Remember when I said that discussing human nature didn’t interest me very much? Well, we had a fascinating discussion about this topic so I’m going to revisit it here. One of the things that we encourage everyone in class to do is to continue to reflect on the topics we discuss and to revise their thinking as we go.
Here is a question we tackled during class that’s got me tied up in knots.
- What are the major influences on human nature?
It seems obvious that both nature and nurture play a part in human nature. What I got stuck on was the nature part of it. What is natural to human beings? Is morality innate to human beings? Different cultures have different standards and mores. But are human beings imbued with an innate sense of morality – of right and wong – where individual beliefs around what constitutes, say, theft, may be influenced by culture or era but at its root are independent of these things?
I’m tempted to say yes. And that’s because of what I experience. I experience shame when I behave in ways that I don’t respect – in ways that I believe are wrong. I experience satisfaction when I behave in quiet ways that help others. I experience discomfort when I have to face God in prayer if I’ve lied or if I’m not facing up to an important situation in my life. Internally, I feel called to account for my actions and my beliefs. And I believe that’s a universal human experience.
I don’t necessarily follow every law on the books in the State of Michigan. And when I’m doing something that I know could get me in trouble but that I don’t necessarily buy into being a moral trap I feel uneasy, but I don’t worry that I’m going to have a hard time praying that night.
That’s where I draw the line and why I think there is an innate sense of morality. Maybe not for everyone. There are sociopaths and psychopaths who don’t seem to have that innate sense. But your average person? I think they know the difference between what’s legal and what’s illegal – the set of social, cultural constructs that has a passing relation to what’s right and wrong but is mainly just a social contract about how a group of people is going to live together that, from our own history, we can see is full of traps whereby the powerful use their influence to make life better for themselves and worse for other people. And then there’s what’s ethical and what’s unethical. Certainly there are differences between cultures about which behaviors aren’t moral (think back to European and Native American senses of what constitutes fair use of land), but I’m really tempted to say that the feelings around moral behavior are still there – shame when you betray what you believe to be right, satisfaction when you live up to what you believe is right.
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