Human Exceptionalism

Humans have always occupied a strange space among the rest of the Earth’s beings, at least in thought. We have seen ourselves either as beings stretched across two distinct worlds (the physical world and a spiritual realm), or as occupying the chief position of this one world, rivaled in either case only by the gods in whose image we are created, or perhaps, who are created in ours, if we are rivaled at all. This privileged understanding of ourselves acts as the bedrock of our most widespread religious beliefs, the bonds of our moral responsibility to one another, and the face with which we converse with Nature. Performing an analysis of the concept of human exceptionalism is a difficult task, since in order to do so we must attempt to look at human nature, which in itself seems invariably to throw us directly back into the problem we hope to examine. In looking at human nature we will always implicitly assume human exceptionalism or its negative, that is, we are immediately led to conceive of humans as above Nature or utterly within Nature, and there seems to be no way to address the human being in a way which truly gets beyond this binary: that humans are distinct from Nature, or they are not. Since there is no way to get entirely outside of this binary, the best way to treat the subject would be to sometimes assume the one, and at other times assume the other so that the outcome of each assumption can be drawn out and laid beside its counterpart, allowing us to view the poles of the binary in parallel. 

For what purpose do we engage in this investigation? What is at stake in the question? Perhaps, practically speaking, there is no purpose. If we are bound to view ourselves as privileged due to the fact that our perspective is strictly atomic — i.e. composed of individuals who only can see the world from one point, as it were, with a body to maintain, needs to satisfy, desires to negotiate — that is, if we are inevitably subjective and self-interested, then the question here is an idle speculation into the what-ifs of what is most foundational and axiomatic in our thinking. The question would compare to asking, “what if the interior angles of a triangle were not equal to two right angles?” On the other hand, the stakes may be very high, because if we are capable of choosing how we position ourselves in relation to Nature, our choice is either one of indefinitely extending our term as sovereign over the Earth or enacting the ultimate abdication. There are four possibilities, as I see it. The first two assume that we have no choice in the matter: Either we are inevitably bound to rule the Earth (if only in thought) by virtue of our individual and innately self-interested perspective; or we are inevitably going to be overthrown from our privileged position by some external force. This force may come as a result of the discovery of highly superior extra-terrestrials, the creation of a vastly intelligent AI system, or the sheer ineptitude of our rule causing the Kingdom of Earth to shudder and revolt, taking us to the guillotine. The other two possibilities assume that our concepts are created rather than discovered and that we may craft and recraft the concept of the human with an aim to the effects of having this or that conceptualization — being the ruler of Earth, higher than Nature, or subject to Earth, one with Nature. For the sake of rigor, all four possibilities ought to be examined, though the two which presuppose a choice I think are worth the most attention. The two which presuppose no choice bear little utility in their closing of possible action, and the scenario which relies on the appearance of aliens or androids can only, by necessity, be composed of nothing more than speculations. Therefore, if a choice is presupposed to be made between keeping our exceptional status or not, then the consequences of both paths should be made clear, and the binary laid out unclouded by rhetoric arguing definitively for one side or the other. So far as I am aware, there has not yet been such a treatise which neither argues in favor of nor against human exceptionalism — which has not chosen a side and deployed all the force rhetoric can give in swaying the reader to one side or the other.

The reason why, we propose, is that human exceptionalism is a concept imbued with a higher utility and conceptual gravity than any other concept. It occupies perhaps the most central position among the network-architecture of our thinking. In the majority of cases, the status of the human being is assumed axiomatically. It is a principle from which nearly all the rest of our propositions follow. Nearly every moral or ethical treatise tacitly understands the human being to bear a moral quality which gives them a higher standing in relation to the other things which exist in the universe. Few indeed are the individuals who have either been profound or profane enough to turn over the assumption on all sides and see that it is not an idea which bears the stamp of unassailable truth, though the way it is so universally assumed makes it appear as though it ought to. Fewer still are those who have expressed the subsequent revelation with honesty in dealing with others. Let us imagine for a while that there really is no reason or evidence compelling enough to assume the human being is either above or merely among the rest of Nature. Surely there are some readers who instantly react to this proposed thought experiment. This consideration necessarily hits at the very foundation of most religions. It undermines the doctrines that God and mankind share an exclusive image, that the human soul is something truly distinct that is free and has moral responsibility and can be redeemed, that there is any order of creation which places humanity at the center and devises all events and disposes all natural beings for its sole utility and spiritual edification. This consideration is the open door into heresy or atheism. Yet likewise, if one is of a more secular but still humanist bent, we are chiseling away at those foundations as well. Though not founded in theological doctrines, we are questioning the value of ideas around human-centric morality, the drive to ever improve civilization and to protect human dignity above all else. This consideration for all of our religious texts, or for all of our observations of human superiority and ingenuity, that there is no fact which places humanity in any particular ontological or moral category effectively threatens hundreds if not thousands of years of more or less continuous thought. 

There may also be those of a more contemporary light, who align with environmentalist movements and see human exceptionalism as a catastrophic overestimation of ourselves — as nothing more than a narcissistic and narrow perspective which has driven us to pollute the Earth, enslave and wipe out entire species for our ends, and pave over intricate and diverse ecosystems with invariable human industry. There are also those of a more ancient persuasion who follow one of the many forms of Nature worship which were so common in early times and so rare in more recent history. Either way, these two categories also presuppose the status of the human as a fact. We won’t stress the point further, but what we hope to illustrate is that the full spectrum of beliefs from the Abrahamic traditions to Nature worship, from humanism to environmentalism, all assume either human exceptionalism or its negative. Though each of these belief systems in practice actually contain an intricate and nuanced view of humanity which, when examined honestly and carefully, contains a good deal of both human exceptionalism and its negative playing together in complicated ebbs and flows, none of them explicitly admit the status of the human to be a created concept which is subject to conscious revision with an aim to the effects. The status of the human is either taken as an axiom of its respective system of thought, or, if it is revised, it is seen as a revision for the sake of bringing us closer to the truth of the matter. Both of these approaches restrain us from usefully comparing the effects of the concepts side by side. 

The stakes for how we conceptualize humanity are nothing short of societal cohesion and moral responsibility. To state an overview of the problem, human exceptionalism has been the lynchpin for justifying and harmonizing human civilization; it is the material from which we fashion our moral duty to each other, and the guiding principle which decides how we interact with Nature. However, we have also seen as time has gone on that human exceptionalism has a dark side. It has resulted in permanent damage to the ecosystems of the Earth, subjected countless other species to subjugation and extinction, and has been used as a basis for subjugating other humans, if arguments could be made that this or that group is subhuman or stands in the way of an even higher and more perfect humanity. Modernity, the scientific revolution, industrialization and so on not only threatened the longstanding human exceptionalism of the West but were perhaps some of the earliest obvious signs that this concept itself may have turned autoimmune: Human exceptionalism has been running unchecked, not only leading to the destruction of other beings, but ultimately backfiring on humanity itself. The tension is that if human exceptionalism is allowed to continue as it has, we risk the suffering of the Earth itself and the ruin of the very environment which sustains us; if we do away with human exceptionalism, we risk the suffering and ruin of humanity as societal cohesion and moral responsibility evaporate. This is perhaps the epitome of the proverbial rock and a hard place. 

Certainly, though, this binary is too simplistic. We may have recourse to many possibilities of how we may reframe the concept of the human such that we could at once harmonize with Nature and also preserve our cohesion and systems of morality. Though, since the concept of the human being is so foundational, any revisions of it will necessarily entail a different form of the connected concepts. We will be faced with new conceptualizations of morality, of Nature, and of society, that must follow from a reframing of the human. There are perhaps many reasons on the horizon which will cause us to rethink the concept of the human which I will leave for you to ponder over. In the meantime we may get ahead by considering which concept of the human serves the human best. And just as the systems of thought from the past rarely held absolutely to one side or the other of the binary and intricately wove together the notions of the human as above and within Nature, so too will we, in light of recent events, need to consciously weave such a tapestry while deciding which qualities and areas ought to constitute our pride and which our humility.