1. THE UNLIMITED DESIRE
ACKNOWLEDGING THE OTHER'S HUMANITY AND JUSTIFYING PERSONAL RIGHTS
FABIO MASSAIOLI
IIS 2019 – LONDON

2. SO IT BEGINS
• Defining what is human: very, very hard!
 Stakes and requirements are very high
• What we can try: point out core traits
 You find a human being wherever you find trait x
• But we’d like something more
 Is there something human beings never go without?
 Some kind of beacon: recognizing humanity even when everything else fails.
• What is it that makes us special?

3. A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY
• Martin Heidegger on Dasein:
 The entity that asks the question about the meaning of Being («The very asking of this question is an entity's
mode of Being; […] This entity […] which includes inquiring as one of the possibilities of its being, we shall
denote by the term “Dasein”» – Being and Time, §2)
 The entity in whose being, that very being is at stake («Dasein is an entity […] distinguished by the fact that, in
its Being, that very Being is an issue for it. […] Only the particular Dasein decides its existence» – Being and
Time, §4)
• By the way, what on earth is Dasein?
 A German verb, literally being-there, often translated as existence when used as a noun.
 A neutral term for us all. That entity «which each of us is himself». Not man, but something that man is always.

4. A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY (REPEATING)
Heidegger echoes (with a twist) two ancient and well-known characterizations of the human being:
• Animal rationale / Ζῷον λόγον ἔχον (The rational animal / The animal endowed with language)
 Traceable back to the origin of Greek philosophy, the formula is commonly attributed to Aristotle (it is a
paraphrase though!)
 Handle with care! Vast disagreement about the nature of rationality/language, meaning shifts through the ages
 We don’t just live out our life; rather, we understand situations and events as meaningful, and we inquire about
reality out of doubt, curiosity or amazement.
• The free creature (Free will as the distinguishing trait of the human being)
 Origin in early and medieval Christian thought; great success throughout modernity
 Not free as in free beer; rather, we are bound to take choices. In a way, animals are more free (but quality matters!)
 Our being is entrusted to ourselves ( moral responsibility!)

5. (BUT I STILL HAVEN’T FOUND)
WHAT I’M LOOKING FOR
• There is a third line of thought
 Running through Plato and the Platonic tradition, also Aristotle
 Not always explicit
 The question of happiness (or the good life)
 Plotinus’ argument: happiness is only relevant for human beings
 Going beyond needs: pleasure is not enough for human beings
 A different kind of pleasure: Platonic eros
Can we find here a different account of humanity?

6. AND LOVE IS A STRANGER
Doing some justice to Platonic love:
• What my friends think it is:
 Commonly interpreted as a non-sexual, intellectual, close relationship: not erotic
 Sometimes even a pejorative: “not real love”
• What it really is:
 Attraction towards truth and beauty in all its manifestations
 Driving force in the search for, and definitive acquisition of, the Good
 Erotic love of intellectual realities
• Specifically:
 Plato is telling us that love (eros) is involved in every aspect of human life («In general, indeed, it is all that
desire of good things and of being happy  Love most mighty and all-beguiling»  Sym. 205d)

7. AND LOVE IS A STRANGER (WHO’LL BECKON YOU ON)
• Christian thinkers elaborate and put a unique spin on the theme
 Peculiar attention to moral and personal freedom
 Whole new concept of love, with much greater importance («God is love»  1 John 4:8)
• Augustine of Hippo: love is the guiding principle of human life; life is a search
• Bernard of Clairvaux: human desire is unlimited
• Thomas Aquinas: traits and objects of desire
 Human desire is meaningful
 Human desire is delightful
 Its proper purpose is communion

9. LOOKING FOR SOMEONE
• Two “classical” traits of human life:
 Understanding, language and meaning: a life of questions
 Freedom and self-responsibility: a life of choices
• A third trait emerges: unlimited desire, or appetite beyond need
 Living outside and beyond the closed loop of needs
 Life as a search, happiness as fulfillment, meaning as the medium
 Love and communion as the highest end of life
• Which is more fundamental?

10. LOOKING FOR SOMEONE (I GUESS I’M DOING THAT)
• Offspring of desire:
 The very asking of questions and taking choices and loving people
 Specifically: the particular questions we ask, choices we take, and people we love
 The urge of communication and the whole of culture
 Decorative arts!
• Special features of desire (with respect to other traits):
 Source of uniqueness (the essence of personality: my own take on life!)
 Source of unity and multiplicity (no instance of something general, intrinsic distinction of desires, otherness)
 Contradiction of death (unlimitedness admits no end)
• What makes us special; what makes us someone

11. DOING THE WALK OF LIFE
• Three great ways of life:
 Desire meets the understanding: contemplative life, search for truth
 Desire meets freedom: ‘enterprising’ life, search for good
 Desire meets love: caring life, search for unity
• No one can do without the last (“No one would choose to live without friends”)

12. IS THIS HUMAN?
YES, BUT…

13. DEFINITELY HUMAN!

14. FUNDAMENTAL PERSONAL RIGHTS
• Is it possible to derive some personal rights from the traits we have outlined?
• Yes, if we seek to ensure the possibility of following and fulfilling our desire:
 Right to life
 Right to personal freedom (property, freedom of movement etc.)
 Right to be heard (marriage, due process, etc.)
• From these three, all others descend

15. SO YOU THINK YOU CAN TELL?
• Actually not: humanity is not a matter of empirical testing
 Must be acknowledged: that’s a choice
 Fundamental possibility of freedom: denying the other’s humanity
• Personal rights are justified rationally but not absolutely grounded
• My own desire is wounded in killing and abusing others
 Asking for what I would not concede is self-contradictory and self-destructive
 Desire if listened to commands respect of the golden rule
 Again, if you are willing to listen

16. THANK YOU!
THE PLAYLIST
A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY
REPEATING
Propellerheads feat. Shirley
Bassey
I STILL HAVEN’T FOUND WHAT
I’M LOOKING FOR
U2 – The Joshua Tree
YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE
Nancy Sinatra – Nancy in London
LOOKING FOR SOMEONE
Genesis – Trespass
WALK OF LIFE
Dire Straits & Mark Knopfler –
Brothers in Arms
WISH YOU WERE HERE
Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here
RECOMMENDED READING
J. F. Crosby, A Neglected Source of the Dignity of
Persons, in Personalist Papers, CUA Press 2012
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
Plato, Philebus or On pleasure
Id., Phaedo or On the Soul
Id., Symposium