The One

by Hanno

The uniqueness of human beings is an issue at least as old as Aristotle and has at least two components: First, Aristotle places our unique status as the primary way of understanding both our purpose and our goodness. The Greeks thought that everything has a purpose, and that the purpose of anything had to be unique. Following that, if we think that we are not unique, we would start to think there is no purpose in our life, no function we are supposed to fulfill. And since the good knife is one that fulfills its function well, the good person is one fulfills our purpose well. If we have no purpose, what happens to our notion of living well?

What, then, is unique to humans? What is our purpose? Many people have thought of different answers, and for a long time, it always struck me as odd to even ask. Some people point to our thumbs as being unique, some to the creation of culture (non-biologically driven patterns of learned behavior), some to language, some to thought, some to reason. Each of these, 'cept the thumb, have been shown not to be unique, and a thumb is not much to hang your hat on. OK, you could hang an actual hat on a thumb, but not a metaphorical one.

The reason this always struck me as odd is simple: its rather obvious that we are unique, that even if a chimp can learn language and reason, we are not the same as a chimp. In other words, our definition in terms of these features is so inadequate that it seems silly to ask: what makes us human? And without the Aristotelian background, the importance of the question escaped me. So what if monkeys can speak, or reason, or have a culture, or if we discover some other species with a thumb? Why would that effect our conception of ourselves? Why would that threaten our conception of ourselves as unique? What rides on determining unique features of the human being?

Now when we discover that some feature that we thought was unique turns out to be shared (The bonobo is able to grasp language at a high level, chimps are able to reason, some chimps have a culture, some chimps use tools, etc., etc.) the obvious response is mere passing interest. "I thought that feature was unique... oh well, I guess it isnt." I have had that reaction myself and I see it in others. So where would existential angst come from?

Second (there has to be a second, there was a first... forgot? first paragraph), moral notions are limited (historically, if not philosophically), to people. This is not a Western idea. So, for example, the Comanche called themselves "The people" (Nermernuh). Everyone else is not. If you are of the people, you are protected by the people. There was, apparently, almost no violence within the tribe, or against anyone who culturally acted like a tribe member. However, anyone outside the tribe was not similarly protected. They may trade with you, or they may kill you, that choice is up to an individual Comanche, and simply not part of their ethical framework, not subject to judgment. Other people's moral status was like any other piece of nature, sometimes to be preserved, sometimes to be used and sometimes to be abused. It has been argued (I think correctly) that the whole 10 commandments were originally understood in the same way: "Thou shalt not kill" really meant "Thou shall not kill a fellow Jew." It, too, was a tribal notion.

The question then of what a human being is connects to our conception of morality: humans are beings to which we have a moral duty, while non-humans are not protected by moral codes. It is also easy to see how correctly defining the human in terms that shape our moral attitudes (reason, not thumbs) is one way of intuitively increasing beings with moral rights. "I know those things do not act like us, but they really are human, and hence we have moral duties towards them." "I know we do not seem to be human to you, but we have this uniquely human feature, too, so you should treat us as moral agents." Historically, when we have broadened our notion of the human, we bring more people into society, and start acting better. A good definition of a human, then, has been of great importance. It is then easy to see that if we are not so important, not so unique, nature gets raised by default. Many people who do not see humans as unique see us as part of nature, thus raising the moral status of nature. We call them "environmentalists."

So now we can see why much of the artificial intelligence science fiction asks whether or not computers that develop consciousness are moral agents. Early in Star Trek, The Next Generation, we see a trial to determine whether or not Data, a computer, is a moral agent, or not. Is he an officer in the Federation, or is he like any other computer, to be used by its owner as its owner sees fit?

I think our angst about thinking computers is not existential, but about control. It is the worry of Mickey Mouse in Fantasia, HAL in 2001, and Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 Terminator.

Function and Sex

By Hanno

As I'm grading several papers on Aristotle's function argument, it occurs to me that we take the basics of his argument very seriously in a variety of contexts, and always assume the basic Greek worldview. It was basic to the Greek way of thinking that every thing, every species, every action has a unique function. Aristotle and others then use knowledge of that unique function to determine what a good instance of that thing may be. Many people still use the basics of that view when it comes to sex, and this has profound implications for the ethics of sex. But the assumption seems flat out wrong, and hence the ethics based on the function argument seems poor at best.

Aristotle argued that the word good is always contextual, getting its meaning from the noun it modified, and the noun gets its meaning by its particular function. So, a pianist is someone that plays the piano, and a good pianist is one that plays the piano well. When you find the unique function of an object, you can then understand what a "good" object maybe, be it a piano player, or a car.

He argued that the function of man is not mere nutrition and growth, because these attributes are shared with plants, and so are not man's unique function. He argued that sense perception and movement are not man's function, because these are shared with animals. Man's unique function is the use of reason, hence the function of man is to reason, and a good man reason's well, both in practical life as well as in the contemplative life.

The immediate effect of the argument is to place an emphasis on reason, and on the unique characteristics of man, separating him from being an animal. Hence those features of human existence that we share with animals are downgraded, and acting like animals is a bad thing. And if its a bad thing, then anything which takes us away from our rational, human nature is degrading and very bad.

If this argument is not right, then it is very easy to see why some philosophers (like Kant) holds that sex is inherently degrading, reducing us to animals, and hence morally reprehensible. Sex might be necessary to keep the species going, but not good in itself, not to be valued as anything except useful for procreation. (Of course it follows that if sex is valuable for its unique function, and the only function it has that is truly unique is procreation, that good sex is reproductive sex. You may think you have had good sex before, but if it did not produce offspring, you are wrong. And you might have thought that sex that cause a child was not all that, but again, you would be wrong. The best sex, according to this argument, is one where a child is conceived.)

We might grant that procreation is the only unique function sex has, but it is obvious sex has many other functions that are not unique. You might think, for example, that it brings couples closer. Everyone must grant other actions can do that as well, so it is not the unique function, but few can deny that it can also have that effect as well.

Here, then, is the question: Why would the obvious uniqueness of one function make the others irrelevant, or even elevate the unique function? Why is value tied to the unique function? Why cannot we attach meaning and hence value to any purpose we give to any act or person? Then, no longer accepting to split between animal and human, as we no longer accept the function argument, we need no longer look at our animalistic nature with horror and dread. Deny that the only function which counts is the unique function, and off we go with a very different conception of value and ethics. So what justifies the assumption either that function is unique or that only the unique function is the one that counts?