This small and elegant book has four chapters, of which the first three were given by Scruton as lectures at Princeton University in 2013. It may be read, I think, either as a book on human nature or as a collection of papers on four relatively separate topics treated in four chapters which are about (i) humankind, (ii) human relations, (iii) moral life, and (iv) sacred obligations. I would rather favour the latter option. It seems to me to be an option more sympathetic to Scruton, who warns the reader that the book is “at best a summary of [his] views and do[es] not in any way deal with all the difficulties that will occur to the attentive reader” (vii)[[1]].

Chapter 1 deals with the question of defining humankind. Scruton indicates animal and other than animal features, encapsulated within the category of person. If human beings are not just animals they must present elements not defined by biology. It follows that there is a distinction between genetics and culture: whereas the former reproduces genes, the latter reproduces societies. To prove that human beings are not reducible to pure animal nature, Scruton looks for elements unexplainable by genetic competition. The case he exploits as, as he says, a specifically human aspect is laughter. In this respect he remarks that “what a thing is” is not the same as “how it came to be” (19), and, for this reason, genetics, while informing about the latter, has few things to say about the former. As it stands, laughter is what makes the difference between humans and animals. Next Scruton comes to blame and then to what he calls (after Dennett) “a higher level of intentionality” (36). Laughter, blame and a higher level of intentionality all contribute to the concept of person as the agent: “[t]he concept of the person, and its attendant idea of first-person awareness, is part of the phenomenon and not to be eliminated by the science that explains it.” (43)

I wonder, however, how convincing Scruton’s examples are. Let us take laughter. Is Scruton not committed here to a simplification insofar as we meet a wide range of laughter? Not all kinds of laughter are exclusively human on the one hand, and not all humans surpass animal nature when laughing on the other hand? Is it really the case that in each single instance laughter “expresses an ability to accept our all-too-human inadequacies” (20)? Instead of drawing distinctions in this respect Scruton develops a circular argument, since any laughter which departs from his standard is considered by him to be “a deviation from the central case” (20). Occasionally, instead of a person (or human being) Scruton speaks of “every self-conscious being” (32). But again: is every human being “self-conscious being”? The same, I believe, may be said about blame. Since it is related to responsibility it would be too much to say that all human beings are responsible or responsible equally. Here again, within human kind we observe such individual variations that one may be tempted to ask whether responsibility actually is their common denominator. I think that Scruton provides a much more convincing argument for viewing human beings as not only animals when he deals with interpersonal relationships. In fact, most individuals have some, regardless of their nature and quality, which seems not to be the case for animals. (Scruton says more on human relations in Chapter 2 and, also, from another point of view, in Chapter 4.)

In conclusion, Scruton locates human nature’s apartness in religion, philosophy, and higher purposes of art. If so, a similar objection may again be raised: are all people really interested at all or are they all equally interested in these activities? And, from an historical point of view: have all generations of humans since the origin of the human species been equally interested in them? Surely not, and if not then these activities cannot stand for a definitional criterion for human nature or we should distinguish subspecies within a human species, e.g. those who are the most creative and those who are the most destructive[[2]]. Otherwise this chapter leaves us with features of human nature inadequately grasped: too general, unrealistic and too optimistic. Fortunately, it is amended by what Scruton says in Chapter 2, and, more especially, in Chapter 4.

Chapter 2 touches upon human relations. In it Scruton draws on Martin Buber’s concept of the “I-You relation” which generates responsibility, freedom, guilt and blame – and, I think, also several others, alas not mentioned here. These four are especially important for the moral dialogue between two people. Accordingly, in what follows the analysis of “the first-person case” is limited to a social context insofar as “the self is a social product” (52). But I am not sure if all will agree with reducing the first-person case to this aspect only. What, for instance, about the first-person perspective in non-personal relations, say, experiencing art and music, contemplating nature or transcendence, however it be understood, and the activity of meta-feeling and meta-thinking generally? Scruton himself considers such cases, e.g. being in pain (see 53) or referring to “myself [as] something other than the human being to whom you refer when you point at me […]” (55). It seems that I simpliciter and I in the I-You relation could be better distinguished, especially since the latter provides I with a different content than the former. Yet Scruton follows Hegel’s idea of “self-consciousness depend[ing] upon the recognition accorded to the self by the other” (56). Well, as it stands the concept of I turns out to be no more nor less than relational. While this is perhaps a useful move for the sake of determining human nature as different from animal nature, given that animals do not share personal relations, it may be detrimental to I taken as an ontic concept since a similar move deprives I of its ontic autonomy.

In order to grasp the gap between other animals and humans Scruton introduces “the overreaching intentionality of interpersonal attitudes”, which is to “look into the other, in search of that unattainable horizon from which he or she addresses us.” (66) This is to say that a human being is enriched by another I and by a relation with that person. Later, however, Scruton mentions contrasting cases such as rape and pornography – which are, in Scruton’s view, examples of “decentering the passions” (73). Yet he does so in a slightly mysterious way insofar as in this context he speaks about “forces that impinge on me from outside” (73) without explaining what exactly “outside” stands for here. I would expect an analysis of recentering and decentering of the passions on similar grounds rather than, as I understand it, ascribing recentering of the passions to human nature and while their decentering to some external factor. Only in Chapter 4 will Scruton focus on contrasting cases in which not enrichment but injury occurs, or even a complete destruction of I by another I.

Chapter 3 is about moral life. It presupposes a free individual with a diachronic identity so that she “take[s] responsibility for [her] past and make promises for the future […]” (81). An agency thus understood amounts to, what Scruton calls, “the deep individuality”, a subject of moral emotions. Such moral emotions differ significantly from behavioral adaptations by establishing “institutions concerning the avoidable and the unavoidable” (84), for example forgiveness, and also pollution and taboo, and, finally, common-law justice, all of which are not known in the animal world.

This is where, in my opinion, the best of Scruton’s book starts. He offers arguments against the consequentalist position which considers all moral problems as arithmetical. This position mistaken since, for instance, a parent cannot have the same approach to his own and to other children. The reason is that by engendering a child a parent took on an engagement which should not be nullified. Since such relationship has the form of a personal obligation, a parent in relation to his child stands as a parent-cum-adult, while in relation to an unknown child he is only an adult. The two positions are not comparable. By analogy, childcarers who are responsible for a group of children are in a different position than for which they are not responsible. Now imagine a childcarer who abandons the group of 10 for which he is responsible in order to take care of another group of 11, or a doctor who leaves his patient during surgery because he realizes that he may save two or more other lives at that same moment. And more absurd and worse situations are imaginable. Thus arithmetic works only in non-engagement contexts, when a human is in a relationship to another human qua human with no other qualification added to the relationship.

Scruton also makes another interesting and important point: “[t]he best of intentions can lead to the worst of results” (96), with Lenin and Mao as examples, though I am not sure if intentions are to be judged on the same level as consequences, and if Lenin and Mao really had good intentions. I think one may reasonably doubt whether they both based their actions on calculation made to the best of their knowledge. Nonetheless, Scruton says that consequentialism is untenable because “values are many and in tension with each other” (96), and too often we (a university professor included, see 104) are technically incapable, or we lack data, in order to calculate correctly, especially if we want to obtain the best result in the long run. This is why the optimific principle is rather a sort of wishful thinking. Scruton’s conclusion to this chapter is Aristotelian: “it is a hard thing to practice” (112 – compare EN 1109a: “it is hard to find the middle point in anything”, transl. H. Rackham), though Aristotle is somewhat misinterpreted since a virtuous man in his theory is a man who not only, as Scruton puts it, “pursue[s] what reason recommends […] so that only [sic!] the call of duty can be heard” (100-101), but who must also enjoy doing so and this is the mark of his virtue (see EN 1104b).

The last chapter seems to me the best both in itself and as a part of the whole book, because it balances what was put forward in Chapter 2, for instance. Although its title is Sacred obligations, it is, in fact, about the destruction of subject, person, or self. The chapter makes an important case about human beings being embodied and about the consequences of this (e.g. “erotic and familial emotions” (116)) and also about, so to speak, the existential aspect of human life: “[w]e are bound by ties that we never chose […]” (116). Scruton says that human embodiment and life situation have an impact on “how unchosen obligations are shaped and justified, and how the experiences of evil and the sacred contribute to our overall consciousness of what matters.” (117) For instance, he remarks that consent used as the standard criterion of legitimacy in human relationships may be “obtained by manipulation or the abuse of power” (119) and this is why it does not constitute a condition for legitimacy, especially when defilement and desecration of a human being take place. Scruton first deals with cases of sexual abuse and, next, with cases of more general evil. He makes a distinction between people “merely bad” and those “who are evil” (134). The latter are systematic destroyers with a mission of destroying humanity everywhere. This mission is instantiated in torture, humiliation, degradation and death. Evil people are those who “eradicate the humanity of their victims” (138) as happened in death camps. This chapter nuances the optimism of Chapter 2. However, a question may then arise about the scope of human nature: does the human species include evil people as well? If so, only the criterion of sharing personal relationships is valid for defining the human species – and if not then Scruton should tell us more about what evil people are to the human species.

In many passages Scruton mentions emotions. For instance, “emotions that lie beyond the repertoire of other animals: indignation, resentment, and envy; admiration, commitment, and praise […]” (25). It would be interesting to know more about how Scruton understands and interprets this province of the mental domain, though. The book, as I understand it, can be summarized thus: what is undeniably human are personal relationships. This is because they are only human on the one hand, and common to all humans on the other. Yet personal relationships, being an exclusively human feature, are double-edged: through them humanity gets the best and the worst while animals neither attain the transcendence of another I nor organize systematic genocides.

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[[1]] For further reading he suggests his The Soul of the World (2014).

[[2]] As readers of Plato may have learnt, Socrates famously claimed that only a part of humanity is aware of their ignorance – these are philosophers – and many others do not even know that they are ignorant – and so are simple people.

 

© 2017 Robert Zaborowski

 

Robert Zaborowski, thymos2001@yahoo.fr, University of Warmia and Mazury