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PHILOSOPHY
A TEXT WITH READINGS

12th EDITION
Manual Velasquez
Chapter 2: “Human Nature”
CHAPTER TWO: HUMAN NATURE

Outline of Topics in Chapter 2
• Thinking Critically
• 2.1 Why Does Your View of Human Nature
Matter?
• 2.2 What is Human Nature?
• 2.3 The Mind-Body Problem: How do Mind
and Body Relate?
• 2.4 Is There an Enduring Self?
• 2.5 Are We Independent and Self-
Sufficient individuals?
2.1 Why Does Your View of
Human Nature Matter?
• Try to recall a situation in which you
helped a complete stranger.
– Write down the circumstances of your action.
– Why did you give help him or her?
• Have you ever thought: “I didn’t really act
to benefit this person, but out of self-
interested motives”?
– If yes, then you are a psychological egoist.

Psychological Egoism
• The American philosopher, Mark Mercer,
has defended a version of psychological
egoism. Mercer argues that …
– “behind any action whatever that an agent
performs intentionally, ultimately there lies the
agent's expectation of realizing one or more of
her self-regarding ends, an expectation without
which the agent would not have performed the
action.”
• What does Mercer mean by “self-regarding end”?
(51-2)
Evaluating Mercer’s Arguments
• Review the text’s two analyzed versions of
Mercer’s arguments (53).
• Briefly explain what makes these
arguments deductively valid arguments.
• Are either of the arguments sound
arguments?
• Can you provide any other arguments for
psychological egoism?

Why It’s Important to
Understand Human Nature
• How do one’s views of human nature
influence one’s…
– relationships with others?
– relationship to the universe?
– understanding of society?

2.2 Three Assumptions about
Human Nature
• Many people in the West believe in life
after death. They tend to make some
assumptions about human nature:
1. That humans beings have a self that is
conscious and rational.
2. That the self is different from, but related to,
the body.
3. That the self endures through time.

The Traditional View
of Human Nature
• These three assumptions are part of an
influential view of human nature which the
text labels the Traditional Western view of
human nature.
• After exploring this viewpoint, we’ll look at
three challenges to it:
A. The Darwinian Challenge
B. The Existentialist Challenge
C. The Feminist Challenge
The Rationalistic Version of the
Traditional View
• A highly influential version of the
Traditional theory of human nature views
human nature rationalistically.
– Both Plato and Aristotle defended versions of
this viewpoint, arising from the assumption
that reason is the most distinctive capacity of
human beings.
– Neither understood human beings as
essentially egoistic or self-interested.

Plato’s Rationalism
• Plato thought that human nature has three
parts reason, which pursues knowledge of
immaterial ideals (the Forms) the
appetites and the spirited part, or
aggressiveness.
• Plato believed these three parts of the
soul were harmonized only when
controlled by reason.
– What image does Plato use to illustrate the
tripartite soul? (59)
Dynamics of the Psyche
• Plato’s viewpoint lays down the philosophical
foundations for belief in an immaterial soul.
– He attempts to prove the immateriality of the soul in
the Phaedo by pointing to reason’s ability to know
abstract immaterial ideals, the Forms.
• What is Plato’s argument for the soul’s immateriality? (61-2)
• On the other hand, he develops a sophisticated
understanding of inter-psychic conflict, when the
soul is torn between reason, its bodily desires
and its aggressive impulses .
– Give an example of a conflict between reason and
desire, and between reason and aggressiveness.
Aristotle’s Rationalism
• Aristotle agreed with Plato that our ability
to reason is the characteristic that sets the
human self apart from all other creatures
of nature.
– Unlike Plato, however, Aristotle, held that the
truth about human nature required only
knowledge of our own world.
– Neither does he share Plato’s emphasis on
the soul’s immateriality.

Reason and Purpose
• Aristotle argues that all living things have
an end or purpose.
– Fulfilling this purpose allows it to accomplish
its good, and leads to the flourishing of the
being.
– The purpose of humans is to use their reason
to think and to control desires and
aggressions.
• How does Aristotle argue for the claim that the
purpose of humans is to live a life of reason? (61)
The Judeo-Christian Version of
the Traditional View
• Only when the soul is governed by
reason will it attain knowledge of the
forms.
The soul can do this only if it controls its
bodily desires and trains its aggressive
impulses so that both obey reason.

The Judeo-Christian Version of
the Traditional View
• The Judeo-Christian religious view claims
that humans are made in the image of
God, who has endowed them with rational
self-consciousness and an ability to love.
– This belief was not shared by classical Greek
philosophers
• However, a large part of the Greek
rationalistic view of human nature has
been incorporated into the Judeo-
Christian view.
Augustine’s Synthesis
• The Christian philosopher Augustine of Hippo
(354–430) incorporated several assumptions
from Plato:
– the human self is a rational self with reason.
– humans have an immaterial and immortal soul.
• Augustine also agreed with the classical
rationalistic view, that human nature is not
basically self-interested
– Unlike Plato, however, Augustine emphasized the
notion of a will, the ability to choose between good
and evil.

Aquinas’ Synthesis
• The Christian philosophy, Thomas
Aquinas (1225-1274), agreed with
Aristotle
• that humans and all other creatures have
a purpose.
– However, he said, the purpose of humans is
to achieve happiness by using their reason to
know God.
– How does Aquinas argue for this? (64)
Challenges Arise
• The Traditional Rationalistic View, a
synthesis of classical Greek and Judeo-
Christian beliefs and attitudes continues to
animate people’s perspectives on human
nature.
– However, that view has been increasingly
challenged in the modern world.
– One very serious challenge to it has been
posed by Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.

The Darwinian Challenge:
Three Key Ideas
• Charles Darwin (1809-1882) proposed
three important ideas:
1. Natural Variation
2. Struggle for Existence
3. Natural Selection

Disturbing Implications
• The notion that all species, including
humans, arose in an evolutionary was a
disturbing new thought for many people.
– Explain how Darwin’s theory undermines two
key beliefs in Traditional Rationalism:
• That the ability of reason is a completely different
kind of ability than any of the abilities other animals
have.
• That humans are designed for a purpose.

Evidence for Darwin’s theory
• Darwin offered four distinct bodies of evidence in
favor of evolution:
1. The existence of similar species (like monkeys and
gorillas) with shared common characteristics.
2. The geographically distribution of species over the
face of the earth.
3. The similarity of bone structures, embryonic
developments, and useless rudimentary organs
among contemporary living creatures.
4. 4. The fossil record was best explained by his theory
that species living today had descended from
different earlier species.
Responses to Darwin
• Some critics argue that the fossil record
shows gaps, and thus does not offer clear
evidence in favor of evolution.
• Describe Stephen Jay Gould’s response to this
point. (71)
• Other critics have argued for a theistic version
of evolution, and that evolution is consistent
with “divine direction.”
• Still other critics contend that the human
capacity to reason is unique in all of nature.
The Existentialist Challenge
• Existentialist views denies the Tradition
View’s claims that there is a fixed human
nature and that we have a purpose.
– How does Sartre argue for the claim that
humans lack an essence, using the example
of a paper-knife?
– Since we lack an essence, Sartre argues,
“existence precedes essence.”
• What does Sartre mean by this? (77)

The Existentialist Challenge
• Our consciousness of our freedom to
create ourselves, and its accompanying
responsibilities cause what Sartre refers to
as “anguish.”
– The most anguishing thought of all is that we
alone are totally responsible for ourselves.
– Bad faith is deceiving ourselves by pretending
we are not free and so not responsible.
• How does the story of the woman on a date
illustrate bad faith? (75-6)

The Feminist Challenge
• Feminists have argued that Rationalist
Tradition leaves us with concepts of
reason, appetites, emotions, mind, and
body that are all biased in favor of men
and against women.
• Explain
• yet the rationalist and Judeo-Christian

view is framed in terms of these sexist
Sexist Assumptions
• Feminists argue that the tradition makes
several sexist assumptions:
– Reason and rationality are “male,” whereas
desire and feeling are “female.”
– Only men are fully human because only men
are fully rational, while women are not fully
rational but are driven by their emotions and
desires.
– Because reason must rule, men should rule
over women.
Can we Think Differently?
• The existence of bias demands that we
learn to think differently about human
nature, but how?
– Genevieve Lloyd argues that we can’t simply
throw out the rationalistic viewpoint.
• For example, simply asserting that women have as
much reason as men seems to assume that
reason—the “male” trait—is really as superior as
the rationalistic view says it is.

2.3 The Mind-Body Problem:
How do Mind and Body Relate?
• Whatever your view of human nature, it
seems obvious that being human involves
having a mind and a body.
• For philosophers, though, these facts are
less than obvious. They wonder:
– How should we best conceive the mind and
body?
– How should we understand their relationship?

Dualism
• One philosophical theory of the mind-body
relation is called dualism, the view that human
beings are immaterial minds within material
bodies
– We’ve already encountered versions of this theory in
the philosophies of Plato and Saint Augustine.
– Perhaps the most famous version of this perspective
was developed by Rene Descartes (1596–1650).
– Descartes argued that the mind and body are two
distinct things or substances that interact with one
another.
Questions for
Cartesian Dualism
• What argument does Descartes use to establish
that the mind is not a physical thing? (84)
– Is this argument convincing? Why or why not?
• The Problem of Interaction: One problem that
Descartes’ dualism (called Cartesian dualism)
raises is how do the mind and body interact?
– Give an example of what seems to be mind to body
causation and vice versa.
– How does Descartes talk about the interaction of
these two distinct things? (85)

Dualist Responses to the
Problem of Interaction
• From within the standpoint of dualism, the
philosopher Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716)
addressed the question of interaction by arguing
that mind and body run in parallel order, like two
clocks that are synchronized so that they seem
to be connected yet operate independently .
– The dualist Nicolas Malebranche (1683–1715)
refused to believe that by some incredible
coincidence the mind and body were perfectly
synchronized. What happens instead, he said, is that
God steps in to synchronize the body and the mind.
•
Materialism
• Finding Leibniz and Malebranche’s solutions to
problems generated by dualism to be non-
starters, many philosophers have argued for its
rejection, and proposed materialism as an
alternative.
– Materialists argue that since only physical bodies and
systems exist, then the activities we attribute to the
mind are really activities of our material body, and we
should be able to explain the operations of the mind in
terms of the working of the body.
• CHAPTER TWO: HUMAN NATURE

Reductionism
• Materialists, like Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679),
have tended to embrace some form of
reductionism.
– This is the viewpoint that the structure and/or function
one kind thing – the mind -- can be exhaustively
explained by he structure and function of another kind
of thing – the body.
– If so, then there is no need to postulate the existence
of “immaterial substances.” Instead, we must
acknowledge that only material things exist.
– Describe Hobbes’ version of reductionism.

Controversy
• Hobbes’s version of materialism failed to
convince many of his contemporaries.
– His reductive explanations of mental activities in
terms of physical processes were not persuasive.
– Many wondered whether reductionism was even
possible: How can an even very complicated physical
system, produce mental phenomena that seem to
have no physical characteristics?
– A variety of materialist theories have been proposed
to answer this question.

Varieties of materialism
• Identity theory holds that conscious states are identical
with the body's brain states.
• Behaviorism says that conscious mental states are
bodily behaviors or dispositions.
• Functionalism contends that mental states are functions
between perceptual inputs and behavioral outputs.
– This influential theory has led some philosophers to the view that
the human brain is a kind of computer.
• Eliminative materialism claims says that mental
conscious states (desires, beliefs, intentions) don’t exist,
and that future science will let us eliminate all terms
referring to such states

The Computer View of the
Human Mind
• Each of the aforementioned theories has been
challenged and debated in various ways.
– For example, the functionalist notion that the mind
may be part of a computing device led to the creation
of the Turing Test, and eventually to many research
programs in Artificial Intelligence (AI)
– How does John Searle’s “Chinese Rom Argument”
challenge the notion that a computer could have a
mind?

The New Dualism
• The difficulties that have plagued materialist
views of human nature have prompted some
philosophers to reinvent dualism.
– Unlike Descartes, the new dualists do not hold that
there are two kinds of substances—that is, entities or
things—in the universe. Instead, they hold that there
are two different kinds of properties in the universe.
• David Chalmers has argued that consciousness cannot
conscious experience involves properties of an individual
that are not entailed by the physical properties of that
individual.
• How does Chalmers use the zombie thought experiment to
argue for his new dualism? (97)
2.4 Is There an Enduring Self?
• Most of us share the belief that we remain the
same person—one and the same self—
throughout our lives, even though we may
change in many small and many large and
dramatic ways.
• Few of us would claim that we are not the same
self that we were ten years ago.
– On the other hand, we also allow that people can lose
their selves -- in circumstances in which people suffer
from serious brain disorders, such as Alzheimers – or
undergo self-transformative changes.
– All of this raises questions: Is there an enduring self,
and if there is, what is it?
The Changing Self
• On the other hand, we also widely
acknowledge that we change …
sometimes, a lot.
• We have stories of self-transformation and
sometimes talk of people losing their
selves – for example, someone with late
stage Alzheimer’s.
• All of this raises questions: Is there an
enduring self, and if there is, what is it?
The Enduring Self as Body
• It’s possible that what makes you the same self
today that you were ten years ago is your body.
– A point in favor of this is the fact of bodily continuity,
that most of my body continues the same as it was
the previous day, and most of it continues the same
into the next succeeding day.
– Moreover, think about how often we use a person’s
body to establish that a certain person today is the
same as a person who did something earlier.
• What are 3 arguments against this theory? (101)

The Enduring Self as Soul
• According to the Traditional Western view, what
remains the same as the body changes is one’s
immaterial soul.
– For example, Descartes claims that it is the continuity
of the thinking mind or soul that makes a person
endure as the same person over time.
• What can this account of the enduring self
explain that the bodily theory leaves
unexplained? (102)
• What thought experiment does John Locke use
to raise an objection to the soul theory? (103)
Locke’s Thought Experiment
• “Let anyone reflect upon himself… that he has in himself
an immaterial spirit…and is that which he calls himself.
Let him also suppose it to be the same soul that was in
Nestor or Thersites at the siege of Troy… But [suppose]
he now … [has] no consciousness of any of the actions
of Nestor or Thersites. Does or can he conceive himself
the same person with either of them? Can he be
concerned in either of their actions? Attribute them to
himself or think them his own?” (103)

Memory as the
Source of the Enduring Self
• According to John Locke, what makes a self the
same self over time is memory.
– For example, what makes me be the same self I was
ten years ago is that I remember being that person
ten years ago.
• How do the stories of the woman with amnesia
and the bank robber support Locke’s theory?
(103-104)
• Explain Thomas Reid’s objection to the memory
theory. (104)

Reid’s Thought Experiment
• “Suppose at age 20 I remember myself at 10,
and at 30 I remember myself at 20 but not at 10.
Then on Locke’s view at 20 I am the same
person I was at 10, and at 30 I am the same
person I was at 20. So at 30 I must be the same
person I was at 10. Yet Locke’s view also says
at 30 I am not the person I was at 10!” (104)

The No-Self View
• Philosophers in the East and West have denied
that there is any enduring self.
– For example, Buddhists argue that the, like everything
else, the self is nothing more than a fleeting
momentary composite of constantly changing
elements: our form and matter, our sensations, our
perceptions, our psychic dispositions, and our
conscious thoughts.
• These are never the same from moment to moment and they
are together only fleetingly. What we call the self, then, either
considered as the body or considered as the mind, is utterly
transient.

Hume’s Denial
of an Enduring Self
• The Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711–
1776) also denied the enduring self. His
argument is based on introspection – when we
look within we find that…
– “there is no impression constant and invariable. Pain
and pleasure, grief and joy, passions and sensations
succeed each other, and never all exist at the same
time. It cannot, therefore, be from any of these
impressions, or from any other, that the idea of self is
derived; and consequently there is no such idea.”
(107)

2.5 Are We Independent and Self-
Sufficient Individuals?
• Self-sufficiency and independence form some of
the highest values in our culture. Thus parents
teach their children:
– independence of thought and action.
– that conformity is bad, and that they should strive to
be true to themselves.
– to value privacy, freedom and creativity.
• Can you think of an example of how your
parents taught you to value these things?

The Atomistic Self
• The cultural emphasis on self-suffiency and
independence forms a pattern of attitudes and
assumptions that some philosophers call the
atomistic view of the self.
• On this view, the self is, like the atom, self-
contained and independent of other atoms .
– While the things I go through, the people I meet, and
the things I witness can touch, move and even injure
me, the real me, the core of my self, can always rise
above, remaing independent of all that it meets.

Philosophers Defend
the Atomistic Self
• Descartes defended atomism when he said the self
exists, can be known independently of others, and that
only it can judge the truth about what it is.
• The German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
argued that the core of the real self is the ability to
choose for oneself the moral laws and moral principles
by which one will live one’s life:
– “The laws to which man is subject are only those that he himself
makes. . . . [This is] the principle of autonomy of the will, that is,
the principle of self-imposed law.” (111)

The Relational Self
• Some philosophers have asked: is there such a
thing as the independent and self-sufficient
individual we have been discussing?
– For example, Charles Taylor claims that we depend
on others for our very self because we need others to
define for us who our real self is.
• He claims that the alternative to looking within to understand
oneself is to see that who I am depends on my relationships
to others.
– Aristotle agrees with Taylor.

The Relational Self
• Aristotle argues that he who is “unable to live in
society, or who has no need because he is
sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a
god. . . . social instinct is implanted in all men by
nature.” (112)
• Hegel (1770-1831) also forcefully challenged
the idea of the independent, self-sufficient
individual and argued instead for the idea of a
relational self.

Recognition
• Hegel argued that my own identity—who I really
am—depends on my relationships with others
and that I cannot be who I am apart from my
relationships with others:
– “Every self wants to be united with and recognized by
another self [as a free being]. Yet at the same time,
each self remains an independent individual and so
an alien object to the other. The life of the self thus
becomes a struggle for recognition.” (112)
• Each of us can know that we are free and independent
persons only if we see that others recognize us as free
and independent persons.

Power
• Hegel claims that patterns of recognition form
classes in society of masters and slaves, the
powerful and powerless.
• Charles Taylor again argues:
– “The thesis is that our identity is partly shaped by
recognition or its absence, [or] by the misrecognition
of others, and so a person or a group of people can
suffer real damage, real distortion, if the people or
society around them mirror back to them a confining
or demeaning or contemptible picture of themselves.”
(113)

Culture and Self-Identity
• Recognition and misrecognition happens in the
context of culture:
– Assume that culture consists of the traditions and
language; the arts, ideas, and outlooks; the practices
and beliefs of a group of people.
– Defenders of the notion of a relational self Hegel
argue that a person’s culture is the mirror through
which society shows the person who and what she is.
It is, in fact, through her culture that a person gets the
recognition that makes her a free person. Recognition
comes through culture.

The Dialogical Self
– “We define our identity always in dialogue with,
sometimes in struggle against, the things our
significant others want to see in us. Even after we
outgrow some of these others—our parents, for
instance—and they disappear from our lives, the
conversation with them continues within us as long as
we live. Thus, the contribution of significant others,
even when it is provided at the beginning of
ourselves, continues indefinitely. “ Charles Taylor
(114)
– Take a moment to consider all of the relationships
that form your own self-identity.
Search for the Real Self
• The chapter presents us with a dilemma:
– On the one hand, we seem to be independent
selves with basic qualities that we are born
with, including, perhaps, the ability to choose
freely the path our lives will take.
– On the other hand, our self identity seems to
be formed in dialogue and struggle with
others – which implies that we exist
relationally, not independently.
– Which are we?

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PHILOSOPHY

A TEXT WITH READINGS

CHAPTER TWO: HUMAN NATURE

CHAPTER TWO: HUMAN NATURE

CHAPTER TWO: HUMAN NATURE

CHAPTER TWO: HUMAN NATURE

CHAPTER TWO: HUMAN NATURE

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• yet the rationalist and Judeo-Christian

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