Views of Human Nature

Writing a term paper, Pimphand?

 

I'm more intrested in human behavior.

 

The problem with communism . .moreso than Capitalism
is that ONE individualistic person can upse the whole thing
whereas
a Community minded person is nothing more than a victim in capitalism

In fact Capitalism thrives on the backs of such individuals

Rocket River

 

pimphand...i think your teacher was only partially correct with what he said. you dont always get selfish people if u have a selfish system. further not all societies are based from their national government.

i wish i felt like writing out a long post but i don't. so here it is. you need to also look at cultural roles in forming people, such as religion and tradition. a couple quick examples....there are many selifsh muslim governments however muslims are not selfish and are not individualistic for the most part. this is an example of religion determining the person over the government. another example is nigeria where the government is horribly corrupt and selfish. however if you go down to the village level in nigeria you would find people who are very giving and communal among themselves. but i guess it is the tribal system that still truly rules over nigeria so maybe that example isn't as good and you could also argue that nigeria is hardly a country in the first place.

so i guess what we get from that is it depends where your system comes from, however the system does not have to come from the ideas that founded a nation....it can come from religion or traditions that pre-dated the government

i would also recommend taking a look at japan and then re-evaluating your teacher's statement again. there is a great book by chie nakane called Japanese Society which could also shed some light on how the government is not the controlling factor for society.

 

I'd participate in this discussion if I didn't already write my enlightenment paper on Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. But since I did, I won't.

 

Human beings are subject to the same instinctive drives as any other lifeform on this planet, self-preservation and self-propigation. We have in recent evolutionary history developed a conciousness and a reasoning that at times allow us to make choices that might seem contridictory to the basic doctrine of 'suvival of the fittest' but it takes a rigourous indoctrination in the concept of 'greater good', in the welfare of a society over an individual.

I would propose to you that the concepts of a 'society' was a self-preservation adaptation by older and wiser individuals who knew that without it the younger and stronger individuals would threaten their existence. Atleast that's how I imagine the conceprt of religion arose. Without the threat of an omnipotent power or an eternal circumstance what's to stop the younger stronger individuals from taking everything as their own?

 

You've read your Rousseau. What, for the sake of playing devil's advocate, would you say your view does in terms of philosophy. I.E. if one is to agree with your first two paragraphs, then one nixes other questions of philosophic importance?

 

See what you think of this.


Kohlberg's stages of moral development
-From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Kohlberg's stages of moral development were developed by Lawrence Kohlberg to explain the development of moral reasoning. This theory holds that moral reasoning, which Kohlberg thought to be the basis for ethical behavior, has developmental stages. From the results of his studies at Harvard's Center for Moral Education, Kohlberg concluded that there are six identifiable stages of moral development. These stages can be classified into three levels. Note that these stages are known by various names.

Contents
1 Stages
2 An explanation of the stages
3 Examples
4 Theoretical assumptions
5 Criticism

Stages
Level 1 (Pre-conventional)
1. Obedience and punishment orientation
2. Self-interest orientation
Level 2 (Conventional)
3. Interpersonal accord and conformity (The good boy/good girl attitude)
4. Authority and social-order maintaining orientation (Law and order morality)
Level 3 (Post-conventional)
5. Social contract orientation
6. Universal ethical principles (Principled conscience)

An explanation of the stages
The pre-conventional level of moral reasoning is especially common in children, although adults can also exhibit this level of reasoning. Reasoners in the pre-conventional level judge the morality of an action by its direct consequences. The pre-conventional level is divided into two stages: stage one (obedience and punishment orientation) and stage two (self-interest orientation). In stage one, individuals focus on the direct consequences that their actions will have for themselves. For example, they think that an action is morally wrong if the person who commits it gets punished. Stage two espouses the what's in it for me position; right behavior being defined by what is in one's own best interest. Stage two reasoning shows a limited interest in the needs of others, but only to a point where it might furthers one's own interests, such as "you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours." Concern for others is not based on loyalty or intrinsic respect in stage two.

The conventional level of moral reasoning is typical of adults and older children. Persons who reason in a conventional way judge the morality of actions by comparing these actions to social rules and expectations. The conventional level is divided into two stages: stage three (conformity orientation) and stage four (law-and-order morality). Individuals whose moral reasoning is in stage three seek approval from other people. They try to be a good boy or good girl having learned that there is inherent value in doing so. Stage three reasoning may judge the morality of an action by evaluating its consequences in terms of a person's relationships. In stage four, individuals think it is important to obey the laws and social conventions because of its importance to maintaining society. Moral reasoning in stage four is thus beyond the need for approval exhibited in stage three.

The post-conventional level is divided into two stages: stage five (social contract orientation) and stage six (principled conscience). Persons in stage five have certain principles to which they may attach more value than laws, such as human rights or social justice. In this reasoning, actions are wrong if they violate these ethical principles. Laws are regarded as social contracts rather than dictums, and must be changed when necessary (provided there is agreement). By this reasoning laws that do not promote general social welfare, for example, should be changed. (Democratic governments are ostensibly based on stage five reasoning.) In stage six, the final stage, moral reasoning is based on the use of abstract reasoning using universal ethical principles. While Kohlberg insisted that stage six exists, he had difficulty finding participants who use it. It appears that people rarely if ever reach stage six of Kohlberg's model.

Kohlberg also observed that there is a stage 4½ or 4+ which is a transition from stage four to stage five. This stage is where people have become disaffected with the arbitrary nature of law and order reasoning and become moral relativists. This transition stage may result in either progress to stage five or in regression to stage four.
Kohlberg further speculated that a seventh stage may exist (Transcendental Morality) which would link religion with moral reasoning (See James Fowler's stages of faith).


Examples
Kohlberg used moral dilemmas to determine which stage of moral reasoning a person uses. The dilemmas are short stories in which a person has to make a moral decision. The participant is asked what this person should do. A dilemma that Kohlberg used in his original research was the druggist's dilemma:
A woman was near death from a unique kind of cancer. There is a drug that might save her. The drug costs $4,000 per dosage. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money and tried every legal means, but he could only get together about $2,000. He asked the doctor scientist who discovered the drug for a discount or let him pay later. But the doctor scientist refused.
Should Heinz break into the laboratory to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not?

From a theoretical point of view, it is not important what the participant thinks that Heinz should do. The point of interest is the justification that the participant offers. Below are examples of possible arguments that belong to the six stages. It is important to keep in mind that these arguments are only examples. It it possible that a participant reaches a completely different conclusion using the same stage of reasoning:
• Stage one (obedience): Heinz should not steal the medicine, because otherwise he will be put in prison.
• Stage two (self-interest): Heinz should steal the medicine, because he will be much happier if he saves his wife, even if he will have to serve a prison sentence.
• Stage three (conformity): Heinz should steal the medicine, because his wife expects it.
• Stage four (law-and-order): Heinz should not steal the medicine, because the law prohibits stealing.
• Stage five (human rights): Heinz should steal the medicine, because everyone has a right to live, regardless of the law. Or: Heinz should not steal the medicine, because the scientist has a right to fair compensation.
• Stage six (universal human ethics): Heinz should steal the medicine, because saving a human life is a more fundamental value than the property rights of another person. Or: Heinz should not steal the medicine, because that violates the golden rule of honesty and respect.
• Stage seven (transcendental morality): Heinz should not steal the medicine, because he and his wife should accept the sickness as part of the natural cycle of life-and-death and instead enjoy their time left together.


Theoretical assumptions
The stages of Kohlberg's model refer to reasoning, not to actions or to people themselves. Kohlberg insists that the form of moral arguments is independent of the content of the arguments. According to Kohlberg, moral reasoning is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for moral action. Additionally, Piaget's stages of cognitive development are a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the development of moral reasoning. It is important to remember that he posits justice as the a priori summum bonum (justice is assumed to be equal with moral virtue).
According to Kohlberg, a person who progresses to a higher stage of moral reasoning cannot skip stages. For example, a person cannot jump from being concerned mostly with peer opinions (stage three) to being a proponent of social contracts (stage five). However, when persons encounter a moral dilemma and find their current level of moral reasoning unsatisfactory, they will look to the next level. Discovery of the limitations of the current stage of thinking promotes moral development.


Criticism
One criticism of Kohlberg's theory is that it emphasizes justice to the exclusion of other values. As a consequence of this, it may not adequately address the arguments of people who value other moral aspects of actions. For example, Carol Gilligan has argued that Kohlberg's theory is overly male-centric. His theory was the result of empirical research using only male particants. Gilligan argued that Kohlberg's theory therefore did not adequately describe the concerns of women. She developed an alternative theory of moral reasoning that is based on the value of care. Although recent research has generally not found any gender differences in moral development, Gilligan's theory illustrates that theories on moral development do not need to focus on the value of justice.
Other psychologists have challenged the assumption that moral action is primarily reached by formal reasoning. For example, social intuitionists assume that people often make moral judgments without weighing concerns such as fairness, law, human rights and abstract ethical values. If this is true, the arguments that Kohlberg and other rationalist psychologists have analyzed are often no more than post-hoc rationalizations of intuitive decisions. This would mean that moral reasoning is less relevant to moral action than it seems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohlberg's_stages_of_moral_development

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I differ with Kohlberg in some key areas but I think this is a pretty good introduction to the issue from the perspective of developmental psychology. One thing that isn’t mentioned here is that a person can be a different levels in different contexts. In particular, the more distant a relationship a person has with another the lower their level of moral development will tend to be. For example, if a family member stole something you might be inclined to excuse it if it was something the desperately needed. You would see the greater good the moral relativism involved in making the decision to break the law. Otoh, if this was someone you didn’t know or someone "from the other side of town", so to speak, then you may be more inclined to see the situation in purely legalistic terms, in black and white. The law is the law and if someone breaks it they have done wrong and have to be punished. If this person was from another country and let’s say that your country stole something from them or their country, or broke an agreement, then you may be inclined to excuse that by saying “every country looks out for it’s own interests. The law is secondary.” So the same person is often at different levels depending on their proximity to the other person or people.

Also, people advance up these levels by dealing with moral dilemmas they are faced with. This is influence by the dominant level of morality in a society. If that dominant morality says that it’s ok to for one country to arbitrarily impose it’s will on another, then for many people there will be no dilemma around that issue. That’s what most people in their circle believe so that justifies their belief too. It’s only when some conflict or disagreement, triggered either externally or internally, brings the dilemma to someone's attention that a person will have the option to choose to work it through and come to a higher level of understanding. This is a process similar to Hegel’s dialectic, I believe, but what Kohlberg and Piaget and Torbert and all the other’s working in this area have shown is that there are definite stages that all people go through in this development.

 

"so that's your deal...you walk into a bar..recite a few lines from some obscure book to make yourself feel good?? to make fun of my friend?" -- Will Hunting

 

Hey, I’m cutting and pasting, not reciting. Seriously, though, there is a real swing going on back to these more structuralist understandings of human development. There are probably a half dozen or so of the top business theorists who have their own variations of this for different contexts, all of which bear a close resemblance to each other. And in fact if you look at it from a dominant societal level of development, they mirror the development shown in the Bible too. Consider the OT and its early emphasis on tribal order in the importance placed on family relationships and hierarchies and the head of the family or tribe having the final say. Then with the coming of the law there was a legalistic, black and white view of morality. One must obey the letter of the law. Then came the realisation that our imperfections prevent us from living by or judging strictly by the letter of the law and that we must live by the spirit of goodness, and even literally the Spirit of goodness. Pretty cool, eh?

This is an emerging area and all of these theories have their strengths and weaknesses at this point, but more and more people are connecting with them and doing research in this area. It’s not brand new either. Kohlberg’s work was a spin off from Piaget’s work on childhood developmental psychology and Piaget studied under Carl Jung and so his theories have a lot of ties to Jung’s thinking. There are a lot of Buddhists or soft Buddhists doing work in this area now (Ken Wilber, Suzanne Cook-Greuter, maybe even William Torbert, and Peter Senge seems to be dabbing in this area now too) because this kind of thinking connects with their views of increasing levels of consciousness, but there is a Christian author, James Fowler, who has done work in this area from a Christian perspective and there is a ultimately a better fit with Christianity than Buddhism, I would argue. Anyway, I don’t mean to be too heavy but it seemed relevant to the question.

 

Grizzled, you're among my very favorite posters here!! I was just kidding!! I just love that line from Good Will Hunting!

 

I've never read Rousseau, I just used to do a lot of Acid.

I'd always been puzzeled why ethics somehow had to be tied to science in religion. Religion seems to to a good job of defining a course of interaction that promotes the greater good but has always been such a deterent to the advancement of human knowledge.

Then it hit me, sucessful behavior modification always requires the carrot and the stick. And profoundly, the originators of religions discovered that even though there was no real consequence for base behavior on Earth, ie. the fittest will still
survive, they could give the apperance that there were consequences by maintaining the illusion that they knew the unknowable and it told them that the unrightous would spend the eternity after their death paying for their sins.

And it works, as long as you can maintain the illusion. But the advancement of human knowledge makes it harder to maintain the illusion. The Pope has to remain infallible to retain his legitimacy, so after he says the Earth is the center of the solar system, he can't allow the findings of Galileo to gain accetance or he loses his aura.

But wait the subject was Human Nature. Human nature is primarily driven by self preservation. That might evolve in to the formation of societies, for the preservation of the individuals within it and that might evolve to individuals identifying with the society as the self they should try to preserve ie. sacrifice for, but the root is good ole' animal instinct.

 

Thanks Max. I knew you were kidding, and I even recognised the quote.

Um, I’m not quite sure where you’re coming from or going to with this Gene, but people like Piaget and Kohlberg are hard core, research oriented, scientists. I’m not sure that either was spiritual or religious at all. The connection to spirituality (which I’m differentiating here from “religion”) has been made by others who have seen these connections. Jung was spiritual, of course, but he was about as far from an establishment guy as it gets. He even ditched a mentor of his, Freud, because he didn’t think he was honest enough about representing the facts and pursuing truth. You also appear to have some issues with the Catholic Church but I don’t think that’s the issue here. And your last paragraph is actually not that far off from Kohlberg’s position, so it’s not clear to me what your overall point is.

 

I don't think you're right that the Communist revolution made the Chinese less individualistic. I think it is a cultural heritage that far predates the Communists. It fits well with Communism and they don't discourage it, but it likely fit well with the Empire before that too.

I also don't think that it is the case that Americans are individualistic because of the kind of government we had set up long ago. That we set up the government we did is itself a symptom of the individualism. This country began within the context of the Enlightenment and specifically of Social Contract theory. The whole culture (in Western Europe and especially in England and her colonies) was awash in these ideas that men act in their own self-interest. So it affected how we wrote the Constitution. But, it also affects how parents raised their children, how they make city ordinances, how they generally interact with one another. Again, it is a cultural heritage that is not easily shook off.

Which is not to say that the form of government has no effect. I think it is, in fact, a major player in perpetuating the philosophy. People see government -- especially democratic ones -- as an authority in making value judgements. When a thing (like individualism) gets the stamp of approval from the government from how it behaves, it is like getting a stamp of approval from society in general, it becomes "the norm" and reinforces acceptance by the people. So, it was tremendously important in accentuating that element of philosophy that our founding fathers agreed with it and embraced it and wrote it into our founding documents. But, it would be an overstatement to say they somehow invented it.

 

And yet, one of the most selfish and individualistic people we know was born, raised under and is partial to the Chinese Cummunist system.

 

The pope was just an example. All religions I've heard of use the myth of the supernatural to validate their doctrine.

The point was human nature will adapt and adopt behaviors that allow indiviuals to survive and propigate.

Americans embrace individualism because in our recent heritige, educated men were set loose on a virgin and abundant continent where they could best flourish by their own efforts. More mature societies like China require more interdependence.

I think the evolution of governments will eventually lead to the more cooperative forms however, unlike current Chinese system they will be much less centralized because as long as they are not threatend by large forces, individuals feel safer the less removed they are from the control. As long as there are fewer Mongol Hordes, or Nazis looming there will continue to be more tiny Tzurkestans and Herzigovinias wresting away control from the central powers.

 

How about breaking it way down to Dualistic vs Non-Dualisic, Western vs Eastern cultural perspectives?



Each culture has its own way of understanding human existence. That's where part of the confusion comes from. The spiritual teachers you are reading may be from different spiritual traditions. And it is not a matter of only East versus West, but also of multiple interpretations within Asia, Africa, Europe, the Americas, and so on.

It might help to clarify terminology first. In Western psychoanalytic theory, the psyche is made up of three parts: id, ego, and superego. The id, which lies in our unconscious, is the psychic energy of our instinctual needs and drives, such as libido. The superego, which is partly conscious, reflects internalized parental authority and societal rules. Beginning in childhood, we develop an internal system of moral attitudes, conscience, and a sense of guilt. The ego is a kind of conscious mediator helping us to perceive and adapt to reality as the id and superego vie for dominance.

The word "self" is often used as a synonym for ego. Western psychology emphasizes the value of a clear sense of our own identity, a feeling of autonomy, and a healthy dose of self-esteem. Without that strong sense of self, we may not have enough confidence to pursue a spiritual path, career goals, or an intimate relationship, or to persevere through the rough times. When the ego is weak, we are more easily swayed by, even become prey to, those who are more powerful and manipulative, including cult leaders.

But difficulty can arise spiritually when we invest the ego, or self, with too much importance. When we are preoccupied with own activities or needs--procuring that which inflates the ego and avoiding that which deflates it--we become self-centered or egocentric. We think that everything revolves around us, just as our ancestors once believed that all the other planets revolved around the earth. It took Copernicus to set us straight. Similarly, spiritual leaders teach us that the ego is not the only game in town. It's also not what it appears to be.

The underlying problem is in what we understand the ego to be and what we associate with it. Remember French philosopher René Descartes' famous line: "I think, therefore I am." Many of us identify the self with the mind. The Western idea that the mind is what makes us unique is what sets us apart from nature and aspects of ourselves. Look at the language. We never say: "I breathe (walk, eat, or digest), therefore I am." Nor do we say: "I am a headache (stomach, face, or two legs)." Instead, we say: "I have a headache (stomach, face, or two legs)." How can it be that our whole idea of self is that we are the mind but we have a body. The physical is relegated to being like the rest of nature--separate and other.

Hayao Kawai, the first Jungian analyst to practice in Japan, was shocked when he first encountered the Western ego as an "I" that is utterly distinct from all that is not "I." In comparison, Buddhist thinking understands the self as relational, as a system of causal interaction or interdependence. Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, coined the word "interbeing" to convey this idea that nothing exists solely and separately on its own.

Some spiritual traditions do not set up a duality between mind and body, but a complementarity, as in yin and yang. Mind and body are not static entities but a dynamic psychophysical process. The self is not limited to being a mental function. It is an ongoing sensory, affective, and cognitive interaction with the world. For example, the Buddha taught that the self is simply an ever-changing coming together of five aggregates--matter or form (body); mental and physical sensations (emotions or feeling); perceptions; volitions or karmic forces; and consciousness. To get attached to any one of these aspects as "self" is to misunderstand the fluid nature of human existence. Inevitably, the result is some form of dissatisfaction. Any time we hold on to what can't possibly stay the same, we're bound to feel the pain of loss and disappointment.

The ego or self does not have to be a source of negativity. We don't have to make it an enemy to be vanquished. Isn't spiritual practice about compassion rather than hatred? Doesn't spiritual and psychological transformation come about through embracing and accepting rather than rejecting? More helpful is changing our view of self. We can understand its conventional usefulness as the subject of actions--the necessary "I," "me," and "mine" of ordinary conversation. But, upon closer examination during intensive meditation practice, we can also realize that there's no separate "self." It dissolves into everything else, and everything else dissolves into it.

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/66/story_6658.html

A human being is part of a whole, called by us the ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
~Albert Einstein

 

Some really interesting and deep stuff.

I'll try to keep my response short.

Being Chinese-American I can appreciate the both sides but I'm also leery of stereotyping either culture as being the quintessentials of individualism vs. collectivism.

There is a saying in China "when the money is flowing the Emperor is far away." So while the Chinese have a history of submittal of the invidual to society many Chinese also recognize the need for individual achievement and even greed. At the same time while we like to think of America as being founded by rugged individualist there has also been a great tradition of collective utopian groups who came here so they could live in more peaceful and harmonious societies than the corrupt capitalistic societies of 19th and 18th C. Europe.

I think it all comes down to balance and that every society figures it out eventually or keeps swinging back and forth. The Chinese have a long history of authoritarianism but also have a long history of revolution and radical movements. The US is still a relatively new country but even here we see swings from greater government to more individual freedoms.