What makes us Human?

[de Silentio]

There is an exercise my philosophy proffesor did one time. I don't know if it is feasible to do in a setting like this, but I will try.

First I must ask the question: What is it that makes us human?

For those who want to interact with this exercise, post your answers. When everyone has posted, I will compile all the answers into one post, then go on from there.

This may be fun, or fail miserably, we'll see.

[Vasska]

I would say:

Our ability to think & reason and to make our choices based upon our thinking and reasoning.

[ogden]

The answer is limited by the definition of the word human. Words are only symbols and can only be consepts in a synthetic reality. We are not the word human so your question must be asking what is it that differentiates us from everything else.

We are biological life forms, mamals, primates, and homosapiens (biological classifications). These destinctions contribute to the concepton of what it is to be human and therefore are valid answers to the question of what it is to be human.

If your question is seeking the most significant unique atribute that make us human then my answer is that we have the capacity to question what we are (second-order thought).

[Aedes]

I cannot abide a definition of human that will knowingly exclude those of us who for various reasons are unable to reason. I can reason right now, but if in 5 minutes I have a bleeding aneurism that leaves me in a permanent vegetative state, have I ceased to be a human? What about people with mental retardation? What about people with advanced alzheimers?

Do we exclude from humanity those who don't share these higher neocortical cognitive functions? I don't think so. We are a biologically delimited group, and these biological limits pertain to ALL humans. If reasoning doesn't pertain to ALL humans, then it's not reasoning that makes us human.

[Pythagorean]

Originally Posted by Aedes

I cannot abide a definition of human that will knowingly exclude those of us who for various reasons are unable to reason. I can reason right now, but if in 5 minutes I have a bleeding aneurism that leaves me in a permanent vegetative state, have I ceased to be a human? What about people with mental retardation? What about people with advanced alzheimers?

Do we exclude from humanity those who don't share these higher neocortical cognitive functions? I don't think so. We are a biologically delimited group, and these biological limits pertain to ALL humans. If reasoning doesn't pertain to ALL humans, then it's not reasoning that makes us human.

Pardon me, but that doesn't quite make sense to me.

Because what would it be then that distinguishes those handicapped persons who cannot think or reason from the bulk of healthy, living people who can think and reason? The answer I will venture lies in the fact that they can no longer reason or reason to the degree where they can make significant choices based upon thinking. This is part of the very definition of their handicap.

If you 'have a bleeding aneurism that leaves me in a permanent vegetative state' do you not then cease to be something of which most humans still are in a state of being? Whatever distinguishes us as human must also distinguish us as functioning normally as we would when we are healthy. It seems to me that the most normal case is where we should decide upon a meaning for a species not the most abnormal case.

(Also, if reason can found values then let it fall to reason to create humane care policies for the handicapped and not use the exceptional or most abnormal values as the guide for what is humane.)

Using your criteria what would, for example, prevent us from classifying dead people as human beings? Perhaps we could even determine what is human by their being chiefly motivated by emotions instead of reason?

[Aedes]

I think you've misread my post. I was making an ironic point as to why I think it's absurd (and arrogant) to use our highest cognitive function as a way of defining ourselves.

Originally Posted by Pythagorean

Because what would it be then that distinguishes those handicapped persons who cannot think or reason from the bulk of healthy, living people who can think and reason? The answer I will venture lies in the fact that they can no longer reason or reason to the degree where they can make significant choices based upon thinking. This is part of the very definition of their handicap.

Right. I know. My argument is that they are still human. If one argues that "what makes us human is the ability to reason", then one is in the weird position of having to account for all the Homo sapiens sapiens who for various causes cannot reason.

It seems to me that the most normal case is where we should decide upon a meaning for a species not the most abnormal case.

So that means that you could potentially have an abnormal child who would be excluded from being a human? What would you call them, then? Would you call them a subhuman?

(Also, if reason can found values then let it fall to reason to create humane care policies for the handicapped and not use the exceptional or most abnormal values as the guide for what is humane.)

Fine, but interpersonal and societal values come largely from an empathic sense of shared humanity. So if a cognitively impaired human is devalued as "less than human" (i.e. a subhuman), then they can be (and through history have been) excluded from humane treatment.

sing your criteria what would, for example, prevent us from classifying dead people as human beings?

I'd just call them dead. Or dead humans, or dead people, whatever you like. It's a qualification. We can speak of human beings in the past tense, and thus talk of dead people as humans solely with reference to how they were when living.

Perhaps we could even determine what is human by their being chiefly motivated by emotions instead of reason?

Hehe, well I think that in reality this is a better characterization of humans than is ability to reason, but still I think that the object human being is a biological entity. If you want to define humans in metaphysical or moral terms, that strikes me as a different project and you need to justify why it should be something other than a biological definition.

[Didymos Thomas]

Hehe, well I think that in reality this is a better characterization of humans than is ability to reason, but still I think that the object human being is a biological entity. If you want to define humans in metaphysical or moral terms, that strikes me as a different project and you need to justify why it should be something other than a biological definition.

I think this objective, to define humans in some metaphysical or moral terms, is usually begun by asking the question "What is it to be a person", instead of the initial question of this thread.

If I recall correctly, the question of personhood is where we get the thought experiments about aliens who have the use of reason, ect, as humans do yet are biologically different from humans.

In answering the question 'what is it to be human', I agree with Aedes - "the object human being is a biological entity".

[VideCorSpoon]

It seems like the original question "what is it that makes us human?" is problematic. Does this imply the physical attributes of the substance called human? So is human just a heap of bone and flesh and sinew.

The question should very well be "What does does it mean to be human?"


Does "to be a human " mean "to have x?" Say one dies and the their body turns to dust yet the memory of the person remains. Are they not human anymore because they are not "what makes them (i.e. substance?"

[RuhiWarrior19]

What makes us human? Biological and immutable things. A skeleton is human, I am human, a foetus is human.

What makes us people? The ability to make moral choices. This is not something confined to humans, and no something all humans have equal degrees of. Thus, you can be less a person or more a person. A Chimapnzee may be marginally a person, and a human with limited cognitive and ethical abilities may be less of a person than me. It does not take definition of what morality is, or which decisions are right, but the ability to conceive of abstractions and make decisions based on abstractions rather than based on purely pragmatic and survival-oriented reasons.

[Pythagorean]

Originally Posted by Aedes

I think you've misread my post.

...My argument is that they are still human. If one argues that "what makes us human is the ability to reason", then one is in the weird position of having to account for all the Homo sapiens sapiens who for various causes cannot reason.

So that means that you could potentially have an abnormal child who would be excluded from being a human? What would you call them, then? Would you call them a subhuman?[/]

Why, I would call them a 'retarded' human (or whatever is the correct word for it).

I don't think its a weird position for a society to be in - since where it is societies' duty to classify, or give privileges and the like or to deny them to its sundry members. Even to declare when the life support should be removed from a non-functional brain.

Should a retarded person be allowed to vote on whether or not we go to war, for example? And the abnormal child will be excluded from jury duty, military service and possibly even the privilege of driving a car.

So in some sense they will be "sub" something in that they can't be allowed the full priviledges that society has to offer. And I wouldn't state that they are "sub" biological objects.

Originally Posted by Aedes

Fine, but interpersonal and societal values come largely from an empathic sense of shared humanity. So if a cognitively impaired human is devalued as "less than human" (i.e. a subhuman), then they can be (and through history have been) excluded from humane treatment.

That's fine, but I think that carefully "devaluing" or classifying the mentally impaired is only done by humane societies. We classify them in some sense as "sub" standard in order to protect them. The important thing is whether or not the society they live in is humane or 'human'. It is 'human' to care for the handicapped precisely because they are less so; they can't care for themselves. And I believe that people can be better pursuaded to protect and pay for the care of the "sub" human, or sub-mental, than they would if we referred to them as being defective biological objects, meaning that they are nothing but flesh, bone and bio-tissue.

If you were to investigate the "inhumane" societies from the past (or today in the developing world) I think you will find a society that doesn't value reason i.e. which practices in-human policies.

Originally Posted by Aedes

Hehe, well I think that in reality this is a better characterization of humans than is ability to reason, but still I think that the object human being is a biological entity. If you want to define humans in metaphysical or moral terms, that strikes me as a different project and you need to justify why it should be something other than a biological definition.

This is a thread about ethics I believe. And I still say that the highest cognitive faculty is a viable candidate for what we define as being human. Without this "arrogant" hierarchy which places reason above, say unreason, the mentally handicapped will be left to fend for themselves. Without reason who is to say they are retarded..maybe they are messengers of a god and should be...?

It's just that's how I always defined being human: the choice to me is between saying we are emotional beings or we are rational beings. And for now I say we are defined by reasoning capacity. And that's my answer to the original question, for now at least