WHAT IS A HUMAN BEING?

Knowing
Meno
Descartes
Locke
Hume
Wittgenstein
Kant
Mill

Morality
Aristotle
Confucius
Singer
Nussbaum

Social/Political Tendencies
Plato
Hobbes
Locke
Rousseau

o Human beings have the ability to make choices.

o Human beings have imagination.
o Human beings have complex emotions, such as love and hatred.
o Human beings have desires and purposes more than a will to live and continue the
species.
o Human beings act irrationally.
o Human beings have a concept of beauty.
o Human beings have an advanced form of communication.
o Human beings have a high level of intelligence.
o Human beings have the ability to feel love and empathy.
o Human beings have complex social structures.

 Agency
 Self-improvement
 Higher order capacity of thought
 Memories
 Sense of time
 Ability to reason
  Capability of learning
 Capacity to be literate
 Ability to suffer
 Moral code
 Long-term plan
 Metacognition
 Distinction between mind and body
 Greater human community
 Ability to question things
 Familial piety
 Desire for power
 Pride in one species
 Transrational

Human nature
Freedom
The self and the other
Mind and body

Personhood

1) What is it like to be Amish?

2) To answer this question, what would you need to know about Amish people?
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3) If you were Amish, what sorts of things might you like? Dislike?