Module II

Lesson 5. A SOUND CONCEPT OF HUMAN NATURE

Lesson Objectives:
After studying this lesson on a sound concept of human nature, you shall be
able to:
1. explain how Man's three layers of life can contribute to his being able
to possess a sound human nature; and
2. give specific examples of the functions of each layer.

Terms as Defined in the Given Selections

1. Rational life — the highest in the three layers of life...has to do with
man's powers of intellection and volition.
2. Sentient life — those aspects in man's life which is in common with
brute animals; involve external and internal sensation, appetition and
locomotion.
3. Vegetative — those aspects in life which man has in common with
plants...The lowest in the three layers of life... involves nutrition,
growth and reproduction.
4. Intellection — reasoning from the known to the unknown .
5. Appetition — refers to senses having to do with what man
desires...properly called passion.
6. Hypothetical imperative — states that a certain thing must be done, if
something else which is willed or at least might be willed, is to be
attained.
7. Categorical imperative — declares that an act is in itself or objectively,
necessary, without any reference to another end.
8. Vir — the Latin name for the manly man.
9. Passions — either feelings or emotions evoked by pleasant or
unpleasant situation.

1
 10. Emotion — strong passion
11. Feeling — weak passion

Thoughts to Ponder on, Gleaned from the Given Selections

1. It is nature's purpose to perpetuate life.
2. External sensations of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching give
immense pleasure when they are treated with their own proper objects
in a moderate manner.
3. The eleven passions in man are: love, desire, joy, hatred, aversion,
sorrow, hope, despair, courage, fear and anger.

4. Love of self is the most natural love.

5. Love of self is the center of all the passions.
6. Nature has put passions into human beings in order to make them
sustain life.
7. Hope, courage and even despair sometimes fortify man's sagging wits
in the face of odds.
8. The sound human nature is the proximate standard of morality.
9. Man's highest activities are thinking and willing.
10. There is a middle ground or virtue for every passion of man.
11. Man has to live and make a living...he has to take risks.
12. The highest good is like that of water that runs in a brook...benefits
thousands of creatures...content of the places that all men
disdain...makes water so near the Way.

If as earlier stated, rational human nature or man as man, is the immediate

or proximate norm of morality, it becomes necessary to project a sound concept
of human nature.
Man has three layers of life and powers: the vegetative life which he shares in
common with the plants, and the powers that come with it, namely; nutrition, growth
and reproduction; sentient life, which he shares in common with brute animals, and with
powers like external and internal sensation, appetition and locomotion; and finally,
rational life, which he alone possesses, and with powers
of intellection and volition.
To each of this life and powers belong joy and pain depending on whether this life
or powers are used according to their specific nature and purpose.
Vegetative life involves nutrition, growth and reproduction. So that the
vegetative being would sustain life, nature has implanted a joy for ingesting food
for nourishment. The plant, as well as animals and man, enjoys the assimilation
of food. Whether it be water (plants) or a bone (animals) or meat (men), these
vegetative beings experience delight in their ingestion. It is nature's purpose to
perpetuate life and towards this end, nutrition is rendered enjoyable so that it
could lead to growth and, eventually, to reproduction. Nature again accompanies
the reproductive activity with pleasure; otherwise, beings would not reproduce,
and thus spell the extermination of the species. Delight therefore accompanies
the natural ingestion of food and the lawful activity of sex. An excess of either
produces pain, simply because the purposes of nature are thwarted. If a vegetative
being exceeds the healthy assimilation of food, life would be imperiled. Likewise,
excess of the sexual activity beyond what is prescribed by nature, law, and customs
could lead to disease which could again impede nature's design.
Ethics considers joy or delight that accompanies the normal and natural
vegetative functions as moral and salutary to man.
Sentient life involves external and internal sensation, appetition and
locomotion. External sensations of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching
give immense pleasure to the sentient being upon being presented with delightful
colors, euphonic sounds, perfumed odors, delicious flavors and pleasant
smoothness which correspond to these external sense powers. Seeing, hearing,
smelling, tasting and touching bring about their own peculiar pleasure when these
are treated with their own proper objects in a moderate manner. Thus, the sense
of sight evokes pleasure when it sees a beautiful object. The sense of hearing
experiences ecstasy when it perceives a beautiful symphony but is displeased at
cacophonous sounds or at the monotony of the same beautiful sounds. The sense
of smell affords a feeling of joy when it perceives perfumed or pleasant odors and
is repelled by malodorous scents. The sense of taste effects epicurean delights
when it perceives delicious flavors but when it is treated to tasteless food it evinces
pain. The sense of touch gives enormous delectation when it perceives the right
kind of temperature and smoothness but gives pain when it is treated to extremes of
temperature or to abrasiveness.
Internal sensation of being aware, imagining, remembering and estimating
likewise afford delight to the sentient being but these internal sense powers cause pain
and discomfort when the imagination is allowed to exceed its boundaries, or when
memory undergoes aberrations due to inordinate indulgences.
Appetites belong to sentient life. Appetition is the tendency towards objects which
are considered pleasant, and away from objects considered unpleasant. Appetition or the
activity of sense appetites is properly called passion. Passions are either feelings or
emotions, depending on intensity, evoked by pleasant and unpleasant objects. There are
eleven passions in man: love, desire, joy, hatred, aversion, sorrow, hope, despair,
courage, fear and anger.
Love is the tendency towards a pleasant and desirable object; desire, the
tendency to acquire the pleasant or desirable object; joy results from the
acquisition of the desired object; sorrow, the failure to acquire that object; hatred
is repugnance towards an undesirable object; aversion is repulsion towards the
same object. When the desired object is within one's means of acquisition, hope
is experienced; if not, despair. If the evil to be avoided is within one's means,
courage is experienced; if not, fear. Anger is repulsion, dissatisfaction over the
non-acquisition of desired goods or the failure to evade undesirable objects.
Love of self is the most natural love. There is nothing to be ashamed about
loving oneself. Even the Lord of the Christians had preached, "Love your neighbor
as you love yourself" implying that one already loves oneself. Love of self is
the center of all the passions. One experiences the other ten passions because of
self-love.
The eleven passions can be either strong or weak. A strong passion is called
"emotion;" a weak one, "feeling." Hence, any one of th eleven passions can be
an emotion or feeling. There is an emotion or feeling of love, desire, joy, etc.

The passions of man are salutary to man's well-being. If man did not
experience these passions, his life would have been drab and colorless. However,
it is not correct to say that the only purpose of the passions is to give color to
man's life. Nature has put passions into human beings in order to make them
sustain life. If man did not experience love or desire or joy, he would not aspire
to procreate, or if he did not experience aversion, hatred, sorrow, he would not
learn to appreciate the goods he possesses or could lose. Hope and courage and
even despair sometimes fortify man's sagging spirits in the face of odds. Fear
and anger add fuel to the positive passions like love, desire or joy and make man
value what he has.
If he did not value the things he loves or desires or is joyful about, he
would not experience fear or anger. He is afraid of losing what he loves, or
experiences anger over losing what he loves.
Locomotion is the movement towards what a sentient being loves or desires,
or movement away from what he hates or feels aversion to. The power of
locomotion is implanted onto the sentient being in order to answer to a need
brought about by the passions. If a sentient being loves or desires an object but
cannot move towards it; or, if he hates or fears an object but remains rooted to
the spot and cannot move away from it, the sentient being would experience either
frustration or extinction: frustration, because he would always feel an unfulfilled
love; extinction, because the sentient being would be an easy prey to his enemies.
All the powers of sentient life are implanted by nature for its smooth
functioning. The joys and delights that accompany external and internal sensation
as well as those of the passions are within ethical and moral boundaries. In fact,
one should experience the accompanying pleasure to these functions. A sound
human nature does not frown upon these joys and delights and therefore a balanced
ethician, unlike the Stoic or Ascetic, encourages them to make life more
enjoyable.
Rational life involves powers that are distinctly human. These are
intellection and volition. Intellection constitutes reasoning from the known to
the unknown. Man is able to solve problems and resolve dilemmas by means of
intellection. His inventions, strides in scientific and technological progress are
due to his intellectual capacities. Volition or will is rational appetition which,
like its sentient counterparts, tends towards the pleasant, and away from the
unpleasant. The difference between volition and sentient appetition is that volition
can overrule sentient appetites in case a tremendous good to be achieved involves
pain which is always repulsive to the sentient appetites. When an operation or a
tooth extraction is necessary, the volition or will tends towards it despite the
pain, in view of a higher good to be achieved, in this case, health and well-
being.
As in the case of vegetative and sentient life, joy or delight can accompany
the function of intellect and will. There arises intellectual delectation after
having solved a difficult problem. There is also volitional delight after having
hurdled a difficult trial. Love in itself is the "union of the will or volition with
the object deemed to be good." Scholars experience intellectual delectation after
finishing a manuscript; mathematicians, too, after solving a difficult problem.
Those who sacrifice for a higher and nobler cause experience volitional delight
for having undertaken the sacrifice.
There is nothing wrong about these delights consequent upon intellection and
volition. Every normal activity is accompanied by a delight. This is nature's way of
saying that all beings are creatures of nature and as such they ought to accomplish what
nature had intended. This idea is reminiscent of the Chinese doctrine of the tao.
This sound human nature is the proximate standard of morality: the
wholesome human being with all the layers of life put into their proper places.
The highest is man's rational life; the second is the animal's sentient life; the
third and lowest is the plant's vegetative life. Man participates in the life of the
beast animal and the lowly plant but does not stop in their activites. When all
that man does is to eat and grow and reproduce, he is no better than the plant;
and when he stops at external and internal sensation, appetition and locomotion,
he is like the beast animal. Man's highest activities are thinking and willing.
These two activities must lord over the sentient and vegetative activities. When
man is able to dominate his plant and animal tendencies and make them subserve
the rational, man is acting as a real human being, like a vir, the Latin name for
the manly man.
To every activity, there is an ideal middle ground called a virtue. Each
power implies a virtue. When man exercises his powers moderately or in a manner
befitting his humanity, he experiences delight, and this is a sign given by nature
that he is doing right. There is a time or season to love and be angry, to fear, to
hope, to delight or feel aversion, etc. Each of these passions, when properly
experienced, gives man the power to live fully. A mother's anger over the
wrongdoing of her child is a normal and even a healthy passion. One's aversion
towards the ugly and the gross only underscores man's love for the beautiful and
the noble, and hence aversion can be healthy. Even hatred can be a healthy passion.
When one hates evil, hatred is healthy. Anger is not always unacceptable. When
Moses came down from Mt. Sinai carrying the two slabs of stome on which God
wrote the Ten Commandments, Moses broke them in anger when he saw his people
worshipping a golden calf. Hope and despair over the "right" things can even lead
to the fulfillment of ambition. There is therefore a middle ground or vitue for
every passion of man.
Man was not meant by nature to be Stoic; otherwise, he would not have
been created with the power to laugh or cry. Neither was he meant to be Epicurean
because he becomes easily satiated or bored.
There is a reasoned attitude towards pleasure. That pleasure accompanies
our natural activities like eating, drinking, perceiving must have been intended
by nature. Seeing a beautiful sunset or hearing a beautiful symphony or tasting
good food or smelling fragrant scents or touching smooth objects always gives
pleasure to a human being but only up to a point. Beyond this point, there is
displeasure, boredom and pain. The body lays down its limits. Only so much
food can be eaten; only so much of drink or sex. The body therefore is also a
gauge; there is no need for a mind to determine the limits of pleasure.
Modernism has created new pleasures, and modern man has taken to these
pleasures such as smoking, drinking liquor, taking of drugs. Some artists confess
that unless they smoke or drink or take drugs, they cannot create. Celebrated
among them are Edgar Allan Poe who could not write without being under the
influence of drugs. Or Jean-Paul Sartre who wrote under the influence of
amphetamine.
In the light of these modernisms, some ethical questions can be asked. Is
man allowed to indulge in these pleasures for the sake of artistic creation or
work efficiency? The reasonable answer is in the affirmative, provided that it does
not involve the ruin of one's health and well-being.
The question of smoking comes into focus. More and more evidence attests to the
link betweeen smoking and cancer. Is it therefore ethical to smoke,
considering that at some future time, the body could be adversely affected? Here,
the individual will have to weigh the pros and cons. If he is able to work better or
think better, to create, and he sees to it that the threat to his body's ruin is kept to a
minimum, he can indulge in this pleasure. Each individual is free to decide for
himself. Would this not contradict the ethical rules mentioned above? Modern life
involves many risks: inhaling the exhaust fumes of cars, eating from aluminum
pots, exposure to radiation, etc., and yet man has to live and make a living and he
has to take risks. The same goes for the smoker or the drinker or perhaps even the
drug taker. Each individual has to make a decision for himself. However, a
pleasure that involves injury to others or curtails the rights of others is no longer
moral; it would not be allowed.
Human nature — or better still, the sound human nature as interpreted by right
reason is the ethical standard of rightness or wrongness of human acts. Anything that
contributes to the well-functioning of man as man is good; anything that impedes or
obstructs it is evil. A sound human nature implies the proper object of the passion, the
right proportion, and must be lifting, not damaging, to the human person.
 Readings in Module II

Law and the Standard of Morality

From the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas

Aquinas, Part I - II, Question 90, Article 1:
"Whether there is an Eternal Law"

Objection 1.
It seems that there is no eternal law. Because every law is imposed on
someone. But there was not someone from eternity on whom a law
could be imposed: since God alone was from eternity. Therefore no
law is eternal.

Objection 2.
Further, promulgation is essential to law. But promulgation could not
be from eternity because there was no one to whom it could be
promulgated from eternity. Therefore no law can be eternal.

Objection 3.
Further, a law implies order to an end. But nothing ordained to an end
is eternal: for the last end alone is eternal. Therefore no law is eternal.

On the contrary, Augustine says (De Lib, Arb.i,): That Law which is the Supreme
Reason cannot be undestood to be otherwise than unchangeable and eternal.
I answer that, As stated above (Q. XC., A. I ad 2; A. 3, 4), a law is nothing
else but a dictate of practical reason emanating from the ruler who governs a
perfect community. Now it is evident, granted that the world is ruled by Divine
Providence, as was stated in the First Part (Q. XXII., A. 1, 2), that the whole
community of the universe is governed by Divine Reason. Wherefore the very
idea of the government of things in God the Ruler of the universe, has the
nature of a law. And since the Divine Reason's conception of things is not
subject to time but is eternal, according to Prov. viii. 23, therefore it is that this
kind of law must be called eternal.

Reply Objection 1.
Those things are not in themselves, exist with God, inasmuch as they
are foreknown and pre-ordained by Him, according to Rom. iv.17: Who
calls those things that are not, as those that are. Accordingly the eternal
concept of the Divine law bears the character of an eternal law, in so
far as it is ordained by God to the government of things foreknown by
Him.

Reply Objection 2.
Promulgation is made by word of mouth or in writing; and in both
ways the eternal law is promulgated: because both the Divine Word
and the writing of the Book of Life are eternal. But the promulgation
cannot be from eternity on the part of the creature that hears or reads.

Reply Objection 3.
The law implies order to the end actively, in so far as it directs certain
things to the end; but not passively, — that is to say, the law itself is
not ordained to the end, — except accidentally, in a governor whose
end is extrinsic to him, and to which end his law must needs be
ordained. But the end of the Divine government is God Himself, and
His law is not distinct from Himself. Wherefore the eternal law is not
ordained to another end.

Article 2: "Whether there is in us a Natural Law":

Objection 1.
It seems that there is no natural law in us. Because man is governed
sufficiently by the eternal law: for Augustine says (De Lib. Arb. 1.)
 that the eternal law is that by which it is right that all things should be most
orderly. But nature does not abound in superfluities as neither does she fail
in necessaries. Therefore no law is natural to man.

Objection 2.
Further, by the law man is directed, in his acts, to the end, as stated
above (Q. XC., A. 2). But the directing of human acts to their end is
not a function of nature, as is the case in irrational creatures, which
act for an end solely by their natural appetite; whereas man acts for an
end by his reason and will. Therefore no law is natural to man.

Objection 3.
Further, the more a man is free, the less is he under the law. But man
is freer than all the animals, on account of his free-will, with which
he is endowed above all other animals. Since therefore other animals
are not subject to natural law, neither is man subject to a natural law.

On the contrary, the gloss on Rom.i.i. 14: When the Gentiles, who have not the
law, do by nature those things that are of the law, comments as follows: Although those
they have no written law, yet they have the natural law, whereby each one knows, and is
conscious of , what is good and what is evil.
I answer that, as stated above (Q. XC., A. 1 ad 1), law being a rule and
measure, can be in a person in two ways: in one way, as in him that rules and
measures; in another way, as in that which is ruled and measured, since a thing is
ruled and measured, in so far as it partakes of the rule or measure. Wherefore,
since all things subject to Divine providence are ruled and measured by the eternal
law, as was stated above (A. 1); it is evident that all things partake somewhat of
the eternal law, in so far as, namely, from its being imprinted on them, they derive
their respective inclinations to their proper acts and ends. Now among all others,
the rational creature is subject to partake of a share of providence, by being
provident both for itself and for others. Wherefore it has a share of the eternal
Reason, whereby it has a natural inclination to its proper act and end: and this
participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is called the natural law.
 Hence the Psalmist after saying (Ps. iv. 6): Offer up the sacrifice of justice,
as though someone asked what the works of justice are, adds: Many say, Who
showeth us good things? In answer to which question he says: The light of Thy
countenance, O Lord, is shown upon us; thus implying that the light of natural
reason, whereby we discern what is good and what is evil, which is the function
of the natural law, is nothing else than an imprint on us of the Divine Light. It
is therefore evident that the natural law is nothing else than the rational creature's
participation of the eternal law.

Reply Objection 1.
This argument would hold, if the natural law were something different from
the eternal law: whereas it is nothing but a participation thereof, as stated
above.

Reply Objection 2.
Every act of reason and will in us is based on that which is according to
nature, as stated above (Q. X., A. 1): for every act of reasoning is based on
principles that are known naturally, and every act of appetite in respect of
the
means is derived from the natural appetite in respect of the last end.
Accordingly the first direction of our acts to their end must needs be
in virtue of the natural law.
Reply Objection 3.
Even irrational animals partake in their own way of the Eternal Reason,
just as the rational creature does. But because the rational creature
partakes thereof in an intellectual and irrational manner, therefore
the participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is properly
called a law, since a law is something pertaining to reason, as stated
above (Q. XC., A. 1). Irrational creatures, however, do not partake
thereof in a rational manner, wherefore there is no participation of
the eternal law in them, except by way of similitude.
"The Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Moral" of Immanuel Kant:

Imperatives are formulae, which express merely the relation of objective

laws of volition in general to the imperfect will of this or that rational being, as
for instance, the will of man.
Now, all imperatives command either hypothetically or categorically. A
hypothetical imperative states that a certain thing must be done, if something
else which is willed, or at least might be willed, is to be attained. The categorical
imperative declares that an act is in itself objectively necessary, without any
reference to another end.
Every practical law represents a possible action as good, and therefore as
obligatory for a subject that is capable of being determined to act by reason.
Hence all imperatives are formulae for the principle of a will that is in some
sense good. If the action is good only because it is a means to something else,
the imperative is hypothetical; if the action is conceived to be good in itself, the
imperative, as the necessary principle of a will that in itself conforms to reason,
is categorical.
There is therefore but one categorical imperative, that which may be thus
stated: Act in conformity with that maxim, and that maxim only, which you can
at the same time will to be a universal law.
Now, if from this single imperative, as from their principle, all imperatives of duty
can be derived, we shall at least be able to indicate what we mean by the categorical
imperative and what the conception of it implies, although we shall not be able to say
whether the conception of duty may not itself be empty.
The universality of the law which governs the succession of events, is
what we mean by nature, in the most general sense, that is, the existence of things,
in so far as their existence is determined in conformity with universal laws. The
universal imperative of duty might therefore be put in this way: Act as if the
maxim from which you act were to become through your will a universal law of
nature.

From the Tao Te ching by Laotze: Chapter I:

The Way that can be told of is not an Unvarying Way:
 The names that can be named are not unvarying names.
It was from the Nameless that Heaven and Earth sprang;
The name is not the mother that rears the ten thousand creatures, each after each
kind.
Truly, "Only he that rids himself forever of desire can see the Secret
Essence."

From Chapter VIII:

The highest good is like that of water that runs in a brook. The
goodness of water is that it benefits the ten thousand creatures: yet
itself does not scramble, but is content with the places that all men
disdain. It is this that makes water so near to the Way.

From Chapter XXX:

He who by Tao purposes to help a ruler or of men
Will oppose all conquest by force of arms;
For such things are wont to rebound.
Where armies are, thorns and brambles grow. The
raising of a great host
Is followed by a year of death.
Therefore a good general effects his purpose and then stops; he does not
take further advantage of his victory.
Fulfills his purpose and does not glory in what he has done;
Fulfills his purpose and does not boast of what he has done;
Fulfills his purpose, but takes no pride in what he has done;
Fulfills his purpose, but only as a step that could not be avoided.
Fulfills his purpose, but without violence.
For what has a time of vigor also has a time of decay. This
is against Tao.
And what is against Tao will soon perish.
Module II
Lesson 5

SELF-PROGRESS CHECK TEST

Enumeration: Write your answers on the spaces provided for.

1. Give man's three layers of life and example of each. (2

points each)
a. vegetative life which he shares in
common with the plants, and the powers that come with it, namely;
nutrition, growth
and reproduction.
b. sentient life, which he shares in common with brute animals, and
with
powers like external and internal sensation, appetition and
locomotion.
c. rational life, which he alone possesses, and with powers
2. Give man's eleven passions. (1 point each)
a. Love e. Aversion i. Courage
b. Desire f. Sorrow j. Fear
c. Joy g. Hope k. Anger
d. Hatred h. Despair