Is reason universal, are the passions ? Which could be the starting point to understand Human nature ?

Human nature, politics Paul Henry Schiepan and the meaning of the state

Is Reason Universal? Are the passions? Which could be the starting point for understanding human nature?

Reason and passions, which to understand the true basement of human nature? This question has been the subject of controversy since philosophy exists. For instance Greeks believed in the separation of human between his body, his spirit and his soul. This grounded the metaphysical theory for more than two millenniums. What we propose in this study is to put this question in the perspective of political philosophy. This perspective can enlighten the question of human nature: the problem of metaphysical consideration is that theories are elaborated in abstracto. Or some thinkers, and I share their view, consider that human beings conduct can be understood only according to general social conducts. Every thought we have, every action we do suffers lack of sense if we do not replace it in a societal context. Or political philosophy is studying the human being construction produced by the social body. Political philosophers were elaborating conjectures in order to understand better how individuals acted in society and which form of organization was better considering the conclusions they draw from their conjectures.
We will focus not on the best form of political organization in this essay but on what seems to be the fundament of human being nature. We have to define the term of our subject. We will give general definition of the term reason, passion and universal.
Reason is the faculty by which human being is able to know, to judge and to act. Universal refers to truth that would govern the relations between humans, general characteristics that would dominate in human nature, in our case, passions or reason? Passions is a little more difficult to define because there are different acceptations of this term. We will not use this term in its romantic (and more modern) sense but in its classical term that is quite similar to instinct. Passions is characterized by a lack of particular will in some actions and reactions which result in a predominance of impulsions, especially body impulsion in the decision taking.
During this essay we will focus on two major thinkers who advocates opposite statements in their political theories; Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. Moreover from their contradiction we will try to make a solution emerge, a solution that will be our thesis: human beings are submitted to their passions but in the frame of society they try to subordinate their passions to reason.
To respond to this question we will first study Human before the society using the paradigm of the state of nature, then in a second part we will focus on human behavior toward in a civil society and toward the state.

I Human being before the society

1) Necessity of the state of nature

The first point we have to make clear is about the state of nature. What is a state of nature? Why did Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau or Montesquieu use it as starting point for their theories? Is that a necessity to ground philosophical speculation on the society? What we observe when comparing these four representations, is that state of nature has been used to ground political assertions. Actually, political conceptions of the state and its most appropriate form considering what human beings truly are. The conception of a state of nature allows speculations on the nature of what human beings are in their deep interior. It does not correspond to something that ever existed, neither an historical period that we could date. It is only about speculations. When Hobbes uses the conception of a state of nature he tries to depict a human being that would not be subjected to social rules or norms. The state of nature is a methodological process, from which philosophers draw conclusions to have a better understanding of two things, the true nature of human beings and the process by which unorganized individuals become a social entity. This is a paradigm, very simple in its conception and a kind of necessity too in order to give legitimation to political assertions.
But it suffers lots of critics that force us to use this philosophical “instrument” very wisely. The necessity of being objective when we draw conjectures is well admitted, or the conception of a state of nature is necessarily subjective. Because it corresponds to convictions about human beings, it can be nothing more than different points of view about human beings. Second critics, the fact that in the state of nature, people are supposed to live isolated from others, or sociability is inherent to humans. It is important to understand that even though it is speculation about human nature, it is complete non sense to imagine human being living isolated from others, because every actions of individuals are depending on social considerations, social contacts with others. It is a non-sense such as imagining spiders living in-group.
So let us consider that people in the state of nature are just living without any authority upon them. There are their own masters. So we can suppose two things; first they live in harmony trying to preserve their life and the principle they obey to achieve this is “my freedom stops when my neighbor’s one begin”. This assertion is what Locke advocates in the second treatise of civil government. Second, people are reasoning in the state of nature as individuality and as nothing can oppose to them, they satisfy their desire by their mean and it is the reign of the strongest. This consideration can be defined by two quotations “Humans are being of desire” and “man is a wolf to man”, the second is from Thomas Hobbes who considered the state of nature as a state of “war of all against all” in the leviathan. After all we could raise the question in different terms: if there is not any authority to control them, which of these two basic consideration is taking advantage in a human being, respect of the others in order to assure self conservation (Locke) or instinct of domination (Hobbes)? It is a central question because from this question ensue the reasons that lead people to alienate their own sovereignty to an entity that is enable to control them and also how this entity has to govern people in order to provide social order.

2) From state of nature to society

So we have two different hypotheses, on one hand man are in constant war against every other man, on the other hand, people are living quite peacefully. But in the two cases people are obeying their instincts. So what is conditioning the passage of a state of nature to a society state constituted under the authority of an external entity, the State?
It is the result of human appeal to be protected. In the case of a war it is easily understood because people wants to protect their lives, but it is more difficult to understand the necessity of the State in the case of a peaceful cohabitation in the state of nature. Locke responds saying in the state of nature people are making justice by themselves and they have to find an appropriate sanction corresponding to the prejudice whose victims they are. But it is impossible to make sure that the sanction will be truly appropriate and that the guilty will self subject to this sanction. Here is for Locke the necessity of the State.
I would like to come back on Locke’s assertions concerning the state of nature. First we said that what leads people in the state of nature is the will of conservation (Locke), a goal achieved by using reason that tells individuals to respect others. So Locke is saying that people finds appropriate sanctions because they are, even in the state of nature, under God natural laws that allow them to punish, only if justified. But what is God natural law in Locke philosophy? He sums up himself; “the rights principles of reason”. So here is a clear assimilation of God and reason. This jus naturale is what prevails in the state of nature, which is characterized for Locke by existence of rules, given by god that allows cohabitation in harmony. Locke is clearly advocating that in the state of nature, people are obeying the Universal principle of reason, which is the same that organizes nature in its perfection and harmony. To understand a bit better this theory we have inevitably to replace Locke in the context he is writing. This is the birth of epistemology in English society and Locke is clearly assimilating the principles that drive human beings to the principles that govern Nature.
So there is here a first assertion that reason is the fundamental that drives human in their behaviors but there is a clear necessity of a state because people can be dangerous. This is a kind of “mix” and we do not really know if passions or reason are dominating in human being behavior. It seems to depend on the moment. What is troubling is that in the state of nature it is impossible to say, “globally it is reason, but it can be passions”, because once passions are taking advantage on reason, reason does not exist anymore. Because no one will use its reason if he knows others are obeying their passions. It seems logical, furthermore in a self-conservation perspective.
Reason is what drives human in the state of nature but it is also what makes them appeal to regroup under the authority of a State. How do people to form a civil society? Unanimously they decide that they have to alienate their own sovereignty as we previously said. Once the civil society is formed what ensue is the establishment of rules and the respect of these rules is assured by a State, the supreme authority. The legitimacy of the State also ensues from the fact that peoples agreed to regroup. This is the definition of a tacit contract between the State and the people. People accepted to be subjected to the State if the State provides rules that assure their security. What grounds the society is after all a production of reason. I suppose that it would be better for me if an external authority assures my security, there is no real compensation because in the state of nature I was subjected to jus naturale and now to a state which promulgated rules are positive translations of what natural law is telling.
Reason is at the foundation of the civil society, this birth act of reason resides in the contracting fact. A contract formed between others and myself in order to limit my own freedom. I have a responsibility in this contract because if I do not respect it, the authority I admitted to subject to can sanction me, legitimately.
So we can observe that the first action that is truly founded on reason is a process of responsibility. The first time someone took a contract, he said, “I am responsible for my own actions” and this was the first manifestation of reason as it implies a reflexive consciousness of my own actions. At the opposite the absence of responsibility is what characterized the state of nature; I do not have to justify my actions1. Even if the case of Locke, there is no sanctions if I disrespect natural law.
We advocate that Locke can be seriously questioned because he assimilates reason and God, so his theory of state of nature is partially refutable, quite at least we cannot ground a philosophical theory on such an assertion. Furthermore if reason were at the base of human nature the state would never occur. The birth of reason is the process of responsibility that ensues from the contracting fact in order to assure my own security, consenting in return to limit my freedom.
But we said it was necessary to relativize conclusions possibly drawn from the state of nature paradigm. If we advocate that reason is born with the civil society we imply that before this time only passions prevail. Or as we said, the state of nature is a fictive state in which people are not living in community but isolated from others. It contradicts the basement of human race. People have always lived together in order to survive because nature is too hostile for individuals in the state of nature. This is the group instinct that necessarily forces individuals to restrain their passions in order to live in community. But what we can conclude from this state of Nature is that it is characterized by a lack of authority and so people are driven by their instinct more than anything. In the state of nature, human being is retying with animal instinct of protection and domination. But the moment when people decide to contract is occurring in the state of nature, which means, considering that contracting is an act of reason founded on responsibility, that reason is also present in the state of nature. This conclusion drives us to our second part.

II Human being facing Reason

1) The state as the institutionalization of reason

The state is formed by a contract between members of the society that decide to give their power to an external entity. This entity has two functions; the first is to edict rules to frame the society, the second to make these rules respected. So how could we define the state? It is an institution that exercises its power on a defined territory.
Concerning rules, the state is given the power to edict rules for members of society to avoid troubles. It provides justice in the society in order to assure a peaceful cohabitation. Justice emerges from a rationalization process of several basic rules inherent to every society or groups, like prohibition of incest or of murder. The fact that the state has the monopole of justice is the point that makes the state a rationalized institution. By the contracting fact, people allow the state to use violence against them if they disrespect the rules. So the state is given three powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary.
Considering human being as a being of reason or passion will not have the same consequences on how the state as to exercise its power. Considering our second proposal about the state of nature, people are preoccupied with their own conservation; the state’s first mission is to provide security to its member. For Locke it is clear that the first mission of the state is to assure the right of property that is one of the fundamental rights that he defined.
During the process of creation of the state, man, beings of reason, are using it to contract with each other in order to form the state because they are convinced in their interior that it is the best remedy for troubles in the state of nature. It clearly means that, by using reason, people are renouncing to their individual power and subject to the State. So reason is taking over individual interest, and can be settled as the fundamental of human being because if it were not, people would remain in the state of nature. Human are realizing their potential by using their reason to find the appropriate form of governing and state.
The rationalization process of the state in the case where people are living quite peacefully in the state of nature lead people to create a second contract, between people and the State. This is what shows the most advanced realization of reason. The state is submitted to the will of the people. The state gets its legitimacy from a contract that gives it extended powers in order to be an objective referee in conflicts between members of the society, to achieve this, the state can edict rules, settle justice court and make sanctions applied. If people consider its action non conform to justice principles, they can depose it. The state has no legitimacy anymore.
This is the true reign of reason because the state, the co-contractor is also responsible for its action. Reason is definitely taking advantage on every other instinctive consideration. Considering this frame is the most appropriate to settle peace and order in the society, we could say that it is the true nature of human beings to live in this order. The democratic process that logically ensues from this construction is also considered as something natural corresponding to human nature. If people are enabled to control the state in its action, it is necessary to plan modalities that allow this control. It is the purpose of democracy. By voting, people are electing people which are not susceptible to make a personal use of the power because they are subjected to the general will.
For Locke the most important is to subject the legislative power to the act of voting because it is, according to him, the most fundamental power in the State.
What conclusions to draw about it? Human beings are beings of reason because they are able to establish a non natural order that is more appropriate to their conservation, this non natural order is obtained by rationalization of every man power, puts in the hand of an authority which is subjected to every member of the society in return. This is the institution of a State of Right.
During this transition from state of nature to civil society, people are agreeing to limit their freedom and so their power, this is an act of self-control that imply the massive use of reason in order to understand why it is better to abandon part of my sovereignty.
What is quite disturbing is that if we consider the history of every society, there is one thing inherent to human behavior that lacks in this theory: the principle of authority.
The most basic relation between human beings is a relation of authority based on non-rational considerations. It can be force, it can be charisma, or whatever, but it is rarely a rational consideration that drives human relationship of authority. Or the principle of Human nature based on reason is entirely conditioned by this massive use of rationality in social behavior. Furthermore I would say that the assertion that man is an entire being of reason is an apology of objectiveness, meaning that in every situation man is using its objectivity to establish rational analysis and drawing just conclusions. Or human are beings of subjectivity.
Considering the history of human societies we can easily demonstrate objectivity is not the major rule in social consideration. Grounding human nature on reason is a kind of genuine wish of what should be the best.
From the beginning of our study we have chosen two different points of view, the second was a paradigm analyzing human nature and human political construction through the eventual predominance of reason. We clearly see that is suffers weaknesses that are leading us to suppose that it is not as natural for human to be a being of reason that it seems to be for thinkers who advocate this theory.

2) Reason alone against passions

Considering people are in constant war in the state of nature, we have to determine what is founding relationships between individuals. If there is a will of domination in the state of nature, relations are based on a natural hierarchy. People are trying to dominate others in order on one hand to assure their own conservation, on the other hand to quench the desire of being the strongest.
So we assume the state cannot be founded in the same way than in the case of a state of nature characterized by peace.
We now consider people want to dominate others because they assume that it is the best way for them to assure their own conservation. So they conclude they have to subject other to their will to be sure they cannot be harmful to them. As a result we are in a permanent state of war that is the characterization of the state of nature. Subjectivity is prevailing in social conducts.
So what is grounding the state? It is logical to pretend the state cannot emerge if people do not want it to emerge, neither is it possible for a state to emerge from the domination of a minority, because the majority (in a state of war) would knock down the established power. One assertion we can advocate is the necessity of legitimacy in order to found a state. So people in the state of war agree to subject to a power, not because they want it to assure justice in the sanctions when someone breaks the rules (first proposal), but because they want to protect their own life. The fact that there are few dominators for lots of dominated is also founding the legitimacy of the state on the majority will. People use their reason indeed in order to contract with each other for two purposes: limiting their freedom and giving their power to an external authority, but even this use of reason is driven by individual instinct of conservation that makes them consent to alienate to a State. This is fundamentally different from our previous proposal.
So the state acquires its legitimacy once it emanates from general will. But there is no possibility to avoid its power, neither to question its power. It is impossible because the state is acting as the supreme authority such as in the state of nature. It is the supreme level of the hierarchy that existed in the state of nature. But it has a legitimacy to use its power. His rules are necessarily good because it is the supreme power and no one can contradict what is said. This is the Hobbesian theory of the state, the leviathan.
What is also troubling in this theory is the assimilation of the state and reason. The state is reason, and so he cannot be questioned because reason is what provide security and peace in the society while on the other hand, in the state of nature people are only driven by their passions. That is why the state is giving to the society rules, morality principles, notion of good and bad. For Hobbes there is no absolute good or absolute bad, because the state is the only entity able to promulgate what is good and what is bad. As Locke is advocating reason is what drives human beings in most of their actions, Hobbes is clearly at the opposite, saying that what characterized human being is the lack of reason in their behavior. Because humans are beings of desire, the only thing that drives them is passion and there has to be a supreme authority using and abusing of force to subject people to reason and order.
Once again we have in order to understand this view to explain that Hobbes was living in a particularly troubled period of religion wars in England that threaten the cohesion of society and so he advocated the necessity of a very strong state to control the society and avoid the scenario of a prolonged civil war.
So we have two symmetrically opposed views on what grounds human nature. Maybe should we try to adopt an intermediate point of view? As Aristotle said: “in medio stat virtus”.
There is a very interesting point in Hobbes theory when he describes the transition between state of nature and civil society. It is the fact that people contract between each other. As we said, contract is a clear manifestation of reason as it implies responsibility. So what does Hobbes say about the arguments for contracting? It is the “fear of death” and the “desire of what make existence comfortable”, two of the most fundamental instincts in human beings. We already said that several times. But we should link this to the notion of contract that ensues.
There is a clear link between instinct and reason. Human beings are driven by their instinct in all situations. In the case of instinct of preservation, it is reason that helps people to find the best way to conserve. So reason is subordinated to instinct of preservation. Every conclusion drawn about conservation are ensuing from an analysis process, trying to answer this simple question “what is the best way for me to assure ma own security?” and every answer to this question are implying a complex reasoning process.
Reason is doubtlessly at the basis of the State. But can we say that passions are disappearing in the civil society? We advocated that reason also existed in the state of nature. Does the society really erase from human being his will of domination that is the manifestation of desire?
There is some social analysis that advocate the society is a frame in which animal instinct of domination is completely preserved but is organized and translated into a “peaceful war” of all against all, in other terms, this is not a bloody and primary war, but this state of war exists under others forms. Indeed, civil society does not make individuality disappear; moreover, in the liberal theory (allegedly founded on human, being of reason, as Locke advocates) individuality is encouraged in a market that is in its fundaments the translation of the war of all against all. Hierarchy relations still exist in the civil society, but it depends on the social class or wealth rank. What we could say is that the civil society is perfectly reproducing a state of nature but life-conservation is assured by the state. It is as Balzac thought “La comédie humaine”. Nonetheless what the passage from nature to civil cannot change is the most fundamental character of Human being: the incapacity to quench his unlimited desires.

So considering what we have been saying, what is to be hold from this? First that human beings behavior is conditioned by its instinct and so its natural inclination and first desires. So instinct, inclinations, desires. These three characters are totally opposed to what reason is and are to be linked with the definition of passion we gave in the introduction. As inclinations and desires are subjective, reason is objective. Or Metaphysically I am necessarily subjective because I cannot extract from myself. But this subjectivity in the state of nature is translated into individuality: I am against the others. As Kant said; it is the “unsociable sociability” of human beings that results in relations of hierarchy based on strength. But my instinct of preservation tells me to regroup in a civil society; civil society founded on a contract that implies my responsibility. This contract is a process ensuing from reason. The state is formed with at its base reason proceeding from instinct of preservation. But in the society my first aspirations (desires) are not erased at all but are reproduced in a calmed frame. The instinct of domination for instance still exists but it is subordinated to reason and is able to express through competition, into the market for instance.
But even if passions are a better starting point to understand human nature than reason we observe that reason can take an ascendant on passions while in the state of nature, reason is quite inexistent.
After all we could say the magnificence of the human political construction is that it managed to cope with two antagonist tendencies existing into human beings but it favors the most appropriate tendency to allow civil society to exist: Reason.