Recall...

Question: Why evil? How does it originate?

A number of views.

Mengzi:

Human Nature is fundamentally good

We have innate tendencies that develop (in society) into virtues

Evil is the result of a developmental failure in healthy human nature.

Xunzi:

Human Nature is fundamentally evil

Evil human nature is transformed through ritual and moral education.

Evil is the result of human nature being unconstrained by socialization.

A crucial shared assumption:

Humans have natures

What does that mean?

Maybe: a set of statistically common traits?

Most chickens are caged, but that's not their nature.

Most humans live outside of the united states, but that's not their nature.

Maybe: a set of traits held at birth?

Most babies are smaller than 15 lbs, but being smaller than 15 lbs is not part of human nature.

Most babies are born outside the US, but that's not part of human nature.

Maybe: a set of traits that we'd have “outside of society”?

Pugs would probably starve if forced to live outside of society. But starving to death isn't part of their nature.

Couldn't living in society actually be part of human nature?

A nature is supposed to be something that explains why you tend to do things, and does so in terms of the kind of creature you are.

It's also supposed to offer a “more than mechanical” explanation.

It explains not just what you tend to do, but what you naturally ought to do.

Because, remember:

Something can have more than one explanation.

It might be true that I feel happy in my wife's presence because seeing her triggers a reaction in my hippocamus that causes the release of oxytocin.

But it's also true that I feel happy in my wife's presence because I love her.

So, a nature is whatever does the job of giving a more than mechanical explanation of why you do things, and what you naturally ought to do, in terms of the kind of creature you are.

Is there actually anything like that?

Is human nature even a thing?

Sartre and Existentialism

Satre, like Arendt, was shaped by his experiences during the Nazi occupation of France.

Trained as a philosopher,

Served as a meteorologist for the french army in WWII

Spent 9 months as a POW, then helped organized French resistance during the occupation.

Post-war, worked as a writer and political activist

Was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in spite of trying to turn it down.

Sartre's basic philosophical background:

Post-Empiricist Phenomenology

Empiricism (one version)

All ideas come from sense experience, and you ought to look only to sense experience for information about the world.

But what about non-sensory experience? Emotion, cognition...

Phenomenology (one version)

All ideas come from sensory and non-sensory experience, and you ought to look only to experience for information about the world.

Phenomenologicial Method

To learn about the world, carefully examine and describe the objects of your experience, as well as the ways in which those objects are disclosed to you. Don’t assume that anything outside of your experiences exists.

What kinds of things should we not assume exist?

Key Example: The self

When do you experience the self?

When you look in the mirror?

No, that's your face

(or your body).

When you “hear” your thoughts?

No, those are just experiences - they come and go.

What you're looking for is the thing that produces the thoughts.

But there's no proof that they're all produced by a “single entity”, any more than there's proof that the sounds you hear with your ears are all from a single source.

So why do we believe in a self?

Sartre's hypothesis

We believe in a self because it's kind of soothing. We often make stuff up that pleases us, when there are no obvious bad consequences of doing so.

Why is it soothing?

Because it helps us hide from our freedom.

(More on this in a moment.)

To understand better, let's pretend for a moment that there is no self.

More generally, let's pretend that there's nothing that “causes” or “explains” our actions in the more-than-mechanical sense.

No self, no nature, no soul, no propensities - nothing we don't experience.

What then happens when we're faced with a decision?

None of these things are around to explain what we do.

So, as we experience it, if we're totally honest about our experiences, our choice could be anything. Nothing in our experience forces us to choose one way or another.

Subjectively, we're absolutely entirely free.

Like, for example, you're choosing your major.

You're free to choose between marketing, leadership...

Or philosophy?

“… But I can't …”

Yes you can!

Not upsetting your parents is a choice. You're an adult, you're free to upset them.

If you upset them, you're responsible for that.

But if you choose a major you hate, just because you're afraid, you're also responsible for that.

You don't even have to stay in college!

“… But I have to …”

No, you don't.

You don't have to do what other people do.

You're free to forge your own path.

Nothing is stopping you from walking out that door and never coming back.

Maybe it'd be a mistake.

Maybe it'd be the best choice you ever made.

You could leave.

Right.

This.

Second.

Or you could stay.

Either way, you're responsible for the freely made decision, and for the results of that decision.

And this is where the self, or human nature, or the strength of your soul comes in. It's an illusion that helps us cope with the infinite scope of our freedom, by letting us pretend that most of it is out of reach.

Sartre explains this point of view with a slogan:

Existence precedes Essence.

Meaning:

You exist and do stuff, and that explains why you are a certain way, not vice versa.

You're a coward because you don't act bravely, rather than not acting bravely because you're a coward.

When we pretend that our essences precede our existence - that they are not determined by what we choose, but instead they determine what we choose, we are are engaged in a form of self-deception that Sartre calls Bad Faith.

Bad faith can be a soothing way of kidding yourself whether you pretend that your essence is good, or you think that it is bad.

Example

Hiding Behind a Bad Essence

If you think that your essence rather than your choices, determines what you do, then you can try to hide from the consequences of your choices.

Example

Hiding Behind a Good Essence

If you think that your essence is not determined by what you do, then you can find consolation in your “good heart”, even as you do terrible things.

The “inward émigrés”

An A-Student with a C.

Summary

According to Sartre, there is no human nature.

We can't find it in experience, inward or outward.

Instead, it's something we make up to hide from freedom and the associated responsibility.