamental and derivative demands upon society:

But first We must speak of man's rights. Man has the right to live. He has the right to bodily integrity and to the means necessary for the proper development of life, particularly food, clothing, shelter, medical care, rest, and, finally, the necessary social services. In consequence, he has the right to be looked after in the event of illhealth; disability stemming from his work; widowhood; old age; enforced unemployment; or whenever through no fault of his own he is deprived of the means of livelihood. 49 It is generally accepted today that the common good is best safeguarded when personal rights and duties are guaranteed. The chief concern of civil authorities must therefore be to ensure that these rights are recognized, respected, co-ordinated, defended, and promoted, and that each individual is enabled to perform his duties more easily. For “to safeguard the inviolable rights of the human person, and to facilitate the performance of his duties, is the principal duty of every public authority”. 50

Those who deny these truths have in our time advocated for abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia, as well as an economically utilitarian basis for the provision of health care. These arguments all share a rational basis in the relational construct of personhood. Peter Singer has endorsed a relational construction of human personhood. Singer (1994, 180) notes that

we often use “person” as if it meant the same as “human being.” In recent discussions in bioethics, however, “person” is now often used to mean a being with certain characteristics, such as rationality and self-awareness.

Here we see human society choosing which among the many characteristics common to human beings will define “persons.” Though the characteristics themselves may be quite fundamental, the very distinction drawn by their variability among human individuals, and the social valuation of that variation, founds a relational ethic.

Singer (1994, 182) builds upon this relational foundation, expanding it to practical social utility. Here Singer finds common ground with existential theorists in recognizing the importance of the construction of personhood adopted by a society. Singer notes that “the term ‘person’ is no mere descriptive label. It carries with it a certain moral standing.” Singer recognizes that such a moral standing may empower the society with actionable authority. He bluntly states that

the fact that a being is a human being, in the sense of a member of the species Homo sapiens , is not relevant to the wrongness of killing it; it is, rather, characteristics like rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness that make a difference. Infants lack these characteristics. Killing them, therefore, cannot be equated with killing normal human beings, or any other self-conscious beings (Singer 1993).

At the end of life, Singer and Helga Kuhse have reached similar conclusions. Kuhse (1987) writes, “there is a strong connection between the value of life and the interests of the being whose life it is. Life may be in a being's interests, or it may not—depending what the life is like.” Singer and Kuhse argue that “human life has no intrinsic value but gives rise to two values: well-being and the value of liberty or self-determining action…. [D]octors should, whenever possible, maximize these values. This may include active euthanasia…” (Kuhse and Singer 2002).

Paterson (2008) examined these concepts as a justification for suicide, assisted suicide, and euthanasia. Paterson noted that these concepts allow that

life is regarded as a positive value as long as it can “hold its own” against other competing considerations like the disvalue of human suffering. The value of human life, in the face of competing considerations, is said to diminish or wane in quality to the point that intending death becomes a rational-choice worthy option. 51

He then interprets the teachings of Kuhse as justifying the killing of some individuals in a quality-of-life ethic. 52

Relational constructs of personhood also figure prominently in justifying decisions to ration and allocate health care. Discussing the cost-utility concept of the quality adjusted life year (QALY), Michael Lockwood placed personhood in a subjectively variable utilitarian ethic, noting that

The concept of a QALY is…in one sense only a framework, requiring to be fleshed out by some substantive conception of what contributes to or detracts from the intrinsic value or worthwhileness of a life, and to what degree—a conception, that is, of what it is about a life that determines of how much benefit it is to the person whose life it is. To this extent, the concept is highly permissive: one can, as it were, plug in whatever conception of value one personally favours. (Lockwood 1988)

Here society asserts the power to variably define the “intrinsic value” of an individual life, imposing societal constraints as to when life may be beneficial to the person. Such a relational construction appropriates sweeping powers to the State and sets the stage for arbitrary allocation of life sustaining resources. Such a construction is inherently dangerous in a time of plenty, and could easily become malevolent in times of scarcity. 53

These applications of relational personhood all share a common theme—decisions regarding the lives, the welfare, and the treatment of persons are made in a variable ethic, subject to the dictum of the greater society. A result of this ethic is that persons of advantage or authority may take actions toward vulnerable persons which do not depend upon the consent of those individuals and may not reflect their best interests. And in this way, these practical applications of relational personhood in health care share a commonality with the broader political applications of relational personhood in slavery, communism and genocide. 54

Compare these results with those associated with the application of existential personhood to these questions. Here we find clear and unwavering principles. Catholic social teaching clearly states that, “It is necessary to state firmly once more that nothing and no one can in any way permit the killing of an innocent human being, whether a fetus or an embryo, an infant or an adult, an old person, or one suffering from an incurable disease, or a person who is dying.” 55 Pope John Paul II explicitly condemned euthanasia in encyclical doctrine “based upon the natural law and upon the written word of God,” stating that “euthanasia is a grave violation of the law of God, since it is the deliberate and morally unacceptable killing of a human person.” 56 The World Medical Association has also unequivocally condemned euthanasia, holding that, “Euthanasia, that is the act of deliberately ending the life of a patient, even at the patient's own request or at the request of close relatives, is unethical.” 57

And as to medical care for the weak and the vulnerable, the World Medical Association Declaration on the Rights of the Patient sets forth principles regarding certain rights of all patients, implicitly including individuals in conditions of debility and infirmity, establishing in relevant part:

1. Right to medical care of good quality a. Every person is entitled without discrimination to appropriate medical care. b. Every patient has the right to be cared for by a physician whom he/she knows to be free to make clinical and ethical judgements without any outside interference. c. The patient shall always be treated in accordance with his/her best interests. The treatment applied shall be in accordance with generally approved medical principles…. 10. Right to dignity a. The patient's dignity and right to privacy shall be respected at all times in medical care and teaching, as shall his/her culture and values. b. The patient is entitled to relief of his/her suffering according to the current state of knowledge. c. The patient is entitled to humane terminal care and to be provided with all available assistance in making dying as dignified and comfortable as possible…. 58

Here personhood forms the basis for a nondiscriminatory ethic for medicine, protecting individual dignity in primacy and providing humane care on a best interests standard. However, it is important to note that even this construction must be carefully framed on an existential basis. For otherwise, the best interests standard supplies little protection from discrimination in the determination of what constitutes “appropriate medical care.” 59 Absent a commitment to an existential personhood of humanity, the right of “every person” to be free of discrimination is quite distinct from a right protecting all human beings.

The Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Healthcare Services of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops more directly rejects the utilitarian approach to medical care, holding that

In accord with its mission, Catholic health care should distinguish itself by service to an advocacy for those people whose social condition puts them at the margins of our society and makes them particularly vulnerable to discrimination; the poor, the uninsured and the underinsured; children and the unborn; single parents; the elderly; those with incurable diseases and chemical dependencies; racial minorities; immigrants and refugees. In particular, the person with mental or physical disabilities, regardless of the cause or severity, must be treated as a unique person of incomparable worth with the same right to life and to adequate health care as all other persons (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops 2009).

And in the encyclical Evangelium Vitae John Paul II explicitly condemned the ‘moral uncertainty’ of relativism and utilitarianism as a ‘culture of death’, stating that:

This culture is actively fostered by powerful cultural, economic and political currents which encourage an idea of society excessively concerned with efficiency. Looking at the situation from this point of view, it is possible to speak in a certain sense of a war of the powerful against the weak : a life which would require greater acceptance, love and care is considered useless, or held to be an intolerable burden, and is therefore rejected in one way or another. A person who, because of illness, handicap or, more simply, just by existing, compromises the well-being or life-style or those who are more favoured tends to be looked upon as an enemy to be resisted or eliminated. 60

Common to these teachings and declarations is a direct and express application of existential personhood. Here persons are held in highest regard without relation to their condition or status. Here all persons hold equality in rights to care and dignity, forming a beneficent foundation for determination of best interests. And here a society finds that by respecting personhood as an existential manifestation of the imago Dei , the cause of justice is established and furthered. In this result the inviolability of personhood is further support for the conclusion that the good rests in the existential construct of personhood.

Conclusions

The personhood of a human being is a foundational concept for all that we are and all that we do. Throughout history, personhood has been a topic of human inquiry, a subject of philosophy, and basis of political power. Each society finds in its accepted construct of personhood the font of its government and laws. Application of the construct of personhood finds social expression in multitudes of daily decisions affecting the lives and welfare of all individuals.

The existential construct of personhood as a distinctly human state within the natural order, intrinsic to human life, and independent of the status of the human being, forms a competing metaphysical construct to the relational construct of personhood. Analysis of the existential construct in the interpersonal context finds a broad range of associated results that are manifestly superior to those of the antithetical relational construct. Such empiricism supports the normative conclusion that the good rests in the existential construction of human personhood, and gives credence to a claim of truth that personhood is an essential characteristic of the human species, and is not a conditional state dependent upon circumstance, perception, cognition, or societal dictum.

Biographical Note

Frederick J. White III, M.D, Chair, Institutional Ethics Committee, Willis-Knighton Health System, Shreveport, Louisiana. His email address is: [email protected] . The views expressed in this essay are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the Willis-Knighton Health System.

2 Personhood, of course, has been the subject of broad ranging inquiry and many would not confine it to the two constructions analyzed in this essay. In his recent anthology of thought on personal identity, Lizza (2009) grouped the ideas into eight categories—persons as immaterial souls, persons as ensouled bodies, persons as human organisms, persons as psychological qualities or functions, persons as psychological substances, persons as constituted by bodies, persons as relational beings, and persons as self-conscious beings.

3 The Elder Pliny on the Human Animal, Natural History, Book 7 . Mary Beagon (trans). New York: Oxford University Press, 2005, p. 59.

4 Pliny described the frailties of man by stating, “All other animals are instinctively aware of their own natures, one exercising fleetness of foot, another swiftness of flight, others their ability to swim. Man, however, can do nothing unless he is taught, neither speaking nor walking nor eating. In short, he can do nothing by natural instinct except weep!” The Elder Pliny , 59. Pliny held that self-awareness was both benefit and burden, stating that “to man alone in the animal kingdom is granted the capacity for sorrow, for self-indulgence of every kind and in every part of his body, for ambition, avarice, unbounded appetite for life and superstition; for anxiety over burial and even over what will happen after he is dead. To no animal is assigned a more precarious life, more all-consuming passions, more disruptive fear, or more violent anger” (ibid., 60).

5 Pliny held that “the first place will rightly be assigned to man, for whose benefit great nature seems to have created everything else.” The Elder Pliny , 59. The concept of a creator forms one basis from which to approach human exceptionalism and the distinctive nature of human personhood.

6 Darwin noted that “the moral faculties are generally and justly esteemed as of higher value than the intellectual powers” (Darwin 1874: 699).

7 Darwin closed the argument by noting that “the conclusions arrived at in this work will be denounced by some as highly irreligious” (Darwin 1874: 701).

8 Wilson (2004) continues this line of thought, proposing that “innate censors and motivators exist in the brain that deeply and unconsciously affect our ethical premises; from these roots, morality evolved as an instinct.”

9 In Timaeus , Plato (ca. 355 B.C./1961) held the intelligence of man as like unto that of the Gods: “God invented and gave us sight to the end that we might behold the courses of intelligence in the heaven, and apply them to the courses of our own intelligence which are akin to them….”

10 Aristotle held all living things to have a “nutritive soul”, but animals to also have “perception.” In De Anima Aristotle (ca. 350 B.C/1986) writes, “The nutritive soul, then, must be present in all those things that grow and decay…. The animal, however, must have perception.”

11 The nous subsumes the nutritive and perceptive functions Randall (1960). “With the things that have soul, the earlier member of the series always being present in the later….” Aristotle De Anima 2.3.414b.

12 O'Callaghan concludes his analysis by finding that for St. Thomas, as for St. Augustine, “it is indeed in the substance or essence of a human being that the image of God is to be found” (p. 144).

13 St. Thomas held that the souls of man and animals were quite distinct, as “the souls of brutes are produced by some power of the body, whereas the human soul is produced by God.” Summa Theologica , I, Q. 75, Art. 6, ad. 1.

14 These authors affirm that “the most important capacity made possible by rationality, and the one that without doubt most profoundly determines how human beings should be treated, is free choice” (Lee and George 2008).

15 Pope Benedict XVI, “In the Beginning…:” A Catholic Understanding of the Creation and the Fall , trans. Boniface Ramsey (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, Inc., 1990; Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., 1995), p. 48. Citation is to the Eerdmans edition.

16 Noting this distinction in Kant's thought, Allison (1983) writes that, “A priori judgments are grounded independently of experience, while a posteriori judgments are grounded by means of an appeal to experience. Following Leibniz, Kant regards necessity and universality as the criteria for the a priori . His fundamental assumption is that the truth value of judgments which lay claim to universality and necessity cannot be grounded empirically.” Kant defined philosophy, in part, as an antithesis of empirical science, generating conceptual knowledge through reason as opposed to the gathering of data; see “Kant's Terminology”, in Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology , ed. James Mark Baldwin (New York: Macmillan Co., 1901), 591.

17 Democritus held the perceptions of reality as “conventions.” “By convention sweet and by convention bitter, by convention hot, by convention cold, by convention colour; but in reality, atoms and void” (Taylor 1999). “Descartes ascribed all psychological functions to the mind” (Bennett and Hacker 2003). The mind, as an entity distinct from the body, allowed a severability of the human condition. Modern neuroscientists often substitute the brain for the mind in attacking this construction, but as Bennett and Hacker (2003: 110–114) note, they commit a mereologcial error in maintaining a dualistic form. Bennett and Hacker term this construction “Brain-body dualism.”

18 Phaedo , 115c.

19 Ibid., 115d.

20 Summa theologica , I, q. 75, a. 4.

21 Ibid., I, q. 75, a. 1.

22 Ibid., I, q. 76, a. 3.

24 Summa Theologica , I, Q. 75, Art. 2.

25 The authors note that contemporary cognitive neuroscience has “in effect replaced the Cartesian dualism of mind and body with an analogous dualism of brain and body” (Bennett and Hacker 2003: 111). As to reductionism, the authors state that “there is no hope for any form of reduction that will allow one to derive laws governing phenomena at the higher level of psychology from the laws governing phenomena at the neural level” (Bennett and Hacker 2003: 362).

26 While explicitly rejecting personhood as intrinsic to humanity, Dennett does seem to accept the converse, finding humanity “as the deciding mark of personhood” Dennett (1981: 267).

27 2 Cor. 5:8. The Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture notes that in this verse Paul “expresses his desire to leave the body and go home to the Lord” (Stegman 2009).

28 For a brief discussion of the Pythagoreans on these points, see Carrick (2001) and Veatch (2000).

29 For a brief summary of the teachings of Tertullian and Gregory on the soul and the embryo, see Jones (2004). Aquinas, by contrast, held to a progressive ensoulment of the embryo—first vegetative, then sensitive, then rational. For a brief discussion of Thomistic thought on ensoulment, see Eberl (2006: 24–26). Eberl also presents a supposition that Aquinas’ progressive ensoulment reflected an understanding of embryology of his day, and that a modern Aquinas would arguably assign the rational soul to the zygote (Eberl 2006: 23–42). Swinburne (1986: 179) has approached this question from a more physiologic and deterministic viewpoint, saying that “there exist normal bodily processes by which the fertilized egg develops into a foetus with a brain after twenty weeks which gives rise to a functioning soul. If the soul exists just because normal bodily processes will bring it one day to function, it surely therefore exists, once the egg is fertilized, at conception.”

30 For a discussion of this view, see Popp (2007).

31 Dred Scott v. Sanford , 60 U.S. 393 (1856). The ruling held that, “The words “people of the United States” and “citizens” are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing. They both describe the political body who, according to our republican institutions, form the sovereignty, and who hold the power and conduct the Government through their representatives. They are what we familiarly call the “sovereign people,” and every citizen is one of this people, and a constituent member of this sovereignty. The question before us is, whether the class of persons described in the plea in abatement compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word “citizens” in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them.” Dred Scott v. Sanford , 60 U.S. 393, 404–405 (1856). Dred Scott v. Sanford was overruled by the adoption of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States (Vile 1994).

32 Solzhenitsyn (1976: 59) went on to say that “The primary, the eternal concept is humanity, and Communism is anti-humanity.”

33 This statute, the Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases (14 July 1933), provided for Eugenics Courts to authorize the sterilization of those with specified mental or physical debilities “against the will of the person to be sterilized.” German History in Documents and Images, vol. 7, Nazi Germany, 1933–1945; http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/eng/English30.pdf .

34 Although there has been discussion as to whether the application of this thought, coming at the end of the Myth of Er in Book X, is confined only to a clarification of the powers of forgetfulness and recollection of the moral lessons of lives past, others have found its message more transcendent. For example, Richard Lewis Nettleship found this conclusion to “give us the key-note of the whole passage; the one thing to study on earth is how to make oneself better and wiser, not for this life alone, but for another….” Lectures on the Republic of Plato, ed. G. R. Benson (New York: The MacMillan Co., 1906), 359.

35 For a discussion of these arguments, see Wootton (2003).

36 Catechism of the Catholic Church (New York: Doubleday, 2002), n. 357.

37 Catechism 1929.

38 Eugene IV, Sicut Dudum , 13 January 1435; http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Eugene04/eugene04sicut.htm .

39 John Paul II, ‘Centesimus Annus’ (Vatican City, 1 May 1991); http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_01051991_centesimus-annus_en.html .

41 John Paul II, “Address of his Holiness Pope John Paul II to a Symposium on The Roots of Anti-Judaism” (Vatican City, October 31, 1997); http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/1997/october/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_19971031_com-teologica_en.html .

42 Here I hold that the dignity of the human individual, the equality of individuals in creation, and the causes of justice and freedom are man's good naturally apprehended by what St. Thomas Aquinas termed “the practical reason.” See Summa Theologica Ia-IIæ, Q. 94, Art. 2, for Aquinas’ discussion of practical rationality in the natural law. Therein Aquinas notes that “this is the first precept of law, that good is to be pursued and done, and evil is to be avoided. All other precepts of the natural law are based upon this, so that whatever the practical reason naturally apprehends as man's good belongs to the precepts of the natural law as something to be done or avoided” (ibid.).

43 Roe v. Wade , 410 U.S. 113, 156–7 (1973). The text of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America holds, in part, that, ‘… nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.’ Constitution of the United States, Amendment XIV.

44 Roe v. Wade , 410 U.S. 113, 157 (1973). However, it is important to note that Roe v. Wade does contain within its text a concept of personhood—the personhood of the fetus is a “suggestion” to be “established.” It is also important to note that, after analysis of the arguments in Roe v. Wade , the United States Supreme Court clearly found a right to life in the Fourteenth Amendment, and clearly related the right to life to personhood.

45 Roe v. Wade , 410 U.S. 113, 162 (1973) (citation omitted).

46 Roe v. Wade , 410 U.S. 113 (1973).

47 Article 1 provides that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” Article 2 provides that “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind….” United Nations General Assembly, Universal Declaration of Human Rights , 10 December 1948, 217 A (III); http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml

48 John XXIII, Pacem in Terris (11 April 1963), n. 9; http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_xxiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_j-xxiii_enc_11041963_pacem_en.html .

49 Ibid., n. 11.

50 Ibid. n. 60, quoting Pius XII's broadcast message, Pentecost, June 1, 1941, AAS 33 (1941) 200.

51 Note the stark contrast between this view and the teachings of Tertullian in A Treatise on the Soul.

52 As Paterson (2008: 20) notes, “For non-competent patients, Kuhse appeals to a “minimum personhood” standard. A life falling below this minimum quality threshold is not considered to be worth living and can be intentionally ended via non-voluntary euthanasia.”

53 It is not my position that allocation of scarce resources is unethical. Rather, I maintain that allocation decisions should not be made based upon an ethic of contextually variable valuation of persons, or upon a social declaration that some human beings are not persons. This position is consistent with the policies of the American Medical Association (AMA). The AMA holds that “the patient has a basic right to have available adequate health care” (Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs 2012a: 382). As to allocation of scarce resources, the AMA holds that “nonmedical criteria, such as ability to pay, age, social worth, perceived obstacles to treatment, patient contribution to illness, or past use of resources should not be considered.” (Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs, 2012b: 12) The AMA does not endorse a specific method for allocation of scarce medical resources (Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs, 2012b).

54 It is of note that holding all of these outcomes as evil , wrong , or inferior remains a normative judgment, though based in a natural law conception (see note 42). The use of these outcomes as empiric evidence of the inferiority of a relational theory of personhood rests upon that normative conclusion.

55 Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration on Euthanasia , 5 May 1980; http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19800505_euthanasia_en.html .

56 John Paul II, The Gospel of Life (Evangelium Vitae) , n. 65.

57 World Medical Association, Declaration on Euthanasia , adopted by the 38th World Medical Assembly, Madrid, Spain, October 1987; http://www.wma.net/e/policy/e13b.htm .

58 World Medical Association, Declaration on the Rights of the Patient , Adopted by the 34th World Medical Assembly, Lisbon, Portugal, September/October 1981, and amended by the 47th WMA General Assembly, Bali, Indonesia, September 1995, and editorially revised at the 171st Council Session, Santiago, Chile, October 2005; http://www.wma.net/e/policy/l4.htm .

59 The World Medical Association has not adopted a definition of personhood.

60 John Paul II, The Gospel of Life (Evangelium Vitae ), n. 12.

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Human Freedom in Relation to Society Essay

Introduction.

The nature of human freedom entails the totality of man’s whole life. Human freedom has to do with the freedom of one’s will, which is the freedom of man to choose and act by following his path through life freely by exercising his ‘freedom’) (Morrison, 1997). But this perspective has not been without much debate and controversy by both philosophers and theologians.

The purpose of this paper intends to look at the concept of human freedom in relation to the society. In this regard, this paper seeks to investigate how society defines human freedom? What other social categories are affected (directly or indirectly) by human freedom? How society has evolved in regard to human freedom? And what can be done to improve human freedom?

Human freedom has largely been defined in terms of the absence of external factors that may limit a person’s free will such as deportations and dictatorships by rulers among other factors.

But it is also thought that human freedom does not necessarily rely on external constraints, for instance some philosophers have argued against the concept of ‘free will’, by saying that man is only a victim of ‘his own being’ (Morrison, 1997)). In other words, that the very nature of man, his instincts, for instance, limits his ‘freedom’; that every now and then he has to answer to his nature.

But Rousseau refutes the argument that man unreservedly answers to his instincts as he argues that unlike animals, man can override his instincts (Morrison, 1997). For example, one may forgo a meal while playing a video game in spite of being hungry. This is an appendage of a philosophical debate as to whether individual ‘freedom’ really exist pe se.

The argument is that one’s choices affect the people in the world in which he lives as much as the behaviors of those around him affect him/her. Thus, no person can claim ‘freedom’ that is free of the society in which they live given that the society defines and influences to an extent man’s freedom and the scope of that freedom.

How society defines human freedom

The term ‘society’ already implies a group of people, in this case, it refers to people including organizations living under mutual agreement: explicit (such as legal law) or implicit (such as ethical & moral law) (Fermi, 2004). Each of these members of society is obliged to live by the components of that mutual agreement.

Society, therefore, is bigger than the individual as it overrides the instinctual response of the individual, who is then expected to practice a certain degree of reservation in meeting his/her needs in such a way that one is able to abide by the acceptable standards of the society.

So far the United Nations has attempted to create a set of laws that can be used to govern the whole human society although the micro-societies (states, for instance) play the main role in defining the scope of human freedom. The definition of human freedom varies depending on the defining culture and political ideology such as Nazism, Socialism, fascism, Communism and Conservatism (Fermi, 2004).

Unfortunately, it is not possible to say which one of these variants of human freedom is the right one (Fermi, 2004) as they all work in their own respective ways to define the concept of freedom.

But this is not to say that, in a society, the individual ceases to exist. The individual is still protected under the natural law, which champions the individual’s basic human rights and liberty; this in fact, forms the core of democracy in the world today.

Limitless freedom, it is argued, is untenable in a society that is peaceful and orderly, still when it comes to the law, some of the democratic rights are limited. Liberty, in its entirety (civil, natural, personal, and political liberties) when defined under the law carries with it certain limits.

That as much as an individual has these rights and liberties, one can only go as far as the law permits, and since the law is defined by the political nature of a specific society, it can be argued that the law while it champions human freedom, equally restricts it as well.

The other social categories that may be affected by human freedom

Human freedom seems to be the central social issue and the other social aspects are either a reflection or an extension of human freedom. As we have seen so far, human freedom is defined by the prevailing political circumstances which further define the legal framework that is adopted.

Depending on the relationship between state and religion (for instance, the unification of religion and the state as in Iran and separation of the two as was the case in Ibrahim’s Tunisia) individual’s freedom is affected in one way or another.

Hinduism, for instance through its belief in the caste system, would seek to justify poverty for certain people and thereby hinder social mobility. Additionally, societies in which women are seen as nothing more than caretakers of families would hinder their access to formal education which impacts on their freedom.

How society has changed in regard to human freedom

Like any other social aspect, how human freedom is regarded in any society has evolved. It can largely be argued that struggle for human freedom has changed from an individual’s materialistic wishes to a more global approach to freedom for minority groups.

For example, feminism is fighting for women’s rights of choice, formal education, job opportunities, from domestic violence and female genital mutilation among other rights. Currently, there is an increasing recognition and empowerment of disabled people; these, among other activities are a reflection of the global call for democracy which requires the acknowledgement and respect of all humans and their fundamental rights.

This is attributed to technological changes, group behavior, social conflict, social trade-offs and global interdependence among others. All these have contributed to the globalization of the world which has increased the call for a certain degree of homogeneity in social behavior as the culture of nations has come to mean transformation of other nations as well in regard to human freedom.

Conclusion; how society can improve human freedom

There is need for further research on how to improve human freedom; in this regard motivational psychologists can help by diagnosing problems, setting moderate goals and applying the relevant behavioral technology to promote and research the concept of human freedom further.

This has worked in certain places for instance, there’s evidence that motivational technology has helped control certain serious diseases, facilitate compensatory education, provide channels for assessing the benefits of higher education, facilitates effective management of complex initiatives and has contributed in raising the living standards of the poor (McClelland, 1978). Besides these, there are also other means of improving human freedom which can be implemented.

Fermi, F. (2004). Freedom and the Human Being . Web.

McClelland, D., (1978). Managing Motivation to Expand Human Freedom. American Psychologist , 33 (3), pp. 201-210.

Morrison, J., (1997). What is Human Freedom . Web.

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What Is a Human Person? An Exploration & Critique of Contemporary Perspectives

Emmanuel Cumplido Follow

Zeyl, Donald, J.

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mind; soul; brain; knowledge; identity; bioethics

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What is a Human Person? An Exploration and Critique of Physicalist Perspectives

Emmanuel Cumplido

Faculty Sponsor: Donald Zeyl, Philosophy

Answers to the question “What is a human person?” that have garnered the allegiance of people throughout millennia fall under two broad categories: “physicalism” and “dualism”. One of the earliest renditions of physicalism was the philosophy of the ancient Greek atomists. In their view, all of reality could be explained through two principles: atoms and empty space. As a consequence, people were thought to be nothing but assemblages of atoms in space. Plato’s Phaedo presents one of the earliest philosophical endorsements of dualism by arguing for the existence of an immaterial mind, or soul, that is the grounds for a human person's identity. The idea that a human person is, fundamentally, an immaterial mind or soul that can survive bodily death has also been a long-standing position for many of the world’s major religions in both Western and Eastern traditions. With a recent revival of academic interest in studying consciousness, the debate on human nature has been receiving some special treatment in academia. In my project I aim to critique the dominant physicalist perspective by drawing out its implications for several other areas of human life. Specifically, the troubling consequences physicalism has in relation to epistemology, personal identity, and ethics. Along the way, I will give a brief apologia for dualism as a serious intellectual position that resolves the problems which physicalism presents

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Humans have been altering nature for thousands of years – to shape a sustainable future, it’s important to understand that deep history

Executive Director, Museum of Natural and Cultural History, University of Oregon

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In July 2024, all eyes will turn to Paris for the Summer Olympic Games. Spectators from around the globe will converge on the City of Light to watch athletes compete and to soak in the culture, romance and history of one of the world’s most recognizable cities.

But an iconic Paris landmark, the Notre Dame cathedral, will still be under renovation after a devastating fire that ignited in the cathedral and burned for 12 hours on April 14, 2019. When the last embers were extinguished, most of Notre Dame’s wood and metal roof was destroyed, and its majestic spire had vanished, consumed by flames.

Notre Dame is nearly 1,000 years old and has been damaged and repaired many times. Its last major renovation was in the mid-1800s . The massive beams that framed the structure were fashioned from European oak trees harvested 300 to 400 years ago.

Today, these trees are common throughout north-central Europe, but few are tall enough to replace Notre Dame’s roof lattice and spire, thanks to centuries of deforestation. Planners had to search nationwide for enough suitably large oaks for the restoration.

As an archaeologist, I study long-term human interactions with nature . In my new book, “ Understanding Imperiled Earth: How Archaeology and Human History Inform a Sustainable Future ,” I describe how addressing modern environmental crises requires an understanding of deep history – not just written human records, but also ancient connections between humans and the natural world.

Many people assume that the devastating impacts humans have wrought on our planet came about with the industrial era , which began in the mid-1700s. But people have been transforming conditions on Earth for millennia. Looking backward can inform our journey forward.

From deforestation to reforestation

To see how this works, let’s consider the shortage of tall trees for Notre Dame from a wider perspective. Deforestation in Europe dates back at least 10,000 years to a time when early farmers swept across the continent, felling forests and creating agricultural and pastoral lands to form the landscapes of today .

Based on archaeological evidence, pollen-based modeling and written records, scientists have determined that forest cover across northern, central and western Europe reached its highest density about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, followed by a gradual decline over the intervening millennia. By AD 1700, people were farming on 250 million acres (100 million hectares) of agricultural fields, most of which had been created by clearing native European forests.

Millions of acres of timber became fuel for domestic hearths, and then for furnaces and boilers during the Industrial Revolution. This process was so transformative that renowned British geographer H. C. Darby, writing in 1954, called it “probably the most important single factor that has changed the European landscape .”

Most of these forests were lost long before scientists could study them, but historical detective work can fill in the missing information. By identifying charred plant remains from ancient fire pits and analyzing pollen from lake and soil cores, archaeologists can map where ancient forests once flourished, determine which species were represented and reconstruct what forests looked like.

Today, European nations are working to restore forests across the continent in order to slow climate change and species loss. With historical information about past forests, modern scientists can make better choices about which tree species to plant, select the best locations and project how the trees may respond to future climate change.

Understanding what’s possible

In the past 50 years, the rate and scale of human impacts on Earth have intensified. In what scholars have dubbed “ the Great Acceleration ,” human activities such as clearing forests, converting lands for farming and development, overharvesting wildlife and fisheries, and warming the atmosphere through widespread use of fossil fuels have altered conditions for life.

For people born during this era of dizzying change, it can be hard to picture life on Earth before humans remade it. Scientists have pointed out the danger of so-called “ shifting baselines ” – the widespread tendency to assume that the current depleted state of nature is how things have always been. Knowing how ecosystems used to look and function, and how human actions have changed them, makes the scale of conservation tasks more clear.

History offers insights into how the world once looked, long before globalization and industrial activities reshaped the planet. Discarded animal bones, charcoal fragments, broken stone tools and other flotsam and jetsam of the ancient past provide clues about the sizes and abundances of animal species, the location and composition of native forests and landscapes, and fluctuating atmospheric conditions. They also indicate how humans, plants and animals responded to these changes.

Informing a resilient future

The past can help modern societies confront today’s environmental challenges in innumerable ways. Understanding how takes careful historical detective work and scientific creativity. Here are a few examples:

Tracing where Indigenous fisherfolk collected black abalone for over 10,000 years can guide restoration efforts for this endangered species . Numerous examples of effective Indigenous strategies are emerging from recent archaeological and anthropological research, showcasing innovative land management, sustainable agriculture and community resilience practices that have been honed over centuries .

Understanding the history of deforestation and land conversion patterns can help health experts anticipate future pandemics . Many infectious diseases move from wildlife to humans, and human activities such as deforestation and urbanization are increasingly bringing humans and wildlife into closer contact . This heightens the risk of zoonotic disease transmission.

Museum collections can help scientists document and understand species declines and build effective strategies to fight the loss of global biodiversity. For example, museum collections of preserved amphibians have allowed scientists to track the spread of the deadly chytrid fungus, aiding in the development of targeted conservation strategies to protect vulnerable frog species.

Humans can slow and, perhaps, reverse the ecological harms that they have caused, but Earth will never return to some past pristine state.

Nonetheless, I believe that history can help humans save Earth’s remaining wild, natural places that, along with cultural icons like Notre Dame, tell the stories of who we are. The goal is not to go backward, but to create a more resilient, sustainable and biodiverse planet.

• Earth science
• Conservation
• Sustainability
• Archaeology
• Deforestation
• Indigenous knowledge
• Human history
• Notre Dame Cathedral
• History of Earth
• Environmental change

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Lecturer/Senior Lecturer, Earth System Science (School of Science)

• Boredom Makes Us Human

I n a recent article in the Financial Times, Markham Heid shares with us a peculiar life crisis. At 41, he has built what many would regard as the good life: he has a family; he is healthy, productive, and creative; he has time to travel, read, exercise, and see friends. Yet, he feels that “something is off.” He gives this state a variety of names, including mid-life melancholy, ennui, and despair. He also diagnoses it in others all around him. To fight against it, some of his friends have turned to ayahuasca retreats, others to fitness. What renders Heid’s malaise somewhat strange is that it does not seem to arise from anything specific. If Heid had lost his job, had no time for himself, or was struggling in his marriage, some of these feelings would seem less puzzling. 

In the history of philosophy, there have been many attempts to understand such powerful but objectless feelings. Boredom , anxiety , and despair are some of the descriptions these moods have received. In the novel Nausea , the French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre describes someone who mysteriously experiences that feeling whenever they are confronted with ordinary objects, like a pebble on the beach. The German philosopher Martin Heidegger describes an uncanny unease we may feel when we are bored and searching desperately for distractions. The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard speaks of a silent despair in the background of our lives, a sense of discord or dread of an unknown something that can grab us momentarily.

Sadly, the philosophical descriptions of such moods have often been misunderstood as sombre or romantic moments of existential reflection where we recognize our mortality or the meaninglessness of life. Pictured in this way, these moments are bound to stay isolated from the anxiety, despair, and melancholy that we face in our ordinary life and seek help for. But if we look beyond the existentialist clichés, the philosophical ideas on such moods can offer a new way forward. What could Heid have learnt from the philosophers?

Moods of nothing

Despite Heid’s references to Heidegger, we do not read anything about the philosopher’s own ruminations of a very similar experience of flatness: a feeling that all things (and we ourselves) sink into indifference; a sense that things around us slip away or we slip away from ourselves; a malaise related to a vacant stillness. What is remarkable, for Heidegger, is that such intense affects arise despite the fact that nothing may have changed in our lives: one is still surrounded by the same people, events, and activities, but these do not engage us as they used to. It is this feature that makes him describe what he calls “anxiety” as a mood generated by nothing in particular.

This makes such feelings doubly unwelcome. Most of us can tolerate negative emotions if we see them as instrumental to something desirable—we do not run to a therapist to treat a fear if we think that it holds us back from doing something obviously risky. But unlike fear, what Heidegger calls anxiety and what Heid’s article describes do not protect us from anything specific. No wonder why Sigmund Freud called anxiety a “ riddle .”

But this view is too simplistic for Heidegger. It risks concealing both the value and meaning of the feelings he describes. First, the human emotional life is much more complex than a simple battle between positive and negative feelings, or useful and useless emotions. Second, objectless moods can teach us something significant not about specific risks or problems in our lives but about the fact that we have a life to live at all. Learning from them can allow us to find what Heidegger describes as a sense of peace and joy within the malaise.

What’s missing?

Heid says that “some essential aspect of life is missing or not sufficiently represented.” He ends up attributing his melancholy to the lack of new experiences. Kierkegaard calls this the illusion of “crop rotation,” the idea that changing the soil frequently can save us from boredom and despair. 

But what really drives such moods is not the need for new experiences. It is not even the particulars of our individual lives or the culture we belong to, but that we have been given a life to live in the first place, the taste of possibility that comes with being alive. The kinds of questions that arise are not questions like “have I married the right person?” “will parenthood enrich my life?” or “do I have enough hobbies?” It is the more fundamental questions like “what does it mean to be human?” “what am I supposed to do with the fact that I was given a life?” and “what kind of life is possible for me?” that best explain our human tendency for anxiety, despair, or boredom .

This is why such moods are likely to appear as a mid-life crisis. With many of our life goals fulfilled, we start to wonder what life is for, what is possible for human existence, and what we are doing for it. Humans are inherently ambivalent toward possibility, attracted but also repelled by it. On one hand, we can experience it as a radical openness, an appreciation of our life as a gift. On the other, the open-endedness of possibility, the sense that one could always be doing more with their life, can create a great sense of agony about who we are and how we should go on. 

Throwing us out of our everyday lives, such moods make us ponder existence itself. They are cases where who we are and what we are for becomes an issue for each one of us. These questions never assume a final answer. Hovering over our lives, they can always leave us with a sense of unease. Recognizing that these questions are there, and that they matter, can at least allow us to know what may be missing, even when all is good.

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Cultural Relativity and Acceptance of Embryonic Stem Cell Research

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There is a debate about the ethical implications of using human embryos in stem cell research, which can be influenced by cultural, moral, and social values. This paper argues for an adaptable framework to accommodate diverse cultural and religious perspectives. By using an adaptive ethics model, research protections can reflect various populations and foster growth in stem cell research possibilities.

INTRODUCTION

Stem cell research combines biology, medicine, and technology, promising to alter health care and the understanding of human development. Yet, ethical contention exists because of individuals’ perceptions of using human embryos based on their various cultural, moral, and social values. While these disagreements concerning policy, use, and general acceptance have prompted the development of an international ethics policy, such a uniform approach can overlook the nuanced ethical landscapes between cultures. With diverse viewpoints in public health, a single global policy, especially one reflecting Western ethics or the ethics prevalent in high-income countries, is impractical. This paper argues for a culturally sensitive, adaptable framework for the use of embryonic stem cells. Stem cell policy should accommodate varying ethical viewpoints and promote an effective global dialogue. With an extension of an ethics model that can adapt to various cultures, we recommend localized guidelines that reflect the moral views of the people those guidelines serve.

Stem cells, characterized by their unique ability to differentiate into various cell types, enable the repair or replacement of damaged tissues. Two primary types of stem cells are somatic stem cells (adult stem cells) and embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells exist in developed tissues and maintain the body’s repair processes. [1] Embryonic stem cells (ESC) are remarkably pluripotent or versatile, making them valuable in research. [2] However, the use of ESCs has sparked ethics debates. Considering the potential of embryonic stem cells, research guidelines are essential. The International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) provides international stem cell research guidelines. They call for “public conversations touching on the scientific significance as well as the societal and ethical issues raised by ESC research.” [3] The ISSCR also publishes updates about culturing human embryos 14 days post fertilization, suggesting local policies and regulations should continue to evolve as ESC research develops. [4]  Like the ISSCR, which calls for local law and policy to adapt to developing stem cell research given cultural acceptance, this paper highlights the importance of local social factors such as religion and culture.

I.     Global Cultural Perspective of Embryonic Stem Cells

Views on ESCs vary throughout the world. Some countries readily embrace stem cell research and therapies, while others have stricter regulations due to ethical concerns surrounding embryonic stem cells and when an embryo becomes entitled to moral consideration. The philosophical issue of when the “someone” begins to be a human after fertilization, in the morally relevant sense, [5] impacts when an embryo becomes not just worthy of protection but morally entitled to it. The process of creating embryonic stem cell lines involves the destruction of the embryos for research. [6] Consequently, global engagement in ESC research depends on social-cultural acceptability.

a.     US and Rights-Based Cultures

In the United States, attitudes toward stem cell therapies are diverse. The ethics and social approaches, which value individualism, [7] trigger debates regarding the destruction of human embryos, creating a complex regulatory environment. For example, the 1996 Dickey-Wicker Amendment prohibited federal funding for the creation of embryos for research and the destruction of embryos for “more than allowed for research on fetuses in utero.” [8] Following suit, in 2001, the Bush Administration heavily restricted stem cell lines for research. However, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005 was proposed to help develop ESC research but was ultimately vetoed. [9] Under the Obama administration, in 2009, an executive order lifted restrictions allowing for more development in this field. [10] The flux of research capacity and funding parallels the different cultural perceptions of human dignity of the embryo and how it is socially presented within the country’s research culture. [11]

b.     Ubuntu and Collective Cultures

African bioethics differs from Western individualism because of the different traditions and values. African traditions, as described by individuals from South Africa and supported by some studies in other African countries, including Ghana and Kenya, follow the African moral philosophies of Ubuntu or Botho and Ukama , which “advocates for a form of wholeness that comes through one’s relationship and connectedness with other people in the society,” [12] making autonomy a socially collective concept. In this context, for the community to act autonomously, individuals would come together to decide what is best for the collective. Thus, stem cell research would require examining the value of the research to society as a whole and the use of the embryos as a collective societal resource. If society views the source as part of the collective whole, and opposes using stem cells, compromising the cultural values to pursue research may cause social detachment and stunt research growth. [13] Based on local culture and moral philosophy, the permissibility of stem cell research depends on how embryo, stem cell, and cell line therapies relate to the community as a whole . Ubuntu is the expression of humanness, with the person’s identity drawn from the “’I am because we are’” value. [14] The decision in a collectivistic culture becomes one born of cultural context, and individual decisions give deference to others in the society.

Consent differs in cultures where thought and moral philosophy are based on a collective paradigm. So, applying Western bioethical concepts is unrealistic. For one, Africa is a diverse continent with many countries with different belief systems, access to health care, and reliance on traditional or Western medicines. Where traditional medicine is the primary treatment, the “’restrictive focus on biomedically-related bioethics’” [is] problematic in African contexts because it neglects bioethical issues raised by traditional systems.” [15] No single approach applies in all areas or contexts. Rather than evaluating the permissibility of ESC research according to Western concepts such as the four principles approach, different ethics approaches should prevail.

Another consideration is the socio-economic standing of countries. In parts of South Africa, researchers have not focused heavily on contributing to the stem cell discourse, either because it is not considered health care or a health science priority or because resources are unavailable. [16] Each country’s priorities differ given different social, political, and economic factors. In South Africa, for instance, areas such as maternal mortality, non-communicable diseases, telemedicine, and the strength of health systems need improvement and require more focus. [17] Stem cell research could benefit the population, but it also could divert resources from basic medical care. Researchers in South Africa adhere to the National Health Act and Medicines Control Act in South Africa and international guidelines; however, the Act is not strictly enforced, and there is no clear legislation for research conduct or ethical guidelines. [18]

Some parts of Africa condemn stem cell research. For example, 98.2 percent of the Tunisian population is Muslim. [19] Tunisia does not permit stem cell research because of moral conflict with a Fatwa. Religion heavily saturates the regulation and direction of research. [20] Stem cell use became permissible for reproductive purposes only recently, with tight restrictions preventing cells from being used in any research other than procedures concerning ART/IVF.  Their use is conditioned on consent, and available only to married couples. [21] The community's receptiveness to stem cell research depends on including communitarian African ethics.

c.     Asia

Some Asian countries also have a collective model of ethics and decision making. [22] In China, the ethics model promotes a sincere respect for life or human dignity, [23] based on protective medicine. This model, influenced by Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), [24] recognizes Qi as the vital energy delivered via the meridians of the body; it connects illness to body systems, the body’s entire constitution, and the universe for a holistic bond of nature, health, and quality of life. [25] Following a protective ethics model, and traditional customs of wholeness, investment in stem cell research is heavily desired for its applications in regenerative therapies, disease modeling, and protective medicines. In a survey of medical students and healthcare practitioners, 30.8 percent considered stem cell research morally unacceptable while 63.5 percent accepted medical research using human embryonic stem cells. Of these individuals, 89.9 percent supported increased funding for stem cell research. [26] The scientific community might not reflect the overall population. From 1997 to 2019, China spent a total of $576 million (USD) on stem cell research at 8,050 stem cell programs, increased published presence from 0.6 percent to 14.01 percent of total global stem cell publications as of 2014, and made significant strides in cell-based therapies for various medical conditions. [27] However, while China has made substantial investments in stem cell research and achieved notable progress in clinical applications, concerns linger regarding ethical oversight and transparency. [28] For example, the China Biosecurity Law, promoted by the National Health Commission and China Hospital Association, attempted to mitigate risks by introducing an institutional review board (IRB) in the regulatory bodies. 5800 IRBs registered with the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry since 2021. [29] However, issues still need to be addressed in implementing effective IRB review and approval procedures.

The substantial government funding and focus on scientific advancement have sometimes overshadowed considerations of regional cultures, ethnic minorities, and individual perspectives, particularly evident during the one-child policy era. As government policy adapts to promote public stability, such as the change from the one-child to the two-child policy, [30] research ethics should also adapt to ensure respect for the values of its represented peoples.

Japan is also relatively supportive of stem cell research and therapies. Japan has a more transparent regulatory framework, allowing for faster approval of regenerative medicine products, which has led to several advanced clinical trials and therapies. [31] South Korea is also actively engaged in stem cell research and has a history of breakthroughs in cloning and embryonic stem cells. [32] However, the field is controversial, and there are issues of scientific integrity. For example, the Korean FDA fast-tracked products for approval, [33] and in another instance, the oocyte source was unclear and possibly violated ethical standards. [34] Trust is important in research, as it builds collaborative foundations between colleagues, trial participant comfort, open-mindedness for complicated and sensitive discussions, and supports regulatory procedures for stakeholders. There is a need to respect the culture’s interest, engagement, and for research and clinical trials to be transparent and have ethical oversight to promote global research discourse and trust.

d.     Middle East

Countries in the Middle East have varying degrees of acceptance of or restrictions to policies related to using embryonic stem cells due to cultural and religious influences. Saudi Arabia has made significant contributions to stem cell research, and conducts research based on international guidelines for ethical conduct and under strict adherence to guidelines in accordance with Islamic principles. Specifically, the Saudi government and people require ESC research to adhere to Sharia law. In addition to umbilical and placental stem cells, [35] Saudi Arabia permits the use of embryonic stem cells as long as they come from miscarriages, therapeutic abortions permissible by Sharia law, or are left over from in vitro fertilization and donated to research. [36] Laws and ethical guidelines for stem cell research allow the development of research institutions such as the King Abdullah International Medical Research Center, which has a cord blood bank and a stem cell registry with nearly 10,000 donors. [37] Such volume and acceptance are due to the ethical ‘permissibility’ of the donor sources, which do not conflict with religious pillars. However, some researchers err on the side of caution, choosing not to use embryos or fetal tissue as they feel it is unethical to do so. [38]

Jordan has a positive research ethics culture. [39] However, there is a significant issue of lack of trust in researchers, with 45.23 percent (38.66 percent agreeing and 6.57 percent strongly agreeing) of Jordanians holding a low level of trust in researchers, compared to 81.34 percent of Jordanians agreeing that they feel safe to participate in a research trial. [40] Safety testifies to the feeling of confidence that adequate measures are in place to protect participants from harm, whereas trust in researchers could represent the confidence in researchers to act in the participants’ best interests, adhere to ethical guidelines, provide accurate information, and respect participants’ rights and dignity. One method to improve trust would be to address communication issues relevant to ESC. Legislation surrounding stem cell research has adopted specific language, especially concerning clarification “between ‘stem cells’ and ‘embryonic stem cells’” in translation. [41] Furthermore, legislation “mandates the creation of a national committee… laying out specific regulations for stem-cell banking in accordance with international standards.” [42] This broad regulation opens the door for future global engagement and maintains transparency. However, these regulations may also constrain the influence of research direction, pace, and accessibility of research outcomes.

e.     Europe

In the European Union (EU), ethics is also principle-based, but the principles of autonomy, dignity, integrity, and vulnerability are interconnected. [43] As such, the opportunity for cohesion and concessions between individuals’ thoughts and ideals allows for a more adaptable ethics model due to the flexible principles that relate to the human experience The EU has put forth a framework in its Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being allowing member states to take different approaches. Each European state applies these principles to its specific conventions, leading to or reflecting different acceptance levels of stem cell research. [44]

For example, in Germany, Lebenzusammenhang , or the coherence of life, references integrity in the unity of human culture. Namely, the personal sphere “should not be subject to external intervention.” [45]  Stem cell interventions could affect this concept of bodily completeness, leading to heavy restrictions. Under the Grundgesetz, human dignity and the right to life with physical integrity are paramount. [46] The Embryo Protection Act of 1991 made producing cell lines illegal. Cell lines can be imported if approved by the Central Ethics Commission for Stem Cell Research only if they were derived before May 2007. [47] Stem cell research respects the integrity of life for the embryo with heavy specifications and intense oversight. This is vastly different in Finland, where the regulatory bodies find research more permissible in IVF excess, but only up to 14 days after fertilization. [48] Spain’s approach differs still, with a comprehensive regulatory framework. [49] Thus, research regulation can be culture-specific due to variations in applied principles. Diverse cultures call for various approaches to ethical permissibility. [50] Only an adaptive-deliberative model can address the cultural constructions of self and achieve positive, culturally sensitive stem cell research practices. [51]

II.     Religious Perspectives on ESC

Embryonic stem cell sources are the main consideration within religious contexts. While individuals may not regard their own religious texts as authoritative or factual, religion can shape their foundations or perspectives.

The Qur'an states:

“And indeed We created man from a quintessence of clay. Then We placed within him a small quantity of nutfa (sperm to fertilize) in a safe place. Then We have fashioned the nutfa into an ‘alaqa (clinging clot or cell cluster), then We developed the ‘alaqa into mudgha (a lump of flesh), and We made mudgha into bones, and clothed the bones with flesh, then We brought it into being as a new creation. So Blessed is Allah, the Best of Creators.” [52]

Many scholars of Islam estimate the time of soul installment, marked by the angel breathing in the soul to bring the individual into creation, as 120 days from conception. [53] Personhood begins at this point, and the value of life would prohibit research or experimentation that could harm the individual. If the fetus is more than 120 days old, the time ensoulment is interpreted to occur according to Islamic law, abortion is no longer permissible. [54] There are a few opposing opinions about early embryos in Islamic traditions. According to some Islamic theologians, there is no ensoulment of the early embryo, which is the source of stem cells for ESC research. [55]

In Buddhism, the stance on stem cell research is not settled. The main tenets, the prohibition against harming or destroying others (ahimsa) and the pursuit of knowledge (prajña) and compassion (karuna), leave Buddhist scholars and communities divided. [56] Some scholars argue stem cell research is in accordance with the Buddhist tenet of seeking knowledge and ending human suffering. Others feel it violates the principle of not harming others. Finding the balance between these two points relies on the karmic burden of Buddhist morality. In trying to prevent ahimsa towards the embryo, Buddhist scholars suggest that to comply with Buddhist tenets, research cannot be done as the embryo has personhood at the moment of conception and would reincarnate immediately, harming the individual's ability to build their karmic burden. [57] On the other hand, the Bodhisattvas, those considered to be on the path to enlightenment or Nirvana, have given organs and flesh to others to help alleviate grieving and to benefit all. [58] Acceptance varies on applied beliefs and interpretations.

Catholicism does not support embryonic stem cell research, as it entails creation or destruction of human embryos. This destruction conflicts with the belief in the sanctity of life. For example, in the Old Testament, Genesis describes humanity as being created in God’s image and multiplying on the Earth, referencing the sacred rights to human conception and the purpose of development and life. In the Ten Commandments, the tenet that one should not kill has numerous interpretations where killing could mean murder or shedding of the sanctity of life, demonstrating the high value of human personhood. In other books, the theological conception of when life begins is interpreted as in utero, [59] highlighting the inviolability of life and its formation in vivo to make a religious point for accepting such research as relatively limited, if at all. [60] The Vatican has released ethical directives to help apply a theological basis to modern-day conflicts. The Magisterium of the Church states that “unless there is a moral certainty of not causing harm,” experimentation on fetuses, fertilized cells, stem cells, or embryos constitutes a crime. [61] Such procedures would not respect the human person who exists at these stages, according to Catholicism. Damages to the embryo are considered gravely immoral and illicit. [62] Although the Catholic Church officially opposes abortion, surveys demonstrate that many Catholic people hold pro-choice views, whether due to the context of conception, stage of pregnancy, threat to the mother’s life, or for other reasons, demonstrating that practicing members can also accept some but not all tenets. [63]

Some major Jewish denominations, such as the Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist movements, are open to supporting ESC use or research as long as it is for saving a life. [64] Within Judaism, the Talmud, or study, gives personhood to the child at birth and emphasizes that life does not begin at conception: [65]

“If she is found pregnant, until the fortieth day it is mere fluid,” [66]

Whereas most religions prioritize the status of human embryos, the Halakah (Jewish religious law) states that to save one life, most other religious laws can be ignored because it is in pursuit of preservation. [67] Stem cell research is accepted due to application of these religious laws.

We recognize that all religions contain subsets and sects. The variety of environmental and cultural differences within religious groups requires further analysis to respect the flexibility of religious thoughts and practices. We make no presumptions that all cultures require notions of autonomy or morality as under the common morality theory , which asserts a set of universal moral norms that all individuals share provides moral reasoning and guides ethical decisions. [68] We only wish to show that the interaction with morality varies between cultures and countries.

III.     A Flexible Ethical Approach

The plurality of different moral approaches described above demonstrates that there can be no universally acceptable uniform law for ESC on a global scale. Instead of developing one standard, flexible ethical applications must be continued. We recommend local guidelines that incorporate important cultural and ethical priorities.

While the Declaration of Helsinki is more relevant to people in clinical trials receiving ESC products, in keeping with the tradition of protections for research subjects, consent of the donor is an ethical requirement for ESC donation in many jurisdictions including the US, Canada, and Europe. [69] The Declaration of Helsinki provides a reference point for regulatory standards and could potentially be used as a universal baseline for obtaining consent prior to gamete or embryo donation.

For instance, in Columbia University’s egg donor program for stem cell research, donors followed standard screening protocols and “underwent counseling sessions that included information as to the purpose of oocyte donation for research, what the oocytes would be used for, the risks and benefits of donation, and process of oocyte stimulation” to ensure transparency for consent. [70] The program helped advance stem cell research and provided clear and safe research methods with paid participants. Though paid participation or covering costs of incidental expenses may not be socially acceptable in every culture or context, [71] and creating embryos for ESC research is illegal in many jurisdictions, Columbia’s program was effective because of the clear and honest communications with donors, IRBs, and related stakeholders.  This example demonstrates that cultural acceptance of scientific research and of the idea that an egg or embryo does not have personhood is likely behind societal acceptance of donating eggs for ESC research. As noted, many countries do not permit the creation of embryos for research.

Proper communication and education regarding the process and purpose of stem cell research may bolster comprehension and garner more acceptance. “Given the sensitive subject material, a complete consent process can support voluntary participation through trust, understanding, and ethical norms from the cultures and morals participants value. This can be hard for researchers entering countries of different socioeconomic stability, with different languages and different societal values. [72]

An adequate moral foundation in medical ethics is derived from the cultural and religious basis that informs knowledge and actions. [73] Understanding local cultural and religious values and their impact on research could help researchers develop humility and promote inclusion.

IV.     Concerns

Some may argue that if researchers all adhere to one ethics standard, protection will be satisfied across all borders, and the global public will trust researchers. However, defining what needs to be protected and how to define such research standards is very specific to the people to which standards are applied. We suggest that applying one uniform guide cannot accurately protect each individual because we all possess our own perceptions and interpretations of social values. [74] Therefore, the issue of not adjusting to the moral pluralism between peoples in applying one standard of ethics can be resolved by building out ethics models that can be adapted to different cultures and religions.

Other concerns include medical tourism, which may promote health inequities. [75] Some countries may develop and approve products derived from ESC research before others, compromising research ethics or drug approval processes. There are also concerns about the sale of unauthorized stem cell treatments, for example, those without FDA approval in the United States. Countries with robust research infrastructures may be tempted to attract medical tourists, and some customers will have false hopes based on aggressive publicity of unproven treatments. [76]

For example, in China, stem cell clinics can market to foreign clients who are not protected under the regulatory regimes. Companies employ a marketing strategy of “ethically friendly” therapies. Specifically, in the case of Beike, China’s leading stem cell tourism company and sprouting network, ethical oversight of administrators or health bureaus at one site has “the unintended consequence of shifting questionable activities to another node in Beike's diffuse network.” [77] In contrast, Jordan is aware of stem cell research’s potential abuse and its own status as a “health-care hub.” Jordan’s expanded regulations include preserving the interests of individuals in clinical trials and banning private companies from ESC research to preserve transparency and the integrity of research practices. [78]

The social priorities of the community are also a concern. The ISSCR explicitly states that guidelines “should be periodically revised to accommodate scientific advances, new challenges, and evolving social priorities.” [79] The adaptable ethics model extends this consideration further by addressing whether research is warranted given the varying degrees of socioeconomic conditions, political stability, and healthcare accessibilities and limitations. An ethical approach would require discussion about resource allocation and appropriate distribution of funds. [80]

While some religions emphasize the sanctity of life from conception, which may lead to public opposition to ESC research, others encourage ESC research due to its potential for healing and alleviating human pain. Many countries have special regulations that balance local views on embryonic personhood, the benefits of research as individual or societal goods, and the protection of human research subjects. To foster understanding and constructive dialogue, global policy frameworks should prioritize the protection of universal human rights, transparency, and informed consent. In addition to these foundational global policies, we recommend tailoring local guidelines to reflect the diverse cultural and religious perspectives of the populations they govern. Ethics models should be adapted to local populations to effectively establish research protections, growth, and possibilities of stem cell research.

For example, in countries with strong beliefs in the moral sanctity of embryos or heavy religious restrictions, an adaptive model can allow for discussion instead of immediate rejection. In countries with limited individual rights and voice in science policy, an adaptive model ensures cultural, moral, and religious views are taken into consideration, thereby building social inclusion. While this ethical consideration by the government may not give a complete voice to every individual, it will help balance policies and maintain the diverse perspectives of those it affects. Embracing an adaptive ethics model of ESC research promotes open-minded dialogue and respect for the importance of human belief and tradition. By actively engaging with cultural and religious values, researchers can better handle disagreements and promote ethical research practices that benefit each society.

This brief exploration of the religious and cultural differences that impact ESC research reveals the nuances of relative ethics and highlights a need for local policymakers to apply a more intense adaptive model.

[1] Poliwoda, S., Noor, N., Downs, E., Schaaf, A., Cantwell, A., Ganti, L., Kaye, A. D., Mosel, L. I., Carroll, C. B., Viswanath, O., & Urits, I. (2022). Stem cells: a comprehensive review of origins and emerging clinical roles in medical practice.  Orthopedic reviews ,  14 (3), 37498. https://doi.org/10.52965/001c.37498

[2] Poliwoda, S., Noor, N., Downs, E., Schaaf, A., Cantwell, A., Ganti, L., Kaye, A. D., Mosel, L. I., Carroll, C. B., Viswanath, O., & Urits, I. (2022). Stem cells: a comprehensive review of origins and emerging clinical roles in medical practice.  Orthopedic reviews ,  14 (3), 37498. https://doi.org/10.52965/001c.37498

[3] International Society for Stem Cell Research. (2023). Laboratory-based human embryonic stem cell research, embryo research, and related research activities . International Society for Stem Cell Research. https://www.isscr.org/guidelines/blog-post-title-one-ed2td-6fcdk ; Kimmelman, J., Hyun, I., Benvenisty, N.  et al.  Policy: Global standards for stem-cell research.  Nature   533 , 311–313 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/533311a

[4] International Society for Stem Cell Research. (2023). Laboratory-based human embryonic stem cell research, embryo research, and related research activities . International Society for Stem Cell Research. https://www.isscr.org/guidelines/blog-post-title-one-ed2td-6fcdk

[5] Concerning the moral philosophies of stem cell research, our paper does not posit a personal moral stance nor delve into the “when” of human life begins. To read further about the philosophical debate, consider the following sources:

Sandel M. J. (2004). Embryo ethics--the moral logic of stem-cell research.  The New England journal of medicine ,  351 (3), 207–209. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMp048145 ; George, R. P., & Lee, P. (2020, September 26). Acorns and Embryos . The New Atlantis. https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/acorns-and-embryos ; Sagan, A., & Singer, P. (2007). The moral status of stem cells. Metaphilosophy , 38 (2/3), 264–284. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24439776 ; McHugh P. R. (2004). Zygote and "clonote"--the ethical use of embryonic stem cells.  The New England journal of medicine ,  351 (3), 209–211. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMp048147 ; Kurjak, A., & Tripalo, A. (2004). The facts and doubts about beginning of the human life and personality.  Bosnian journal of basic medical sciences ,  4 (1), 5–14. https://doi.org/10.17305/bjbms.2004.3453

[6] Vazin, T., & Freed, W. J. (2010). Human embryonic stem cells: derivation, culture, and differentiation: a review.  Restorative neurology and neuroscience ,  28 (4), 589–603. https://doi.org/10.3233/RNN-2010-0543

[7] Socially, at its core, the Western approach to ethics is widely principle-based, autonomy being one of the key factors to ensure a fundamental respect for persons within research. For information regarding autonomy in research, see: Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, & National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research (1978). The Belmont Report. Ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of human subjects of research.; For a more in-depth review of autonomy within the US, see: Beauchamp, T. L., & Childress, J. F. (1994). Principles of Biomedical Ethics . Oxford University Press.

[8] Sherley v. Sebelius , 644 F.3d 388 (D.C. Cir. 2011), citing 45 C.F.R. 46.204(b) and [42 U.S.C. § 289g(b)]. https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/6c690438a9b43dd685257a64004ebf99/$file/11-5241-1391178.pdf

[9] Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005, H. R. 810, 109 th Cong. (2001). https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/109/hr810/text ; Bush, G. W. (2006, July 19). Message to the House of Representatives . National Archives and Records Administration. https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/07/20060719-5.html

[10] National Archives and Records Administration. (2009, March 9). Executive order 13505 -- removing barriers to responsible scientific research involving human stem cells . National Archives and Records Administration. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/removing-barriers-responsible-scientific-research-involving-human-stem-cells

[11] Hurlbut, W. B. (2006). Science, Religion, and the Politics of Stem Cells.  Social Research ,  73 (3), 819–834. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40971854

[12] Akpa-Inyang, Francis & Chima, Sylvester. (2021). South African traditional values and beliefs regarding informed consent and limitations of the principle of respect for autonomy in African communities: a cross-cultural qualitative study. BMC Medical Ethics . 22. 10.1186/s12910-021-00678-4.

[13] Source for further reading: Tangwa G. B. (2007). Moral status of embryonic stem cells: perspective of an African villager. Bioethics , 21(8), 449–457. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8519.2007.00582.x , see also Mnisi, F. M. (2020). An African analysis based on ethics of Ubuntu - are human embryonic stem cell patents morally justifiable? African Insight , 49 (4).

[14] Jecker, N. S., & Atuire, C. (2021). Bioethics in Africa: A contextually enlightened analysis of three cases. Developing World Bioethics , 22 (2), 112–122. https://doi.org/10.1111/dewb.12324

[15] Jecker, N. S., & Atuire, C. (2021). Bioethics in Africa: A contextually enlightened analysis of three cases. Developing World Bioethics, 22(2), 112–122. https://doi.org/10.1111/dewb.12324

[16] Jackson, C.S., Pepper, M.S. Opportunities and barriers to establishing a cell therapy programme in South Africa.  Stem Cell Res Ther   4 , 54 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1186/scrt204 ; Pew Research Center. (2014, May 1). Public health a major priority in African nations . Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2014/05/01/public-health-a-major-priority-in-african-nations/

[17] Department of Health Republic of South Africa. (2021). Health Research Priorities (revised) for South Africa 2021-2024 . National Health Research Strategy. https://www.health.gov.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/National-Health-Research-Priorities-2021-2024.pdf

[18] Oosthuizen, H. (2013). Legal and Ethical Issues in Stem Cell Research in South Africa. In: Beran, R. (eds) Legal and Forensic Medicine. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32338-6_80 , see also: Gaobotse G (2018) Stem Cell Research in Africa: Legislation and Challenges. J Regen Med 7:1. doi: 10.4172/2325-9620.1000142

[19] United States Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services. (1998). Tunisia: Information on the status of Christian conversions in Tunisia . UNHCR Web Archive. https://webarchive.archive.unhcr.org/20230522142618/https://www.refworld.org/docid/3df0be9a2.html

[20] Gaobotse, G. (2018) Stem Cell Research in Africa: Legislation and Challenges. J Regen Med 7:1. doi: 10.4172/2325-9620.1000142

[21] Kooli, C. Review of assisted reproduction techniques, laws, and regulations in Muslim countries.  Middle East Fertil Soc J   24 , 8 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s43043-019-0011-0 ; Gaobotse, G. (2018) Stem Cell Research in Africa: Legislation and Challenges. J Regen Med 7:1. doi: 10.4172/2325-9620.1000142

[22] Pang M. C. (1999). Protective truthfulness: the Chinese way of safeguarding patients in informed treatment decisions. Journal of medical ethics , 25(3), 247–253. https://doi.org/10.1136/jme.25.3.247

[23] Wang, L., Wang, F., & Zhang, W. (2021). Bioethics in China’s biosecurity law: Forms, effects, and unsettled issues. Journal of law and the biosciences , 8(1).  https://doi.org/10.1093/jlb/lsab019 https://academic.oup.com/jlb/article/8/1/lsab019/6299199

[24] Wang, Y., Xue, Y., & Guo, H. D. (2022). Intervention effects of traditional Chinese medicine on stem cell therapy of myocardial infarction.  Frontiers in pharmacology ,  13 , 1013740. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2022.1013740

[25] Li, X.-T., & Zhao, J. (2012). Chapter 4: An Approach to the Nature of Qi in TCM- Qi and Bioenergy. In Recent Advances in Theories and Practice of Chinese Medicine (p. 79). InTech.

[26] Luo, D., Xu, Z., Wang, Z., & Ran, W. (2021). China's Stem Cell Research and Knowledge Levels of Medical Practitioners and Students.  Stem cells international ,  2021 , 6667743. https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/6667743

[27] Luo, D., Xu, Z., Wang, Z., & Ran, W. (2021). China's Stem Cell Research and Knowledge Levels of Medical Practitioners and Students.  Stem cells international ,  2021 , 6667743. https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/6667743

[28] Zhang, J. Y. (2017). Lost in translation? accountability and governance of Clinical Stem Cell Research in China. Regenerative Medicine , 12 (6), 647–656. https://doi.org/10.2217/rme-2017-0035

[29] Wang, L., Wang, F., & Zhang, W. (2021). Bioethics in China’s biosecurity law: Forms, effects, and unsettled issues. Journal of law and the biosciences , 8(1).  https://doi.org/10.1093/jlb/lsab019 https://academic.oup.com/jlb/article/8/1/lsab019/6299199

[30] Chen, H., Wei, T., Wang, H.  et al.  Association of China’s two-child policy with changes in number of births and birth defects rate, 2008–2017.  BMC Public Health   22 , 434 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-12839-0

[31] Azuma, K. Regulatory Landscape of Regenerative Medicine in Japan.  Curr Stem Cell Rep   1 , 118–128 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40778-015-0012-6

[32] Harris, R. (2005, May 19). Researchers Report Advance in Stem Cell Production . NPR. https://www.npr.org/2005/05/19/4658967/researchers-report-advance-in-stem-cell-production

[33] Park, S. (2012). South Korea steps up stem-cell work.  Nature . https://doi.org/10.1038/nature.2012.10565

[34] Resnik, D. B., Shamoo, A. E., & Krimsky, S. (2006). Fraudulent human embryonic stem cell research in South Korea: lessons learned.  Accountability in research ,  13 (1), 101–109. https://doi.org/10.1080/08989620600634193 .

[35] Alahmad, G., Aljohani, S., & Najjar, M. F. (2020). Ethical challenges regarding the use of stem cells: interviews with researchers from Saudi Arabia. BMC medical ethics, 21(1), 35. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-020-00482-6

[36] Association for the Advancement of Blood and Biotherapies.  https://www.aabb.org/regulatory-and-advocacy/regulatory-affairs/regulatory-for-cellular-therapies/international-competent-authorities/saudi-arabia

[37] Alahmad, G., Aljohani, S., & Najjar, M. F. (2020). Ethical challenges regarding the use of stem cells: Interviews with researchers from Saudi Arabia.  BMC medical ethics ,  21 (1), 35. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-020-00482-6

[38] Alahmad, G., Aljohani, S., & Najjar, M. F. (2020). Ethical challenges regarding the use of stem cells: Interviews with researchers from Saudi Arabia. BMC medical ethics , 21(1), 35. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-020-00482-6

Culturally, autonomy practices follow a relational autonomy approach based on a paternalistic deontological health care model. The adherence to strict international research policies and religious pillars within the regulatory environment is a great foundation for research ethics. However, there is a need to develop locally targeted ethics approaches for research (as called for in Alahmad, G., Aljohani, S., & Najjar, M. F. (2020). Ethical challenges regarding the use of stem cells: interviews with researchers from Saudi Arabia. BMC medical ethics, 21(1), 35. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-020-00482-6), this decision-making approach may help advise a research decision model. For more on the clinical cultural autonomy approaches, see: Alabdullah, Y. Y., Alzaid, E., Alsaad, S., Alamri, T., Alolayan, S. W., Bah, S., & Aljoudi, A. S. (2022). Autonomy and paternalism in Shared decision‐making in a Saudi Arabian tertiary hospital: A cross‐sectional study. Developing World Bioethics , 23 (3), 260–268. https://doi.org/10.1111/dewb.12355 ; Bukhari, A. A. (2017). Universal Principles of Bioethics and Patient Rights in Saudi Arabia (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/124; Ladha, S., Nakshawani, S. A., Alzaidy, A., & Tarab, B. (2023, October 26). Islam and Bioethics: What We All Need to Know . Columbia University School of Professional Studies. https://sps.columbia.edu/events/islam-and-bioethics-what-we-all-need-know

[39] Ababneh, M. A., Al-Azzam, S. I., Alzoubi, K., Rababa’h, A., & Al Demour, S. (2021). Understanding and attitudes of the Jordanian public about clinical research ethics.  Research Ethics ,  17 (2), 228-241.  https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016120966779

[40] Ababneh, M. A., Al-Azzam, S. I., Alzoubi, K., Rababa’h, A., & Al Demour, S. (2021). Understanding and attitudes of the Jordanian public about clinical research ethics.  Research Ethics ,  17 (2), 228-241.  https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016120966779

[41] Dajani, R. (2014). Jordan’s stem-cell law can guide the Middle East.  Nature  510, 189. https://doi.org/10.1038/510189a

[42] Dajani, R. (2014). Jordan’s stem-cell law can guide the Middle East.  Nature  510, 189. https://doi.org/10.1038/510189a

[43] The EU’s definition of autonomy relates to the capacity for creating ideas, moral insight, decisions, and actions without constraint, personal responsibility, and informed consent. However, the EU views autonomy as not completely able to protect individuals and depends on other principles, such as dignity, which “expresses the intrinsic worth and fundamental equality of all human beings.” Rendtorff, J.D., Kemp, P. (2019). Four Ethical Principles in European Bioethics and Biolaw: Autonomy, Dignity, Integrity and Vulnerability. In: Valdés, E., Lecaros, J. (eds) Biolaw and Policy in the Twenty-First Century. International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine, vol 78. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05903-3_3

[44] Council of Europe. Convention for the protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine: Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine (ETS No. 164) https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list?module=treaty-detail&treatynum=164 (forbidding the creation of embryos for research purposes only, and suggests embryos in vitro have protections.); Also see Drabiak-Syed B. K. (2013). New President, New Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research Policy: Comparative International Perspectives and Embryonic Stem Cell Research Laws in France.  Biotechnology Law Report ,  32 (6), 349–356. https://doi.org/10.1089/blr.2013.9865

[45] Rendtorff, J.D., Kemp, P. (2019). Four Ethical Principles in European Bioethics and Biolaw: Autonomy, Dignity, Integrity and Vulnerability. In: Valdés, E., Lecaros, J. (eds) Biolaw and Policy in the Twenty-First Century. International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine, vol 78. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05903-3_3

[46] Tomuschat, C., Currie, D. P., Kommers, D. P., & Kerr, R. (Trans.). (1949, May 23). Basic law for the Federal Republic of Germany. https://www.btg-bestellservice.de/pdf/80201000.pdf

[47] Regulation of Stem Cell Research in Germany . Eurostemcell. (2017, April 26). https://www.eurostemcell.org/regulation-stem-cell-research-germany

[48] Regulation of Stem Cell Research in Finland . Eurostemcell. (2017, April 26). https://www.eurostemcell.org/regulation-stem-cell-research-finland

[49] Regulation of Stem Cell Research in Spain . Eurostemcell. (2017, April 26). https://www.eurostemcell.org/regulation-stem-cell-research-spain

[50] Some sources to consider regarding ethics models or regulatory oversights of other cultures not covered:

Kara MA. Applicability of the principle of respect for autonomy: the perspective of Turkey. J Med Ethics. 2007 Nov;33(11):627-30. doi: 10.1136/jme.2006.017400. PMID: 17971462; PMCID: PMC2598110.

Ugarte, O. N., & Acioly, M. A. (2014). The principle of autonomy in Brazil: one needs to discuss it ...  Revista do Colegio Brasileiro de Cirurgioes ,  41 (5), 374–377. https://doi.org/10.1590/0100-69912014005013

Bharadwaj, A., & Glasner, P. E. (2012). Local cells, global science: The rise of embryonic stem cell research in India . Routledge.

For further research on specific European countries regarding ethical and regulatory framework, we recommend this database: Regulation of Stem Cell Research in Europe . Eurostemcell. (2017, April 26). https://www.eurostemcell.org/regulation-stem-cell-research-europe   

[51] Klitzman, R. (2006). Complications of culture in obtaining informed consent. The American Journal of Bioethics, 6(1), 20–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/15265160500394671 see also: Ekmekci, P. E., & Arda, B. (2017). Interculturalism and Informed Consent: Respecting Cultural Differences without Breaching Human Rights.  Cultura (Iasi, Romania) ,  14 (2), 159–172.; For why trust is important in research, see also: Gray, B., Hilder, J., Macdonald, L., Tester, R., Dowell, A., & Stubbe, M. (2017). Are research ethics guidelines culturally competent?  Research Ethics ,  13 (1), 23-41.  https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016116650235

[52] The Qur'an  (M. Khattab, Trans.). (1965). Al-Mu’minun, 23: 12-14. https://quran.com/23

[53] Lenfest, Y. (2017, December 8). Islam and the beginning of human life . Bill of Health. https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2017/12/08/islam-and-the-beginning-of-human-life/

[54] Aksoy, S. (2005). Making regulations and drawing up legislation in Islamic countries under conditions of uncertainty, with special reference to embryonic stem cell research. Journal of Medical Ethics , 31: 399-403.; see also: Mahmoud, Azza. "Islamic Bioethics: National Regulations and Guidelines of Human Stem Cell Research in the Muslim World." Master's thesis, Chapman University, 2022. https://doi.org/10.36837/ chapman.000386

[55] Rashid, R. (2022). When does Ensoulment occur in the Human Foetus. Journal of the British Islamic Medical Association , 12 (4). ISSN 2634 8071. https://www.jbima.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/2-Ethics-3_-Ensoulment_Rafaqat.pdf.

[56] Sivaraman, M. & Noor, S. (2017). Ethics of embryonic stem cell research according to Buddhist, Hindu, Catholic, and Islamic religions: perspective from Malaysia. Asian Biomedicine,8(1) 43-52.  https://doi.org/10.5372/1905-7415.0801.260

[57] Jafari, M., Elahi, F., Ozyurt, S. & Wrigley, T. (2007). 4. Religious Perspectives on Embryonic Stem Cell Research. In K. Monroe, R. Miller & J. Tobis (Ed.),  Fundamentals of the Stem Cell Debate: The Scientific, Religious, Ethical, and Political Issues  (pp. 79-94). Berkeley: University of California Press.  https://escholarship.org/content/qt9rj0k7s3/qt9rj0k7s3_noSplash_f9aca2e02c3777c7fb76ea768ba458f0.pdf https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520940994-005

[58] Lecso, P. A. (1991). The Bodhisattva Ideal and Organ Transplantation.  Journal of Religion and Health ,  30 (1), 35–41. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27510629 ; Bodhisattva, S. (n.d.). The Key of Becoming a Bodhisattva . A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life. http://www.buddhism.org/Sutras/2/BodhisattvaWay.htm

[59] There is no explicit religious reference to when life begins or how to conduct research that interacts with the concept of life. However, these are relevant verses pertaining to how the fetus is viewed. (( King James Bible . (1999). Oxford University Press. (original work published 1769))

Jerimiah 1: 5 “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee…”

In prophet Jerimiah’s insight, God set him apart as a person known before childbirth, a theme carried within the Psalm of David.

Psalm 139: 13-14 “…Thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made…”

These verses demonstrate David’s respect for God as an entity that would know of all man’s thoughts and doings even before birth.

[60] It should be noted that abortion is not supported as well.

[61] The Vatican. (1987, February 22). Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation Replies to Certain Questions of the Day . Congregation For the Doctrine of the Faith. https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19870222_respect-for-human-life_en.html

[62] The Vatican. (2000, August 25). Declaration On the Production and the Scientific and Therapeutic Use of Human Embryonic Stem Cells . Pontifical Academy for Life. https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_academies/acdlife/documents/rc_pa_acdlife_doc_20000824_cellule-staminali_en.html ; Ohara, N. (2003). Ethical Consideration of Experimentation Using Living Human Embryos: The Catholic Church’s Position on Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research and Human Cloning. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology . Retrieved from https://article.imrpress.com/journal/CEOG/30/2-3/pii/2003018/77-81.pdf.

[63] Smith, G. A. (2022, May 23). Like Americans overall, Catholics vary in their abortion views, with regular mass attenders most opposed . Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/05/23/like-americans-overall-catholics-vary-in-their-abortion-views-with-regular-mass-attenders-most-opposed/

[64] Rosner, F., & Reichman, E. (2002). Embryonic stem cell research in Jewish law. Journal of halacha and contemporary society , (43), 49–68.; Jafari, M., Elahi, F., Ozyurt, S. & Wrigley, T. (2007). 4. Religious Perspectives on Embryonic Stem Cell Research. In K. Monroe, R. Miller & J. Tobis (Ed.),  Fundamentals of the Stem Cell Debate: The Scientific, Religious, Ethical, and Political Issues  (pp. 79-94). Berkeley: University of California Press.  https://escholarship.org/content/qt9rj0k7s3/qt9rj0k7s3_noSplash_f9aca2e02c3777c7fb76ea768ba458f0.pdf https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520940994-005

[65] Schenker J. G. (2008). The beginning of human life: status of embryo. Perspectives in Halakha (Jewish Religious Law).  Journal of assisted reproduction and genetics ,  25 (6), 271–276. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10815-008-9221-6

[66] Ruttenberg, D. (2020, May 5). The Torah of Abortion Justice (annotated source sheet) . Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/234926.7?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en

[67] Jafari, M., Elahi, F., Ozyurt, S. & Wrigley, T. (2007). 4. Religious Perspectives on Embryonic Stem Cell Research. In K. Monroe, R. Miller & J. Tobis (Ed.),  Fundamentals of the Stem Cell Debate: The Scientific, Religious, Ethical, and Political Issues  (pp. 79-94). Berkeley: University of California Press.  https://escholarship.org/content/qt9rj0k7s3/qt9rj0k7s3_noSplash_f9aca2e02c3777c7fb76ea768ba458f0.pdf https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520940994-005

[68] Gert, B. (2007). Common morality: Deciding what to do . Oxford Univ. Press.

[69] World Medical Association (2013). World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki: ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects. JAMA , 310(20), 2191–2194. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2013.281053 Declaration of Helsinki – WMA – The World Medical Association .; see also: National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. (1979).  The Belmont report: Ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of human subjects of research . U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/belmont-report/read-the-belmont-report/index.html

[70] Zakarin Safier, L., Gumer, A., Kline, M., Egli, D., & Sauer, M. V. (2018). Compensating human subjects providing oocytes for stem cell research: 9-year experience and outcomes.  Journal of assisted reproduction and genetics ,  35 (7), 1219–1225. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10815-018-1171-z https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6063839/ see also: Riordan, N. H., & Paz Rodríguez, J. (2021). Addressing concerns regarding associated costs, transparency, and integrity of research in recent stem cell trial. Stem Cells Translational Medicine , 10 (12), 1715–1716. https://doi.org/10.1002/sctm.21-0234

[71] Klitzman, R., & Sauer, M. V. (2009). Payment of egg donors in stem cell research in the USA.  Reproductive biomedicine online ,  18 (5), 603–608. https://doi.org/10.1016/s1472-6483(10)60002-8

[72] Krosin, M. T., Klitzman, R., Levin, B., Cheng, J., & Ranney, M. L. (2006). Problems in comprehension of informed consent in rural and peri-urban Mali, West Africa.  Clinical trials (London, England) ,  3 (3), 306–313. https://doi.org/10.1191/1740774506cn150oa

[73] Veatch, Robert M.  Hippocratic, Religious, and Secular Medical Ethics: The Points of Conflict . Georgetown University Press, 2012.

[74] Msoroka, M. S., & Amundsen, D. (2018). One size fits not quite all: Universal research ethics with diversity.  Research Ethics ,  14 (3), 1-17.  https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016117739939

[75] Pirzada, N. (2022). The Expansion of Turkey’s Medical Tourism Industry.  Voices in Bioethics ,  8 . https://doi.org/10.52214/vib.v8i.9894

[76] Stem Cell Tourism: False Hope for Real Money . Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI). (2023). https://hsci.harvard.edu/stem-cell-tourism , See also: Bissassar, M. (2017). Transnational Stem Cell Tourism: An ethical analysis.  Voices in Bioethics ,  3 . https://doi.org/10.7916/vib.v3i.6027

[77] Song, P. (2011) The proliferation of stem cell therapies in post-Mao China: problematizing ethical regulation,  New Genetics and Society , 30:2, 141-153, DOI:  10.1080/14636778.2011.574375

[78] Dajani, R. (2014). Jordan’s stem-cell law can guide the Middle East.  Nature  510, 189. https://doi.org/10.1038/510189a

[79] International Society for Stem Cell Research. (2024). Standards in stem cell research . International Society for Stem Cell Research. https://www.isscr.org/guidelines/5-standards-in-stem-cell-research

[80] Benjamin, R. (2013). People’s science bodies and rights on the Stem Cell Frontier . Stanford University Press.

Mifrah Hayath

SM Candidate Harvard Medical School, MS Biotechnology Johns Hopkins University

Olivia Bowers

MS Bioethics Columbia University (Disclosure: affiliated with Voices in Bioethics)

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• About Adverse Childhood Experiences
• Risk and Protective Factors
• Program: Essentials for Childhood: Preventing Adverse Childhood Experiences through Data to Action
• Adverse childhood experiences can have long-term impacts on health, opportunity and well-being.
• Adverse childhood experiences are common and some groups experience them more than others.

What are adverse childhood experiences?

Adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, are potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood (0-17 years). Examples include: 1

• Experiencing violence, abuse, or neglect.
• Witnessing violence in the home or community.
• Having a family member attempt or die by suicide.

Also included are aspects of the child’s environment that can undermine their sense of safety, stability, and bonding. Examples can include growing up in a household with: 1

• Substance use problems.
• Mental health problems.
• Instability due to parental separation.
• Instability due to household members being in jail or prison.

The examples above are not a complete list of adverse experiences. Many other traumatic experiences could impact health and well-being. This can include not having enough food to eat, experiencing homelessness or unstable housing, or experiencing discrimination. 2 3 4 5 6

Quick facts and stats

ACEs are common. About 64% of adults in the United States reported they had experienced at least one type of ACE before age 18. Nearly one in six (17.3%) adults reported they had experienced four or more types of ACEs. 7

Preventing ACEs could potentially reduce many health conditions. Estimates show up to 1.9 million heart disease cases and 21 million depression cases potentially could have been avoided by preventing ACEs. 1

Some people are at greater risk of experiencing one or more ACEs than others. While all children are at risk of ACEs, numerous studies show inequities in such experiences. These inequalities are linked to the historical, social, and economic environments in which some families live. 5 6 ACEs were highest among females, non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native adults, and adults who are unemployed or unable to work. 7

ACEs are costly. ACEs-related health consequences cost an estimated economic burden of $748 billion annually in Bermuda, Canada, and the United States. 8

ACEs can have lasting effects on health and well-being in childhood and life opportunities well into adulthood. 9 Life opportunities include things like education and job potential. These experiences can increase the risks of injury, sexually transmitted infections, and involvement in sex trafficking. They can also increase risks for maternal and child health problems including teen pregnancy, pregnancy complications, and fetal death. Also included are a range of chronic diseases and leading causes of death, such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and suicide. 1 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

ACEs and associated social determinants of health, such as living in under-resourced or racially segregated neighborhoods, can cause toxic stress. Toxic stress, or extended or prolonged stress, from ACEs can negatively affect children’s brain development, immune systems, and stress-response systems. These changes can affect children’s attention, decision-making, and learning. 18

Children growing up with toxic stress may have difficulty forming healthy and stable relationships. They may also have unstable work histories as adults and struggle with finances, jobs, and depression throughout life. 18 These effects can also be passed on to their own children. 19 20 21 Some children may face further exposure to toxic stress from historical and ongoing traumas. These historical and ongoing traumas refer to experiences of racial discrimination or the impacts of poverty resulting from limited educational and economic opportunities. 1 6

Adverse childhood experiences can be prevented. Certain factors may increase or decrease the risk of experiencing adverse childhood experiences.

Preventing adverse childhood experiences requires understanding and addressing the factors that put people at risk for or protect them from violence.

Creating safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments for all children can prevent ACEs and help all children reach their full potential. We all have a role to play.

• Merrick MT, Ford DC, Ports KA, et al. Vital Signs: Estimated Proportion of Adult Health Problems Attributable to Adverse Childhood Experiences and Implications for Prevention — 25 States, 2015–2017. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2019;68:999-1005. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6844e1 .
• Cain KS, Meyer SC, Cummer E, Patel KK, Casacchia NJ, Montez K, Palakshappa D, Brown CL. Association of Food Insecurity with Mental Health Outcomes in Parents and Children. Science Direct. 2022; 22:7; 1105-1114. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acap.2022.04.010 .
• Smith-Grant J, Kilmer G, Brener N, Robin L, Underwood M. Risk Behaviors and Experiences Among Youth Experiencing Homelessness—Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 23 U.S. States and 11 Local School Districts. Journal of Community Health. 2022; 47: 324-333.
• Experiencing discrimination: Early Childhood Adversity, Toxic Stress, and the Impacts of Racism on the Foundations of Health | Annual Review of Public Health ( annualreviews.org).
• Sedlak A, Mettenburg J, Basena M, et al. Fourth national incidence study of child abuse and neglect (NIS-4): Report to Congress. Executive Summary. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health an Human Services, Administration for Children and Families.; 2010.
• Font S, Maguire-Jack K. Pathways from childhood abuse and other adversities to adult health risks: The role of adult socioeconomic conditions. Child Abuse Negl. 2016;51:390-399.
• Swedo EA, Aslam MV, Dahlberg LL, et al. Prevalence of Adverse Childhood Experiences Among U.S. Adults — Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 2011–2020. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2023;72:707–715. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7226a2 .
• Bellis, MA, et al. Life Course Health Consequences and Associated Annual Costs of Adverse Childhood Experiences Across Europe and North America: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Lancet Public Health 2019.
• Adverse Childhood Experiences During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Associations with Poor Mental Health and Suicidal Behaviors Among High School Students — Adolescent Behaviors and Experiences Survey, United States, January–June 2021 | MMWR
• Hillis SD, Anda RF, Dube SR, Felitti VJ, Marchbanks PA, Marks JS. The association between adverse childhood experiences and adolescent pregnancy, long-term psychosocial consequences, and fetal death. Pediatrics. 2004 Feb;113(2):320-7.
• Miller ES, Fleming O, Ekpe EE, Grobman WA, Heard-Garris N. Association Between Adverse Childhood Experiences and Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes. Obstetrics & Gynecology . 2021;138(5):770-776. https://doi.org/10.1097/AOG.0000000000004570 .
• Sulaiman S, Premji SS, Tavangar F, et al. Total Adverse Childhood Experiences and Preterm Birth: A Systematic Review. Matern Child Health J . 2021;25(10):1581-1594. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10995-021-03176-6 .
• Ciciolla L, Shreffler KM, Tiemeyer S. Maternal Childhood Adversity as a Risk for Perinatal Complications and NICU Hospitalization. Journal of Pediatric Psychology . 2021;46(7):801-813. https://doi.org/10.1093/jpepsy/jsab027 .
• Mersky JP, Lee CP. Adverse childhood experiences and poor birth outcomes in a diverse, low-income sample. BMC pregnancy and childbirth. 2019;19(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12884-019-2560-8.
• Reid JA, Baglivio MT, Piquero AR, Greenwald MA, Epps N. No youth left behind to human trafficking: Exploring profiles of risk. American journal of orthopsychiatry. 2019;89(6):704.
• Diamond-Welch B, Kosloski AE. Adverse childhood experiences and propensity to participate in the commercialized sex market. Child Abuse & Neglect. 2020 Jun 1;104:104468.
• Shonkoff, J. P., Garner, A. S., Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health, Committee on Early Childhood, Adoption, and Dependent Care, & Section on Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics (2012). The lifelong effects of early childhood adversity and toxic stress. Pediatrics, 129(1), e232–e246. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2011-2663
• Narayan AJ, Kalstabakken AW, Labella MH, Nerenberg LS, Monn AR, Masten AS. Intergenerational continuity of adverse childhood experiences in homeless families: unpacking exposure to maltreatment versus family dysfunction. Am J Orthopsych. 2017;87(1):3. https://doi.org/10.1037/ort0000133.
• Schofield TJ, Donnellan MB, Merrick MT, Ports KA, Klevens J, Leeb R. Intergenerational continuity in adverse childhood experiences and rural community environments. Am J Public Health. 2018;108(9):1148-1152. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2018.304598.
• Schofield TJ, Lee RD, Merrick MT. Safe, stable, nurturing relationships as a moderator of intergenerational continuity of child maltreatment: a meta-analysis. J Adolesc Health. 2013;53(4 Suppl):S32-38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2013.05.004 .

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)

ACEs can have a tremendous impact on lifelong health and opportunity. CDC works to understand ACEs and prevent them.

What is ChatGPT? Here's everything you need to know about ChatGPT, the chatbot everyone's still talking about

• ChatGPT is getting a futuristic human update. 
• ChatGPT has drawn users at a feverish pace and spurred Big Tech to release other AI chatbots.
• Here's how ChatGPT works — and what's coming next.

OpenAI's blockbuster chatbot ChatGPT is getting a new update. 

On Monday, OpenAI unveiled GPT-4o for ChatGPT, a new version of the bot that can hold conversations with users in a very human tone. The new version of the chatbot will also have vision abilities.

The futuristic reveal quickly prompted jokes about parallels to the movie "Her," with some calling the chatbot's new voice " cringe ."

The move is a big step for the future of AI-powered virtual assistants, which tech companies have been racing to develop.

Since its release in 2022, hundreds of millions of people have experimented with the tool, which is already changing how the internet looks and feels to users.

Users have flocked to ChatGPT to improve their personal lives and boost productivity . Some workers have used the AI chatbot to develop code , write real estate listings , and create lesson plans, while others have made teaching the best ways to use ChatGPT a career all to itself.

ChatGPT offers dozens of plug-ins to those who subscribe to ChatGPT Plus subscription. An Expedia one can help you book a trip, while an OpenTable one will get nab you a dinner reservation. And last month, OpenAI launched Code Interpreter, a version of ChatGPT that can code and analyze data .

While the personal tone of conversations with an AI bot like ChatGPT can evoke the experience of chatting with a human, the technology, which runs on " large language model tools, " doesn't speak with sentience and doesn't "think" the way people do. 

That means that even though ChatGPT can explain quantum physics or write a poem on command, a full AI takeover isn't exactly imminent , according to experts.

"There's a saying that an infinite number of monkeys will eventually give you Shakespeare," said Matthew Sag, a law professor at Emory University who studies copyright implications for training and using large language models like ChatGPT.

"There's a large number of monkeys here, giving you things that are impressive — but there is intrinsically a difference between the way that humans produce language, and the way that large language models do it," he said. 

Chatbots like ChatGPT are powered by large amounts of data and computing techniques to make predictions to string words together in a meaningful way. They not only tap into a vast amount of vocabulary and information, but also understand words in context. This helps them mimic speech patterns while dispatching an encyclopedic knowledge. 

Other tech companies like Google and Meta have developed their own large language model tools, which use programs that take in human prompts and devise sophisticated responses.

Despite the AI's impressive capabilities, some have called out OpenAI's chatbot for spewing misinformation , stealing personal data for training purposes , and even encouraging students to cheat and plagiarize on their assignments. 

Some recent efforts to use chatbots for real-world services have proved troubling. In 2023, the mental health company Koko came under fire after its founder wrote about how the company used GPT-3 in an experiment to reply to users. 

Koko cofounder Rob Morris hastened to clarify on Twitter that users weren't speaking directly to a chatbot, but that AI was used to "help craft" responses. 

Read Insider's coverage on ChatGPT and some of the strange new ways that both people and companies are using chat bots: 

The tech world's reception to ChatGPT:

Microsoft is chill with employees using ChatGPT — just don't share 'sensitive data' with it.

Microsoft's investment into ChatGPT's creator may be the smartest $1 billion ever spent

ChatGPT and generative AI look like tech's next boom. They could be the next bubble.

The ChatGPT and generative-AI 'gold rush' has founders flocking to San Francisco's 'Cerebral Valley'

Insider's experiments: 

I asked ChatGPT to do my work and write an Insider article for me. It quickly generated an alarmingly convincing article filled with misinformation.

I asked ChatGPT and a human matchmaker to redo my Hinge and Bumble profiles. They helped show me what works.

I asked ChatGPT to reply to my Hinge matches. No one responded.

I used ChatGPT to write a resignation letter. A lawyer said it made one crucial error that could have invalidated the whole thing .

Read ChatGPT's 'insulting' and 'garbage' 'Succession' finale script

An Iowa school district asked ChatGPT if a list of books contains sex scenes, and banned them if it said yes. We put the system to the test and found a bunch of problems.

Developments in detecting ChatGPT: 

Teachers rejoice! ChatGPT creators have released a tool to help detect AI-generated writing

A Princeton student built an app which can detect if ChatGPT wrote an essay to combat AI-based plagiarism

Professors want to 'ChatGPT-proof' assignments, and are returning to paper exams and requesting editing history to curb AI cheating

ChatGPT in society: 

BuzzFeed writers react with a mix of disappointment and excitement at news that AI-generated content is coming to the website

ChatGPT is testing a paid version — here's what that means for free users

A top UK private school is changing its approach to homework amid the rise of ChatGPT, as educators around the world adapt to AI

Princeton computer science professor says don't panic over 'bullshit generator' ChatGPT

DoNotPay's CEO says threat of 'jail for 6 months' means plan to debut AI 'robot lawyer' in courtroom is on ice

It might be possible to fight a traffic ticket with an AI 'robot lawyer' secretly feeding you lines to your AirPods, but it could go off the rails

Online mental health company uses ChatGPT to help respond to users in experiment — raising ethical concerns around healthcare and AI technology

What public figures think about ChatGPT and other AI tools:

What Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and 12 other business leaders think about AI tools like ChatGPT

Elon Musk was reportedly 'furious' at ChatGPT's popularity after he left the company behind it, OpenAI, years ago

CEO of ChatGPT maker responds to schools' plagiarism concerns: 'We adapted to calculators and changed what we tested in math class'

A theoretical physicist says AI is just a 'glorified tape recorder' and people's fears about it are overblown

'The most stunning demo I've ever seen in my life': ChatGPT impressed Bill Gates

Ashton Kutcher says your company will probably be 'out of business' if you're 'sleeping' on AI

ChatGPT's impact on jobs: 

AI systems like ChatGPT could impact 300 million full-time jobs worldwide, with administrative and legal roles some of the most at risk, Goldman Sachs report says

Jobs are now requiring experience with ChatGPT — and they'll pay as much as $800,000 a year for the skill

Related stories

ChatGPT may be coming for our jobs. Here are the 10 roles that AI is most likely to replace.

AI is going to eliminate way more jobs than anyone realizes

It's not AI that is going to take your job, but someone who knows how to use AI might, economist says

4 careers where workers will have to change jobs by 2030 due to AI and shifts in how we shop, a McKinsey study says

Companies like Amazon, Netflix, and Meta are paying salaries as high as $900,000 to attract generative AI talent

How AI tools like ChatGPT are changing the workforce:

10 ways artificial intelligence is changing the workplace, from writing performance reviews to making the 4-day workweek possible

Managers who use AI will replace managers who don't, says an IBM exec

How ChatGPT is shaping industries: 

ChatGPT is coming for classrooms, hospitals, marketing departments, and everything else as the next great startup boom emerges

Marketing teams are using AI to generate content, boost SEO, and develop branding to help save time and money, study finds

AI is coming for Hollywood. 'It's amazing to see the sophistication of the images,' one of Christopher Nolan's VFX guy says.

AI is going to offer every student a personalized tutor, founder of Khan Academy says

A law firm was fined $5,000 after one of its lawyers used ChatGPT to write a court brief riddled with fake case references

How workers are using ChatGPT to boost productivity:  

CheatGPT: The hidden wave of employees using AI on the sly

I used ChatGPT to talk to my boss for a week and she didn't notice. Here are the other ways I use it daily to get work done.

I'm a high school math and science teacher who uses ChatGPT, and it's made my job much easier

Amazon employees are already using ChatGPT for software coding. They also found the AI chatbot can answer tricky AWS customer questions and write cloud training materials.

How 6 workers are using ChatGPT to make their jobs easier

I'm a freelance editor who's embraced working with AI content. Here's how I do it and what I charge.

How people are using ChatGPT to make money:

How ChatGPT and other AI tools are helping workers make more money

Here are 5 ways ChatGPT helps me make money and complete time-consuming tasks for my business

ChatGPT course instruction is the newest side hustle on the market. Meet the teachers making thousands from the lucrative gig.

People are using ChatGPT and other AI bots to work side hustles and earn thousands of dollars — check out these 8 freelancing gigs

A guy tried using ChatGPT to turn $100 into a business making 'as much money as possible.' Here are the first 4 steps the AI chatbot gave him

We used ChatGPT to build a 7-figure newsletter. Here's how it makes our jobs easier.

I use ChatGPT and it's like having a 24/7 personal assistant for $20 a month. Here are 5 ways it's helping me make more money.

A worker who uses AI for a $670 monthly side hustle says ChatGPT has 'cut her research time in half'

How companies are navigating ChatGPT: 

From Salesforce to Air India, here are the companies that are using ChatGPT

Amazon, Apple, and 12 other major companies that have restricted employees from using ChatGPT

A consultant used ChatGPT to free up time so she could focus on pitching clients. She landed $128,000 worth of new contracts in just 3 months.

Luminary, an AI-generated pop-up restaurant, just opened in Australia. Here's what's on the menu, from bioluminescent calamari to chocolate mousse.

A CEO is spending more than $2,000 a month on ChatGPT Plus accounts for all of his employees, and he says it's saving 'hours' of time

How people are using ChatGPT in their personal lives:

ChatGPT planned a family vacation to Costa Rica. A travel adviser found 3 glaring reasons why AI won't replace experts anytime soon.

A man who hated cardio asked ChatGPT to get him into running. Now, he's hooked — and he's lost 26 pounds.

A computer engineering student is using ChatGPT to overcome learning challenges linked to her dyslexia

How a coder used ChatGPT to find an apartment in Berlin in 2 weeks after struggling for months

Food blogger Nisha Vora tried ChatGPT to create a curry recipe. She says it's clear the instructions lacked a human touch — here's how.

Men are using AI to land more dates with better profiles and personalized messages, study finds

Lawsuits against OpenAI:

OpenAI could face a plagiarism lawsuit from The New York Times as tense negotiations threaten to boil over, report says

This is why comedian Sarah Silverman is suing OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT

2 authors say OpenAI 'ingested' their books to train ChatGPT. Now they're suing, and a 'wave' of similar court cases may follow.

A lawsuit claims OpenAI stole 'massive amounts of personal data,' including medical records and information about children, to train ChatGPT

A radio host is suing OpenAI for defamation, alleging that ChatGPT created a false legal document that accused him of 'defrauding and embezzling funds'

Tips on how to write better ChatGPT prompts:

7 ways to use ChatGPT at work to boost your productivity, make your job easier, and save a ton of time

I'm an AI prompt engineer. Here are 3 ways I use ChatGPT to get the best results.

12 ways to get better at using ChatGPT: Comprehensive prompt guide

Here's 9 ways to turn ChatGPT Plus into your personal data analyst with the new Code Interpreter plug-in

OpenAI's ChatGPT can write impressive code. Here are the prompts you should use for the best results, experts say.

Axel Springer, Business Insider's parent company, has a global deal to allow OpenAI to train its models on its media brands' reporting.

Watch: What is ChatGPT, and should we be afraid of AI chatbots?

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