Study Questions Chapter 2, for Velasquez,

PHILOSOPHY, for PHIL 120 Spring 2002

March 28, 2002

1. Why is a person's answer to the question regarding human nature a highly significant one? (76) A view of human nature is a view of what humans generally do and what they are capable of doing, both at their worst and at their best. Your view of human nature will shape what you expect others to do as well as your ideal. A view of human nature can tell us what humans can be, or what will fulfill them and make them happy. How a person relates to others depends to a great extent upon his or her view of human nature.

2. What view of human nature is contained in the brief excerpt from Freud on pp. 76-77? Humans have an instinctual desire to harm others, to seize their possessions, cause them pain, humiliate and kill them. This is not the only motive for our behavior towards others: sometimes we see others as possible helpers or potential sexual objects. (In any case, our motives seem to be strictly self-interested and, frequently, cruel.

3. Thomas Hobbes is a psychological egoist. What is psychological egoism? (See pp. 77-78). The view that human beings can act only out of self-interest.

What metaphysical view (i.e., about the "whole mass of things that are") does Thomas Hobbes' combine with his psychological egoism? (77) "[T]he Universe . . . is corporeal, that is to say body." Hobbes is a materialist.

Section 2.2

6. What four basic propositions (statements) sum up what V calls "the traditional [rationalist] view" (TRV) of human nature?

1) humans have an ego, I, or self that is conscious or rational
2) this self (spiritual or immaterial entity) is distinct from yet related to the body (physical or material entity) and can survive the death of the body
3) this self has continuity or identity over time
4) this self exists independently or separate from other people or things

7a. What three elements or parts does Plato ("Socrates" is his mouthpiece here) claim to find in the human soul (or "inner self")? There is the rational part (reason and the desire for wisdom); there is an emotional or spirited part (the part of the soul with which we get angry and desire victory in competitions and warfare); the appetitive part (desires most directly associated with the body--food, drink, sex; desire for physical pleasure and avoidance of pain).

Warning: do not confuse spirited part of the soul with the spiritual part of a person. For Plato, the rational part is the most important part of the human soul or spirit.

The rational part naturally desires knowledge and naturally pursues the common good (but when it is not trained or the other two parts are rebellious, it cannot effectively pursue either). It is the seat of reasoning, including moral and political deliberation, when educated, it is the seat of wisdom; when the soul is self-disciplined (moderate), the rational part agrees with the other parts that it should rule.

The spirited part naturally desires victory, fame, respect; it is the seat of the social emotions like anger, fear, confidence; in the courageous person, the spirited part holds firm to the declarations of the reason regarding what should and should not be feared; when the soul is self-disciplined, the spirited part agrees that the reason should rule the whole soul.

The appetitive part naturally desires physical pleasures (if the lower appetites are dominant) or wealth (if the higher or necessary appetites are dominant). The appetitive part is the seat of hunger, thirst, and sexual desire. In the self-disciplined soul the appetitive part agrees that the rational part should rule.

7b. Can these parts conflict? Yes, any part can aim at what the others try to avoid.

What is the ideal relationship between these parts? Harmony under the leadership of the rational part. This can happen only if the rational part is wise and the other two parts have been trained or disciplined to follow the leadership of the rational part.

In what might be called the self-controlled person--a person who is not fully virtuous--the rational part, in alliance with one other part, is able with difficulty to control the rebellious remaining part.

In what might be called the weak-willed person the rational part is usually aware of what is right and aims at acting rightly but the other parts often overpower it substituting their goals for the natural goals of the rational part.

The aggressive person is dominated by the spirited part,

The greedy person is dominated by the appetitive part, insofar as it is aimed at owning possessions;

The self-indulgent type is dominated by the appetitive part, aimed at physical pleasure.

What, according to Plato, must the rational part of the soul perceive and know if the soul is to become wise? (83-84)

The Forms, the eternal and perfect ideals that exist altogether outside space and time. Examples of these Forms are absolute Beauty, absolute Justice, absolute Holiness.

Forms are:

  • intelligible, not visible
  • each of them unique
  • eternal, unchanging
  • "separate": outside space and time
  • what wisdom is about (what the philosopher kings of Plato's ideal republic will know)
  • objective standards for evaluating particular things, actions, etc.

    8a. In what ways did Aristotle agree with Plato about the importance of reason? (Top p. 85)
    Reason is the human being's highest power, not only the most valuable but also the key to our well-being. [They both held 3-part theory of soul; that reason allows knowledge of general truths; that reason should rule; but Plato and not Ar held that soul is immortal.]

    In what way did Aristotle disagree with Plato regarding knowledge of human nature? (Top p. 85)
    The truth about human nature can be discovered empirically by study of what is in this world; it does not require access to eternal forms beyond space and time.

    How do they agree regarding the purpose of human nature? (Bottom p. 85) They agree that reason is the most important part of the human being; the use of perfected reason is the purpose of human nature. The perfection of reason does not exclude development of our physical capacities, but the development of the physical capacities should never be an obstacle to the perfection of reason.

    9. How does Plato's Socrates use the theory of the Forms or Ideals to explain the nature of the human soul? (85-86) Plato argues that the forms or ideals--universal standards such as Beauty, Justice, Equality--are not known by way of the senses (soul in its association with the body), but only by the mind (or soul by itself). The forms are unchanging, not visible to the bodily senses. While the body is a visible thing, and is like visible things, the soul, on the other hand, is not visible yet it is intelligible or knowable by the mind. The soul is more akin to the forms than to visible things. The forms are eternal and indestructible; so, probably, the soul is indestructible.

    1. Forms are known only by the mind (by the soul by itself)
    2. The forms are intelligible, not visible. (1)
    3. The forms are unchanging.
    4. The body is changing and visible.
    5. The soul is not visible, but intelligible.
    6. The soul is more like the forms than it is like the body. (2,4,5)
    7. The soul, in itself, is unchanging and eternal. (2,6)

    10. In what morally questionable way has the "traditional rationalist view" been used? (86-87)
    People who are less rational are better off being enslaved by people who are more rational. Thus the non-Greeks ("barbarians") were said to be less rational than the Greeks and the Greeks would be doing them a favor by making them slaves and servants of Greeks. Racists have used the traditional rationalist view to describe other races as lacking complete rationality and therefore justify the enslavement of other races.

    11a. How does Augustine's Christian philosophy modify the "traditional rationalist view" of Plato? Augustine took from Plato the view that the human self is an immaterial soul that can think. Plato held that after death the souls of those who most love the forms would rise to contemplate the eternal truths, a sort of heaven beyond space and time. Augustine said that these forms were ideas in the mind of the perfect eternal God. He said that what was required was that we love the perfect eternal God.

    While Plato emphasized the importance of perfecting reason and following it, Augustine emphasized the importance of the will, the ability to choose between good and evil. The fundamental religious duty is to love and serve God; if we can succeed in this, we will also choose the good and avoid the evil.

    [Augustine and Original Sin] But, according to Augustine, humans are constantly attracted towards evil, that is, toward excessive satisfaction of our lower desires for material things and pleasures. (As he explains it, this is a result of an inheritance of original sin from our first parents. Adam and Eve disobeyed God when they ate the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden.) We can only escape from inherited sinfulness if we receive grace from God, and there is no way we can earn such grace, or force God to give it to us by being good.

    Pre-Fall (Adam and Eve before disobeying God ---- able to sin or not to sin
    Post-Fall (the human condition after expulsion from Eden) --- unable not to sin
    Saved (in Heaven) -- confirmed in goodness, unable to sin

    This is a view that combines a rather low opinion of human nature with a belief in the immortality of the soul. Therefore, materialists like Freud are not the only thinkers who have a low opinion of humanity in general.

    Augustine does believe that there are saintly humans. Such humans love the things that they ought to love; they use their reason properly. But without the grace they get from God, and which they cannot earn, they would neither be good nor able to reason correctly.

    Augustine's view was that God selects only a few people to receive grace and be saved. The rest of humanity will just continue to sin and not repent, and then they will be punished for it after death in hellfire.

    For more on Augustine, see Augustine.

    * * *

    11b. How does Thomas Aquinas' Christian view modify the "traditional rationalist view" of Aristotle? Thomas Aquinas (13th c. AD) is influenced by Aristotle (middle 4th c BC) as Augustine (4th-5th c AD) is influenced by Plato (late 5th c to early 4th c BC).

    Aristotle and Aquinas compared

    Aristotle (4th c. BC) and Aquinas (13th c. AD) agree in listing the following human faculties: life, perception, practical reason, and theoretical reason. Life serves perceiving life (common to animals), perception serves reason (common to human beings), practical reason serves good moral living, which creates a framework in which theoretical reason can be activiated; theoretical reason is used in knowing the ultimate causes of nature; for Aquinas, the ultimate cause of nature is God.

    [not discussed Spring 2002] Aristotle's first cause is the ultimate cause of motion in the universe. For Aristotle the physical universe has always existed and the ultimate cause is not aware of the physical universe and does not prescribe how humans should behave. Aquinas also hold that there is a first cause, God, which is the ultimate cause of motion in the universe. God is also the creator of the universe from nothing and therefore has complete knowledge of it. He is the author of the moral law we should obey. (In Aquinas' "natural law theory" of ethics, God creates natural tendencies and desires from which careful observers can detect his wishes for us. For instance, because human beings for the most part seek to stay alive, this is evidence for God's general instruction to us that we should try to preserve human life.)

    For Aristotle, the human purpose is to develop our moral and intellectual capacities to the fullest; our intellectual capacities will help us understand nature and its ultimate cause. But for Aristotle the ultimate cause did not create the material world and is not conscious of us.

    For Thomas Aquinas, however, the ultimate cause is a creator and a moral lawgiver, that is, it is God. The purpose of human life is to know God. We cannot know God completely, but the purpose of human existence is to know God as far as possible.

    12. Is the traditional rationalist view (especially in its Judaeo-Christian form) historically linked to colonialism and the destruction of cultural diversity on a world scale?

    Historically, the view has provided a rationale for colonialism and the destruction of cultures other than Christian ones. Starting from the premise that the traditional J-C view is the superior view, the true view, in comparison with which competing views are false, this view argues for destroying cultures inconsistent with the Judaeo-Christian view.

    13a. Explain Darwin's notions of "variations," "struggle for existence," and "natural selection." (91-93)

    Variations are features of offspring that differ from those of their parents. We know now, although Darwin didn't, that these variations are usually the result of changes at the level of genetic information in the animal or plant.

    "Struggle for existence" refers to the fact that a greater number of offspring are produced than are able to survive, given the limited resources in the environment. Thus members of the same species can be seen as competitors for scarce resources. Individuals less successful at this competition tend to perish. Individuals with variations that enable them to be more successful competitors tend to survive and pass those special features on to their offspring.

    13b. What was "a disturbing new thought" to many people of Darwin's time? (93)

    Species or living types are not eternally fixed, as European biologists thought from Aristotle's time onward. Over time one species may give rise to a radically different one. Thus there are not only changes in individual living beings across an individual lifetime, but the very types of living beings are subject to change. [Birds are descended from dinosaurs, humans and chimps from a common ancestor different from both.]

    What was especially "shocking" about the extension of this thought to human beings? This theory applies to humans. Human beings are descended from other kinds of animals. They are not as special as they thought, e.g., the result of a special creation by God.

    13c. What clash does there seem to be between Darwin's view and the "traditional rationalist view" of human nature? Reason is not the unique gift from the Creator to human beings. It is merely the modification of capacities already found in at least some other animals, such as the so-called "higher mammals."

    How does Darwin's view seem to conflict with the Judaeo-Christian view (version of TRV)? (93-94)

  • The Judaeo-Christian version of the TRV holds that humans are uniquely made in the image of God. The Darwinian view suggests that if humans are made in the image of God, we are not uniquely so. From the perspective of Darwinian evolution, it makes more sense to say we are made in the image of the ape. Our rational abilities are similar, though not identical, to rational abilities found in our evolutionary ancestors and cousins.
  • The TRV held that humans have an inherent purpose. The Darwinian view does not make this assumption, and tries to explain the facts of biological diversity without it. In the TRV, the human organism and its parts came into being to serve a function. The parts of the body are to serve the whole human life. The purpose of human life is to serve God and neighbor. The Darwinian view does not assume that human beings have a natural purpose.
  • The TRV (in its Judaeo-Christian form) refers to a conscious creator. Darwinism explains the emergence of human beings through the chance processes of random variation and natural selection.

    [not discussed Sprinig '02] A vocal minority of the Darwinians has been called Social Darwinists. They claim that economic competition, and the suppression of weaker businesses and unskilled labor as uncompetitive, is merely the continuation within human society of the process of natural selection described by Darwin. Social Darwinists try to justify self-interested pursuit of private advantage by saying that it is only natural to behave this way. Most defenders of Darwin do not defend this kind of psychological egoism.

    14. How does Stephen J. Gould modify traditional Darwinian theory? (94-95)

    Evolutionary development has not always been slow and gradual as Darwin claimed. Once species show up in the fossil record, they do not tend to develop gradually into something else, but are relatively stable in their basic features. Changes that lead to emergence of new species occur abruptly, by "saltations" or jumps. This does not mean that Darwinism is essentially false, but that the picture of slow and gradual evolution must be replaced with a more jerky one. For Gould, the gradualism of early Darwinism was not essential to it; it was an accidental feature that can be given up without giving up what is right about Darwinian theory.

    15. What is George Mavrodes' "theistic" understanding of evolution? (95) Mavrodes maintains that it is possible to understand evolution as following "a divine direction at each crucial stage in the process in accordance with divine intention." He contrasts this with the usual "naturalistic" understanding, for which evolution can be explained in terms of natural law, without bringing in divine intention or plan.

    16. How does Gould respond to the idea that the evolutionary process has been working for vast periods of time in order to produce human beings? (95-96) Rather than regard evolution as a ladder that has human beings at the top, we should picture it as a bush growing in all directions; humans are like one twig near the edge of this bush's branches. The occurrence of the human species is a cosmic accident. If the seed for this bush were replanted, our twig, or indeed any twig representing a species of conscious beings, might not reappear.

    Notice how Gould's view is more radical than Darwin's--after all, Darwin allows himself to use words like "improvement" and "progress" (93) which suggest that evolutionary change has a direction.

    17a. What is Sartre's conception of human nature? There is no essential human nature; we each create our own nature through our individual decisions and choices. Humans have no fixed purpose or nature.

    Things and Persons

    Things -- are what they are -- have a definable essence, nature -- follow natural laws -- are entirely determined by prior causal conditions

    Persons -- are not (essentially) what they are (have done) -- have no definable essence -- define and redefine themselves constantly -- are fundamentally free

    In what does our freedom consist?

    Our freedom consists of our ability to conceive new possibilities for our human condition, to conceive what is not the case, to suspend judgment, to alter our condition. We do not have to continue in the same "rut"; I am not essentially a philosophy professor; I might be a checkout clerk at a grocery store.

    17b. For what should we take full responsibility?
    Not only for our actions, but also our beliefs, attitudes and emotions.

    Does Sartre believe that emotions are things that just come over us and for which we are not responsible?

    NO. Explain. (96, bottom 98-top 99) Emotions are ways in which we choose to view the world or to be involved in it. If you are angry at somebody, then you have chosen to view that person's actions as threatening to you and you have chosen to judge that you are right to wish injury to that person.

    17c. How is Sartre's view different from the "traditional rationalist view" and the "Judaeo-Christian view"? The traditional rationalist view affirms that there is such a thing as human nature; humans, for example, are rational animals. But Sartre denies there is a universal human nature shared by all people. Only our choices can determine our essence or nature. Sartre denies that human beings have a purpose; humans are not made for anything. We exist first (hence the name "existentialist") and then we define, and redefine, and redefine ourselves.

    18. What does Sartre mean by "bad faith" (sometimes rendered "self-deception")? Bad faith is our condition when we tell ourselves that we are not responsible for what we have done or what we are in our lives so far. My genes made me do it; the fact that I was maltreated as a child made me feel inferior. Anger overcame me and I hit her. Sartre denies that our genes or our environment or our emotions treated as other than ourselves made us do or feel anything. The idea that we are responsible for our actions causes anguish; and we escape from this anguish by bad faith, in which we say our acts were determined or caused by something other than ourselves.

    How does the woman in the excerpt from Sartre's Being and Nothingness engage in self-deception? (97-98) Among other things, she pretends that her hand is just an inert body, that she was not choosing to leave it where it was. She hides her responsibility for that choice from herself. (She is mistaken about herself, yet is aware that she is responsible.)

    In regard to her male companion: she takes what he says at face value, in terms of what he has actually said. She has a split mind: on one level she is aware of what he is up to, that he has intentions toward her that go beyond what he actually says. But on another level, she merely confines herself to what he has already said and pretends to herself that he does not mean any more than that. (She is mistaken about her companion, yet she "knows" too.)

    [questions 19-21 will not be discussed before 2nd exam Spring '02)

    19a. What do we learn from the passage from Plato's Phaedo on pp. 99-100 about the Platonic "rationalist's" view of the body and the soul?

    When body and soul are united, the soul has the function of ruling and governing the body; the body the function of serving the soul.
    When the soul, or rational part of the soul, does its task, humans will live happily and virtuously and after death dwell forever in the company of the gods.
    When the soul is fascinated by the interests of the body, it turns away from its proper task and serves the body instead of the other way around. And when it does this, it experiences lusts and fears and hate, in short with the emotions and appetites.

    How does Aristotle give the traditional rationalist view a "sexist bias"? (100-101)

    In describing the household and its structure, one aspect is the rule of the husband over his wife. He says that "the male is more qualified to lead than the female"; he says that unlike the naturally free male, whose reasoning faculty is effective or authoritative, the reasoning faculty of the female is "without sovereignty" (akuron), i.e., not able to be fully effective in governing the nonrational parts of the soul. Like (but not identically to) the person who is slave by nature and who lacks the reasoning faculty altogether, the female is better off being ruled by the male. As the rational part of the soul should govern the spirited and appetitive parts if the soul is to be happy, so, Aristotle reasons, the more rational male should govern women.

    19b. How does this issue show up in the Christian philosophy of Augustine? (101) Augustine essentially adopts the same view: God made moral action subject to the rule of intellect; and woman subject to man.

    20. How, according to feminist critics of traditional (rationalist and Judaeo-Christian) views, do these traditionally influential philosophies rationalize the subjugation of women? (101-102)

    In the dominant rationalist tradition,
    (1) reason is conceived as male and feelings as female; on this view, only men can be fully human because only in men can reason govern.
    (2) Reason is regarded as superior to the feelings. As reason must rule the feelings, so men must rule women.
    (3) Rationality (the male trait) is good, bodily desires and feelings are not good, and should be restrained. The result is a lack of respect for the body, desires, and feelings.

    The feminists say that the rationalist view, considered as a whole, is sexist.

    (See also the questions Velasquez himself raises at mid 102.)

    Stereotypical male qualities: assertive, rational, hard, challenging, [objective, fair, abstract] Stereotypical female qualities: accomodating, emotional, soft, nurturing, caring, sensitive [concrete]

    21. Some "feminine" thinkers, rather than arguing that women are just as good as men in the traditional highly valued "male" qualities and activities, have argued that we should place more or equal value on so-called "female" qualities and activities.

    What advantages and disadvantages does this approach have (from the perspective of women's liberation)?

    (1) Adv. It is a way of opposing the current patterns of male domination over women.
    (2) Adv. It might lead to a better understanding of the positive contributions of "female" attributes.
    (3) Adv. It might lead to the creation of new theories of knowledge that do not involve the suppression of the emotions and desires, or greater respect for kinds of knowing not associated with traditional scientific reason.

    (1) Disadv. It's not all that easy to overturn hundreds of years of effort to create these sexist connections between the ideas of reason and maleness, feeling and femininity. The image of femininity has been formed by contrast with the image of maleness. If we merely put a plus on "female" traits where before there was a minus, and leave matters at that, we may simply reinforce rather than underminine the domination of women by men. Suppose meekness and obedience, traditional traits attributed to women, are praised instead of being criticized as not being masterful and assertive. This may have the effect of reinforcing domination by males. (See discussion by Lloyd and Velasquez's comments on 102-103.)

    2.3 How Do Mind and Body Relate?

    22a. In what way is it obvious we have bodies? We spend a lot of time and energy on our bodies, for purposes of health and appearance to others. We measure its weight and make comments about its volume. We observe our bodies, and even more the bodies of others.

    22b. Minds? (104) We study, travel to expand its experiences, see specialists to cure its illnesses, pay attention to its beliefs, emotions, doubts, etc. Its special attribute seems to be what we call consciousness

    23a. What sort of awareness is consciousness, according to Velasquez?

    The kind of awareness we have of ourselves and others when we are awake. It is what we lack when we are sleepwalking, under anaesthesia, knocked out. Since there seems to be no other kind of awareness than consciousness, it must have to do with this aboutness--consciousness about others, consciousness about ourselves.

    What does it mean to say that it is "subjective"? We are directly or immediately aware of our own consciousness, in a way that we are not immediately aware of others'.

    23b. Why does it seem not to be physical?

    It is not like bodies, which in many cases can be observed by others. It seems to have no weight, taste, color, mass, or dimensions.

    What view of human nature seems obvious to most of us according to Velasquez? Human nature consists of both mind and body.

    23c. On what kind of occasions does mind seem to interact with body? (105)

    When we feel pain because of something that has happened to the body, or when we decide to move a limb.

    24a. How does Descartes "prove" the existence of a mind distinct from body?
    It's possible to conceive that I do not have a body, but not that I do not have a mind. (If I can conceive of X without Y, then X is different from Y.) Therefore mind is distinct from body.

    24b. What is the essence of mind for Descartes?
    Thinking, by which is meant a vast range of kinds of thought (from feeling, imagining, getting angry, desiring, anticipating, remembering, doubting, believing, reasoning, calculating). I do not have to be angry to have a mind, but I do have to be thinking in some way or other.

    24c. What is the essence of body, according to Descartes? (106) Ability to fill a given space such that other bodies are excluded from it.

    Is Descartes a dualist? Yes Explain. (106) He believes that humans are composed of two things, a physical body and an immaterial mind.

    25a. What problem arises for the dualist view of Descartes? (106) How can an immaterial mind move a physical body, and how can a body consisting of space-occupying matter influence an immaterial mind.

    How does he try to resolve this problem? By claiming that the two interact in the pineal gland, a small gland near the brain that had no other known function.

    Why was his solution ridiculed? The pineal gland is a body too. If the question is how an immaterial thing can move a body, then to speak of the pineal gland instead of the larger body is just to postpone the question: how does the pineal gland, which is a body, get moved by the mind.

    25b. How does Descartes' disciple Nicholas Malebranche try to resolve the problem? (108) The mind and the body do not really interact. When I decide to say something--a mental action, God steps in to cause appropriate physical motion. In other words, God synchronizes body and mind.