Not only is there difference on a vertical scale, but there’s displacement horizontally—i.e., different-but-equal, also exists, a woman may be equal to a man, but she’s not the same as a man.
This, also, makes for complications when trying to decide “what is a human being”; there have been many cultures in history that definitely held that women weren’t human.
I have a slight suspicion that the basic difficulty is that we can’t get anything even approximating a workable concept of Justice so long as we consider equality a necessary, inherent part of it. The Law of Gravity applies equally to all bodies in the Universe—but that doesn’t mean that the force of gravity is the same for all!
Gravity—the universal law—is the same on Mars and a white dwarf star as it is on Earth. That doesn’t mean that the force of gravity is the same.
But it takes considerable genius to come up with a Universal Law of Gravity for sheer, inanimate mass. What it takes to discover the equivalent for intelligent entities… the human race hasn’t achieved as yet! Not even once has an individual reached that level!
This makes defining “human” a somewhat explosive subject.
Now the essence of humanity most commonly discussed by philosophers has been Man, the Rational Animal. The ability to think logically; to have ideas, and be conscious of having those ideas. The implied intent in “defining human-ness” is to define the unique, highest-level attribute that seta man apart from all other entities.
That “rational animal” gimmick worked pretty well for a long time; the development of electronic computers, and the clear implication of robots calls it into question. That, plus the fact that psychological experiments have shown that logical thought isn’t quite so unique-to-Man as philosophers thought.
The thing that is unique to human beings is something the philosophers have sputtered at, rejected, damned, and loudly forsworn throughout history. Man is the only known entity that laughs, weeps, grieves, and yearns. , There’s been considerable effort made to prove that those are the result of simple biochemical changes of endocrine balance. That is, that you feel angry because there is adrenalin in the bloodstream, released from the suprarenal glands. Yes, and the horse moves because the cart keeps pushing him. Why did the gland start secreting that extra Charge of adrenalin?
The essence of our actual definition of humanness is “I am human; any entity that feels as I feel is human also. But any entity that merely thinks, and feels differently is not human.”
The “inhuman scientist” is so called because he doesn’t appear to feel as the speaker does. While we were discussing possible theological ramifications of the humanness question, we might have included the zombie. Why isn’t a zombie “human” any longer? Because he has become the logical philosopher’s ideal; a purely rational, non-emotional entity.
Why aren’t Tregonsee, the Rigellian, and Worsel, the Velantian, to be compared with animals and/or robots?
Because, as defined in E. E. Smith’s stories, they feel as we do.
Now it’s long since been observed that an individual will find his logical thinking subtly biased in the direction of his emotional feelings. His actions will be controlled not by his logic and reason but, in the end, by his emotional pulls. If a man is my loyal friend— i.e., if he feels favorable-to-me —then whatever powers of physical force or mental brilliance he may have are no menace to me, but are a menace to my enemies.
If he feels about things as I do, I need not concern myself with how he thinks about them, or what he does. He is “human”—my kind of human.
But… if he can choose his feelings, if his emotions are subject to his conscious, judicious, volitional choice…? What then? If his emotional biases are not as rigidly unalterable as his bones? If he can exercise judgment and vary his feelings, can I trust him to remain “human”?
Could an entity who felt differently about things—whose emotions were different—be “human”?
That question may be somewhat important to us. Someone, sooner or later, is going to meet an alien, a really alien alien, not just a member of Homo sapiens from a divergent breed and culture.
Now it’s true that all things are relative. Einstein proved the relativity of even the purely physical level of reality. But be it noted that Einstein proved that Law of Relativity; things aren’t “purely relative” in the sense that’s usually used—”I can take any system of relationships I choose!” There are laws of relativity.
The emotional biases a culture induces in its citizens vary widely. Mores is a matter of cultural relativity.
That doesn’t mean that ethics is; there are laws of relativity, and it’s not true that any arbitrary system of relationships is just as good as any other.
Can we humans-who-define-humanness-in-emotional-terms—despite what we theoretically say!—meet an equally wise race with different emotions—and know them for fellow humans?
A man who thinks differently we can tolerate and understand, but our history shows we don’t know how to understand a man who feels differently.
The most frightening thing about a man who feels differently is this; his feelings might be contagious. We might learn to feel his way—and then, of course, we wouldn’t be human any more.
The wiser and sounder his different feelings are, the greater the awful danger of learning to feel that way. And that would make us inhuman, of course.
How do you suppose an Athenian Greek of Pericles’s time would have felt if threatened with a change of feelings such that he would not feel disturbed if someone denied the reality of the Gods, or suggested that the Latins had a sounder culture? Why—only a nonhuman barbarian could feel that way!
The interesting thing is that the implication of “inhuman” is invariably subhuman.
I suspect one of the most repugnant aspects of Darwin’s concept of evolution was—not that we descended from monkeys—but its implication that something was apt to descend from us! Something that wasn’t human … and wasn’t subhuman.
The only perfect correlation is auto-correlation; “I am exactly what I am.” Any difference whatever makes the correlation less perfect.
Then if what I feel is human—anything different is less perfectly correlated with humanness. Hence any entity not identical is more or less subhuman; there can’t possibly be something more like me than I am.
Anybody want to try for a workable definition of “human”? One warning before you get started too openly; logical discussion doesn’t lead to violence—until it enters the area of emotion.
As of now, we’d have to tell that robot “A human being is an entity having an emotional structure, as well as a physical and mental structure. Never mind what kind of emotional structure—good, indifferent, or insane. It’s the fact of its existence that distinguishes the human.”
Of course, that does lead to the problem of giving the robot emotion-perceptors so he can detect the existence of an emotion-structure.
And that, of course, gets almost as tough as the problem of distinguishing a masquerading demon from a man. You know … maybe they are the same problem?
It’s always puzzled me that in the old days they delected so many demons, and so few angels, too. It always looked as though the Legions of Hell greatly outnumbered the Host of Heaven, or else were far more diligent on Earth.
But then … the subhuman is so much more acceptable than the superhuman.
SIERRA SAM
by Ralph Dighton
from Associated Press
Some years back I got tired of that aching feeling in my head, and resolved never again to pit an opinion of mine against one of John Campbell’s—his are so much stronger.