What Makes Humans Human?

Have you ever questioned human existence in a way that we live every day side by side with many others animal species? Didn’t you at least once think about what makes us human, to the extend why we call ourselves human at the first place? If you never did, well, tonight while I am sipping my vanilla latte, there is a random thought hit me like a truck, forced me to think deeper about human fundamentally. Biologically, it is quite obvious that we, as humans have distinctive characteristics than other animals, even to our closest cousin – apes. Our brain capacity and capability, our upright body structure and our bones architectures might differentiate us from others [animal], but are all of them enough? To be more subjective, are we even special?

Before you dive deeper into this random writing, I am not intended to answer those questions above, because guess what? I am as clueless as you, and tons of philosophers that lived before us. After my profound research (5 minutes of googling), I found that humans are never satisfied with answers, we are basically animal that keep asking questions, it is ingrained and inevitable. So, without further ado, I am going to start from the first inevitable question: are all human distinctive characteristics enough to make us human?

Human (homo) exists because our ancestors took separate path from other species for millions of years. This long chain of processes led to unique biological appearances that we called modern human (homo sapiens). The thing is when we talk about biological appearances it is not merely related to physiological, it effects our behaviours. It means, we are not instinct-driven, because as human, we judge consciously with causal reasoning. We act rationally because we can imagine future based on virtual simulations we run on our mind. We do not act like an octopus changes its colour automatically when it senses danger and predator. We do not act like a lizard, busted its tail to disturb predator’s focus. We think complexly. Biological distinctive also means, we are capable to maintain relationship with each other in a way other animal never could, like setting rules, creating customs and cultures, and building government based on specific goals.

But the problem with all those characteristics in my point of view, cannot entirely answer humanity. What if when we wake up tomorrow, an octopus can reason and a lizard can build civilisation? Will us still call them animals? Philosophically, Aristotle argues that happiness is the ultimate purpose of human life, while Nietzsche enshrines that being super human is the final purpose to be devoted to, yet it’s almost impossible for human in general to achieve those purpose, just like animals. Therefore, after all the distinctions are we [human and animal] still different? Can animal human and human animal?

Secondly, human is the only species in animal kingdom that is capable to reason. This capability oftentimes makes us think that we are unique, but is that so? The idea of being unique because of our reasoning capability itself is rather arbitrary. Why don’t we base the concept of uniqueness on muscular strength, capability to swim, or flight ability? Grizzly will be unique if we based our standard of uniqueness on muscular strength, fish will be on the top of animal stratification when we based the concept of uniqueness on the capability to swim, and birds are on the top of animal pyramid when we agree that ability to fly is the most valuable skill to possess. When we pick one of them, human will not be unique anymore. My point is, if every species has unique ability, then human is not unique due to the lack of standard of measurement. In other words, human will be unique only if we do not have uniqueness.