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Being Truly Humane: The Four Orders of Humaneness

By Vinay Kolhatkar

November 4, 2023

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One connotation in the Merriam-Webster dictionary of being humane is to be “marked by compassion, sympathy, or consideration for humans or animals.” But there is another connotation which correlates with “humanism” generally, and that is our focus here, one that broadens the scope of being truly humane, and connects it ethically to human (or what objectivists term, individual) rights.

The following extract illuminates our focus. The extract is from pages 153–58 (inclusive) of Modernizing Aristotle’s Ethics: Toward a New Art and Science of Self-Actualization (October 2023). The publisher, Ethics Press International, has kindly permitted its republication in Savvy Street.

 

Extract (The Four Orders of Humaneness)

The Merriam-Webster dictionary says one connotation of humanism is[i]: “a doctrine, attitude, or way of life centered on human interests or values, especially: a philosophy that usually rejects supernaturalism and stresses an individual’s dignity and worth and capacity for self-realization through reason.” It says being humane[ii] is “characterized by or tending to broad humanistic culture.” We accept those connotations.

In that context, we are setting out “four orders” of humaneness.

Being humane in each of the four ways we characterize below matters for a state of internal serenity.

Being humane in each of the four ways we characterize below matters for a state of internal serenity. What kind of serenity? Will we need to turn into Buddhist monks? No. Will this serenity blunt our joy, our ecstatic moments? Certainly not. As we said in our definition of flourishing (chapter 3), it is an organismic condition whose essential features include a default mental state of serenity, punctuated by unexpected or self-inflicted moments of joy and pleasure, undergirded by resilience to withstand unexpected difficulties.

These are the four orders of being humane:

  1. A first-order humane life is one in which one properly respects and takes care of oneself, one’s own humanity, one’s passions and desires, of being in touch with oneself, recognizing that one’s emotions are important clues that have cognitive value. A first-order humane life balks at, and strongly resents, being used for others.
  2. A second-order humane life is one that accords all other human beings the same dignity, respect, frankness as one ought to accord oneself—as ends in themselves, deserving of not being lied to, of not being manipulated—as neither natural masters nor slaves, neither our guardians nor our wards, neither mentor nor mentee (unless such mentoring is accepted by both parties). Note that even our actual wards or children or students also deserve to be treated as ends in themselves.

It also requires that we do not initiate deceit or even subtle manipulation.

Certainly, this requires that we do not ever initiate violence. It also requires that we do not initiate deceit or even subtle manipulation. Some libertarians may recognize that this is the non-aggression principle used in a much wider form. It means that we never treat others as merely means to our ends, that we do not fool them merely because we can, that we are ever cognizant of others’ status as human beings with their own aspirations, appetites, and ambitions.

This does not preclude mutual relationships of means to our/their ends. For instance, we may call an electrician or a plumber to fix a problem. We pay that person for a job done. Their time so utilized is a means to our end, which is to have a problem fixed. As a client, we are the means to their end, which is to make a living off their expertise. But there need not be any manipulation or deceit involved. We haven’t called a friend (who happens to be a plumber) over for dinner, and then unexpectedly requested whether he could fix a problem while he’s there. We have not kept our motives a secret.

There can be only two kinds of exceptions to this rule which the context may allow.

First, let’s take a minor one, where our intent is “to give the pleasure of surprise.” A suitor may take a lover to dinner, and spring an intended question as a surprise (with a ring), or one may take a friend to a secretly planned birthday party. We certainly need to calculate whether the hoped-for pleasure of the “surprise” is likely to outweigh their possible discomfort of not knowing it beforehand. And yes, our calculations may go wrong. But our intent was to give our lover or friend more pleasure than discomfort, and that eases this minor exception in place.

Now let’s assess a major departure. One well-known exception cited in philosophy is Immanuel Kant’s insistence on telling the truth, regardless of context.

A hypothetical often cited in philosophy is whether we should disclose the whereabouts of our own child (or, for that matter, a stranger’s) to a serial killer if asked, knowing full well that the serial killer was likely to murder her when he found her. Astonishingly, Kant implied that the moral option is yes.[iii]

But we emphatically reject Kant’s moral compulsion as misplaced.

But we emphatically reject Kant’s moral compulsion as misplaced. This is not because the universalizable—in this case, treating others as “ends in themselves” has exceptions. It does not. But we do not owe the truth to those who initiate the breach. Our answer is that lying smoothly is one excellent morally upright option. He who would kill deserves no truck from us. The killer violates Kant’s own dictum to treat others as ends in themselves.

If the killer draws a gun on us, we also have the right to shoot him dead.

No human being that presents an immediate existential threat to other human beings by way of initiation of force deserves to be treated as anything other than a threat to be removed by any and every means feasible, including killing them, let alone deceiving them. Only when such a terrorist is disarmed or diverted and is no longer a threat, can he or she be treated as a perpetrator entitled to honesty and due process under law. Whether by force or deceit, self-defense, properly constituted at the moment of threat, trumps honest communication and due process at law. And due process at law trumps vigilantism and vengeance, just as honesty trumps deceit, when the threat is removed.

If a terrorist has 18 hostages (as was the case in the siege of Lindt Chocolate Café in Sydney, Australia on December 15, 2009), there are 18 lives at stake, not 19 (including the terrorist’s). Any opportunity to take out the terrorist does have to be weighed against the possibility of innocent lives lost in an exchange of gunfire, and thus, negotiations may end up being the best strategy. But, in the deliberations, a zero weight should be accorded to the life of the terrorist while he remains an existential threat. In the Lindt Café siege, a police sniper who got a clear shot at the terrorist later alleged that he was denied the executive authorization he needed to shoot. Hours later, the crisis ended with two innocent lives lost (one to the terrorist’s targeted bullets, the other to friendly police fire). The terrorist was also killed when the police finally stormed the cafe.

3. A third-order humaneness is an attempt to make special efforts at trying to understand oneself, of being compassionate to oneself where apt, of becoming better at assessing one’s own emotions and passions, of forgiving oneself for past errors (see also section VI on the definition of evil and the path to redemption), of developing further the skills of introspection and self-assessment.

4. A fourth-order humane life is one in which one makes special efforts at trying to understand others, of being compassionate where apt, of proffering information where appropriate, of developing skills at empathy, of getting along, of seeing the third-party perspective in a disagreement, of offering assistance where apt, of being just in one’s response to both benevolence and deceit, to contribute one microcosm to bring about a just world, where possible. And of realizing the large influential effect one may have on others, especially as a parent, guardian, or teacher. Such an effect may also occur when celebrities and other public figures become role models for others, even if inadvertently.

A commitment to the third or fourth order is a commitment to getting better at certain skills, whereas a commitment to the first or second order is a commitment in principle.

There is an important difference between the first two and the last two orders of humaneness. A commitment to the third or fourth order is a commitment to getting better at certain skills, whereas a commitment to the first or second order is a commitment in principle. First- and second-order humaneness are principles that, when instantiated in us as part of our character, should become so instinctual that glaring failures become impossible.

Nevertheless, there are times when they break down, and third- and fourth-order skills can be used to repair the damage. For example, a successful businessman who deliberately ignores his son’s explicit pleas to undertake another career and pressures him to join the family business instead, is guilty of a second-order violation; he is not treating his son as “an end in himself.” But if the son has introjected pressure onto and within himself from childhood and is unable to discover his true wishes as a result, the failures are not of the first two orders. The father would need fourth-order skills to understand why the young person has lost his mojo. The son needs third-order skills to get in touch with himself. These are skills which can be practiced and improved upon.

Many breakdowns of second-order humaneness are clear-cut like the illustration cited above. Some have catastrophic aftereffects. For instance, the genocidal brutality of Adolf Hitler, Chairman Mao, and Joseph Stalin, dictators who literally killed millions—treating their lives as immaterial—are acute illustrations of an abject second-order collapse.

However, not all failures of second-order humaneness are so obvious.

In the film August Rush (2007), at first glance, the character of Maxwell “Wizard” Wallace (portrayed by Robin Williams), who takes street kids into his care, provides them with food and shelter, teaches them music, and has them earning a living by busking, would appear to be second-order humane.

Yet, Wizard is decidedly not so. One of the boys in his care, 11-year-old Evan, nicknamed August Rush by Wizard, shows even greater prodigy than Wizard himself had initially imagined Evan to have. Juilliard, one of the top music schools in the world, recognizes Evan’s potential. They take Evan under their wing with a tuition waiver. Wizard then lies to Juilliard to take him away from them by posing as Evan’s father, lies to Evan that he has his best interest at heart, while trying unsuccessfully to negotiate a higher playing fee at a pub (as Evan’s self-appointed agent), which results in Evan not playing. Wizard knows full well that Evan wishes to play to the largest audience possible rather than fail to play at all because a “fee” could not be negotiated. And more crucially, the boy’s a prodigy at a Mozart level, so busking and pubs are not his destiny, Juilliard, and then even higher, is.

In the same film, we watch a doting (apparently “loving”) father lie to Evan’s mother (a very young Lyla) that her baby miscarried. He gives the newborn up for adoption, forging his daughter’s signature on the papers, all ostensibly for the good of the “too-young-to-know” virtuoso Lyla. Lyla’s father’s rationale, too, is a negation of the second order, a repudiation of Lyla’s true interest, which she reveals later as wanting to keep the child.

In virtually every fictional drama we will find acute failures of at least one of the four orders of humaneness; indeed, in many cases we will find several failures in multiple orders by multiple characters.

In virtually every fictional drama we will find acute failures of at least one of the four orders of humaneness; indeed, in many cases we will find several failures in multiple orders by multiple characters. Drama thrives on intense conflict and rising jeopardy. In rare instances, the dramatic conflict portrayed wholly consists of humans versus nature, of survival in the face of a tidal wave or a typhoon or an earthquake or a crown fire. Even those may, in some cases, be at least predictable by “self-actualized” humans (and thus avoidable by fleeing). In most drama, however, the conflict is between humans or groups of humans. And all such conflicts are solely caused by a failure of humaneness in its widest form (the way we have defined it) on the part of one or more humans.

But aesthetically, as Aristotle noted, drama cannot even be created without conflict. Thus, drama will always have a failure of humaneness, and we only need to identify it. Indeed, ethicists could well design ethics classes around both real life and fictional drama, and interested readers could better their third- and fourth-order skills by analyzing drama.

Ethicists could well design ethics classes around both real life and fictional drama, and interested readers could better their third- and fourth-order skills by analyzing drama.

Some readers may object that much of drama is concocted fiction. But the better ones have a feel of authenticity, they are relatable precisely because we can glean their plausible application to real life, or otherwise relate to their allegorical truth. Thus, in this chapter, we exemplify our principles often with illustrations from narrative art, as also from real events, as though both are equally illuminative of the principles involved—because they are.

In real life, if humaneness was universally practiced, we would have no conflict at all anywhere in the world—no genocide, no wars, no murders, no threats, no violence, no abuse. Disasters would be limited solely to highly unpredictable natural events and technological breakdowns.

Many of us are humane in principle, but not always perfectly humane (a score of 10 of 10, say) in practice, at all times, with respect to the third and fourth orders of humaneness. Occasionally, we may snap rudely at family members or colleagues because we are busy. We may miss the signs of depression in a student, or worse, even in our own child. Yet, if we commit to perfection and practice, we are on the right track. Then, only on the odd occasion, we may fail in introspection and empathy.

End of Extract

 

Thus, to be truly humane requires us to respect human beings as ends in themselves, in principle, and to practice it including by condemning those who fail in the second order. How wide are the applications? They are ubiquitous.

E.g., it is inhumane to offer any sympathy for (or even fail to condemn) terrorists like Hamas who fail to recognize, in some people, their very right to exist. This is the true source of “war crimes,” albeit MSM fails to recognize this.

That’s politics on a global level. But what about just simple interpersonal matters, like breakups in relationships? Here, too, we see at times, that two people were never the right match for a relationship—courtesy, different goals and values. And then came the dawning of “irreconcilable differences.” Other times, breakups occur because people evolve. Your best friend at school may no longer even be a close friend, as either she or you or both have evolved. But we can part while respecting our own (and their) rational aspirations, goals, fears, and passions as being valid, but no longer congruent for a deeper relationship. In other words, if both parties strive to be completely humane, we can part without an ongoing conflict (but not without regrets, and many times, not without tears).

One explosive breakup, from a relationship which was both professional and romantic, was the one between philosopher Ayn Rand, and her lover and student, Nathaniel Branden, both articulate and staunch advocates of the first two orders. In the book referred above, we analyze that explosion to stem from Branden’s failure of the third order, i.e., his inability to take account of his genuine feelings for a third party, to understand that his unquestioned belief in Rand’s mistaken theory of human sexuality was requiring him to fall into and stay in love with someone who was not right for him for an exclusive romantic-sexual relationship. And yet this was someone who he wasn’t even physically attracted to—only he reasoned that he had to be (attracted to her). On the part of Ayn Rand, there was a failure of the fourth order, i.e., to understand the other, to realize the “halo effect” of her commandeering intellect and personality, to detect evasion, and to not get deceived by it.

Being humane does not need one to become a humanitarian, join a charity, or become a philanthropist.

Being humane does not need one to become a humanitarian, join a charity, or become a philanthropist. We only need to take seriously the humanity and individuality of each human being encapsulated by the concept “humans as ends in themselves”—the foundational concept of human (/individual) rights.

Note, however, that only the second order of humaneness should readily translate into jurisprudence—the law should only enforce negative rights—see, for instance, the “Down with Soft Tyranny” essay. But other orders are also vital for a human being—in order to discover his/her “true self,” become autonomous, and manage one’s life in society.

 

Note: I am indebted to my coauthor, Roger Bissell, for enlightening discussions of this concept, for the extension of the orders of humaneness from three to four, and for perceiving much wider applications of this model than I had.

 
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[i] See Merriam-Webster 2023.

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] See Kant Practical Philosophy. Original works published 1783–98. Edited and translated by Mary J. Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996 (pp. 605–15, “On a supposed right to lie because of philanthropic concerns”).

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