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

At first when I saw the question at hand I felt overwhelmed by the infinite possibilities of answers. Then I proceeded to breaking it up into two: Studying human behavior as a science (people who actually specialize in studying humans) and studying human behavior as a person (what I think and feel about human behavior).

For the first one I am more inclined to say that human scientists should try to avoid using their humanity when studying human behavior. This is because humans use emotion as a way of knowing and this can interfere with the objectiveness of experiments and studies. A sociologist who uses too much of his own humanity while analyzing data and social circles is more likely to jump to assumptions and the one who tries being completely objective. In order to create valid arguments a social scientist must analyze his subjects assuming their emotions might vary completely from his own, therefore making it impossible for him to assume certain behaviors happen for certain reasons. For example, if a catholic anthropologist is studying Muslim culture he cannot approach his study assuming his emotional connection to God is the same as a Muslim person’s is to Allah because this might jeopardize the results of the study. The same principle goes for economics.

There are countless factors that affect the economy of a country. For this reason economics usually sparks controversy and many different opinions are generated. An economist cannot analyze internal and external markets, the supply and demand of certain products, and the effects certain changes going on in the world have on a certain economy, by imposing his own opinion on matters. However, by no means am I implying that the human scientist shuld obliterate his humanity while practicing his profession. There are too many factors to be 100% of what causes what in the human sciences. This means that for someone to reach an understandable conclusion logic has to be applied and this logic will always be accompanied by emotion and beliefs. Complete objectiveness in this life leads absolutely nowhere because everything, if looked at from a certain perspective that sometimes is too deep and useless for life as a human, is subjective in one way or another.

This leaves me in the second part of the question: studying human behavior as a human. I am going to take the freedom of answering this part from personal experience. As a human, no matter what people say about egoism and trying to decentralize ourselves, I only have one perspective: my own. This means, going back to what I mentioned earlier, that life is completely subjective. I am myself and no one else. I am an individual and so is everyone else. The fact that some individuals have a greater understanding of certain things (such as the human sciences) does not mean they know right from wrong or good from bad. There is no such thing as moral values, codes, virtue, or any other term that describes a part of human characteristic believed to be positive or negative. What one person says is right another person might say is wrong. Even if 99% of the human population, or 100% for that matter, agree upon something, its truth is still subject to challenge.

We were all put in this world and we do not know why, we do not know why life, energy, matter, light, the big bang, the universe happened even if we have words to describe all the physical events which generated them. I know I am getting a little off track but what I am trying to get at here is that there is no such thing as life without each person’s humanity. Each individual brings their own equation of life to the table and creates their character through an experience that no one else will ever have exactly alike. What I mean to say is that nothing is real unless looked at through our humanity lens, which filters all the information from the universe, all the awareness, and leaves us with what is essential for life.

So when I say, “I study human behavior” I mean that I reflect on human knowledge and what it means to know, because all actions are based on some prior knowledge that triggers an emotion or logical reaction in our brains. It is insane to think that even these ideas being typed into this computer might just be chemicals in my brain telling me to do so, but even if they are, my statements do not cease to be true. Nobody knows the absolute truth because the world and life is not in black and white. Take art for example, what gives John X, an art expert, the right to say what art is good and what art is bad? He was put in this world in the same circumstance as I was: knowing nothing. The justification of “he was educated in the best art college” is useless because the people who taught him were also put here in the same circumstance.
Knowledge, in my opinion, is non-existent without our own, unique, humanity.