Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Predestination and Rationality

Kant states, “Everything in nature works according to laws. Only a rational being has the power to act according to his conception of laws, i. e., according to principles, and thereby has he a will” (Translation from Popular Morality to a Metaphysics of Morals, 23). This essentially means that only rational beings are capable of acting on their own accord and are not strictly subject to laws that govern everything that is itself not rational. It is freedom of will which allows humans to make their own decisions and this separates us from everything on earth. A table, for instance, is governed by the law of gravity, Newton’s laws, etc, and the table is incapable of changing any of this. Animals too, which seem to come closest to having a will, exhibiting some level of awareness, are ultimately, we say, governed by instinct. We do not say that a loin chooses to attack a lamb and therefore is somehow responsible for its action. We instead attribute this to nature, to the laws that govern the instincts of loins in general. This singular lion’s action is neither rational nor irrational because it does not possess the capacity for rationality. The action comes not from the lion, but ultimately from laws of nature.

Humans are the single example of rationality on Earth. Because of this, any action in this world that is not caused or related to a human is natural. This is because any of these actions must be governed strictly according to natural laws. For this reason, and for my hypothesis, human beings (or more universally, rational beings) are the only reason the world is not absolutely predetermined. Everything else is subject to the laws of nature and because of this, incapable of changing its future of its own doing. The first creature to crawl out of the ocean and onto land did not do so out of its own capacity, it was lead by instinct. The dinosaurs did not become extinct because they chose to burn too much carbon and thus disrupted the carbon cycle, which lead to a global climate change and their own demise. No, everything in nature is governed by natural law, and for this reason it is impossible for natural events to occur any other way. Everything must follow these laws; nothing is capable of making a decision contrary to this; everything in nature is predetermined. Humans, while necessarily originally coming from nature, have the capacity for reason and decisions. We are the only other force on Earth which can determine and alter its destiny.

10 comments:

  1. Cole,

    This post is really interesting, I never though about humans being the only animals that truly control our destiny. I do think that a lot of 'natural laws' govern our actions, yet we strive to overcome them. Humans are constantly fighting gravity by flying in planes and plastic surgery. But there are some natural laws that are necessary for all organisms to follow, regardless if they have free will. Humans seem to have chosen the laws that are appealing to them, and continually work to shed the ones that are hampering.

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  2. We may believe that our actions are determined by a uniquely human type of reason, and in some cases I would agree with you. However, our reason is sometimes more instinctual than we may think. For example, some scientists have argued that there are biological reasons for certain fears, such as a human tendency to be afraid of spiders. This could be an adaptive biological trait to keep humans from being bitten by poisonous spiders. Another example is how traits such as "learned helplessness" are found in both animals and humans in many psychological studies.

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  3. Cole, I think I agree with your idea that humans are perhaps the only animals capable of "altering destiny," and I think Kant would too. I think this claim fits well with Kant's idea of autonomy and "intelligible" (as opposed to the more animalistic "sensible") decisions as they pertain to understanding his notion of duty.

    Like Virginia, however, I would disagree with your claim that humans are the Earth's only rational creatures. Certainly we peg them with being more driven by immediate needs, etc, but it seems they no doubt use reason to achieve these impulses. Even dogs, for example, seem to have some kind of logical capacity, which we can see in their ability to learn to perform unnatural tricks at the request of a treat-supplying human.

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  4. We are not totally excluded from natural laws, of course. We are driven by natural needs, such as hunger, and we are subject to gravity, even when we are in a plane. However, reason is what allows us to distance ourselves from many laws that govern other creatures.

    And yes, dogs are capable of being conditioned, but this is only through the manipulation of humans. Dogs, as well as everything else, are completely subject to natural order or human intervention.

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  5. I would disagree and say that dogs can condition one another, and even have the ability to condition humans as well. I am not trying to argue that humans do not have a higher intellect than non- human animals, but merely that what humans consider to be uniquely human reason is sometimes not as unique as we think.

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  6. I think that this is a very interesting post, and one that will probably never be fully agreed upon. I do, however, agree that humans have the ability to choose their paths. I think that many animals are probably subject to natural instinct, but I don't agree that humans are the only beings on the earth with the capacity to change destiny. Maybe animals do have a free will, but they are unable to overcome their natural instinct, where, we as humans are intellectually able to make a decision along with the natural instincts that are in each of our beings. I am not sure if that makes sense, but I am just unable to state that animals don't have free will. It seems that there must be something else driving their motives than natural instinct.

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  7. Another way of looking at this that does not involve the debatable topic of the free will of animals is it seems to me that humans are the only creatures that can mess up the natural harmony. In last night's lecture, Homer-Dixon said that humans now move roughly ten times the amount of earth that nature does. We have almost the same influence on the earth that nature itself does. It is becoming more and more clear that we are out of sync with nature and this is causing detrimental effects on the environment. We hold no other creature responsible for its actions against nature because its actions are natural. Because of our free will we have the capacity to act against the natural order. A beaver may dam up a river and cause massive flooding but we regard this as natural and not detrimental to nature (although it could easily be detrimental to humans). However, humans are capable (as Homer-Dixon mentioned last night) of completely destroying flourishing ecosystems.

    Or maybe there is no natural order. Or maybe, while it seems contrary, humans are actually in sync (n sync?) with nature because how could we not be? Still, the evidence before me seems to argue that humans possess something unique to this planet that, for better or for worse, which allows us some sort of freedom from some sort of natural order.

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  8. Cole, I agree with your statements about human beings controlling our own destiny. We do have to abide by the natural laws that apply to ourselves, or we too will end up like the prehistoric beings. Although we have the most intellligence and impact on the world there are some parts of nature we have to respect. I also agree with your argument that we are the only rational beings on the world. I think Travis is right saying animals are able to perform intelligent tasks for their masters, but I think the means to the end are different. If a dog performs a task they do it to be awarded with a treat or to please their master. I don't think animals are able to grasp and dwell on the consequences of their actions like we do.

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  9. Additionally, I would add that humans are the only beings capable of duty. We are the only creatures capable of treating others as an ends rather than a means. Thus we are the only creatures capable of morality. Subsequently, I find it safe to assume human's the only possible immoral beings. This unique position lends itself nicely to the suggestion that acting morally is the only truly important function of humankind.

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  10. I really enjoyed reading this post and the comments below it. Like people said before me, I had never thought of us as being earth's only rational creatures, or at least not in so many words. However, I wonder if by framing your claim in this way, you are trying to say that humans are outside or separate from all things natural? Because to say that we exist in a way that is contrary to the natural ways of everything else is to say we are fundamentally separate from the world around us. I would disagree with that claim. I would say that perhaps our rationality is another layer in the natural order of things. For example, gazelle and rabbits and such run away from predators by instinct. Plants are limited in that they cannot run away. Both are natural. In the same way, I would say that while animals are limited in that they cannot reason like we do, both of us are natural. I don't think it makes much sense to place ourselves outside of the natural order of things.

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