Bel Guinle

Block: 6

To what extent should we use our own humanity to study human behavior?

Humanity: “humanness; benevolence.” Humanity: “The fact or condition of being human; human nature.” Out of all definitions of humanity these two seemed to e the ones that matched the question the best and since I cannot decide which one is the better one I will attempt to answer the question using both definitions. However, since the definitions differ, so might the answers. If we start with the former definition an important assumption is made: one characteristic of a human is their benevolence. This implies that since is it a characteristic of humanity and humanness, it is consequently an essential quality for the distinction between what is human and what is not. Being able to act kindly, therefore, should – according to that definition – be a common trait to humans. Thus, the question could be asking, to what extent should we use our benevolence to study human behavior? The answer to that question ties in to emotion since empathy and our ability to relate to another human being is involved. When the question is phrased with this definition of humanity I think it is asking us to use our mirror neurons. Through research, neuroscience has found that whenever we see someone else who is sad or upset, our mirror neurons are triggered and that allows us to feel empathy – to put ourselves in that person’s shoes. Using empathy to study human behavior would allow us to see it through a subjective and specific lens: our own. As soon as we try to understand what someone else’s sadness feels like, we are relating it to what sadness feels to us because that is the only sadness we know. By analyzing human behavior through the use of benevolence and empathy, we are generating story knowledge of our own. To some extent that is good, because we will be able to reach conclusions that take into consideration people’s feelings and well-being rather than practicality alone. On the other hand, generating story knowledge limits us to seeing just the specificity of the situation and since we can only know our what we’ve experienced we can’t exactly generate story knowledge for the person being observed, though we can imagine. Since we are analyzing human behavior it seems fit that humanness would be a pre-requisite but if we stop to think about it, in biology, to study koalas you don’t have to be a koala (bad analogy but the point makes sense). Maybe the exact thing that makes us relate to the subjects of our study is what’s getting in the way of reaching an appropriate conclusion. If we stop to think about it, how can we study human behavior when we participate in such actions? We aren’t outsiders – maybe to specific actions but not to human behavior as a whole or else we wouldn’t be humans. But even if that is true we can’t stop being humans so maybe the way out of the trap is using our humanness to decode ourselves. If we use benevolence to understand human behavior we will be trying to relate to another human being, reach conclusions about his actions and – though probably not being able to generalize to other people – we will generate knowledge. Knowing more about that person specifically could be relevant; even though it doesn’t give us insights to human behavior as a whole, it does allow us to understand specificities and differences between people, which can be very useful. But this is only one way to see the question.

Taking into consideration the other definition of humanity, which is simply being human, a lot of possibilities are open to answer the question. But first we have to consider what makes us human? If our DNA is 99% identical to those of chimps, is it the 1% that makes so much difference or is there something else that natural sciences can’t explain? For some time we’ve been distinguished from other animals by our ability to use tools, to make fire and to bury our dead. The former of the three has been proven to no longer be exclusive to humans, since chimps (and even otters) use raw tools. While the two latter ones may be true, it is hard to see how much they actually contribute to our being human. The problem with these questions however, is that they generate a search for something special that will set humans apart from other animals – that will prove our superiority. Mythologies, religions and other personal beliefs lead us to think we are the dominating race and that we are the dominating race for a purpose. In our search for the confirmation of that belief – that we want so much to be true, we find ourselves making confirmation bias. Suddenly larger brains, funerals and making fire make us better, set us apart. If we take all of that into consideration when answering the question then does the question become: to what extent should we use the abilities exclusive to humans and that set us apart from other animals to study human behavior? If we had to consider the abilities only exclusive to us, we would have to exclude empathy and other emotions, reflexes, and basically several abilities we have developed over time. We, humans, are not the only ones who have mirror neurons; one of the earlier studies on mirror neurons was made on monkeys. Anyone who has a dog or cat (maybe even a fish but I wouldn’t know) can see that they have emotions – you know when your dog is sad, thankful or happy. Reflexes are also not exclusive to us; when you pretend to throw a ball your dog will try to run for it but will stop when he sees it in your hand again. Clearly what makes us humans composes a lot of other animals too so we can’t exclude that and focus only on what is exclusive to us. So “human nature” in this blog answer will mean anything and everything that is characteristic to humans (exclusively or not). Since that doesn’t relate to kindness and benevolence only, the opposite of those indifference and dislike (or hate but hate might be too strong) can be used to study human behavior. The benefits of using indifference is a more objective point of view, if we feel nothing towards that person we will be able to assess their behavior as an outsider, not caring about how that will affect him/her. Studying someone with hate might have the inverse benefits of studying someone with kindness; we will try to find a way to see that what the person is doing is wrong and though that doesn’t sound like a benefit if what the person is doing is actually wrong (if there is such thing) we will catch up on it earlier. In both ways we analyze and study human behavior with feelings linked to it, confirmation bias will be more present; we will either be cheering for that person or against him/her and that could be an issue in several instances – especially when you are trying to reach a conclusion that you can later extrapolate to other people. However, other human qualities are important to be able to study human behavior. Observation, analysis, logic – all of these are needed when studying almost anything (human behavior being no exception to that). The ability to look at something and draw conclusions or to know which variables to control and what to study – all of these characteristics are part of our knowledge, which is essentially part of our “condition of being human” (also known as humanity).

Since both ways to analyze the word humanity (and how it relates to the question) have been unpacked, now I can attempt to answer the question itself. “To what extent should we use our own humanity to study human behavior?” I could try to unpack the meaning of study and human behavior but that would take two other entire essays – so let’s make them as premises. Given that human behavior means behavior performed by humans and that study means an investigation/analysis of a subject, “To what extent should we use our own humanity to study human behavior?” I think that when answering the question with the second definition of humanity the answer (though I am not too fond of the word) is always. We should always use our observation, analysis, logic and other skills that seem fit to the situation. It doesn’t mean we should use all of them every time, but there is no way to not use them. There would be no way for a human to perform an investigation if he/she can’t observe and draw conclusions. So I think, that we should always use the “condition of being human” when studying human behavior. Now looking at it through the benevolence lens, I think that it might not always be useful to see the best in every situation, especially when analyzing human behavior. Milgram’s experiment shows, for example, that even nice, sweet people end up shocking others if an authority figure tells them to. If he had used his benevolence in that experiment, maybe he wouldn’t have taken the precautions of making it fake shocks; if he been kind and trusted that others would be too, many people could have died from being shocked. Instead, he used actors and didn’t actually connect wires. Thus, I don’t think benevolence should always be used when studying human behavior but if it won’t affect results or harm anyone I think (at least most people) can benefit from kindness.

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