Lecture 14. Society and of human being as objects of philosophical analysis

1. Historical and axiological aspects of social life

2. The specifics of the philosophical view of man: the basic aspects of human nature.

3. The interpretation of the essence of man in the twentieth century philosophy.

 

An ancient maxim tells us that the proper study of man is man. The problem of man is an eternal and at the same time the most urgent of all problems. It lies at the heart of the philosophical questions of man's place and destination in a world that is being discovered and transformed in the name of humanity, the highest of all values. The main goal of social development is the formation of human abilities and the creation of the most favourable conditions for human self-expression.

Idealism reduces the human essence to the spiritual principle. According to Hegel, the individual realises not subjective, but objective aims; he is a part of the unity not only of the human race but of the whole universe because the essence of both the universe and man is the spirit.

The essence of man comprises both the spiritual sphere, the sphere of the mind, and his bodily organisation, but it is not confined to this. Man becomes aware of himself as a part of the social whole. Not for nothing do we say that a person is alive as long as he is living for others. Human beings act in the forms determined by the whole preceding development of history. The forms of human activity are objectively embodied in all material culture, in the implements of labour, in language, concepts, in systems of social norms. A human being is a biosocial being and represents the highest level of development of all living organisms on earth, the subject of labour, of the social forms of life, communication and consciousness.

Whereas the concept "human being" emphasises man's biosocial, body-mind origin, the concept "personality" is connected mainly with his social and psychological aspects, such as his sense of dignity, his self-appraisal, his value orientations, beliefs, the principles by which he lives, his moral, aesthetic, socio-political and other social positions, his convictions and ideals, and also the character, the special features of his intellect, the style and independence of his thinking, the specific nature of his emotional make-up, his willpower, cast of mind and feelings, his social status.

A personality is a socially developed person, one who is part of a certain specific historical and natural context, one or another social group, a person possessing a relatively stable system of socially significant personal features and performing corresponding social roles. The personality's intellectual framework is formed by his requirements, interests, frame of reference, and peculiarities of temperament, emotion, willpower, motivation, value orientations, and independence of thought, consciousness and self-consciousness. The central feature of the personality is world outlook. A person cannot become a personality without evolving what is known as a world outlook or Worldview, which includes his philosophical view of the world.

Personality in general is an abstraction, which is concretised in real individuals, in separate, single rational beings with all the inimitable proper ties of their mentality and physique, the colour of their skin, hair, eyes, and so on. The personality is a unique representative of the human race, always particular and unlike any other personality in the fullness of his spiritual and material, physical life: every "ego" is unique.

The term "Ego" or "Self" also denotes the personality as seen in the light of its own self-consciousness, i.e., a personality as perceived by itself, as it is known and felt by the Self. The "Ego" is the regulative principle of mental life, the self-controlling force of the spirit; it is everything that we are essentially both for the world and for other people and, above all, for ourselves in our self-consciousness, self-appraisal and self-knowledge. The "Ego" presupposes know ledge of and a relationship to objective reality and a constant awareness of oneself in that reality. Sensuous and conceptual images, states and goals are all part of the Ego, but they are not the Ego itself. The Ego rises above all the elements that compose the spirit and commands them, regulates their life.

The unity of man and society. A person's whole intellectual make-up bears the clear imprint of the life of society as a whole. All his practical activities are individual expressions of the historically formed social practice of humanity. The implements that he uses have in their form a function evolved by a society which predetermines the ways of using them. When tackling any job, we all have to take into account what has already been achieved before us. The wealth and complexity of the individual's social content are conditioned by the diversity of his links with the social whole, the degree to which the various spheres of the life of society have been assimilated and refracted in his consciousness and activity.

The idea of destiny and necessity. At first destiny was regarded not as a universal abstract necessity but as the fate of individual mortals. Everyone had his own particular fate. Necessity was thus broken down into a large number of fatal forces, sometimes embodied in various creatures such as the oracle, the sorceress, the magician, and so on.

Fatalism has a crushing effect on the individual. In human nature he sees a repulsive sameness, in human relations an irresistible force that belongs to everything in general and to no one in particular. The individual is merely driftwood on the waves. It is ridiculous to fight against the relentless law of fate. At best one may discover what it is, but even then one can only obey. Destiny leads the person who follows voluntarily, and those who resist are dragged by force. Freedom, according to the fatalist, is no more than the will of the horse, whose harness allows it to move only in one direction and in the framework of the shafts. Fatalism links up with religion, which asserts divine predestination. Both fatalism and religion grant human beings only a predestined role along with the illusion that they are acting independently. In any event the fatalist sees only a manifestation of necessity. Absolute surrender is what is expected of every individual in the face of imminent death.

The problem of freedom. Stressing the complexity of the problem of freedom, Hegel wrote: "Of no idea can it be stated with such complete justification that it is vague, ambiguous, and capable of generating the greatest misunderstanding, and therefore liable to be misunderstood, as the idea of freedom, and no idea is discussed with so little understand ing of its nature."

Freedom is the key philosophical problem, the crown of all the efforts of theoretical thinking, the culminating moment of any mature philosophical system. Idealism, which maintains the positions of indeterminism, regards the will as an immanent, autonomous, self-contained spiritual force, supposedly generating certain actions from its depths. For example, the existential notion of absolute freedom has no objective roots. According to Nietzsche, "the will to power" has more need of lucky errors than the truth for which we strive. Why, he asks, is falsehood, the unknown, even ignorance not better than truth? Jaspers's statement that not truth but ignorance is the guarantee of freedom strikes us as a meaningless paradox. According to Jaspers, the freest people of all are the insane, because they have no logic.

Existentialism interprets the human being as a force standing in opposition to the world and hostile to it. Its system of philosophy thus transforms will into what is, essentially, mere self-will. This is an apology not for freedom but for arbitrariness. There is a counterblast to this notion in Feuerbach, who believed that freedom was not the right of any man to be a fool in his own way. If we think that freedom is something absolute, independent of all objective necessity, we resemble the imaginary pigeon who believed that it would have flown much faster had it not been for the resistance of the air. It forgot one "little" thing: without air it could not live, let alone fly.

Responsibility. Human behaviour is regulated by many factors, including moral standards, the sense of shame, of conscience, of duty, and so on. The basic manifestations of the ethical life are the sense of social and personal responsibility and the awareness of guilt that this implies. Responsibility is not only a moral category, but also a psychological, legal and socio-political one.

Great controversy has raged around this problem for centuries. The idealists believe the sources of responsibility to be in the immanent principles of the human personality, even in the depths of its psychophysiology. For example, according to one conception of psychoanalysis, an individual is essentially helpless in the face of the forces that influence him from within. The responsibility placed upon him by society is merely an illusion. According to this conception, a person has got to realise that he is not the master of his own fate. Officially he is conscious. But although he himself is not aware of the forces that are at work within him, his choice is determined for him - his conscious will is only an instrument, a slave in the hands of the deep subconscious urge which determines his action.

Human freedom is manifest not only in the choice of a line of conduct, not only in control over the forces of nature and conscious reform of social relations. It is vividly expressed also in the individual's power over himself, over his instincts, inclinations and feelings. He is responsible both to society and his own conscience, for the forms in which these are expressed. Man becomes more perfect when he learns, under the influence of education, of moral, social and state demands, to consistently restrain impulses that are forbidden by social standards. And conversely we see that the person who has lost the power of self-restraint speaks and acts in a way in which he would not allow himself to do in an ordinary frame of mind and which he bitterly regrets when he returns to normal.

Required reading:

1. Cohen, Jean, 2012. Globalization and Sovereignty, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

2. Evans, G., 2008. The Responsibility to Protect, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.

3. Finnis, J., 2011. Natural Law and Natural Rights, 2nd edn., Oxford: Oxford University Press.

4. Huxley, A. (1932 [2005]). Brave New World and Brave New World Revisited, New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics.

5. Kateb, G., 2011. Human Dignity, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

6. Kennedy, D. 2004. The Dark Sides of Virtue: Reassessing International Humanitarianism, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

7. Talbott, W., 2005. Which Rights Should be Universal?, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

8. Teson, F., 2005. Humanitarian Intervention: An Inquiry into Law and Morality, Ardsley, NY: Transnational.

9. Wellman, C., 2010. The Moral Dimensions of Human Rights, Oxford: Oxford University Press

Optional reading:

1. Annas, J. (2011). Intelligent Virtue, New York: Oxford.
2. Diener, E., R. E. Lucas, U. Schimmack and J. F. Helliwell (2009). Well-Being for Public Policy, New York: Oxford University Press.
3. Doris, J. M. (2009). “Skepticism about persons,” Philosophical Issues, 19(1): 57–91.
4. Hurka, T. (2010). The Best Things in Life: A Guide to What Really Matters, New York: Oxford University Press.
5. Schwitzgebel, E. (2008). “The Unreliability of Naive Introspection,” Philosophical Review, 117(2): 245–273.
6. Schwitzgebel, E. (2011). Perplexities of Consciousness, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
7. Tiberius, V. (2008). The Reflective Life, New York: Oxford University Press.
8. Trout, J. D. (2009). The empathy gap: Building bridges to the good life and the good society, New York: Viking Press.