The Great Debate and
Newcastle
Philosophy Society
The Nature of Being Human
A public discussion held as part of
Proceedings by Mo Lovatt and Caspar Hewett
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Speakers:
Colin Talbot,
author The Paradoxical Primate
Caspar Hewett, Chair, The Great Debate
Inge Rebergen, Historian and philosopher
Adam Bell, Kantian philosopher
Chair:
David Large, chair Newcastle Philosophy Society
What is that defines the nature of being human?
This question has fascinated philosophers and scientists for centuries and the
proposed answers remain highly contested.
Is it a universal nature? Is it consciousness?
Is it our capacity for rational thought? Is it our ecological ability to adapt our
environment rather than adapt to it?
A number of secondary questions arise about how we can best interrogate the subject:
Can we rely on reason alone? What can the study of evolution tell us about
ourselves?
How do these considerations interrelate? Why is it so popular to apply
Neo-Darwinist principles to human behaviour and to society today?
And what do philosophers of mind make of all this? Is it a scientific question at all?
The Chair, David Large, introduced
himself and welcomed the audience to the discussion, The Nature of Being Human.
He began by thanking the University for providing the lecture theatre and
Newcastle Science Festival for funding the event. He went on to outline the
main theme of the discussion; what is that defines a human being? He
highlighted a number of related questions: Is it a universal nature? Is it
consciousness? Is it our capacity for rational thought? Is it our ecological
ability to adapt our environment rather than adapt to it? Can we rely on reason
alone? What can we learn about ourselves through the study of evolution? How do
these considerations interrelate? Why is it so popular to apply Neo-Darwinist
principles to human behaviour and to society? He then introduced the panel;
Colin Talbot, author The Paradoxical Primate, Professor of Public Policy at the
University of Nottingham, Caspar Hewett, Chair, The Great Debate, Inge
Rebergen, Historian and philosopher and Adam Bell, Kantian philosopher. He then
invited the speakers to present their introductory remarks.
The first speaker, Colin Talbot, has a day job that involves working in
public policy (although his background is more diverse) and within that he has
noted many paradoxical influences over the years. He has been struggling for a long time to
work out exactly how public organisations work, and why paradoxes are contained
within public policy. Robert Quinn’s “Beyond Rational Management” (1991) was
very influential on his thinking. In it Quinn developed the notion of
contradictory systems and their paradoxical nature and argued that people are
governed by contradictory impulses. To
illustrate Talbot drew attention to different ways in which managers behave and
how effective they are, from direct management, which can work but often fails
to account for the needs of staff, through to a facilitating, supportive
management style which can be too indirect to be effective. These contradictory
impulses can create confusion and stress for a manager trying to decide how
best to act. What Talbot thinks is that the reason it’s like this is because
humans are like this. They want to be
direct and supportive, to be part of something collective and individual –
sometimes all at the same time! This is
what is meant by paradoxical behaviour - it is not necessary to choose between
contradictory elements in a paradox because they all exist and operate
alongside each other. This helps to explain human behaviour. Talbot has noted
over the years tendencies in public policy from centralisation to
decentralisation and back again and this is another reflection of paradoxical
tendencies – people want both. Similarly it has been shown that, rather than
trying to suppress paradox, successful companies operate through it by
combining seemingly contradictory goals such as the pursuit of profit alongside
purposes beyond profit.
So why is this the case? For Talbot there is an evolutionary basis to
our paradoxical nature which has its origins in the fission-fusion societies in
which we evolved. The fission-fusion society is the social pattern typical of
chimpanzees. In such societies the size and composition of the social group
changes throughout the year depending on what activities are taking place.
Thus the animals that live in this type of
society are fundamentally social but do not necessarily live in stable
groups. When studied in detail, as Jane
Goodall did with chimps in her famous work in Tanzania, these groups and the
behaviours that are associated with them are found to be highly complicated.
The way individuals move between social groups and have to operate within one
particular group requires a great deal of flexibility and adaptability. This
was key to making us the way we are. We are social animals who can operate as
autonomous individuals with paradoxical tendencies that do not necessarily work
in opposition, but rather operate in tandem.
Caspar Hewett opened by saying he
was going to try to address the central question of the debate – ‘what is the
nature of being human?’ and that he was going to take a humanist perspective.
He began with a list of what he sees as key attributes of human beings: First,
we are evolved beings. This has been demonstrated to the satisfaction of most
for 1½ centuries - only the most ignorant or anti-scientific could deny this.
This means that our nature has been shaped by natural and sexual selection.
Second, there are certain human universals. That is, there are some attributes
of human beings that are common to all societies at all times. For example
there is a lot of evidence that we are born with a capacity to intuit grammar
from spoken language - a structure central to our ability to communicate
complex ideas. Other universals I would draw attention to are a huge suite of
emotions we share such as sympathy, happiness, sadness, anxiety, anger and
special capacities such as genuine altruism. Third, we are very special types
of beings. Actually Hewett would argue that all animals are special types of
beings – while there are some similarities between related species, the study
of biology and of evolution teaches us that each species has its particular
attributes that hone it to its environment – both in terms of physical
characteristics and behaviour. With this in mind Hewett is particularly
critical of some of the crude comparisons made between human behaviour and what
we observe in our cousins the great apes. It is true that we share over 98% of
our genes with chimpanzees and bonobos, but it is also glaringly obvious to him
that we have long since stopped sharing their type of environment – one of the
really interesting things about our ancestors is precisely that they moved out
of their original habitat into every corner of the globe. Hewett’s main point
here is that he believes that the studies that can reveal most about what we
are, are studies of human beings themselves. He does have a strong interest in
evolutionary theory which is largely driven by his belief that understanding
more about our origins as a species reveals things about what we are, but this
is always tempered with recognition that much more can be learned about what
human beings are by studying people than by studying animals! With this in mind
he is also highly suspicious of many of the claims made by sociobiologists and
evolutionary psychologists.
Human sociobiologists essentially
argue that modern human behaviour can be explained in terms of adaptation,
which is the same methodology we apply to animal behaviour. However, the fact
that we live in societies that are created by human beings, for human beings
makes this approach highly dubious for a number of reasons.
For example modern society ensures (or tries
to) that disabled people can survive and live full lives which, except in cases
of certain types of disability, also means that they can have children. As a
second example modern medical interventions such as IVF have meant that couples
who otherwise would not be able to have children can. This is not then a
situation where only the fittest (in physical or reproductive terms) pass on
their genes. Where then does natural
selection do its work in modern society?
In contrast to sociobiology the more
modern approach is that of evolutionary psychology (EP) which attempts to
understand human nature in terms of dispositions that evolved 100,000 years ago
when we lived as hunter gatherers in what they describe as the Environment of
Evolutionary Adaptedness (EEA). Hewett recognises some strengths in this
approach from an evolutionary biology point of view, but also sees huge
problems associated with it, the main one being that we cannot observe how
these ancestors of ours actually lived. Many assumptions have to be made and,
at least in some of the material he has read over the last few years, there
seems to be a tendency to read history backwards, eternalising some of the
social relations that are actually quite unique to the modern era. Further,
some use studies of the great apes to back up their points, often focusing on
some of the most negative aspects of human behaviour such as male violence and
rape, and cherry pick different behaviours from different apes – which brings
the argument back to his point about humans being special types of being.
Hewett’s main worry with some of the claims made is that there is a suggestion
that, for example, all males have a disposition towards rape, yet this is not
borne out by the behaviour of the majority of people. Actually, especially with
regard to violence, it is quite remarkable how co-operative we are – we live
together in huge numbers in cities, numbers unthinkable before the rise of
civilisation and yet most of us live very peaceably alongside our millions of
neighbours.
Hewett went on to what he sees as
the special qualities of human beings. First of all, we are social animals –
this is not unique to human beings, but combined with our other attributes our
social nature is something quite different to that of other animals. The main
factor here is our advanced language abilities which are quite incomparable to
those of any other animal – we can use language to express, understand and
manipulate extremely complex ideas and to learn from the experience of others –
in particular written language allows us to learn from people long since dead
as well as those around us. Second, we
are conscious beings – and this does not mean simply that we are awake, but
that we are self-reflective, conscious of ourselves and of our effect on others
and on our environment. Third, we transform our environment rather than adapt
to it – while it is often argued that other animals do this, for example ant
hills are built – they do not simply occur in nature for ants to occupy - this
is not the point, humans transform their environment in a million different
ways, and it is this that has enabled us to live in so many different climates
and environments. Fourth, we have agency – that is we are subjects who make
choices and act for reasons, our big brains have provided us with unique
abilities such as the ability to ABSTRACT and to invent SCIENCE and MORALITY
and finally we make history – which has the consequence that over the course of
history we live in very different sets of circumstances and are consequently
very different sorts of people. Thus in conclusion Caspar Hewett defended the
idea of responsible human agents who use rationality, plan ahead and ultimately
are able to transform not just the external environment, but ourselves and the
societies we live in.
Adam Bell introduced himself as a
philosopher of the Enlightenment. What does this mean? Well, historically the
Enlightenment was a period stretching from the 17th to 19th centuries in which
many philosophical and scientific advances were made. It was also a particular
way of approaching the world which Bell felt can help us answer the question
of what it is to be human. The great philosopher Immanuel Kant
defined the Enlightenment as the beginning of the move towards the full and
unfettered use of reason by every citizen of Earth, in order that each person
could determine how to live their own lives outside of outer control. He wrote:
“Laziness and cowardice are the
reasons why so great a portion of mankind, after nature has long since
discharged them from external direction nevertheless remains under lifelong
tutelage, and why it is so easy for others to set themselves up as their
guardians. It is so easy not to be of age. If I have a book which understands
for me, a pastor who has a conscience for me, a physician who decides my diet,
and so forth, I need not trouble myself. I need not think, if I can only pay -
others will easily undertake the irksome work for me.”
That was written over two hundred
years ago. Bell asked the audience how many of them recognized that in themselves
from time to time, how many of them had read the newspapers and based their
opinion upon what they say, how many of them had changed their diet in response
to one food scare or another and how many of them had used the words, ‘That’s
just the way things are?’ In short, he asked, how many of them had used their
reason for themselves?
Bell’s thesis is that what defines us as
human is this ability to use our reason to set ourselves aside from the herd,
from the rest of the pack, and determine how we believe the world should be for
us. In order to do this, we must first ask what the conditions are for our
reason to operate in the first place, what allows us to think for ourselves.
These conditions, in constituting the possibility of being human, will provide
a definition of what it is be such an animal. To perform this task, it helps to
examine the work of the philosophers in the Critical tradition, ranging from
Kant to Foucault and all in between. They ask, what must be in place for us to
experience the world? What are the conditions of our knowledge? What are the
conditions for us assigning value to actions and objects? Now we have already
heard the perspective of evolutionary psychology on this matter. This, and
similar scientific approaches cannot help us in here, for two reasons.
The first, as Foucault teaches us,
is that they are already bound up with their own particular ways of discussing
the world. They have already decided what has value to us as humans, and use
this to explain how we have developed. To use the requirements of evolution
already assumes that we can know what those requirements were, from our
perspective of a million years into the future. They are thus, to a certain
extent, begging the question, and assuming what they purport to show.
The second objection is that, if we
here follow the thesis of Thomas Nagel, science, in an attempt to achieve
objective knowledge of something intrinsically subjective i.e. awareness &
reason, attempts the impossible. They cannot use the structure of an object –
in this case, the brain – to attempt to get at what it is like to be that
brain. You can examine an eye inside and out forever, but you will never find
sight. Similarly, you can examine the neurological structure of a brain, but
you will never see thought, or find awareness. You cannot think the thoughts of
another, and know it to be the case that it is so.
Thus, the only avenue left is asking
what the conditions are for our awareness using our reason itself, using the
transcendental approach developed by Kant. In this, we must first nod to Colin
and admit that there are such things as instincts, as drives, although possibly
not in the way that he characterizes them. This is because of something that
Kant overlooked, which is that we experience things in the world as already
having significance, as already having meaning for us as soon as we encounter
them. We do not need to be told that something is beautiful, or that it is
ugly, it simply impacts upon our relevant drives before we consider it. It is
thus the case that our drives constitute the world before reason and indeed
permit it. Reason can only choose between things that already have
significance, else we would try to choose between an infinite number of equally
valid options, and thus never choose at all.
Analysis of our drives permits us to
understand how they work and how they relate to each other. It becomes apparent
the ‘nice’ halves of Colin’s paradoxical instincts like co-operation and
altruism can be subsumed beneath the general heading of the inclination to aid
the similar to oneself or to become similar to another, while the ‘nasty’
halves like selfishness and competition come under the heading of the
inclination to express control over others. If we reconceive of them in such a
manner it becomes obvious that in contrary of Colin’s assertion of them as
paradoxical they are in fact mutually reinforcing when considered together. One
desires to aid others on this model because in their similarity they represent
an extension of the self, and thus aiding others aids the greater self in
expressing control. Similarly, to express control over others requires a mutual
understanding, in order that orders can be given and obeyed. This understanding
is amplified by greater similarity between the controller and controlled, the
most obvious being the sharing of a language. Indeed, it is only in their
extremes that these twin drives contradict each other, which should have sounded
familiar to any Aristotelians in the audience.
In conclusion
Bell argued that what Kant calls laziness is
in fact simply following our inclination to be similar, but following that
inclination in such a simple fashion may not be the most effective method of
satisfying it. Following the moral precepts of the Daily Mail, for example, is
more likely to make you afraid than content. The Enlightenment requires us to
work things out for ourselves, and not be afraid to challenge even our own
preconceptions, the ways that we have been told will make us happy. For
Inge Rebergen began with the comment
that Colin would be pleased to hear that her thoughts about what being human
means are truly paradoxical. On the one hand, she sees the mind-boggling
wonderfulness of human achievement: we have Wagner’s music, single malt whisky,
the internet and philosophy. One cannot help but be amazed that something, that
only developed by accident out of sand, water and hot air can come up with this
sort of stuff. A miracle indeed! On the other hand, however, she cannot help
but think that we may be prejudiced. Of course, we think being human is pretty
special. No other species has all this enterprise, drive, intelligence,
motivation and creativity. But it seems to Rebergen that we do nothing special,
we just do everything louder than anyone else. Yes, we are more conscious, more
intelligent, more altruistic (maybe), more cruel, and much more dysfunctional
than any of the other living beings on this planet. The way we behave, if you
look at it from a less-human-centred point-of-view, we have a lot in common
with a virus. We are totally out of control, we keep finding ways to develop
and change so that we take over all of our environment, to the detriment of
everyone else. We're just bullies on a larger scale than any other species. But
does that make us special? The fact that we think we are pretty special does
not count for much as evidence for our wonderfulness. We would think that,
wouldn't we? We set the criteria to measure our own wonderfulness. Of course we
think Wagner’s music is great, because it is made exactly for our ears.
Rebergen is sure a cat would be totally unimpressed by that terrible noise;
after all its ears are much more sensitive than ours.
It is not as if it is through any
merit of ourselves that we are the way we are. Evolution made us so. Somewhere,
somehow evolution favoured our irresponsible way of stamping all over the place
and doing exactly what our brains come up with, whatever the consequences for ourselves,
or the rest of the planet. We marvel at the total coincidence with which
evolution has produced something as great and wonderful as us. What are the
chances of coming up with us, we say. Isn't it a miracle? Well, no it isn’t,
Rebergen reminds us: if the dice had rolled in another way, we could have
turned out completely different and still we would think that we were the best
possible outcome (if, indeed, we could think at all).
The more and more research is done
on animal minds, the more and more “human” they seem to become. Could it not be
so that we just do not know enough about our fellow beings to know what it is
they are really thinking? Sheep know each other as individuals, cows like
challenges and problem solving, pigs are social beings, rats laugh, dolphins
like to play and are capable of altruism as well as well as aggression and now
even fish talk to each other. Rebergen would not be surprised if, in the near
future, cats will be found to discuss the meaning of life (anything is better than
listening to Wagner). Even if you still think the differences between them and
us are enormous, maybe if you looked at it from a greater distance... Compared
to what we know of the rest of the universe, some animals are really on the
same level as we are. I mean, 99% of their DNA is the same as ours. The
differences disappear when you round the figures up.
On the other side, the more research
is done on the human mind, the less human it becomes. A lot of what we do turns
out to be hard-wired, or instinct, or a chemical imbalance in the brain. Even
our free will has only evolved as a tool to better our chances in a complex
society, and it does not seem to work very well. Rebergen does not want to eat
all that chocolate, her free ill is against it, and yet she is somehow forced
to do it. She really does want to go out for a walk more often, but somehow it
never happens. While we are slowly losing our mind, artificial minds are
gaining on us. In the seventies, we thought that playing chess was pretty
impressive. Nowadays that is nothing. Artificial minds diagnose our illnesses,
perform operations on us, paint, write poetry or music and play games with us,
and they are still learning and growing … On top of that, we cannot even be
sure of keeping the little advantage that we may have over animals and robots.
The problem with having evolution to thank for our characteristics is that what
evolution gives it can just as easily take away again. It is easy to see how
this could happen: more and more young people choose to be less intelligent and
less conscious to filter out the complexities of modern society. They start out
by doing this through binge drinking and watching mind numbing TV programs, but
after a few generations, when it turns out that actually life is easier without
all this worrying about meaning, girls will be found to consistently prefer
simple-minded, easy-going guys who just want to have a good time. Too much
consciousness will make you worry about the future and you cannot bring
yourself to put children in the world, so less conscious individuals are more
likely to reproduce.
So Inge Rebergen stated that she
does not really know what it is to be human. For her we are just a freak of
evolution, not much different from the other animals, driven by the mechanics
of our brain, mechanics that will be reproduced in software systems before long
(if we have not destroyed the planet first).
The chair then invited the panel to respond to each other’s introductions.
Colin Talbot
thought that Rebergen’s science fiction
theory was very interesting. Talbot is a
fan of social science fiction because it allows the author to explore many
themes related to human nature - it allows for thought experiments examining
what happens if you have beings that are like humans, but with certain
characteristics changed – they are ‘just so stories’.
On the question of co-operation
Talbot recognises that such qualities need not be morally loaded.
For example, co-operation may sound nice; but
if you think about the guards at ,
they had an incredibly co-operative system, but they weren’t nice.
Talbot thought Caspar Hewett’s
introduction reflected a traditional left wing view which Peter Singer has
characterised as ‘Darwin for nature, Marx for man’, and as such represents arrogance
about our nature as human beings. He argued that altruism is not solely a human
characteristic. He pointed to the example of disability amongst chimps – there
are many instances of a chimp being kept alive by the rest of his community.
Caspar Hewett addressed first what
Inge Rebergen said, agreeing about the coincidence
and accidents of evolution, but arguing that the point is that something did
come out of that coincidence. Hewett
does not believe, for example, that chimps will ever reflect or appreciate
Wagner or that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will ever be able to do what humans
do.
In response to
Colin Talbot’s point about altruism amongst
chimpanzees Hewett pointed out that there is usually a high degree of
relatedness between chimps within a group and thus the apparent altruism can be
explained in evolutionary theory terms as related to kin selection - this is
not a social thing like the way we look after disabled people.
Adam Bell picked up on Hewett’s
point example of the human capacity to intuit grammar from spoken language (an
idea originating with the work of Noam Chomsky), arguing that there is evidence
that reason is not dependent upon language; there are many recent experts who
would attest to this. Broadly speaking,
he agreed with Inge Rebergen.
For Inge Rebergen altruism is a
difficult concept because we are not necessarily helping another person for
their benefit. It may be that we do it
for our own self-gratification, that is, it makes us feel good! With regard to
AI Rebergen is still holding out hope. She pointed to the fact there are now
computer programmes that can produce beautiful paintings (masterpieces?). It
may be a long time away, but she saw no reason to think that ultimately
artificial minds that can mimic what human minds do should not exist.
A discussion followed with a number
of critical questions and points from the floor. The themes of self-loathing
and anti-human views versus humanism dominated the debate.
On the question of what it is to be inhuman Adam
Bell answered it is to do what you are told without
questioning it, without reflection, while Colin
Talbot answered from a moral perspective, emphasising the contradictory
nature of our moral codes; for example we should not kill – except on certain
occasions. The Holocaust is held up as an example of inhumanity, but there are
others like Stalin’s death camps and Pol Pot’s regime. He did not accept the
notion that a sociobiological perspective inevitably leads to Auschwitz
any more than the Enlightenment notion of human perfectibility leads to death
camps. In response to these examples Bill Harvey suggested that, while we
describe mass murder as inhumane, this is a misnomer since it has happened
throughout history, therefore it must be part of human nature.
In answer to Jeff Pitt asking what
he meant by Humanism, Hewett explained that he holds a human-centric view; thinking
that humans are unique and special types of being in the ways he described in
his introduction. He drew attention to the length of time it takes to become a
complete human being arguing that this reveals much about our nature. Like most
theorists today he thinks that we are determined both by our biology (or our
genes) and by the society we live in. With this in mind he argued that only by
considering all of the attributes of a fully developed adult can we define what
it is to be human. In this society we consider that it takes 18-21 years to
reach this stage and there are good reasons why we do not give children
complete freedom. At the extreme end of the spectrum we have babies, who are
truly ‘naked apes’ – they have not yet acquired language and thus cannot
communicate with other people, they are completely helpless and incapable of
surviving without a huge amount of input from adults, they are unaware of what
other people think or desire and so on. If we look at the cruelty typical of
young children in their interactions with each other we can also see how
development of empathy and a moral sense is something it takes many years of
socialisation to acquire. It is no accident that in this society we consider
anyone below a certain age to be in need of our protection, to not be
responsible for their own actions and to be insufficiently mature to vote or
even to make decisions for themselves. Many of these distinctions between
adults and children have been blurred in recent years, and as a humanist Hewett
thinks this reveals quite a degraded notion of what it is to be human.
Claire Fox, director of the Institute of Ideas, had a problem with the degradation
of terms like “kinship” and “altruism” – they were being discussed in technical
terms without understanding the depths of feeling implied. She highlighted was
she saw as an underlying theme of self-loathing permeating the discussion. She
also drew attention to the discussion of computers striving to be more like
humans, pointing out that this is a political discussion, not just a
philosophical one – we have the capacity to change the world, whereas computers
do not.
Hewett hoped that his introduction did
not exhibit any self-loathing - he thinks humans are aspirational and tried to
emphasise this because he thinks it is missing from contemporary debate.
Rebergen argued that the more we learn about humans the more animalistic they
seem. Bell disagreed with the self-loathing comment saying that he likes himself.
Talbot picked up on the term
altruism, arguing that all such behaviours are conditioned by three factors: 1.
instinct, 2. we develop culture and 3. choice.
Austin Williams of the Future Cities project
picked up on the Hewett vs. Rebergen discussion about the nature of being
human, because it seemed to him that Rebergen’s answer was distinctly
anti-human. This is a key political
question and he wanted to ask, is a human only viewed in terms of his/her
anti-social behaviour? Rebergen responded by saying that she did not see how
her position was anti-human - she simply wants us to be more compassionate
towards animals and she believes that animals can be altruistic. Hewett in
contrast argued that only humans are capable of wanting to save another species
from extinction or of feeling compassion towards other species. This was echoed
from the floor with the comment that philosophy itself focuses on human affairs
and that it is only because we are human that we have the faculties to consider
other species.
Mo Lovatt of The Great Debate pointed
out that what AI and what animals can achieve is always defined in terms of
what humans can do. That is the criteria by which we measure their success - it
is these human qualities that are important to us. But when it comes to AI and
animals we are always going to be left wanting. In response to this Rebergen
reiterated that she still has not given up on AI and that she does not think we
should over-claim the qualities of humans. Talbot echoed this sentiment, saying
that we may be cognitively superior to animals, but it is conceivable to
imagine beings cognitively superior to us. He asked what would happen if such
beings came along. Would they be justified in treating us without regard,
perhaps even in wiping us out? He drew attention to Peter Singer’s work again
here, asking if our arrogance is speciesism.
Claire Fox argued that human
arrogance has led to people achieving historical strides in terms of society,
science and medicine. She pointed out that the fundamental question at the
heart of the debate is a political one - what happened in Iraq
was a political issue not a
philosophical one. Once we put ourselves as the subject in the debate the
outcome is quite different.
Austin Williams thought that some of the
discussion seemed to be like applying the precautionary principle to philosophy
– Inge’s point about animals being like humans (that the zebra might one day
want to be an actor is feasible) and Colin’s point that people from the Planet
Z might turn up with higher cognitive faculties – these are purely hypothetical
situations and represent something of a failure to engage with the question at
the heart of the debate. Talbot felt that this was a red herring.
He is a comparativist and, as such, believes
that the only true way to understand the nature of human beings is to compare –
whether it be hypothetical aliens or other animals.
Another member of the audience
pointed out that we can only describe animals as acting “as if they were”
altruistic because we know what altruism is. In fact, animals only seem that
way to us. We are the only species which is both communal and solitary.
The chair, David Large, asked the speakers to make brief closing comments. Talbot
reiterated that we need to be comparativists if we are to understand the nature
of being human. Hewett thinks we should celebrate what we are. Rebergen thinks
that our uncertainty is a good reason to argue that we should be nicer to other
species. Bell thinks that we have a responsibility because it is us who decide
the rules - Morality is ultimately derived from the values we place upon the world,
and so claiming that anything can have intrinsic value will lead to us making
many mistakes.
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