What It Means To Be Human

With the help of Harry Frankfurt I can finally articulate a real difference between humans and non-humans. In most cases non-human refers to members of the animal kingdom exclusive of humans. However, as will be illustrated later, humans move back and forth between human and non-human while animals always remain non-human.

How can a human become non-human and not vice-versa? The animal cannot acquire the characteristic that humans have, yet humans have the freedom to give up that human characteristic. That characteristic is the ability to form higher-order desires.

First-order desires, common to both humans and non-humans, are simple wants such as to own a new car, to get married, to eat a steak, etc.

Frankfurt defines free will as desires to be or not to be a certain way, or desires to have or not have a first-order desire to be our will. We identify ourselves with our higher-order volitions. Second-order desires are essentially wants-to-want, third-order desires are wants-to-want-to-want, and so on.

An example of a higher-order desire is that while I want to eat a doughnut for breakfast (first-order), I do not want to want to eat a doughnut for breakfast (second-order). I could take this one step further and say that it is my will to agree with my will, i.e., I want to not want to want to eat a doughnut for breakfast (want-to-not-want-to-want, third-order).

It is these higher-order volitions, what some refer to as free will, that separates humans from non-humans. Now realize that, in some cases, second-order desires will coincide with first-order desires, such as I want-to-want. In such cases the human may or not be aware of his will and thus may or may not be aware of himself. Consider the case, however, when a higher-order volition is in conflict with first-order desires, i.e., I want-not-to-want. The conflict requires a choice and it is this decision that brings forth awareness of will, and thus awareness of the self. Is this the intended meaning when it is said that humans are self-aware and possess ego, while non-humans are not self-aware?

The Non-Human Human

How, then, can a human become non-human? If a human loses or estranges his higher-order volitions he becomes non-human. Essentially when the free will that manifests in higher-order volitions is gone, the human is acting solely through first-order desires and is thus indistinguishable from non-humans. At what point does this occur? Can it be forced upon us?

Take our earlier example of the breakfast doughnut. At the instant my second-order volition, to not want to want to eat a doughnut, conflicts with my first-order desire to eat a doughnut I am faced with a choice. In the ensuing conflict I become aware of my self. If my ultimate decision is to not eat a doughnut then I have exercised my will and I taste freedom.

If, however, I eat the doughnut then at that instant my second-order desire becomes alien to me. I no longer identify myself as one who does not want to want to eat a doughnut. When I estrange my higher-order volition I lose my free will and thus no longer can be identified as human.

Frankfurt's reluctant drug addict is another example. A non-reluctant addict has higher-order volitions that coincide with first-order desires. That is, he wants-to-want to use drugs. The reluctant addict, however, is in conflict as he wants-not-to-want to use drugs.

Both addicts are human. When the reluctant addict decides to use drugs he estranges higher-order volition to not use drugs and becomes non-human.

Morally Responsible?

Frankfurt notes that when we decide in favor of a first-order desire our higher-order volitions feel alien to us. Because we no longer identify ourselves with a will that was previously our own, we feel an outside force has pushed us to make that particular choice. It feels as if our free will has been taken from us and makes us feel we had no choice at all. We may even feel that we are not to be held responsible for the consequences of such a decision because it appears the choice was never ours to make.

We must be careful with rationalizations such as these. I have yet to discover a situation where a human is confined to the extent that he truly had no free will and is not responsible for his actions. It is not as simple as to imagine that a gun was held to my head and I was to choose between eating the doughnut or death. However absurd, even in that situation I still have a choice and can continue to remain human, exercise my free will and identify myself as one who does not want to want to eat a doughnut in spite of the threat of death.