Human Nature

Question 1

What is Karl Marx’s perspective on innate human nature?

Answer 1

• Humans are social beings, identity is gained from being within a society.
• Labour is desired by humans because it provides social and individual satisfaction, the individual satisfaction derives from the social.

Question 2

Who argues that it is human nature to be selfish and focused on the individual?

Answer 2

• Thomas Hobbes
• In his Leviathan he states that “life is poor, nasty, brutish and short.”
• Claims that humans are innately selfish and require government control.
• Laws are logical conclusions not moral maxims.

Question 3

How does Tolstoy disagree with Karl Marx, and how can he be countered?

Answer 3

• Tolstoy states that humans avoid labour because they are innately lazy.
• However, this would lead to alienation from self because it would lead humans to feel dispensable.
• Humans were naturally encouraged towards cooperation, hence why Karl argues that communism applies more to humans than capitalism does.

Question 4

Why has Marxism always failed in the past ? (Objection to Karl Marx)

Answer 4

• Imposed by authority rather than the majority deciding to be a collective (disempowering and authoritarian)
• Reduces socialism

Question 5

Who argues that human identities are the result of interactions?

Answer 5

• Hannah Arendt
• Identity is created from the effect we have on the world (words and deeds).
• No complete control over identity because it is based on interactions with others

Question 6

What is Jean Paul Sartre’s approach to human nature ?

Answer 6

• Argues that there is no fixed human nature / purpose
• “existence precedes essence”
• Humanity derives from authenticity (“the full and proper acceptance of what it means to be human, because in the end, each person is condemned to be free”).
• Complete moral responsibility of actions

Question 7

What does John Stuart Mill argue?

Answer 7

• Argues for diversity
• A diversity of different lifestyles will allow people to discover better ways to live
• “Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing”.