We are rational animals, not racial animals

[Chris]

Manent, Natural Law and Humans Rights laments the modern view of man. Thus modern view, he says, narrows down all dispositions of what man as individual is to a single disposition or attribute. For example Manent offers Hobbes who narrowed man as individual down to the single disposition of desire for power. What he laments is this defining of man leaves out entirely the question of action, political action, that is, the question, what is to be done? For Hobbes, and many others, that was unimportant because the individual is supposed to obey the state.

We are rational animals, not racial animals criticizes the growing contemoorary view that we are “racial animals.” I agree with their criticism but not with their differing conclusion for it suffers that same modern narrowing of man down to a signle disposition without addressing what is to be done.

The problem with bad ideas is that they never remain merely ideas. Once they attract sufficient – not always majority – support, bad ideas become codified into worse laws, which afflict whole societies. We are witnessing that process now over a misguided notion of how important “race,” ethnicity, and other identifiable factors are to the value of the human person.

Consider the answer of science and Western civilization to what makes us uniquely human. The noblest part of a creature is its specific form; that is to say, the aspect which differentiates the “kind” of thing it is (viz., its species) from the broader category of beings to which it belongs (viz., its genus). The genus to which humans belong is “animal,” because we have flesh, sensory organs, and the power to move.

But what kind of animal are we? There is a new contender for a textbook “bad answer” about the specific aspect that defines human beings: race. We are, some tell us, “racial animals.”

To be sure, other animals have subclasses with various dominant genetic traits. But this new theory of “race” transcends genetics to include inherited history and even a shared culture. This academic construct of “race” also includes a pivotal element: oppression. This mistreatment of one’s ancestors, immediate and remote, then supposedly inheres in one’s very being.

...Reason is our defining characteristic, not race. We are rational animals, not racial animals.

[jet57]

Manent, Natural Law and Humans Rights laments the modern view of man. Thus modern view, he says, narrows down all dispositions of what man as individual is to a single disposition or attribute. For example Manent offers Hobbes who narrowed man as individual down to the single disposition of desire for power. What he laments is this defining of man leaves out entirely the question of action, political action, that is, the question, what is to be done? For Hobbes, and many others, that was unimportant because the individual is supposed to obey the state.

We are rational animals, not racial animals criticizes the growing contemoorary view that we are “racial animals.” I agree with their criticism but not with their differing conclusion for it suffers that same modern narrowing of man down to a signle disposition without addressing what is to be done.

Take heart, the Wolverine is the only animal in the kingdom that kills for sport.