Human - All too Human
An interesting letter to the Straits Times forum which goes into a discussion of what it means to be human and whether human nature is extrinsic or intrinsic.
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I refer to the letter, 'Stop cruelty to animals, stop the apathy as well' (ST, July 3) from Ms Chin Chiu Ngo.
Ms Chin goes on the assumption that to be human is to be kind and from this, two fundamental values come to mind, where the words humane and humanity are derived from the word human.
The point she makes is that humane and humanity in zeitgeist terms became antithetic to what they originally meant because of our behaviour.
It is an error to believe the trait humane is characteristic of being human. It may originate from the word human but here the similarity ends and remains only an idiosyncrasy.
The early English political philosopher, Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), made a trenchant statement that men (humans) needed a leviathan to curb the savage instincts inherent in them. Every man, he said, by nature, is enemy to every man, where force and fraud are the two cardinal virtues.
The life of man, he added, follows the pattern of attack for personal gain; a war where notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have no place. A leviathan in the form of the state was necessary to check these natural instincts, if there was to be any true freedom in society at all.
The pages of human history are soaked in the blood of battlefield carnage. The rhetoric is dichotomous and speaks of war as abhorrent while the human species per se marches inexorably toward its own funeral.
It was estimated that in the last 5,000 years, only 292 were without war. There were almost 15,000 wars resulting in the deaths of 3.6 billion human beings (Bobrakov, 1973). If we add in the extension time to 2006, the wars and carnage increase dramatically, in this relatively short space.
There was mention, by Ms Chin, of killing animals for food, which was deemed acceptable. This may be so because in nature one animal must die so that another can live.
It is the law of survival - a natural process between predator and prey. It is interesting to note that man is the only animal which kills not only for food but for sport.
The fisherman who goes sport fishing is not hungry or starving. He seeks the prey and kills for the pleasure the death of another species (he considers inferior) brings. It is the same with deer or wild boar hunting. It is the same in fox hunting which has become a traditional event in England. It is the same in grouse or pheasant shooting.
This is the instinct to kill which Hobbes spoke off and which peregrinated logically to the killing of man as well, on the pretext of protecting some ideology or to gain access to some gain.
The 'duty' of animals to feed us has led to a 'duty' of animals, in various forms, to die to entertain us. Many bloody animal sports bear testimony to this. Millions die every day to please our palates which we justify as food.
How do we justify the millions which die horribly in suffering in the attempt to find a cure for human diseases?
How do we justify others which die in excruciating pain as 'guinea pigs' for beauty products, for the vanity of human beings?
It has been said, and truthfully, that on this planet man (humans) is the ultimate predator who has brought many animals to extinction and many others to the threshold of extinction, by destruction of the ecosystem and the addiction to kill, not for food, but for sport and for gain.
Gain is a strong motivating factor and the slogan for animal welfare makes this clear in: When the buying stops so can the killing.
In the beauty or cosmetic field, the vast majority of products entering the market are new formulations or duplications of existing drugs. The crux lies in commercial return rather than therapeutic consideration. The point is knowledge gained, from studies on animals, is often misleading owing to differences in the responses to drugs by animals and man.
The LD50 test, for example, represents the lethal dose necessary to kill 50 per cent of the animals tested. It is an acute toxicity test of which 484,849 were carried out in England during 1980. It is used in cosmetics, pesticides, food additives and household products.
The LD50 does not give direct indication of the short term toxicity of a compound but only of its lethal potential. For the recognition of the symptomatology of the acute poisoning in man and for the determination of the human lethal dose, the LD50 in animals is of very little value (Zbinden and Flury-Roversi).
While there seems to be little scientific justification for the test, it was acknowledged that the LD50 caused appreciable pain to a proportion of the animals subjected to it.
The Draize ocular- and skin-irritation tests consist of introducing a fixed dose of a chemical (0.1 millilitre of a liquid or 0.1 gram of a solid) in one of the rabbit's eyes. The other eye serves as a control. The pain, if the chemical is toxic, is excruciating and the rabbit often goes blind.
The skin test is made with a shaved area of the rabbit's hide. The irritation and inflammation are recorded. It goes without saying that the intentionally induced irritation and inflammation are anything but pleasurable and cannot by any stretch of imagination be called humane.
While Ms Chin's call for a stop to cruelty to animals is commendable, her perceptual set of humaneness, as a trait belonging to humans is misleading.
By and large, nothing can be further from the truth if we are to believe recorded history, and the cruelty perpetrated by man against man, and a fortiori, against species considered inferior to man.
Nicholas Copernicus knew of this cruelty inherent in his fellow men, which kept him, for a time, from speaking the truth about his observations of the behaviour of the planets, until Galileo's concurrence - discretion being the better part of valour.
Dudley Au
--------------
The main gist of the article - if I understand correctly - can be summarized in the following words, "Human nature is by nature violent and unkind and therefore we should not delude ourselves into thinking otherwise".
In order to understand the central idea of the author's claims, a short introduction to the thoughts and ideas of Thomas Hobbes (which the author attributes his central premise to) is necessary.
Most folks today - including this author - would remember Hobbes for his comments on human nature, upon which he depicts the human life in its natural state as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" (Leviathan). His pessimistic view of human nature can be, in part, be traced to his materialist view of human nature, in contrast to the older prescriptive view of moral law (i.e. what ought to be done should be done because there was some intrinsic ethical obligation).
Essentially, Hobbes argument was that it made no sense to talk about the soul as some kind of separate entity. What this meant was that human being were just living bodies, and death was simply the cessation of bodily functions. It was no surprise then, that Hobbes rejected the idea of the divine right of kings to rule (after all, what is a divine right?)
Now, it is interesting to see how the author brings in the fact that man kills, not just for food, but for sport. Such an argument - correct me if I am wrong - does not fit in squarely with the assumptions of the Hobbesian view of human nature. Sure, man is cruel, but his cruelity stems from his propensity for self-preservation. Now unless one can make the argument that tigers are a threat to humanity, or that hunting deer somehow prolongs one's lifespan, it is fallacious to think that game hunting is a proof of man's self-preservatory nature.
Back to the author's main point as to whether there is such thing as a "humaneness that characterizes human nature".
Well, my personal take is that the term humaneness is a term loaded with pictures and scenes of human kindness, personal altruism and agape love, which - as the author rightly points out - seem to contradict human experience and practice.
Furthermore, the claims made by animal rights advocates - a group that the author is arguing his case against - are not terribly impressive; in fact, some even smack of pure hypocrisy - kicking a dog is wrong, but abortion of a foetus is permissive? Come on...
To use a Schaefferian term then, I would argue for the "mannishness of man" - that man is created in the image and likeness of God and therefore he is man - dignified but fallen; noble, yet shamed; equally capable of performing great works or committing heinous crimes.
Last but not least, if we agree with this author's view of human nature, then nothing - and I reiterate again - nothing can stop us from condemning 20th century tyrants like Hitler and Stalin. After all, as the Fuhrer once said, "I cannot see why man should not be just as cruel as nature".
---------------
I refer to the letter, 'Stop cruelty to animals, stop the apathy as well' (ST, July 3) from Ms Chin Chiu Ngo.
Ms Chin goes on the assumption that to be human is to be kind and from this, two fundamental values come to mind, where the words humane and humanity are derived from the word human.
The point she makes is that humane and humanity in zeitgeist terms became antithetic to what they originally meant because of our behaviour.
It is an error to believe the trait humane is characteristic of being human. It may originate from the word human but here the similarity ends and remains only an idiosyncrasy.
The early English political philosopher, Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), made a trenchant statement that men (humans) needed a leviathan to curb the savage instincts inherent in them. Every man, he said, by nature, is enemy to every man, where force and fraud are the two cardinal virtues.
The life of man, he added, follows the pattern of attack for personal gain; a war where notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have no place. A leviathan in the form of the state was necessary to check these natural instincts, if there was to be any true freedom in society at all.
The pages of human history are soaked in the blood of battlefield carnage. The rhetoric is dichotomous and speaks of war as abhorrent while the human species per se marches inexorably toward its own funeral.
It was estimated that in the last 5,000 years, only 292 were without war. There were almost 15,000 wars resulting in the deaths of 3.6 billion human beings (Bobrakov, 1973). If we add in the extension time to 2006, the wars and carnage increase dramatically, in this relatively short space.
There was mention, by Ms Chin, of killing animals for food, which was deemed acceptable. This may be so because in nature one animal must die so that another can live.
It is the law of survival - a natural process between predator and prey. It is interesting to note that man is the only animal which kills not only for food but for sport.
The fisherman who goes sport fishing is not hungry or starving. He seeks the prey and kills for the pleasure the death of another species (he considers inferior) brings. It is the same with deer or wild boar hunting. It is the same in fox hunting which has become a traditional event in England. It is the same in grouse or pheasant shooting.
This is the instinct to kill which Hobbes spoke off and which peregrinated logically to the killing of man as well, on the pretext of protecting some ideology or to gain access to some gain.
The 'duty' of animals to feed us has led to a 'duty' of animals, in various forms, to die to entertain us. Many bloody animal sports bear testimony to this. Millions die every day to please our palates which we justify as food.
How do we justify the millions which die horribly in suffering in the attempt to find a cure for human diseases?
How do we justify others which die in excruciating pain as 'guinea pigs' for beauty products, for the vanity of human beings?
It has been said, and truthfully, that on this planet man (humans) is the ultimate predator who has brought many animals to extinction and many others to the threshold of extinction, by destruction of the ecosystem and the addiction to kill, not for food, but for sport and for gain.
Gain is a strong motivating factor and the slogan for animal welfare makes this clear in: When the buying stops so can the killing.
In the beauty or cosmetic field, the vast majority of products entering the market are new formulations or duplications of existing drugs. The crux lies in commercial return rather than therapeutic consideration. The point is knowledge gained, from studies on animals, is often misleading owing to differences in the responses to drugs by animals and man.
The LD50 test, for example, represents the lethal dose necessary to kill 50 per cent of the animals tested. It is an acute toxicity test of which 484,849 were carried out in England during 1980. It is used in cosmetics, pesticides, food additives and household products.
The LD50 does not give direct indication of the short term toxicity of a compound but only of its lethal potential. For the recognition of the symptomatology of the acute poisoning in man and for the determination of the human lethal dose, the LD50 in animals is of very little value (Zbinden and Flury-Roversi).
While there seems to be little scientific justification for the test, it was acknowledged that the LD50 caused appreciable pain to a proportion of the animals subjected to it.
The Draize ocular- and skin-irritation tests consist of introducing a fixed dose of a chemical (0.1 millilitre of a liquid or 0.1 gram of a solid) in one of the rabbit's eyes. The other eye serves as a control. The pain, if the chemical is toxic, is excruciating and the rabbit often goes blind.
The skin test is made with a shaved area of the rabbit's hide. The irritation and inflammation are recorded. It goes without saying that the intentionally induced irritation and inflammation are anything but pleasurable and cannot by any stretch of imagination be called humane.
While Ms Chin's call for a stop to cruelty to animals is commendable, her perceptual set of humaneness, as a trait belonging to humans is misleading.
By and large, nothing can be further from the truth if we are to believe recorded history, and the cruelty perpetrated by man against man, and a fortiori, against species considered inferior to man.
Nicholas Copernicus knew of this cruelty inherent in his fellow men, which kept him, for a time, from speaking the truth about his observations of the behaviour of the planets, until Galileo's concurrence - discretion being the better part of valour.
Dudley Au
--------------
The main gist of the article - if I understand correctly - can be summarized in the following words, "Human nature is by nature violent and unkind and therefore we should not delude ourselves into thinking otherwise".
In order to understand the central idea of the author's claims, a short introduction to the thoughts and ideas of Thomas Hobbes (which the author attributes his central premise to) is necessary.
Most folks today - including this author - would remember Hobbes for his comments on human nature, upon which he depicts the human life in its natural state as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" (Leviathan). His pessimistic view of human nature can be, in part, be traced to his materialist view of human nature, in contrast to the older prescriptive view of moral law (i.e. what ought to be done should be done because there was some intrinsic ethical obligation).
Essentially, Hobbes argument was that it made no sense to talk about the soul as some kind of separate entity. What this meant was that human being were just living bodies, and death was simply the cessation of bodily functions. It was no surprise then, that Hobbes rejected the idea of the divine right of kings to rule (after all, what is a divine right?)
Now, it is interesting to see how the author brings in the fact that man kills, not just for food, but for sport. Such an argument - correct me if I am wrong - does not fit in squarely with the assumptions of the Hobbesian view of human nature. Sure, man is cruel, but his cruelity stems from his propensity for self-preservation. Now unless one can make the argument that tigers are a threat to humanity, or that hunting deer somehow prolongs one's lifespan, it is fallacious to think that game hunting is a proof of man's self-preservatory nature.
Back to the author's main point as to whether there is such thing as a "humaneness that characterizes human nature".
Well, my personal take is that the term humaneness is a term loaded with pictures and scenes of human kindness, personal altruism and agape love, which - as the author rightly points out - seem to contradict human experience and practice.
Furthermore, the claims made by animal rights advocates - a group that the author is arguing his case against - are not terribly impressive; in fact, some even smack of pure hypocrisy - kicking a dog is wrong, but abortion of a foetus is permissive? Come on...
To use a Schaefferian term then, I would argue for the "mannishness of man" - that man is created in the image and likeness of God and therefore he is man - dignified but fallen; noble, yet shamed; equally capable of performing great works or committing heinous crimes.
Last but not least, if we agree with this author's view of human nature, then nothing - and I reiterate again - nothing can stop us from condemning 20th century tyrants like Hitler and Stalin. After all, as the Fuhrer once said, "I cannot see why man should not be just as cruel as nature".
posted by Benjamin Ho at
3:41 AM
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