A Proof That Abstract Human Nature Does Not Exist

[乾坤一张纸，一字一星辰] posted on 2003-07-22 21:44:30

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"At birth, human nature is inherently good"—or swap a word, "inherently evil," or "a mix of good and evil," and so on. There are many possible formulations, but in reality they are all nonsensical drivel. All sermons about so-called human nature must first have a premise: the existence of said human nature. So, does human nature exist?

So-called human nature, according to those who believe in it, refers to qualities that every person in reality possesses. Here lies a problem: what is a "person"? If you believe that humans evolved, then the definition of "person" has a temporal dimension, and all definitions become helpless in the face of time. Even if you broaden "person" to "living being," the above discussion still holds. The only way to salvage this is to assume that what makes a person a person is some quality that determines their personhood, a quality that does not change with time, and then define this quality as "human nature." If so, one faces two choices: 1. There is no such thing as evolution—for example, believing in God's creation of man or in reincarnation dependent on the soul. 2. Evolution exists, but since this quality is assumed to be time-independent and unchanging, and from an evolutionary perspective one must trace back to atoms or even further, human nature derives from the nature of matter and is identical to it. In that case, everything would be "human." Therefore, under the premise of evolution, a human nature distinct from the nature of matter does not exist. In summary, once we assume this unchanging human nature exists, we face two choices: 1. God's creation of man or reincarnation dependent on the soul (it must be noted here that Buddhism does not acknowledge this kind of reincarnation dependent on the soul; this scenario has nothing to do with Buddhism. Therefore, this case can be more simply stated as: acknowledging the existence of an immortal soul). 2. A human nature identical to the nature of matter.

For the first case, human nature or its vessel is the immortal soul. Since it must be distinguished from the second case, this thing cannot be material. Then there are two sub-cases: 1. This thing intervenes in our everyday reality. 2. This thing does not intervene in our everyday reality. For sub-case 1, this thing's intervention cannot possibly produce identical corresponding effects on every person. Because if it produced identical corresponding effects on every person, then all people in the same situation should have similar reactions, which clearly contradicts reality. Therefore, even if this thing exists, it either does not intervene in our everyday reality, or even if it does, it would not produce identical corresponding effects on every person. In other words, this thing cannot in reality serve as a common premise meaningful to all people. And since believers in so-called human nature define it as qualities that every person in reality possesses, this immortal soul, even if it exists, has nothing to do with human nature.

For the second case, human nature is identical to the nature of matter. Therefore, all human behavior relates to some physical property, and all people in the same situation should also have similar reactions. But this clearly contradicts reality—human behavior cannot be entirely and unconditionally reduced to purely material influences like physics and chemistry. This means the second case also does not hold.

Summarizing the above analysis: the kind of human nature that believers in so-called human nature refer to—qualities that every person in reality possesses—does not exist. It is all nonsense. Therefore, our only choice is: to acknowledge that in reality there is no human nature that applies to everyone, meaning that human nature is related to history, to society, to class, and so on. Only in this sense can we meaningfully discuss so-called human nature.