Whether Human Nature Needs to be Obeyed

发表于 2023-04-22 更新于 2023-06-08 分类于 English 阅读次数：

In the course “Positive Psychology”, Professor TalBen Shahar proposed the key premise, which is human nature needs to be obeyed. But from my point of view, nature can be disobeyed and changed. It can happen in both long-term and short-term.
According to the nature selection, the fittest survives. So, all the natures we have contribute to our survival for a certain period of time in a certain environment. But the environment is changing constantly. So, in my opinion, human nature is changing accordingly to make us fitter in current environment in the long term.
For instance, the nature of laziness is not a flaw but a nature that helps us to save energy and survive in the past. However, in the modern society, we have excess food and energy and it is not a good nature anymore. The people that obey to laziness more hold less value and competence. Thus, they have less resources and chance of passing on their genes in today’s high-performance society.
Only decades ago, there wasn’t much pressure in life and people rarely needed to work overtime. But today, after a few generations, many people are more endeavour to study, to work and win the competition to keep the job and salary. Meanwhile it’s a lot more expensive to raise a children for better life quality and better education. So, the people with less nature of laziness or the people who disobey it more can pass on their hard-working genes.
Although the changes in our genes is slow and slight, but gradually, the human nature and the outside behaviour, including some psychology behaviour will show differences. Professor Downes also proposed that in evolutionary biology, particular programme and associated traits can’t stay fixity, so “We have every reason to assume that the evolution of human psychology is ongoing”.[1]
The change and disobedience happen not only in such a long period that deep in genes, but also in a short term in some scenarios.
The human nature is concluded from the perspective of individual. Philosopher Thomas Hobbes had a view on the first law of nature, is that every man ought to endeavour peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek and use all helps and advantages of war. The root laws in the laws of nature are principles of self-preservation.[2]
But when we evolve with high-level emotions like sympathy and build the strong family-society-country-mankind social structure, we can feel other’s heart and bind our thought together towards a same “war” with a same target. And that’s when we create a higher perspective than individual. From the perspective beyond individual, we may value our life lower than the survival and growth of mankind, country, society, family and even a stranger in some critical cases. In these situation, the base of human nature is collapsed and our behaviors are driven by a stronger and greater purpose.
The examples exist in every level of perspective. For mankind, when SiChuan was stroke by severe earthquake in 2008, rescue team and volunteers all over the world rush to the front line saving lives. Japan rescue team work for 100 hours continuously with only instant rice to eat.[3] Secondly, for country, hero like JiGuang Huang and CunRui Dong sacrifice their life with great pain in War of Resistance. When the major pandemic was raging, Professor NanShan Zhong led countless doctors and volunteers to fight against virus in the front line regardless of the risk of getting infected. What’s more, as for families, it’s a common but great love to give up everything for families. Lastly, even for strangers, there was a great number of courageous ordinary person jump into rivers to save children or block the knife for women and elders the second they hear their scream and feel their pain.
In these great deeds and duties where individuals sacrifice everything they have serve for the greater good, the primitive and selfish nature can be overcame easily. Mankind survive with the help of each other, forming a stronger emotion and relationship with others that begin from our families. It feels quit natural to give our life to help them in need. This may have already merged in our nature, which also prove that human’s nature can be improved and go beyond individuals. As civilization growth, there should be less conflict inside mankind but more with outside to gain more resources for development. Our nature may eventually stand on the level of all mankind and form a society like Gaia in the book Foundation's Edge written by Asimov.
Some people who hold the same point with Professor Shahar may argue that nature can’t be changed but channel them towards the good using institutions and systems. But in today’s society systems, the system of law is the strongest one in channeling our nature. The laws are established as the bottom line of the morality in a society level. So, it’s inevitably against some nature that only care for our individual’s surviving.
Thus, on the one hand, if we behave normally because we afraid of being punished by laws, we seem to disobey and depress our nature. On the other hand, If we fail to behave “naturally” by following our nature, we will be punished and even hold up in jail, which is a severe restriction on our freedom while freedom is also a great part in our nature. In these case where human nature can’t be changed, our nature can’t be obeyed as a whole.
On the opposite, if our nature can be changed, it may gradually changes to be the moral cognition on the level of society and mankind. That’s when the laws become useless and we all behaving naturally and following our heart. If there is still some evil nature in ourselves, we should dedicate to discard them, or else we can’t survive in the moral society. This process may be too slow to be noticed, but it serves as a way for mankind to evolve.
Benjamin Constant, a French philosopher and politician said: “It is for self-perfectioning that destiny calls us”. In all, the human nature and the mankind civilization is ever-changing on an upwards spiral.

Reference [1] Downes S M. The basic components of the human mind were not solidified during the Pleistocene epoch[J]. Contemporary debates in philosophy of biology, 2010: 243-252. [2] Munro, André. "state of nature". Encyclopedia Britannica, 23 Jul. 2021, https://www.britannica.com/topic/state-of-nature-political-theory. Accessed 8 June 2023. [3] 中国人民将永存的记忆——记汶川地震国际大救援. https://www.gov.cn/jrzg/2008-05/23/content_989714.htm