Defining what it means to be human

I read an interesting article that included a small discussion on how we’ve defined humans. As an egocentric species that has a history of viewing ourselves at the center of the universe, it comes as no surprise that there have been several theories espousing how we are different than any other living being. Similar to the myths of the Earth as the center of the universe or even our solar system, it also comes as no surprise that most of these have been refuted.

A few of the examples of this line of thinking are poignantly provided in the article. “In the last century, the formerly sharp lines separating humans from animals – our monopolies on language, reason, toolmaking, culture, even self-consciousness – have been blurred, one after another, as science has granted these capabilities to other animals.”

Yet, it’s hard to shake the intuitive feeling that we are different. Just look at the world around us on Earth – there has to be something.

Obviously, you can become so nuanced as to make the difference meaningless, as this article describes:

“Are humans special and thus apart from animals? The evolutionary view of human capacities is that they have precursors in ancestral traits, and these precursors can be found in other animals. Dogs, corvids, cetaceans, primates, and a host of other animals display moral, cognitive and conscious behaviour. Humans are special indeed in their capacities. But…so are all other animals. The word ‘special’ is merely the adjectival form of ‘species’. To be a species is to be special. Sure, humans are special in their own way. So is a cat, a mole or a mouse. If the target of your explanation was a mouse, then you would explain it having its abilities and social behaviours in terms of evolved dispositions inherited from ancestors. You may as well say a mouse is special in ways other animals (including humans) are not. Otherwise we couldn’t even tell it was a member of a species, by definition. Unless there are properties that mark it out from other species, it would be folded into other species.

So too with humans. If we were not different in our traits from other primate species like chimps, then we would be chimps. But we have our own special traits, and so we and chimps are distinct species. So the argument is a kind of fallacy (affirming the consequent). Humans can be special and yet be animals, just like every other animal species.”

At the risk of falling into this trap and defining something that is too nuanced to provide meaning, let me throw my own separation into the mix: I believe what separates humans from any other species in a marked way is our ability to understand our own evolution and consciously play a role in it.

When I think about what makes humans seem so fundamentally different, this is it. We understand our origins, have actively and purposefully played a role in the evolution of other species (e.g. genetically modified crops, dog breeding), and are now even on the cusp of taking our own evolutionary path into our own hands.

Actually, though, to play devil’s advocate to my own thoughts, we only really understood evolution in the 1800s. Does that mean we were not anything special before that? In fact, I would argue, we weren’t…while we may have been more technologically equipped, we had no more ability to play “God” than any other species. Now, it feels fundamentally different. Though maybe I am falling victim to the same fallacy…I’m still undecided.