A while back, I was asked what I believed the nature of man to be. Despite the fact that I feel poorly equipped to answer so large a question and I'm still in the process of developing my ideas—I'll take a stab at it. In order to do so, I'm going to consider what some influential philosophers have said about the nature of man; the ones that struck a chord with me, at least.
Hobbes argues that man in the state of nature is nasty and brutish, purely driven by self-interest and constantly at a state of war with one another. Thus enter civil society: civil society exists to protect man's property and to protect man from one another. Perhaps man would be cruel to one another for the purpose of survival, but that assumes that resources are scarce. Locke argues that until resources become more limited, man will be less inclined to war with each other. Locke also agrees that man is bad, but he also believes in tabula rusa, or the concept that every man is born as a blank slate. For Locke, little is innate (except for predispositions, which I think is a contradiction but we'll put that aside) and everything must be learned. The concept of tabula rusa suggests that Locke believes man is not born bad, but made to be bad by society. Nature versus Nurture, anyone?
What of man's goals? Aristotle, Hume, and Plato all argue that the ultimate aim of humanity is to be happy or attain some measure of happiness. Kant says that happiness is some sort of fringe benefit of being moral, but it isn't exactly the highest aim in his view. Okay, so I'll accept that for now: man wants to be happy. That seems reasonable enough.
I suppose the next question should be whether or not the innate nature (if there is one) of man affects man's ability to receive happiness.
Phew. That's a big one. If man is innately bad and exists in a state of nature (i.e. war with one another), and this means the bad humanity spends all its time fighting for survival, then happiness is no longer the end goal of man, survival is. One could argue that man wants to survive in order to have a shot at happiness, but if one is in a state of nature where the only victories are war related, then man knows no conception of happiness. This idea appears to reinforce Locke's idea of tabula rusa in that man is not necessarily innately bad, but taught to be bad (at least for now, while we're talking about Hobbes' conception of state of nature). Unless survival is a form of happiness, it's possible that happiness is not the highest aim of mankind. If it's not true in every situation, then how is it true at all? But that assertion is dependent upon the assumption that truth is objective. Which may not be the case.
Moving on, if we consider man in civil societies (or societies, period) then perhaps happiness can be an end goal. Hmm. Problem: agrarian, hunter-gatherer, nomad, and pre-industrial (third world) societies—everyone works hard, and everyone works. The aim of the work is to provide for basic human needs. Oop, there's survival as the main motivator again. However, a professor and I were discussing third world countries. He said that in third world countries Heaven is more richly imagined than it is even thought of in developed countries. Heaven=happiness. So maybe survival is an effort to get to happiness after all—for those that believe in an afterlife.
In developed countries such as the U.S., work is spread out and distributed. We import our raw material, which means that the third-world does most of our strenuous labor. Less work+more product=lots of leisure time. This is similar for Hume, Locke, Aristotle, and Plato. They were all well off and aristocratic. They had the time to peruse what it means to be happy and ethical and the funds to sustain their lifestyles.
Interestingly enough, it appears that the general consensus (including Kant) agrees that happiness is bestowed upon the ethically moral people. So this is why man's innate nature is important. If you start out bad, you have to work pretty hard to become moral. If you start out good, you have to work pretty hard at not becoming bad. If you start out neutral, it's all about the luck of the draw and whom you are born to, where you are born and when you are born. Which do I pick? Neutral. To an extent. Apparently I'm a compatibilist.
I don't believe that man starts out bad. Science tells us that children begin their socialization process almost from the minute they are born. Even so, there are arguments that the food the carrying mother consumes affects the disposition of the child, or the music that the mother listens to affects the personality, and Native American tribes hold off on naming children until their personalities are clear so the name, the label, does not hamper the true spirit of the child. Native Americans call it true spirit—but Locke refers to tabula rusa in connection with the mind. This just got complicated. I'll acknowledge that man has both a spirit and a mind. The spirit must account for the emotions. The mind must account for reason. They affect one another.
Example: a psychologist back in the early 1900s hypothesized that a chimp could take on human habits. The chimp certainly did start walking upright, eating neatly, wearing clothing, all that good stuff. But the psychologist raised the chimp alongside his son. What he didn't count on (and what prompted the end of the experiment) was that his son began to take on some of the characteristics of the chimp.
Clearly both the son and the chimp were influenced by their environment and their socialization process. From the experiment, you can't really tell if it influenced the spirit of either the son or the chimp (if we assume that animals have a spirit of some sort). My point is, how you really separate nature from nurture? No one can clearly distinguish between the beginning and the end. Society doesn't even agree on when life officially begins. So how are we supposed to agree on the nature of life?
Kant on the other hand, argues that reason is the fundamental nature of man or dominant trait. He's similar to Aristotle in that manner. Kant bases his entire formulae for the universal moral law on the presupposition that all man has reason. Aristotle claims that it is reason that separates humanity from animals. Aristotle also believed that women, workers, and slaves could hardly be ethical because they don't possess the necessary faculties to do so (i.e. reason). I hold that Kant is wrong. There are members of humanity without the common rational abilities that Kant speaks of. This makes rationality less "fundamental" to human nature.
Plato, Hume and (and sort of Locke) weigh emotion in as a bit more heavy than reason. None discount the faculty of reason. Hume argues that behavior does not take place until people have emotionally invested in it. This I can agree with. Besides the disorders or diseases that cause people to have involuntary movements or exclamations (Tourette's Syndrome, Parkinsons, etc.). I also believe that this emotional investment in behavior is rooted in how people love as well as what people love. Ultimately, people are not just fighting for survival in every instance, but fighting for some sort of love. Love of life, love of family, love of person, love of country, love of freedom, love of knowledge or love of wisdom, etc. Love is a form of sentiment, but it's not the sentiment that defines humanity—love defines humanity. Perhaps this doesn't remove humanity from animals enough to satisfy some. But perhaps humanity's real difference from animals is our capacity to love in an infinite number of ways. Wishy-washy, perhaps. However, one can't base the fundamental nature of humanity in purely reason because it excludes those without the normative standard of reason (as we define it). Nor can we base the fundamental nature of humanity in purely sentiment or feeling because it excludes the capacity for creativity, for innovation, for pursuit of knowledge and wisdom.
I imagine individuals as scales. Whatever one lacks in reason, they make up for in love. Whatever one lacks in love, they make up for in reason. Mankind's ultimate goal appears to be happiness, but the secret of happiness that Aristotle tried to tell us about: you can't be happy if you're out of balance. That seems to sum up the nature of man—trying to find that balance.
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