(May 5, 2015 at 5:30 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: Just because it is easier to understand the nature of triangles (or electrons) doesn’t mean that something as complex as a human being doesn’t have an essential nature. It just takes more effort and discernment to uncover it....
What does this essential nature consist of? The best I can come up with is that it's a minimal set of properties sufficient to distinguish human beings from other things in the cosmos. Although many possible sets of sufficient properties can be advanced, I have doubts that there exists a single minimal set. Deciding what criteria makes a thing human thus becomes a judgment call. What you've called "discernment" above.
I'm not versed in ethics or philosophy in general, so I don't know much in detail about the takes of the "great thinkers" Kant, Hume, Mills, Rawls, etc., or how you would go about determining who has the "best" theory. My guess is that any one of the various theories may turn out most applicable in a given situation, but that no episcopal theory of ethics is feasible in the way it is for physics.
I agree that abuse of essentialism to create a fixed Caucasoid-Mongoloid-Negroid scheme doesn't invalidate the former. I think it's the apparent impossibility of finding those minimal sets I've mentioned that renders essentialism problematic. Not that it's failed of contribution to understanding; economical categorization is important when studying any phenomenon and it can make practical sense to speak of a thing's "nature." In mathematics, where precise definition is possible, we may even have essentialism realized in practice. Nonetheless, it remains a philosophical preference we would be wise not to over-rate.
