Human Nature Difference Between Man and Animal Mortimer J. Adler Term Paper

Human Nature, Difference Between Man and Animal

With respect to human nature, some philosopher argue that humans and animals are the same, while others reject it; but the strangest conflict is the conflict of Aristotelian and Thomist view point, which despite appearing to be the same are at lock heads with each other.

When describing the impalpable in terms of the Aristotelian point-of-view, in regards to the visible dissimilarities among animals, contrary to human beings, it is highly noticeable how Aristotle characterized the nature of an animal to be the very basic sense of mobility guided by perception. Such simple observation mimics the exact nature of the animality that is definable on mother earth, where the animal builds an adumbration of her surrounding by the means of apprehension and the subsequent illustration together with her congenital calculative disposition. Such innate behavior allows the animal to avoid the detection from howling predators and builds the intrinsic survivability characteristics that allow it to effectively subsist and fecundate.

Not just a simple animal but an extraordinary breed of entities, a reactionary, an ecological catalyst, humans are definably the special kind of beasts themselves and according the Aristotelian point-of-view, a realistic animal and thereby a realistic agent. Although standard based, but what is generally considered a rule of law is that the basic difference between humans and the animals is our distinguished power to reason and to discarnate.

Now as the fact about the intrinsic animalistic nature of man is established, being a homo sapiens and the cardinal member of the phylum chordate of the mammilla class, Humans (hominids) have genetically evolved for over a period of 100,000 years but and among the many things that set our race apart, it is definitely the role of the cherished view of our species that plays the most important role instead of the development of mind or ingenuity. (Adler 81)

At the start of the ages of man, it was one of the most primitive thoughts brought about by the innovation of theology itself that man, in his manner, was created in the image of God (Hoekema 34). And mother earth and all its definable resources including animals were made in order to sustain the needs of man for the years to come. It was as if the world was a stage, a drama in which we are the exponents. The features that made us different, or in other words, superior from other animals were same to that we shared with God, (Adler 35)but when leaving the biased theological inducements aside, it is quite appealing to postulate that the human way of life is elementally dissimilar from that of other animals and that this distinctness must be clarified by something that is diacritic about us hominid beings. (Adler 82-85)

When scanning over the predicaments of viable differences, it is easy to distinguish differences that are backed upon by communal and bureaucratic associations and civilizing customs. Our providence is ameliorated and confounded by circuitous electronics. Our sophistication is embellished and aggrandized by the constitution and amusement of literature, music, art, displays of athletic excellence. We employ in deductive research and judicious cerebrations. We are hieratical individuals who concocted abstruse and erudite speculations or apprehensions of the destined debouch of antiquity to give a course to our functioning and significance to our grievance and our destiny. We attempt to endure in harmony with modest beliefs and with other sorts of moralism and principles. All these features are more over compounded by the complicated scheme of articulation of human intelligence and expression. (Adler 101, 108)

Thereby Aristotle himself is seen to argue over the scope of competence among animals and similarly identifying both similarities and the consequent variance between man and animals. But the characteristics that were identified by Aristotle regarding animals seemed to relate to a superficial realm of hauled up similarities, such as structural and character disparity, he also annexed about the endowed ability of human animals, particularly what he termed as Phanasia, commenting it to be the comprehensive term for the shared attributes between animals and humans.

It is clearly noticeable from the reviews of the Aristotelian philosophy that the difference between the ingenuity of the mind of the lowest man in contrast to the animal with the highest level of intelligence is beyond the comprehensiveness of man. A sense of support arises in rationality with regards to distinct of animality when talking about human nature in context to the comparison with animals. The ways in which humans stand out is different is because such social animals have developed practical dominant hierarchies that tend to be different from other animals as they are based on organizations that aid in structures of their living. Moreover, humans tend to have recognizable political dimensions rather than the cliched features of reproducing and surviving. The behaviors seen in animals other than humans, it is quite easily determined that their social behavior patterns are characterized to be innate and necessarily unlearned. Unless it is another product of their nature and corresponds to their need and actions compounding these effects are their psychological processes and psychological responses (Adler 93). Their social life greatly varies, constituting to be the organic disposition of the individual of the horde. In an unchanging environment, the social characteristics of a given subhuman primate species are unchanging unless or until the species is organically transformed. The same cannot be said about the human social arrangements. I believe that humans are born into that it is in human nature to evolve and exemplify. I am a strong supporter of the fact that we are all one species but our social orders grow and diversify even within a constant environment and they do so quite apart from the minor biological differences we have come to know as racial differences.

The liberation of human societies from the direct biological control was its greatest evolutionary strength that allowed the invention of cultures. Culture was one of the most revolutionizing inventions of man as it liberated man in its earlier days from his bestiality. It allowed him to clothe himself, feed himself, comfort himself, to slowly and gradually understand and mould his life to what we see around us, a civilization. (Adler 86)

But there are several differences on a greater degree as well. We know that we are not the only animals that are capable of designing, using or storing tools for future implications. The ingenuous message transmission and intimation between other animals such as dolphins, apes and birds has been found to be much more complex than the human communication system and they show signs to the adaptation of human surrounding and languages whereas humans are not. It is also noticeable through Aristotle's point-of-view that animal does tend to exhibit these features.

Moreover, humans have the free will to make choices and take responsibility of their actions. They have the capability of appreciating or disapproving their past and future events which result as a consequence from these actions and this faculty of mind is not present in any of the lower animals, in or around their capacity. Man also records the incidents, knowledge and lessons in the life. The difference between the nature of human and animal minds is one of a magnitude and not a type, but yet the integrity is an exclusive humanistic virtue.

But the trouble when discussing such predicaments is the arousal of the question that whether human beings are in some qualitative way different from the other animals is somewhat ill formed. What exactly does make a difference of being qualitative in this context, but this is easily answered by one of the Darwinian contexts where he showed no such objection to the idea of distinct human attribution. The moral sense was a distinctive human attribute but it arose from the interaction between two other evolved human properties in which we differ from the other in animals in a certain degree, intelligence and social instincts.

The details of such a proposed evolutionary explanation of the moral sense will not concern this essay but it still happens to allow the arousal of two aspects of the Aristotelian view in which the main predicament was the identification of certain attributes which we generally characterize as humane and while it still must be possible to explain their presence in us as a revolutionary but they still are present in the most naturalistic of terms Aristotle did look out for an empirical solution to this theory of human evolution and generalized differentiation but I take human evolution as a given method of sovereign purpose instead. The other fact worth mentioning would be the substantive view that what most clearly distinguished human beings from other older animas is what philosophers of the day regarded as the virtuous perception which is by fact the dominion of governing forces that control humans.

But here comes in the Saint Thomas Aquinas's view point with regard to difference between humans and animals. Saint Thomas Aquinas…