Rodríguez Valls, FranciscoText about his book“Orígenes del hombre. La singularidad del ser humano” (Origins of man. The singularity of the human being).AEDOS seminar of the 22.6.2019
Published in No. 13 of the Philosophy Journal: Nature and Freedom. (Málaga, 2020)
A shared natural asset
José Corral Lope. Bank CEO
Before the seminar I wrote an ample draft for my oral intervention. Intervention that ended up being completely improvised. Supposedly I´m to write a “formal” paper to be published. I´ve tried, but it´s turning out to be more boring than the initial one. I´m thus leaving in the first draft slightly edited, with the following previous warning to the readers:
Professor Rodriguez Valls´s book attempts right from the heading, to highlight the singularity of Man, of men, as opposed to animals. To that end he describes with enormous rigor “what makes them different”.And, in order to bring out those distinctions he also refers to what they have in common. But he does not build upon these joint issues, issues pertaining to the nature, or essence, of one and all: who we are, where we come from and where we are going. I won´t dwell on these points. Our author covers them widely and wisely. The differences between Man and animal are significant enough as to justify the singularity of the title.
Our writer also deals with another two aspects that seem to be more accessible: the objectives or natural purposes of men and animals, and their behaviours. These matters are there throughout the text and the author also emphasizes the many differences that exist between the ends and the conducts of animals and of men. And to highlight the differences he turns to such commonplaces as the similarities they share amongst themselves and with the rest of living beings, but without focussing specifically on them.
This mindset of not looking for the “natural” vital purpose of Man as a living being is not exclusive to professor Rodríguez Valls. It´s, in fact, common to philosophers: from the pure individualistic anthropomorphism of Aristotle, to Kant´s eudemonism to the animists very own animism that focuses in the life of single individuals. No philosopher has cared about Man´s life in capital letters, about the continuity of the species or the group Man, or about the possible survival or extinction of humanity. Much less what are men, Man, supposed to do to try and avoid it, extinction, that is. As far as I know, only Hans Jonas has tried to appeal to our obligation to take care of the species. As did the last Popes and some good humanists which study and preach our duty to take care of the Earth and our habitat. But I´ve yet to meet any philosopher who has question himself on the vital objective of Man, the “natural” sense of life for our species.
Philosophers don´t get involve on “the material” side of humans, common to animals and other living beings. They concern themselves, now as well as in the past, to that which sets man apart: his spirit and its manifestations. Even utilitarians stablish well-being, not life, as an asset. And not even Man´s, but individual men´s. Like Kant, they see the species and its groups as universorum, and not like singulorum. And, like Kant, philosophers have considered men like “rational beings, mortal all, whose species is immortal”. Of these rational beings, they are only interested on the “laws of freedom”, not on the “laws of nature”. And it so remains.
After this pre-warning I proceed to transcribe, somewhat updated, the draft I prepared for the oral statement at the seminar:
Text for the book review.
I would like firstly to thank Fernando and to professor Rodríguez Valls for their invitation. I believe this is my sixth seminar and, in all of them I´ve looked after number one (my ideas). To sum up: we Man, men, have as our primary and absolute duty the vital imperative of survival through altruism (my first seminar was on 11.6.16 on “La “the unexplained conscience”of professor Arana where I met our current author).
In this occasion I didn’t have to look after any number. The book under review lavishly mentions my ideas. In fact,“the origins of man”is full of them. Though our writer does not highlight them presumably because he´s unaware of them. He uses them without seeing them. As I believe Mr. Juan Arana said, in order to see something to have to look at it first. Ortega y Gasset said it too.
I read in a note I made to myself that Fernando gave me the book more than two years ago, on the 27.04.17. I read and underlined it eagerly and six days after, on the third of May, I wrote a note to myself where, amongst other things I concluded:
“The book is very comprehensive, scholarly and current. It´s written in a clear, fluent and, at the same time, rigorous style. It possesses a very much welcomed scientific and multidisciplinary approch as it´s a scarce attribute nowadays. I´ve read it and underlined it and there´s, at least, forty-two pages that contain important aspects to be dealt with in relation to my own ideas.
In any case, I was thrilled to read on page 82:“…the human being can lock himself up in his own creation and even disregard his own survival in the long run: his appreciation for the species and natural inclination for its permanence have vanished…”
Does professor Rodríguez mean that he shares my idea that the human being has, or had, a natural inclination for the survival of the species ? Has this idea been made explicit before, apart from question 94 of the Summa by Saint Thomas Aquino? Summa de Santo Tomás?
And then it goes on:“Any evolutionist argument adds the survival of the species as the purpose of life“. Even though the sentence it´s not clear, it rather implies that the purpose or goal of life, I understand it refers to human life – that of every man or the species- is the survival of the human species itself. This idea reflects my own basic hypothesis but I´m quite sure none has said it before me, not the evolutionists nor anybody else.
And it looks as if professor Rodríguez agrees with it. But I believe he hasn´t noticed the importance this idea has as a fundament for a universal ethic principle (code of ethics). I hope he´ll read my little book and give me a chance to discuss it” (end of the self quoting)
On the 03.05.17 I mailed a copy of my Survival and Altruism to professor Rodríguez Valls and from then on we´ve exchanged ideas, both personally and on writing , but we are still to reach a common conclusion.
As part of the unfinished script resulting of said exchange I´m going to quote, from this book of his we´re currently commenting here, the most significant paragraphs from those highlighted forty-two pages I mentioned before.
On page 103, speaking about moral conscience, he says:
“…since the beginning of man what you could call an expansion of the notion of humanity has been happening, which rises the moral obligation not only to the members of the tribe or culture but to the whole human species (…) Having the species as a goal delivers the biological objectives and imposes a social collaboration amongst individuals”.
In this last paragraph he´s, again, mentioning the basic idea and, in the prior sentences, he talks about trying to fulfil the “moral obligation”. Meaning, the history of the vital imperative. But his interest is fixed in what to do to enforce the mandate, not in the fact that it exists. Also, in the coincidences and differences between animals and man on altruistic and cooperative survival behaviours. He cites Darwin and Frans de Waal in order to separate animalistic proto-morals from human morals.
And, on page 128, talking about body and emotions:
“… emotion puts us in connection with survival in the best conditions possible and accepts the sacrifice as long as it serves as an advantage of the ones it regards nearest”. Hume is quoted as an example of emotivism. He says: “the body connects us with the values of the self and of the altruism to the species. That said, emotivism cannot be the pillar of an ethics of duty”.
Here, also, is the basic idea, but he mentions it in passing because his interest lies in the last sentence. And he is right: not emotion nor the duty it originates are, and can never be, the foundation of ethics. They are both a medium to achieve the basic objective. Objective that our author uses and talks about but doesn’t stop to highlight. He´s busy otherwise. He also gets altruism right, but does not point it out.
The whole chapter 5, pages 133 to 166, deals with the“Origins of human intellect””
In the first page he remarks that this question: “…is the battle horse of any anthropology in search of the specific differences in the human being, and not only its similarities with the rest of the animal kingdom”. It´s clear that he mainly means the differences. That´s why, I guess, he assumes the similarities as obvious.
He then adds:
“In this essay I maintain the thesis that the intellect or conscience is that which unveils a difference thorough enough provided that we are able to clarify what it relates to and determine the scope it provides”.
Thus he includes in this chapter a very interesting work on truth and evolution, animal instincts, the essence of man, conscience, truth as a likely survival strategy, the role of philosophy in human life, a debate with Juan Arana on conscience, consciousness and fiction, and man´s views on time. Nothing at all!
I have reviewed all the epigraphs in the chapter because they all pertain the concept of“biological efficiency”he enunciates in the beginning; “it materializes in itself the essence of the evolutionist philosophy, from Darwin´s to Lewontin´s: adaptation to the environment, natural selection and survival of the fittest”. He then redefines it adding the concept of usefulness.“An entity is biologically efficient when it attains survival and the transmission of its genes and, conversely, it is not when it doesn’t achieve these goals” .It´s not clear what entities we are talking about: organisms, populations, species, clades… Each and everyone?
Then is the main question to the answer of which the chapter is dedicated: “ Is truth important for the biological survival? Not useful, which it obviously is. I mean important, even necessary, in such way that without it living beings wouldn’t achieve their perpetuation pursuits“.
Again, in this last sentence, he enunciates the basic idea: perpetuation, survival as base to the objectives of living beings. It´s obviously self-evident to him. And to me. So I mean to answer his question now and emphasize the importance and necessity of “the truth” for the survival of living beings and, specially, for the survival of Mankind.
For living beings “the truth” they need to know is the one telling them what to do to try and survive as a species. Every time and enabling all the capacity to do so. The mandate of the vital imperative is implicit in their vital programming. It may seem as if ninety percent of the species didn’t know its truth. Or, at least, not on time.. Or maybe they couldn´t secure it and became extinct.
Man (men) got here trying to fulfil the purpose of perpetuation through increasingly bigger groups of cohabitation: family, tribe, nation…farmers, hunters, believers, philosophers…In other words, knowing and making use enough partial truths to achieve our survival. But universal truthfulness or goodness neither is not was explicit here. Darwin´s and Lewotin´s biological efficiency refers to the survival of the fittest idividual, and that is what was specified, but individual survival is a partial asset.
That is why that truth is insufficient, because is biased. Man, being “of rational body and spirit”, is aware of this inadequacy and so keeps looking for a bigger truth. A truth that holds Man as a subject, even as men also search for Truth and eternal life. But that´s another item altogether and shouldn´t be mixed up to avoid bias. We´ll stay on the universal vital truth of the natural law.
Another answer to the question: Man will hardly survive if we don´t discover, make self-evident and implement soon the vital truth. And that should be done using the capacities that have gotten us to this point and which differences us from animals. Meaning, our special thinking, judging, choosing and communicating skills.
Keeping these ideas in mind, I think that all that´s been said in the current chapter paints a different picture and resolves the doubts laid on the various epigraphs or, at least they shine a light on them. That´s a task for another day, for now I´ll keep harvesting the prolific text at hand.
Chapter 6th, and last (pages 167 to 189) addresses human will, freedom, the pursuit of goodness, trans-humanism, the global village. All extremely interesting and very well dealt with and summarized. I´ll just quote what´s significant to our own ideas.
Page 168 goes:
“The moral conscience plane (knowledge applied to practice) is the one that must configurate the structure of subjectivity. The problem is that the knowledge of the self might not be whole enough as to obtain an adequate moral vision of that self and what it needs to accomplished”
We are sustaining the need that: “…the social community as well as the individual subject” are looking for “knowing” as a guide to doing. But the truth about what´s needed collectively and individually depends on what each of them consider “the ideal living projects”, that is the goal and objectives of the social community as well as the individual. That´s the ancient and unresolved issue of the ultimate purposes, which also determines the old concept of human freedom. It´s clear that determinism does not exist for living beings, let alone man.
On page 176 this issue is addressed more directly. It says: “Freedom is not merely the search of means but a determination of ends, that is its main objective”. This is a serious matter, and I´m not sure our author takes notice. The end of man as a living being neither could nor can be determined by Man. Nor Men, individuals or persons. Attempting this would be like implying “thou shall be godlike”. On the various definitions on “determine” we can try: DRAE:114 “To point out or indicate something clearly and exactly”, but not :113 “To stablish or fixate something”. This is a big mistake on the part of Kant and the Illustrated, more out of ignorance than pride.
According to my idea, said and shared by the author, albeit unintentionally, the vital goal of Man, of men of the Homo sapiens species, is self-survival. This end is imprinted and implicit in every man´s nature and cannot be changed.
The challenge is that the primary vital end or objective hasn´t been specified and assumed as a common ethical base yet, even though it´s been used, when talking about natural law, as an implicit foundation of partial ethical systems. Men, as different groups and cultures, have lived, cohabitated and survived up until now with partial contingent goals, and, in consequence, with the partial truths and virtues available to them and exerted accordingly in each moment and circumstance.
Acknowledging the former, page 181 says: “… it can be stablished that there is a natural asset that the human being shares with animals which is the completion of activities that allow the personal survival, and that of the species”.Herewith lies the title of my commentary.
Our author goes back to the basic idea but in a timid and imprecise tone. The asset shared by animals and all living beings alike is life, and trying to preserve it through the survival of all the species. The“shared natural asset”is not “the completion of activities that allow the personal survival, and that of the species”: the asset is life,and to try and preserve and transfer it, living beings have various options, depending on the species, to try and do so. The degree of freedom of choice goes from the minimal one of bacteria to the maximum one enjoyed by men, even though page 169 says: “Human beings are as free as they can be”.
I concur with what´s said on page 182: “… the mean is, at the same time, end whilst the end is achieved by exercising itself”. In the case of Man, the end of surviving almost coincides with the mean: altruism/love. This is true of this life and the next, if there´s one. In other words: love thy neighbour, which is the best means for our species/mankind to survive, can also be ends or objective since the one who loves wants, primarily that the object of that love lives happily ever after. Practicing altruism also makes the pursuer happy.
I could end up quoting Saint Agustine and Teilhard, but I rather quote the author whom, in a lesser known text says:
“I am to continue and seek (…)
hastening more and more
the arrival of love amongst men”.
I think that the book we are currently commenting on, is a superb proof of that pursuit, and I thank him for it, amen.
Epilogue. On human dignity
I had no intention to write about the epilogue, as the question raised are particularly difficult for me, but I´ve marked some sentences that a second reading point out to me the need of a brief commentary. Page 193:
“Superior, talking about the human condition, doesn’t mean being the planet´s tyrant, but being the one having to administer the means taking into account everyone’s well-being: the correct ethical consideration is the one pertaining the responsibility acquired to the planet by the one that, having the capacity to destroy it, has de responsibility to save it”“.
I agree, but there´s no need to appeal, like Hans Jonas did, to the concept of responsibility. We men have the obligation to procure the well-being of all and of taking care of the planet as the means to our own survival. This is due to the vital imperative that we have implicit, as well as mere selfishness.
In the same page: “…there´s a sense of universality in human dignity, whatever form or shape it takes: all human life possesses dignity as it holds a structure that identifies it as such”. And then: “An impoverished man still has dignity, as does a criminal, a new-born baby or a sick person”.
Although I don´t quite grasp the concept of “structure”, I believe I can translate the latter as each and every person have, just by being human, the same dignity, and so do all their lives. On page 195, the author justifies dignity with both an ontological and an ethical argument. The ontological one claims the individual quality of every subject belonging to the species, which in itself entails dignity by affiliation; and the ethical one, which looks for the responsibility issue.
Being in complete agreement with our author I would add another two points to why every person is deemed worthy and his life deserving of respect and consideration.
First, every individual of our species, is and represents our humanity, Mankind. So, whatever anybody does to another human being, he does to the whole species, like wronging one policeman and offending the whole Police Corps in the process. Or robbing a cashier means robbing the bank.
And vice versa, whatever Mankind does, every man do. And in doing so, apart from the direct consequences, it weighs on the group morality and consequently, the whole species. And this morality influences the implicit ethics of humanity. This is how we arrive to the global ethics of today and of the past, and that´s why there´s great sin in the scandalous and great virtue in leading by the example.
The author reinforces the issue at the end of the book. Page 196, and last: “The acknowledgement of the common dignity (…) becomes the theoretical and practical centre of the safeguarding of the world: it steers us from speciesism to ethic universalism which men has introduced to the world for the first time in the history of life itself.”
Unfortunately, Man does not recognize the concept of a common dignity yet, nor have we an operational universal ethics basis. Some collectives of men have assumed and practice partial ethical codes that are almost equal to the implicit universal ethical code, but, regrettably, doesn’t imply a globally accepted universal ethic.
The implicit vital imperative, the outlook of the world and globalization have increased the sense of belonging to a same human community, but we still don’t explicitly have a common vital objective which would make sense of a universal ethical basis. From that base would emanate values and virtues, implicit or explicit to each collective.
The globalization movement, which enables the ethical universalism, does not guarantee that those partial universal ethics, either theoretical or practical, are the good ones. If they end up being the bad ones, globalization only makes them the more dangerous. Up until a few years ago, group errors, even big ones, would only affect the collective perpetrating them and, at most, the adjacent area. Nowadays, small errors or deviations could have, or maybe already have grave consequences to the world. Virtues also find themselves amplified, but it might be that the accumulated product of the mistakes is bigger than that of the virtues. Mainly because we are lacking an explicit vital objective,, common and universal.So, each group still looks for its own objectives and moral norms.
Hence the importance and urgency of detailing and assuming, as soon as possible, a common ethical base. The International Theological Commission tried just that, as did the church doctrines, regarding social and environmental issues. I still maintain that the universal basis, valid and regarded as truthful by all is the one that prioritizes and specifies the duty of all living beings to the survival of their own species.
That survival of man that the book mentions, even if it does not emphasize it, in order to achieve whatever the end or the final goal is: being superhuman, being wise, or to bring upon the reign of worldly altruism/love as a medium/objective for survival and happiness, here and beyond, if applicable. Or to try and carry out Teilhard´s dream.
Addendums confirming what´s been said in the current book
As stated on my note of the 03.05.2017 I was very excited to read on page 82 of the book the two paragraphs that, somehow confirmed my basic idea. After seventeen years, it was the first time I read something like that. I doubted for a second if the author might have been inspired by my lecture at the seminar of professor Arana the 11.06.16. I never asked.
Afterwards I noticed what the biologist Natalia López-Moratalla says, in two of her works, that the goal of animals is the survival of their species. In “Cuestiones acerca de la evolución humana”, 2008 and in “Inteligencia artificial ¿conciencia artificial?” published in 2017.
Currently, the 27th of may 2019, professor Francisco Molina, coordinator of the Grupo de Trabajo, Ciencia Y Fe from CEU, recommended me the book “ El azar y la necesidadby Jacques Monod, Nobel prize in 1965.I knew of the book, published in 1970, but thought it a technical work and dismissed it. I ordered it, got it the 28th and read the following on page 26:
“…every particular project, whatever it might be, doesn’t make sense unless part of a more general project. All functional adaptations of living beings, as well as all artifacts configurated by them, fulfil individual projects that might be considered as aspects or fragments of a unique primitive project, which is the preservation and multiplication of of the species“.
He goes on about the “teleonomic information” as the amount of information transferred by individuals to the next generation to assure the transmission of the specific content of reproductive un-variability. Later still:
“It´ll be easily observed that the compliance of the teleonomic fundamental project (i.e. un-variable reproduction) sets off, amongst various species and different degrees on the animal scale, diverse structures and performances, more or less processed and complexed. Is necessary to insist on the fact that it´s not only about activities directly linked to reproduction as a whole, but about all of the activities that play a part in, if only tangentially, the survival and multiplication of the species“.
Monod makes these affirmations as a molecular biologist. I believe that, as well as Francisco, he considers them obvious and well known, but he doesn’t infer from them the idea I see and articulate either. He focusses on what interests him, adaptations and activities. He also sees the purpose of those tasks, but doesn’t seem to notice that those tasks and that purpose are the task and purpose of each and every living being. And of their species as an ensemble of organisms that encompasses them any given moment. The purpose is, clearly, the conservation, multiplication and survival of the species.
I confess that the fact that I see my ideas in these paragraphs, and the authors do not, makes me doubtful of my hypothesis but, as much as I go around it, I still see it clearly. It might be that everybody takes them for granted and so, even when they use it in their work, they can´t see it. So, they don’t acknowledge it or it being the basis of the behaviour of all living beings, including man.
The idea is quite simple but extensive and clashes with prejudices and firmly held beliefs and it presents technical doubts, amongst them, the naturalistic fallacy, the species as a subject, altruism as a medium… I think my web page resolves all those doubts, but it still might be possible I´m wrong.
In any case, the consequences of my ideas being right, and of them being known and acquired, might be vital (on both senses) for the present and future of mankind and its well-being. That´s why I ask of the reader the attentive reading of my hypothesis, if only for a few minutes. Then, if they think me wrong, or true, get in touch with me ans say so. Thank you for that in advance.
Final addendum. After writing the latter I read “Adaptarse o morir”, a pleasant informative work written by the young biologist Evelyn Segura and published by Paidos in March 2019. In the introduction she says in passing:
“As well as a gazelle runs away spontaneously in front of a lioness, human beings are also animals that answer instinctively to the desire of staying alive and survive our own threats, get to reproductive age, create a new generation and perpetuate our species. That sums it up.
Is this the true sense of our existence? It could be seen as one of the most important philosophical question for humanity, although from a biological point of view, the answer frightens in its apparent simplicity: yes, it does.”
Indeed, I believe philosophers have a lot to say about this.
J.C. Madrid, 9.21.2019