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Human Instincts
P. Ia. Gal'perin
Published online: 08 Dec 2014.

To cite this article: P. Ia. Gal'perin (1992) Human Instincts, Journal of Russian & East
European Psychology, 30:4, 22-36

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 p . 1 ~GAL’PEIUN
.

Human Instincts

The question of human instincts is part of the greater problem of

“the biological in the mental development of man and in the
structure of his mind.” Like the two-faced Janus, this problem
also has two faces: one turned toward the inner processes of the
organism, and the other toward the organism’s life in an external
environment.
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In terms of intra-organic life, it is doubtful that anyone would

deny that it encompasses the eye of an eagle, the stomach of a
whale, and the heart of a raven (if it really lived three hundred
years), etc. Although we have inherited certain vexatious vestiges
from animals (such as the appendix), we shall not grieve on that
account and, on the practical level, think about how to cope with
these vestiges only when they go “beyond the call of duty” and
begin to bother us.
As for life in the external environment, all processes therein
are clearly divided into two qualitatively different domains. One
is composed of the physiological relations with the environment:
processes of gas, water, and heat transfer, of osmotic pressure,
etc. We must be seriously concerned with preserving these vital
conditions; but this task, so to speak, is a question of physiologi-
cal technology, not morality.
The second domain includes the relations of man with other

Russian text 8 1976 by “Pedagogika” Publishers and “Voprosy psikholo-

gii,” a publication of the USSR Academy of Pedagogical Sciences.
“K voprosu ob instinktakh u cheloveka.” Vop. PsiRhol., 1976, No. 1, pp.
28-37.

22
 HUMAN INSTINCTS 23

people, which are regulated by the moral norms of society. It is

in this domain that the question of the role of the biological in
man’s mental development begins to worry us with regard to the
question of whether heredity from man’s zoological past has not
given him something that is at variance with his social nature.
Theoretically, this is expressed in two problems: the genetic ca-
pacities or rudiments of capacities (and with them, the biologi-
cally conditioned inequality of people that has created the social
advantages of some people over others), and the genetic drives
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and aversions, the instincts and emotions. In social life these

biological reactions would signal natural, anatomical, physiologi-
cally predetemrined drives toward good or evil and would dictate
behavior in society. From this point on, we shall deal only with
the question of instincts.
We are always reading and hearing-moreover, from the most
respected writers-about man’s various instincts-true, largely
in a rather free interpretation, but sometimes in a direct sense.
Such an allegedly natural-science explanation of man’s behavior
contradicts the actual, scientific, sociohistorical concept of man,
the theory of his morality and responsibility. Acknowledging that
man has instincts necessarily leads to the conclusion that the
basic driving forces of the behavior of human beings and animals
are the same, and that the culture of society is only an indirect
way, sanctioned by society, of satisfying those same animal in-
stincts (this is what Freud would say). Hence, judgment and pun-
ishment would apply only to violation of some established means
or to failure in satisfying instincts, not to the very motives of
behavior.
But animals are not put on trial, are neither justified nor con-
demned: they are killed if one cannot cope with them in any
other way. No dog that has bitten a child is brought before the
courts; rather, his master, who has been negligent in looking after
him, is tried. It is not the animal, but man, who is responsible for
the animal’s behavior! When the measure of a human being’s
guilt and his punishment are established, the decisions are based
mainly on the assumption that in a normal condition, he is re-
 24 P. IA. GU’PERIN

sponsible for his acts, after which the damage inflicted on society
and, finally, the motives for his behavior are taken into account.
If a person’s behavior was dictated by instincts, as in the case of
animals, society might perhaps preserve the right to use fear to
deter delinquency, but it would then lose the right to condemn
him morally. In this case, even the approval of behavior useful
for society would signify no more than a physiological reinforce-
ment of useful instincts (which could, in another situation, act
in a harmful direction). In brief, if reward and punishment
were intended merely to suppress harmful instincts and rein-
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force good instincts, then one would have to look at the entire
system of morality and legislation as a system of training mea-
sures, which are practically useful, but devoid of any moral
significance.
This naturalistic denial of morality contains a contradiction
even in the formal sense: in dethroning man, it makes use of the
same criterion of morality whose real importance it denies. But
only one conception of morality is sufficient to confirm its nor-
mative value. A moral judgment is made not just after but also
before the commission of some act, and this means a delay in
impulsive motivation and, consequently, the possibility of pro-
hibiting it. An animal can be stopped by a threat, but the very
idea of assessing its behavior from the standpoint of known cri-
teria does not even exist for it: an animal does not have this
ability. It does exists in man; and he is answerable not only to
society but also to the motivational level of his behavior, to him-
self, for not making use of this ability in a responsible manner.
Hence, the question is not what instincts are useful, but what
ones are harmful-which instincts are compatible with the orga-
nization of people’s life in society, with man’s social nature, with
a moral evaluation of behavior and responsibility for one’s acts.
The fact of the matter is that they are not compatible. This is a
crucial circumstance; and to represent it clearly, we must look at
what an instinct is, i.e., at those general features of behavior, on
the one hand, and the mechanism producing it, on the other, that
give both of them an instinctual character.
 Often, especially when we speak about instincts in man, the
instinctive is understood as something unconscious, automated,
habitual, unaccountable, etc., and, on the other hand, as some-
thing base, depraved, unworthy, etc. The word instinct is used as
a metaphor for reinforcing and embellishing speech; we shall not
examine it in this sense. We are interested in the precise meaning
of the term instinct when it is applied to forms of animal behav-
ior in which it has an objective foundation and requires only
appropriate conceptual clarification.
The scientific concept of instinct in animals is currently in the
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throes of a profound crisis. This has been brought about by the

collapse of the motor theory of instinct that previously prevailed.
According to this theory, instincts are sequential motor reactions,
species-specific (and hence stereotyped), hereditary (and hence
executed without learning) reactions that appear as the result of
the maturation of certain physiological mechanisms, on the one
hand, and actions of certain unconditional stimuli, on the other;
they are executed “blindly” (and thus are useful only in certain
narrowly circumscribed conditions to which these reactions were
adapted by the process of species selection). It was found, as a
result of many years of varied investigations, that some of these
criteria of instinctive behavior could not withstand a rigorous
test, and others could not be verified at all. Ia. Dembovskii has
discussed this in detail and eloquently in his book The psychol-
o gy of animals (1950; Russian translation, Psikhologiia
zhivotnykh, 1959). The difficulties with the “purely motor” the-
ory of instincts--even in animals!-proved to be so great that
some investigators (among them Dembovskii himself) suggested
that the term instinct be completely abandoned.
Of course, it is not difficult to reject the term instinct; but this
would neither eliminate nor change the objective reality this
word has long been used to signify, or the tremendous problems
associated with that reality. Since the “purely motor” theory of
instinct is untenable, what must be abandoned is not instincts, but
this fallacious, overly simplified, mechanistic conception of
them.
 26 P. IA. GAL‘PERIN

If one goes beyond the motor aspect of behavior, even investi-

gators driven to despair by the discrepancy between the motor
theory and the facts are forced to recognize at least the following
characteristic features of any instinctive behavior. First, it is al-
ways associated with some current need of the organism. Second,
this need in itself, i.e., before the animal encounters a certain
unconditional stimulus from the external environment, gives rise
only to nonspecific behavior-searching or “appetitive” behav-
ior, as it is called. Third, the behavior characteristic of a particu-
lar instinct begins only when the animal enters the sphere of
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action of a specific stimulus and is directed toward it or away

from it. Fourth, despite all the motor variants, each instinct has a
characteristic specific for completion of this behavior, a so-called
“consummatory reaction.”
These four distinctive features of instinctive behavior enable
us to sketch its internal mechanism in rough outline. A geneti-
cally predetermined relation to an unconditional stimulus from
the external environment presupposes a special “center” or locale
in the central mechanism of instinctive behavior, a locus of spe-
cific sensitivity to the stimulus. The existence of such a locus is
not a characteristic exclusive to instincts. On the contrary, all
unconditional reactions presuppose a specific sensitivity to their
several unconditioned stimuli, and instincts are among their num-
ber. But such a genetically established selective sensitivity to a
specific stimulus presupposes, further, that the vehicle of this
stimulus is something unconditionally important for the organ-
ism. Hence, its action should be linked within the organism to a
positive or negative relation to specific objects, vehicles of an
unconditional stimulus. This relation should, of course, find re-
flection in both behavior and in subjective experience, where it
appears as emotion.
In brief, the locus of specific sensitivity cannot remain “purely
cognitive”-contemplative, as they say; it must be linked to a
locus of specific relation to the stimulus object and form a uni-
fied structure with it. On the whole, this is a quite complex "ten-
ter” in which the following may be functionally clearly
 HUMAN tNSTtNCTS 27

distinguished: a receptor part, a locus of specific sensitivity; an

effector part, which attunes the animal and its autonomic nervous
system to a specific type of response; an orienting part, which in
the mind is represented by emotions that harmonize mental activ-
ity with the processing of information appropriate to the object of
that activity. For brevity’s sake we shall call the central nervous
mechanism a “locus of specific relation” (to specific objects in
the external environment).
For this mechanism to operate in accordance with its purpose,
it must stand in a genetically fixed connection with another locus
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in which a specific need is reflected. The activation of this need

will put the locus of specific relation, especially the part of it that
is responsible for specific sensitivity, in an active state. As a
result of this organization, an unconditional stimulus from the
environment will begin to exert its action on behavior only when
it corresponds to a current need of the organism.
This relation of need to the locus of a specific relation orients
animal behavior toward specific objects in the external environ-
ment. In realizing this relation, the animal uses all its motor
resources and those capacities of individual adaptation it has at
the time the particular need arises.
Thus, the central mechanism of instinctive behavior always
contains three elements: (a) a locus of organic need; (b)a locus
of a specific relation to objects (vehicles of an unconditional
stimulus); (c) a locus of the effector part of behavior, its motor,
intra-organic, and psychological source of energy.
The role and the significance of these components are by no
means identical in the description of instinctive behavior. An
organic need is the primary and principal source of the animal’s
active behavior; however, it does not give behavior its specific-
ally instinctual character. The need for food and the incentive to
get it are basically very similar in man and in many animals,
although food behavior varies considerably among the different
animals, and especially in man; it is instinctual in all animals, but
not in man.
The effector, executory part of behavior may be either innate
 28 P. IA. GAL’PERIN

or acquired, or partly innate and partly acquired (especially if a

particular instinct appears in an animal in maturity). Behavior
may be stereotyped, variable, or “blind” (in relation to the condi-
tions of an action); and its performance may take into account the
objective relations among these conditions, or even serve as a
“rational solution of tasks.” But animal behavior always con-
serves the indelible print of instinctiveness-a genetically prede-
termined relation to specific objects-regardless of all these
differences. This imprint is imposed by, and solely by, the cir-
cumstance that behavior is imperatively dictated to an animal by
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the interaction between the locus of a specific relation and an

unconditional stimulus, by the animal’s pre-established relation
to specific objects in the external environment. This intermediate
link in the central mechanism is what gives animal behavior its
specifically instinctive nature, i.e., (a) its direct and immediate
dependence on natural forces: the arousal of an organic need in
the animal itself and the action of an unconditional stimulus from
the external environment; (b) its direct and immediate limitation
to their present interaction.
This interaction of natural forces condemns, so to speak, an
animal to a specific behavior; and the animal cannot act other-
wise than it does, just as it cannot be anything other than what it
is. In relation to an object, the vehicle of an unconditional stimu-
lus, instinctive behavior is forced; and from a moral or a legal
point of view, it makes no difference whether the interacting
mechanical forces responsible for directing it are approved of or
censured. Hence, in a society civilized enough to appreciate this
circumstance, animals are not held accountable for their behav-
ior. Nor is an animal held accountable for arresting its behavior
(even perhaps at the wrong time, from the human point of view)
as a result of the extinction of a need or because the action of the
unconditional stimulus has stopped. To require an animal to be-
have independently of the direct interaction between a current
need and an unconditional stimulus would be tantamount to re-
quiring an animal to raise itself above the level of nature in
which it is immersed from head to toe.
 HUMAN INSTINCTS 29

Hence, it would also be invalid to evaluate instinctive behavior

as either altruistic or egoistic. Such a judgment would presuppose
a social point of view, a comparison of one’s own interests with
those of others, and then, entirely as a result of this comparison, a
preference for one over the other. Such a comparison does not
occur in animals; they act only under the pressure of a need,
which they experience directly, and an external stimulation, re-
gardless of to whom or to what the benefits resulting from their
behavior will accrue. A chicken that selflessly defends its chicks
against hawks or vultures is not sacrificing its interests to the
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interests of its young, but is only submitting to the action of an

unconditional stimulus causing an unconditional defensive reac-
tion. If this unconditional stimulus is blocked, as was done in the
well-known experiment by Von Uexkiill (who enclosed a chick
in a glass soundproof container), a chicken remains indifferent to
the sight of the chick’s despairing attempts to get out of the
transparent container and makes no attempt to help her off-
spring.I An animal reacts not to another’s misfortune, but to the
stimulus whose action it experiences. If a human being, with his
socially instilled motives, were in a similar situation, his struggle
for the sake of another person, even at risk to himself, would
truly have to be judged altruistic behavior.
Behavior is judged altruistic or selfish not on the basis of its
results per se, but primarily on the basis of the moral reasons
behind it. This presupposes the power to choose among them.
Animals do not have such a “power,” and to make such a judg-
ment with regard to an animal would constitute typical anthropo-
morphism. A child, on the other hand, very early acquires the
ability to make such a choice, initially in a narrow sphere, but
thereafter in a steadily expanding sphere of relations with other
people. Only when this ability is extended to the sphere of basic
human relations does the child acquire the rights of citizenship
and responsibility that signify that he is recognized as having
freedom of choice in his behavior--freedom from that strict neces-
sity in which instinctive behavior is always so fatefully immersed.
If evaluating instinctive behavior as altruistic or selfish is
 30 P. IA. GAL’PERIN

naive anthropomorphism, to reduce human behavior to base or

good instincts is a special case of a naturalistic, biologizing ex-
planation of social phenomena in terms of the “natural proper-
ties” of the human organism.
Life in human society requires from each of its members that
he take into account not only the natural properties of objects and
people but also, in the first instance, that he evaluate them in
social terms, and that his conduct and ways of behavior be social.
A direct, instinctive relation to the objects in the external envi-
ronment, including other members of an animal’s group, so char-
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acteristic of an animal experiencing a need, is incompatible with

man’s relation to the objects of his needs, since the latter relation
is mediated by social conditions. To the extent that man’s animal
ancestors became humanized, their instinctive relations with the
external environment and to one another had to be actively inhib-
ited. Once the transition to joint activity in procuring the means
of subsistence, to the social distribution of the latter, and to joint
defense from enemies-all kinds of activities based on social, not
biological, relations-became the main condition for the survival
and continuation of the species, only those of man’s ancestors in
whom this inhibition became increasingly successful and in
whom it ultimately led to a demolition of instincts were able
successfully to resist the pressure of natural selection.
Hence, it is conceivable that the change in the organism in the
process of anthropogenesis consisted not only in the acquisition
of new properties but also in the gradual disappearance of animal
properties that interfered with the formation of new, especially
human, relations. This, of course, applied first and foremost to
those organs and systems of the body whose activity was most
directly responsible for behavior. Thus, one of the most import-
ant results of anthropogenesis was elimination of that level of the
central mechanism of behavior that imparted to behavior its bio-
logically predetermined, instinctive character. This modification
was extended successively to those spheres of the life of the
dawning human species that society undertook to provide for and
hence put under its control as it evolved.
 HUMM INSTINCTS 31

The above-described conception of the central mechanism of

instinctive behavior enables us to outline in general contours the
general course of this systematic inhibition and suppression of
instincts. In the early period of genesis of society, a specific
relation to specific objects in the external environment was in-
stilled from the very outset in the new generation. When needs
for these objects became active, the objects began to arouse in-
stinctive reactions, which, however, were categorically prohib-
ited and mercilessly punished. As a result, the stimulus objects
became an extremely potent brake on that locus on which they
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initially acted as unconditioned stimuli-the locus of specific

sensitivity. Its systematic suppression, on the one hand, and the
systematic satisfaction of the need behind it in a different socially
established procedure, on the other, led to complete suppression
of this locus. Since the laws of biological selection continued to
act throughout anthropogenesis, those individuals and groups for
whom the genetic transmission of the locus of specific sensitivity
steadily weakened and in whom its suppression was increasingly
thorough were able to survive more successfully, and new forms
of noninstinctive cooperation (and various forms of secondary
relations based on it) formed with increasing ease and efficiency.
However, this (initially, the inhibition and weakening and, ulti-
mately, the gradual disappearance of the locus of specific sensi-
tivity) was sufficient to free man from instincts and establish a
new sociohistorical way of life.
Once the locus of specific sensitivity was excluded from the
central mechanism of behavior, organic needs were freed from
the ineluctable orientating influence of that locus. Needs, once
they were aroused, no longer predetermined the objects that
would satisfy them, the methods for procuring those objects, or
the modes of satisfaction. Even less were these things determined
by those effector, in particular, motor, reactions that had been
freed from unconditional stimuli and were thereafter put to use or
not put to use depending on to what extent they corresponded to
prescribed social models.
The process of anthropogenesis could not be completed until
 32 P. IA. GAL’PERIN

instinctive relations with the external environment and among

members of the group were totally eliminated from the entire
sphere of the socially regulated life of the emergent human spe-
cies. There are many grounds for assuming that it was the vigor-
ous development of social relations (at the watershed between
the Mddle and the Upper Paleolithic) that brought about the
“second leap” in the process of anthropogenesis-a leap in the
sense that, within a relatively short period (no more than a few
dozen thousand years, compared with the many hundreds of
thousands, perhaps half a million, years of preceding evolution),
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and with a relatively slight change in the tools of labor (from the
late Mousterian to the Aurignacian culture), tremendous, pro-
found changes in the organization of society took place, together
with changes in the physical appearance of early human beings. It
was at just about this time that a considerable development of cul-
ture took place (art, magical beliefs, religious rituals), and the physi-
cal type of the modem, Cro-Magnon man assumed its final form.
Thus, one of the most important characteristics of modern
man-as a special biological species!-is the absence of instinct
and a relation to specific objects in the external environment that
is built genetically into the very structure of the organism. Basic
organic needs, of course, have remained; but, just as hydrogen
and oxygen obtained from the decomposition of water are no
longer particles of water or its fragments, but have other and
even opposite properties, so do needs, once freed from their con-
nection with the locus of specific sensitivity, constitute neither
fragments nor particles of instincts. They are no longer linked-a
priori to any experience!-with specific unconditional stimuli
from the external environment, are not bound to them, but dis-
play new properties, in particular, an avid affinity for, and strong,
firm fixation on, objects providing them with primary satisfac-
tion. Since the satisfaction of human needs takes place in social
conditions, organic needs in people become social needs. And, in
the form in which they are inherited, these are no longer biologi-
cal animal needs, but only organic (though human) needs.
There is no need to mention how important it is to distinguish
 HUMANINSTINCTS 33

between these formations, which are externally similar but essen-

tially so different. To be clear about the difference between them
it is useful to employ different words to designate them: namely,
biological, that which determines the type of life and behavior by
virtue of the specific structure of the organism, and organic, that
which is also determined by the structure of the organism, but
which is now a completely different structure, one that deter-
mines neither the type of life nor behavior. Accordingly,
1. Organic needs, which are genetically linked to the mecha-
nism of a specific relation to the external environment and,
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through this, predetermine the type of life, are biological needs in

the smct sense of the word.
2. These same organic needs, no longer linked to the mecha-
nism of a specific relation to the external environment, and hence
are not predeterminers of the type of life, are no longer biologi-
cal. They are, and only are, needs of the organism-organic, but
not biological, needs.
By predetermining the type of behavior in the environment
through the genetic structure of the organism, biological needs
absolutely preclude a social type of life, and are incompatible
with it. But organic needs do not predetermine the type of exter-
nal life and are compatible with any kind of life, provided only
that it ensures the satisfaction of these needs. Organic needs in
pure form are the same in man as in animals; but in animals they
are structurally, firmly fused with the locus of a specific relation
to the external environment, whereas in man this genetic locus no
longer exists. In animals, they predetermine behavior; in man,
they do not; in animals, they are biological, in humans, they are
solely organic. Man has no biological needs; he has no instincts.
Claiming that man has biological needs and basic instincts
results from failure to distinguish between the biological and the
organic. The similarity of the needs themselves is patent, but the
internal structure of their central mechanism and the existence or
absence in it of a locus of specific sensitivity remain hidden.
Failure to distinguish between the biological and the organic is
the main obstacle to resolving the question of instincts in man,
 34 P. IA. GAL’PERIN

the principal reason why this topic is repeatedly addressed with-

out result.
Its very designation is wrong: “the biological and the social in
human development.” It seems to accept a priori the existence of
the biological factor in the structure and development of the
human mind. There is no “biological” in man (in the sense in
which it is characteristic of animals). Obviously, the way the
question is phrased must be changed: not the “biological and
social,” but the “organic and social” in the development of man.
The “organic” no longer contains any reference to the “animal in
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man”; it does not touch on the problems of morality and respon-

sibility. “Organic” refers merely to the limits of man’s anatomic
and physiological capabilities and the role of physical develop-
ment in man’s general development. This role is beyond dispute;
it is very important and in certain situations is decisive, but it is
always nonspecific and relative.
It is nonspecific because man’s physical properties can be used
in different ways, and quite different modes of actions and forms
of behavior develop on the basis of the same properties. For
example, rapid and strong formation of conditioned connections
can lead to the development and entrenchment of special and
relatively unproductive methods of work (which, moreover, re-
main unconscious), and the cultivation of further, more effective
methods of intellectual or practical activity then becomes ex-
tremely difficult. On the other hand, if the speed and strength of
formation of conditioned connections, the physiological substrate
of any learning, are normal and “average,” simple and clear-cut
techniques for discriminating between what is essential and non-
essential can form so that further learning in any area takes place
easily and reveals extraordinary capacities.
The role of anatomic-physiological characteristics in man’s
mental development is relative to the requirements of society, on
the one hand, and to society’s educational means on the other. In
situations in which natural properties are insufficient, they may
be replaced by technical means and methods of learning. One of
the clearest examples of this is in teaching deaf and dumb chil-
 HUMAN INSTINCTS 3s

dren. They remain profoundly handicapped without special in-

struction; but with it, they not only achieve normal development
but even successfully complete studies in institutions of higher
leaming and receive academic degrees. Modern technical means
of transmitting direct, feedback, and “mutual” (among members of
a learning group) information make it possible to teach such chil-
dren by comprehensive group methods (instead of an arduous indi-
vidual method, as was necessary until recently) and thus make their
learning progressively more like ordinary school learning.
The same physical defect or, on the contrary, physical advan-
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tage may impact in different ways on a child’s mental develop-

ment and even on his ultimate destiny. Congenital lameness, a
birthmark on one’s face, or a hunchback may cause bitterness in
one person, but in another may cause him to ignore the physical
aspect of life and make him kind and open at the spiritual level.
Beauty of expression, manner, and general demeanor readily en-
genders a sense of superiority and inordinate claims that, in later
life, for the most part end in failure and bitterness. Everything
depends on what physical advantages or shortcomings are taken
into account by teachers and esteemed by the child himself, how
they are used or overcome in learning and, most importantly,
what amtude is formed (or forms itself)in the child toward the
particular defect or advantage. Only one thing is required of the
innate physical properties of the organism, namely, that they should
not extend too far beyond the limits of what can currently be com-
pensated for by existing means of education and upbringing.
Of course, it is necessary to be born as a normal individual of
the biological species Homo sapiens to become a human being,
an active and responsible human personality, under the condi-
tions obtaining in the person’s own society. But this is only a
possibility. The possibility is actually realized as a function of the
way in which and the capacity in which the culture of the society
becomes part of the structure of the personality and of the content
and structure of the person’s mental activity.
What was stated at the very beginning now acquires a new
meaning: no one would object to having the eye of an eagle, the
 36 P. IA. GAL’PERIN

stomach of a whale, the heart of a raven, etc., i.e., to having the

health of an animal and the physical work capacity of a beast.
But human society could not have developed if people had pre-
served animal relations to things and to one another: an animal’s
relations with the world would have destroyed both society and
the human principle in us. There is nothing “biological” in man
in the simple and principal meaning of this word-the animal
biological. Man’s distinguishing biological characteristics are, in
fact, that he has no instinctive forms of activity and behavior
inherited from animals. The anatomic and physiological proper-
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ties of the human organism do not predetermine either the type,

the nature, or the ultimate capacities of a human being, and in
this sense constitute not biological, but only organic, properties.
They are not the cause, but only the essential condition of human
development. No animal other than man can become man; but
man can become a member of any society and, within the limits
of his own physical capabilities, any animal-and even worse
than any animal. The biological distinctiveness of the species
man consists of this freedom of becoming. A child becomes a
human being only after he has assimilated the moral foundations
of behavior as a guide in the “totality of all social relations’“
constituting, according to Marx, man’s essence. And once the
child has become human, he can no longer shed responsibility by
referring to his animal origin, his “instincts,” as he has none.

Notes
1. Quoted in A. N.Leont’ev, [Problem of mental development].Moscow:
“Mysl” Publishers, 1965. P. 259.
2. [Six theses on Feuerbach]. K. Marx & F. Engels, [Works].Vol. 3, p. 3.