Images of Human Nature

Sproule Chapter 7

Questions to Consider:

•What does it mean to be human?

•What, if any, are the essential qualities of all human beings?

In small groups discuss & record to present

Why is it helpful to understand how we see our human image?

•Shapes how we live our lives and treat others

•More complete definition more fully we can live

e.g.,

If we start with:• Humans driven by unalterable forces, e.g, instinct/fate passive, give up control

• Humans are free decision makers we act decisively as if in control

The answer has changed• Philosophers of East & West have

had different ideas, agreeing sometimes…

• Insights from science, changes in social structures…

• Freud, focused on unconscious as a fundamental part of human behaviour

• Darwin, genetics shape who we are

What It Means to Be Human• Some start considering our

physical attributes• Upright locomotion, large brain,

opposable thumb• Does one lose one’s humanity if

one of the above is lost?• Thinking isn’t exclusively

human…

Animals with “human qualities”• Chimpanzees, walk on two legs, think &

plan, use and make tools• Sea otters use tools (rocks…)• Parrots speak• Elephants use sticks to clean toes• Whales communicate• Loons mate for life.

Essentialist vs. Constructivist• Essentialist• We possess a core

of basic elements• Human nature a

unique entity• Essential human

elements:• Mind, conscience,

soul

• Constructivist• No essential

qualities or human nature

• Humanness developed differently out of different cultures

• Existentialists, (e.g., Jean-Paul Sartre) claim human beings define what we are by our choices

The Margin Quotes• The human creature is always more than

an animal. Pearl S. Buck• Human nature and the human mind are

basically the same in modern times… as they were centuries ago… Doreen Valiente

• Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. Such is the first principle of existentialism. J-P Sartre

• I realized that if what we call human nature can be changed, then absolutely anything is possible. Shirley MacLaine

Reflection paper

• Discuss your own ideas of what it means to be human, and how that is different from all non-human things and beings.