The big idea: Pull the whole topic into one clash: is human nature something fixed and given that we're born with — or a blank slate we and our world can write anything on?
Checkpoint — the two poles: In one line: blank slate = we can be written anything; fixed nature = we're born with a shape. Now ask what, if anything, sets humans apart.
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One classic answer to 'what is fixed in us' is reason — the thing supposedly separating humans from animals and machines.
Reason: the human difference?: Aristotle called us the rational animal, and many since have said reason is what makes humans special. But the line is under pressure from both directions.
Pressure from both directions
- Animals plan, use tools and solve problems.
- Machines now beat us at chess and write essays.
The open question: So does reason really mark us off — or do we need something else (feeling, self-awareness, moral choice) to say what's uniquely human?
Reason sets us apart
- Strength: we plan, argue and reflect far beyond any animal
- Strength: it fits the long tradition from Aristotle on
- Weakness: animals reason a little; machines 'reason' a lot
- Weakness: a calculator reasons but isn't a person
Reason isn't the whole story
- Strength: feeling, care and moral choice also seem deeply human
- Strength: a purely reasoning machine still feels nothing
- Weakness: feelings aren't unique to us either
- Weakness: hard to name one single 'human difference'
Go further — higher-level insight: Notice the target keeps moving. Every time we name 'the human difference' (reason, tool use, language), animals or machines close the gap. The deep move is to ask whether being human is one special property at all — or a whole bundle (reason, feeling, self-awareness, moral responsibility) that no single trait captures.
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If there IS a fixed nature, is it good or bad? A famous Confucian debate answers in opposite ways.
Mencius: born good: Mencius argued human nature is basically good. Picture anyone — even a hardened criminal — seeing a toddler about to fall into a well: they feel a jolt of alarm and pity before any thought of reward. That instant reaction, he says, shows we're born with moral 'sprouts' like compassion, which a good society should grow.
Xunzi: born bad, needs cultivation
Xunzi replied that human nature is basically bad — crude and self-seeking. Goodness isn't inborn; it's an achievement, trained into us by teachers, rituals and rules, like straightening a warped plank with heat and force. Left alone, we'd stay selfish; that's why cultivation matters so much.
The move that scores: In Paper 1 you don't crown the 'right' theory. You explore two or three views on a stimulus, weigh them, and reach a reasoned conclusion. That doing philosophy is what the markbands reward.
How Section A works: An unseen stimulus (text or image) [25]. Human nature is one of the strongest issues to reach for — this whole topic feeds it.
The task: Task: with explicit reference to the stimulus and your own knowledge, explore a philosophical issue related to what it is to be human.
Stimulus — A prison teacher writes in her diary: "People send me the worst of them and expect nothing back. But give a man a book, a routine, a bit of trust — and something starts to grow. I've stopped asking whether they were born bad. I ask what we never taught them." With explicit reference to the stimulus and your own knowledge, explore a philosophical issue related to what it is to be human.
Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Common mistakes: 1. Describing views instead of arguing them. 2. Ignoring the stimulus — use the book, routine and trust. 3. Only one view — top bands need tension. 4. No conclusion — decide, with a reason. 5. Name-dropping — a name earns nothing without its argument.