Human Nature: Definition of Humanity

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Human nature is collection of human features that constitute and define humanity. Human nature makes us human and different from all other creation in the universe. Human nature includes the ability of creation, ability of reasoning, loving, and ability of experiencing things through a wide range of emotions. Human nature includes the fundamental or core characteristics (feelings, psychology, behaviors) shared by all people in common.

The great philosopher, Plato believes that reason, appetite and aggression are the three main parts of human nature, he thinks that reason enlightened how we ought to live, which should rule appetites and aggression. Aristotle, one of the students of Plato concurs with him. For him, reason is our highest power and what distinguishes human nature. The purpose of humans is to use their reason to think and control their desires and aggressions.

The human emotions, like: - love to ambition, ambition to pride or desire for free choice or even for freedom, for instance, are placed into our mind therefore, both their activity and their nature are universal, shared by all humans as a whole, humanity. This belief is considred wrong and it shows the basics universalism of modern Western, particularly they, thought its tendency to consider all human consciousness and behavior as a doing or art of biology. The limited range of emotions human share, as animals, with other animal species, what makes human beings and causes them suffer in one culture or society may be drastically different from the emotions forming the living experiences in another one.

The 'goodies' turn to all that is attractive, brainy, artistic, advanced, kind, decent and loving in human beings and there really is an colossal presence of these amazing features. The 'darker' types of people turn to the axiom that man is born to sin and go on to allude the endless evils and annihilation.

Whereas, According to Helena Cronin (Co-Director of London School of Economic's Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Sciences), Human nature is fixed. It's universal and unchanging common to every baby that's born, down through the history of our species. But human behavior which is generated by that nature is endlessly variable and diverse.

Emotions, or feelings, as the name suggests, are experienced through physical sensations. In this they differ from other mental experiences. They are experienced through specific sensations which are represented by the direct reaction of the organism to the stimuli of its physical environment. They include such experiences as pain and pleasure, fear, positive and negative excitement (joy and anxiety), hunger and satiation, and their biological function is to increase the individual organism's survival. It is clear that these emotions are common and universal to all humans but the human nature cannot be universal.

The fact that human nature is not universal is also supported by the idea of Existentialist. Existentialism is a apprehend-all term for those sophist who consider the nature of the human position as a key philosophical problem and who share the view that this problem is best forwarded through viewpoint.

Existentialist prospective denies the fact that all humans have the same and fixed nature. Instead, they claim that each human creates his or her nature on their own. They claim that although human nature is not universal, there is still a self that is a freely choosing, self-creating, active agent. Existence precedes essence, this mean that humans are first born (exist) and then define their nature (essence) by acting. Existentialism says there is no universal human nature. The decision we made by our free own will and commitment along with dedication is what we are today, and same goes for our future.

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Human Nature: Definition of Humanity. (2020, Mar 18). Retrieved March 19, 2024 , from
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