Forgive me in advance for the length, but I’m leaving soon, so I may as well pull a long one, and make it count while I can. I put headings in to soften the blow.
My view on what it means to be human would fall under the intrinsically good model. I do however disagree with many versions of this model which in their simplistic positivism, and selective idealism seem to conveniently fail to address the dark underbelly of human behaviour and motives. Any reasonable claim that human beings are intrinsically good has to, in some way or form, address the seeming paradox of such intrinsic goodness with dark and violent tendencies. Providing at least some explanation as to how and why human being’s intrinsic goodness has, at least in recorded and uncovered history, coexisted with certain dark elements, and can abide even in spite of such darkness like a gem covered in mud. Intrinsically good, but extrinsically askew.
I don’t intend to set forth or defend such a claim, but to present how social conditioning can be considered as inadequate evidence of human flawedness, but as adequate evidence for human being's intrinsic goodness.
How Social Conditioning Constitutes Part of What it Means to be Human
One thing that strikes me as interesting is how the impetuousness and selfishness apparent in young children, which requires social conditioning in order to ‘make good’ such ‘bad’ behaviours and attitudes, is used solely as evidence—or even overconfidently as alleged proof—that human beings are intrinsically flawed. Flawed in the sense of being chained to their instincts, and inclined towards ruthless self-preservation and gratification, which encompasses the wild and natural human state which can only be overcome through conditioning. Social conditioning is thus seen as an artificial construct distinct from, and built on top of, an uncouth human nature which is relegated to darkness without it.
Yet it is apparent that wholesome social conditioning is not so much a tool that helps an intrinsically bad/flawed human nature to be overcome; but is an integral part of what is means to be human, and is necessary for human development—understood as a cultivation of human nature, and not an usurping of it.
This can be demonstrated by breaking down what it means to be human—meaning here in the sense of, in what being human consists.
Q. What does it mean to be human?
A. To belong to the species homo sapiens.
Q. In what does belonging to the species homo sapiens consist?
A. To be a mammal, bipedal, to have a certain pronounced cognitive ability, capacity for symbolic thinking, to be an especially social creature etc.
Q. In what does being a social creature (in the context of being human) consist?
A. Among many things, the need (understood as the essential role) to be socialised.
Q. What does it mean to be socialised?
A. Among many things, to be socially conditioned: i.e. to be instructed in how to be social, in how to communicate with others and cooperate, and bargain; to be taught certain behaviours, according to diverse social and ethical frameworks—philosophical and/or religious and/or cultural and/or economical and political.
In light of the above, social conditioning is shown to be a building block constituting a part of what it means to be human. What that involves and according to which method is another whole matter, but at least social conditioning can be viewed as essential to what it means to be human.
It can be summarised: to be human is to be a social creature, and that requires social conditioning—implying learning/education in the general sense of the word. Hence a part of what it means to be human is to be socially conditioned. The fact therefore, that human beings require at least adequate social conditioning in order to become decent people, and to rise above ruthless self-preservation and gratification, is because such conditioning is essential to what it means to be human, and without it, or with inadequate conditioning, humanness is left in potential, and not actualised: in other words, humanness is left undeveloped.
How Social Conditioning Can Lead to the Actualisation of One’s Humanity
Hence if social conditioning is part of what it means to be human, those aspects of a person—those traits that are a product— of an absence of social conditioning, or of poor/inadequate/wrong socialisation is not reflective of what it means to be human, but is a reflection of a lack or negation of what is human, and is thus to the degree that it lacks: inhumane or non-human. In this sense, someone whose behaviour is drastically anti-social and involves ruthlessly killing and sexually assaulting others, is not a behaviour that stems from such a person’s humanness, but from their undeveloped humanness – i.e. the unactualisation of their intrinsic humanity, which remains largely in potential due to poor/inadequate/wrong socialisation (among many other factors which play a role). They remain a human being, yet their behaviour can be deemed inhuman.
One Cannot Lose Their Humanity but It Can Remain Undeveloped
Accordingly, the humanity of everyone belonging to the species homo sapiens is irrefutable and intrinsic. This is all that is required to be human, and no behaviours or lack in any other constituent of what it means to be human diminishes this possession of being human—of humanness.
However, such intrinsic humanness can be in varying degrees undeveloped and thus left to such a degree extrinsically in potential, or it can be in varying degrees developed and so made to be measurably extrinsically actualised. In this respect a serial killer is as human as everyone else, and yet, elements of their behaviour and attitudes are inhuman, in that they are inhuman actualisations stemming from an undeveloped or non-actualised part of their intrinsic humanity.
‘Proper’ and ‘Improper’ Social Conditioning
Such conditioning is ‘proper’ if and only if it is suitably human. That is, it develops the human person as a human person – i.e. as a mammal, bipedal, intellectual being, symbolic thinker, social creature, as a meaning orientated creature, etc. Social conditioning is ‘improper’ to the degree it either fails to fit what is human, or fails to cultivate, or warps, human traits, by negating the actualisation of human properties, or by conditioning them faultily by negating the human character, and the holistic and dynamic nature of such human properties. All ‘improper’ conditioning contributes to an undeveloped humanity.
For example, conditioning a child to murder on impulse is ‘improper’ conditioning, because although it may lead to a kind of cultivation of cognition, survival skills, and a certain physical prowess, which are all human capacities, it negates the social dynamic of human traits which is existent because human beings are social creatures. Such conditioning would thus fail to cultivate sociability, and would warp other traits against such an integral part of being human. It would thus leave the humanness of such a child to some degree, undeveloped.
Conclusion: How the Integral Role of Social Conditioning Can Be Used as Evidence for Human Being’s Intrinsic Goodness
The essential role social conditioning plays in being human can thus be used as evidence (not proof—proof can never be had) of human being’s intrinsic goodness.
The seeming unethical and wild nature of human beings which exists before social conditioning, or endures because of its absence, or a poor version of it, is not evidence that human beings are intrinsically flawed and can only rise above such a flawed nature by means of conditioning; but is simply indicative that such conditioning is integral to the development of that very nature. And if social conditioning is integral to the development of human nature, the flawed result of its absence or ‘improper’ form, in nowise reflects that human beings are intrinsically flawed—but instead, that human beings are intrinsically good, but that social conditioning (along with other factors) is necessary to actualise extrinsically what is intrinsic and in potential.
For if (proper) social conditioning is a brick in the wall of what it means to be human, the hole of diminishment left by its absence is not reflective of what being human is, no more than a pile of rubble from a once standing wall, is reflective of what a wall really is.
