The Philosopher’s Attic

Ever asked yourself what if World War Two had been an online Real Time Strategy game…?

ROFL

My mind was tickled by this post over at WildBillGuarnere.com: Post about ‘The Downfall’

Of course, generally speaking everything tickles my mind… professional deformation I guess. But this part of the post got me interested in a more particular way (I hope Antonius Lucretius doesn’t mind me quoting it here):

“…It always struck me as odd and quite hypocritical to qualify as “inhuman” the horrors committed specifically by the species “homo sapiens sapiens”.
Extermination camps were “inhuman”?
I’ve never heard of elephants doing that, or tigers..
Only humans. (…)
However hard you try you’ll never be able to kick Adolf Hitler out of the human race. He was one of us.
And that is what’s scary. And that is why we must remain careful.”

Now, there lies an interesting question here: why do we qualify utterly disturbing things such as the murder of several million Jews or the Mother killing 8 of her babies by burying them alive within the span of 10 years, as ‘inhuman’?
Antonius L. - in the above quote - reads the ‘everyday’ expression of ‘inhuman’ as ‘not human’. The first thing that springs to mind as being ‘not human’ would be ‘animal’. And there of course he is quite right to state that the expression doesn’t make any sense since such ferocious behaviour (to be qualified with the adjective of ‘inhuman’) can rarely be observed in the animal world. Nevertheless: ‘not human’ does not immediately equal ‘animal’. ‘Not human’ - from a categorical point of view - means just that: not pertaining to the human species. The expression does not in any way imply a marker that would lead to the category of ‘animal. And if it would, the marker would be rather pointless, since the species ‘human’ is contained in the genus ‘animal’ (cf. primary word sense ‘animated’ or ‘having a soul’).
It is true however that common semantics and language has imposed this relation between the qualification ‘inhuman’ and it being ‘animal’. This doesn’t make it more correct from a philosophical point of view, be it language, logical or metaphysical philosophy.
But that’s not really the point I will be trying to make here. The historical view on ‘how come’ does not help us with the ‘why’ in this matter.
Why do we qualify the horrors committed by the Nazi Regime for example, as being ‘inhuman’?

I’ll try to keep this argument as simple as possible… well, simplicity is a philosopher’s main goal if he or she is trying to do earnest work and not steam off a whole load of fancy words without meaning. To keep it simple I’ll go back to the historical stance for a moment. Traditionally speaking the one attribute that distinguisishes mankind or the human species from other animated species is (according to the theories you’re reading or following) consciousness, rational thinking, language, reason and judgement.
[Traditionally because some of this has been and will have to be further revised by current research on the rationality of apes, practical problem solving of birds etc. But since I am by no means a specialist in this field I will not go into this here.]
If rationality is the main difference between human beings and animals for example, the difference between the two adjectives ‘human’ and ‘inhuman’ can be summarized by the simple fact that humans think in a more or less ordered manner. (Meaning that the thought is not only triggered by environmental instincts.) Not only can a human being think about what he is doing or going to do, but he can also start to qualify and quantify his actions and possible consequences of these actions. Something that has yet not been observed in animals where the trial and error attitude is far more frequent. This is what you would call the ‘meta-level’.
This is only half an answer, but plainly put: we can think about ourselves and our actions. We have consideration and judgement.
The other half of a possible answer to the above stated question would be as follows. If we put aside the quarrel about free will, and simply state in a pragmatic way that it appears that we have a free will to choose between two courses of actions, then this ‘free will’ should ultimately be used in combination with our consideration and our ability to rational thought.
An SS officer who gets an order to kill 40 children that do not fit into a concentration camp for labour, is presented with a choice on several levels. On a general level he can choose between a human way and an inhuman way: think about his actions and thus choose the ‘human way’ or ignore any personal judgement or thought and blast away.
This is where morality chimes in. Recent research has lead to believe that the inner dialogue of rational thought about personal actions is the birth of any moral judgement or consideration. Let’s keep it simple and take this for granted like generations of thinkers (since Aristotle in fact) have.
Then the difference between ‘human’ and ‘inhuman’ is the simple fact of choice based on moral judgement, which will not be a choice at all after the moral consideration has taken place of course. No moral judgement - however twisted the mindset may be - will point towards shooting 40 children.

In short: qualifying the horrors committed by human beings as being ‘inhuman’ simply means not to follow the disposition of the human species to thought, consideration and moral judgement.
This is where the second part of Antonius’ quote comes in: “However hard you try you’ll never be able to kick Adolf Hitler out of the human race. He was one of us. And that is what’s scary. And that is why we must remain careful.”
True, but what’s more scary is how simple it is not to follow rational thought or judgement against better knowledge. So, the path to follow is not just to be careful, but also to continuously reflect our choices and judge them.
Only by retaining the lessons of History and reflecting them, can we ever hope to not repeat them.

I am back in Switzerland for good now. The moving went smooth, it was almost unreal. Right from the beginning - getting a parking space in the middle of Paris right in front of the house (a legal one…) - in the middle - driving out of Paris between 1200 and 1300 on a weekday - until the end - spending a day in utter tranquility in the Alsace before getting home.
It really was a brilliant experience since I had anticipated a whole chart of problems and hick- ups that simply didn’t occur.

And now I am slowely reorganizing things here. Sorting out my library once more, getting rid of piles and piles of paperwork (”is this a paper? I don’t want to see another piece of paper…” springs to mind) and trying to get back onto work which really isn’t that easy since it’s summer and I really have other things on my mind: sleep, using a real kitchen and oven for a change, writing or playing CoD with the Clan again…
But: a new week has started and after a nice drop by in Geneva I really need to get going on ome dragging work…