On the Uniqueness of Humankind

Wissenschaftsethik und Technikfolgenbeurteilung Band 25 Schriftenreihe der Europäischen Akademie zur Erforschung von Folgen wissenschaftlich-technischer Entwicklungen Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler GmbH herausgegeben von Carl Friedrich Gethmann

H.-R. Duncker · K. Prieß (eds)

On the Uniqueness of Humankind

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Editor of the series Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. Carl Friedrich Gethmann Europäische Akademie GmbH Wilhelmstraße 56, 53474 Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Germany Editors Professor em. Dr. Dr. Hans-Rainer Duncker Aulweg 123, 35385 Gießen, Germany Dr. Kathrin Prieß Europäische Akademie GmbH Wilhelmstraße 56, 53474 Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Germany Editing Friederike Wütscher Europäische Akademie GmbH Wilhelmstraße 56, 53474 Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Germany

ISBN 3-540-23981-2 Springer Berlin Heidelberg New York Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek. Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the Internet at http://dnb.ddb.de This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitations, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilm or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German copyright Law of September 9, 1965, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Violations are liable to prosecution under the German Copyright Law. Springer is a part of Springer Science+Business Media springeronline.com © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005 Printed in Germany The use of general descriptive names, registered names trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. Product liability: The publisher cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information about dosage and application contained in this book. In every individual case the user must check such information by consulting the relevant literature. Typesetting: Köllen Druck+Verlag GmbH, Bonn + Berlin Coverdesign: deblik, Berlin Printed on acid-free paper

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The Europäische Akademie The Europäische Akademie zur Erforschung von Folgen wissenschaftlich-technischer Entwicklungen GmbH is concerned with the scientific study of consequences of scientific and technological advance for the individual and social life and for the natural environment. The Europäische Akademie intends to contribute to a rational way of society of dealing with the consequences of scientific and technological developments. This aim is mainly realised in the development of recommendations for options to act, from the point of view of long-term societal acceptance. The work of the Europäische Akademie mostly takes place in temporary interdisciplinary project groups, whose members are recognised scientists from European universities. Overarching issues, e. g. from the fields of Technology Assessment or Ethic of Science, are dealt with by the staff of the Europäische Akademie. The Series The series “Wissenschaftsethik und Technikfolgenbeurteilung” (Ethics of Science and Technology Assessment) serves to publish the results of the work of the Europäische Akademie. It is published by the academy’s director. Besides the final results of the project groups the series includes volumes on general questions of ethics of science and technology assessment as well as other monographic studies. Acknowledgement This volume is based on the results of the conference “The Uniqueness of Humankind – Über die Sonderstellung des Menschen” which was organized by the Europäische Akademie in cooperation with the Society of the Medical Faculty of the Justus-Liebig-University of Giessen and took place in March 2001.

Preface

The Europäische Akademie Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler GmbH is concerned with the scientific study of the consequences of scientific and technological advance for the individual, society and the natural environment and, therefore, not least with the study of consequences of recent developments in life-sciences and medical disciplines. The Europäische Akademie intends to contribute to find a rational way for society to deal with the consequences of scientific progress. This aim is mainly realised by proposing recommendations for options of action with long-term social acceptance. The work of the Europäische Akademie mostly takes place in temporary interdisciplinary project groups, whose members are recognised scientists from European universities and other independent institutes. Biological and philosophical anthropologies of the 20th century keep emphasising the “Sonderstellung” of humans among the realm of living beings. However, it is not clear how this particular role should be characterised, how it should be reconciled with biological findings, and which theoretical and practical conclusions should be drawn from it. Partly in opposition to these anthropological view on humankind those biological disciplines, whose objects of research include human beings, underline the extensive similarities and common characteristics between humans and other species. Apparently, these biological findings concur with the criticism of anthropocentrism, which is expressed in Western philosophy of nature and by ethicists. To discuss these issues the Europäische Akademie organized in cooperation with the Medical Society Gießen the conference “The Uniqueness of Humankind – Über die Sonderstellung des Menschen” that took place in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler from 28th to 30th March 2001. The proceedings of the conference documented in this volume approached the theoretical and practical concept of the “Sonderstellung” against the background of present day knowledge in biosciences. Furthermore, by interdisciplinary efforts, an attempt was made to clarify those conceptual problems that arise with the idea of the uniqueness of humankind. The present volume partly takes up and develops further topics that have been raised by the volume 15 “On Human Nature” that was published in 2002 in this series. We hope that the present volume will find the same interest as the earlier volume.

Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, October 2004

Carl Friedrich Gethmann

Foreword

At present, those biological disciplines the research objects of which include human beings, underline the extensive similarities and common characteristics between humans and other species. Apparently, these biological findings join into the criticism of anthropocentrism which is expressed by ethicists and in Western philosophy of nature. In contrast to this, biological and philosophical anthropologies of the 20th century keep emphasising the “Sonderstellung” of humans among the realm of living beings. However, it is not clear yet how this particular role should be characterised, how it should be reconciled with biological findings, and which theoretical and practical conclusions should be drawn from it. The aim of the conference “The Uniqueness of Humankind” was to discuss the question of the human being’s unique position. Participants came from Austria, Great Britain, The Netherlands, Latvia, Poland, Russia, Switzerland, USA and Germany. By interdisciplinary efforts it was tried to clarify conceptual problems arising with the idea of the uniqueness of humankind within three sections: – anthropology in a philosophical and biological view; – the human being’s particular role against the background of recent biological research; – ethical and legal reflections on the particular position of the human being. As a matter of fact, this book cannot present a final answer to the questions on the “uniqueness” of humankind. However, we hope that by means of this collection of papers we may provide an insight into various though controversial or even provoking aspects of this discussion and initiate further interdisciplinary exchanges. We would like to thank Professor Carl Friedrich Gethmann, the Europäische Akademie and the Society of the Medical Faculty of the Justus-Liebig-University of Gießen for providing the intellectual, organisational and financial framework for the conference and for publishing this book. Furthermore, our acknowledgements go to Dr. Eva Neumann-Held and to Dr. Dr. Mathias Gutmann for their valuable scientific contributions during the preparation of the conference. Our special thanks are also due to Dagmar Uhl, Heidemarie Zimmermann, and Margret Pauels for their administrative and organisational support in organising the conference, and to Friederike Wütscher for the editorial work in preparing the text for print.

Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler and Gießen

Hans-Rainer Duncker Kathrin Prieß

List of Authors

Bateson, Patrick, Professor Sir, FRS. Professor of Ethology, the biological study of behaviour, at the University of Cambridge (since 1984). He was Head of King’s College, Cambridge from 1988 to 2003. He was formerly Director of the SubDepartment of Animal Behaviour at Cambridge and later Head of the Department of Zoology. He was Vice-Chairman of the Museums and Galleries Commission and in 2004 was elected President of the Zoological Society of London. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1983 and was its Biological Secretary and Vice-President from 1998 to 2003. He was knighted in 2003. His research is on the behavioural development of animals, and much of his scientific career has been concerned with bridging the gap between the studies of behaviour and those of underlying mechanisms, focusing on the process of imprinting in birds. He has also carried out research on behavioural development in mammals, particularly cats, and has supervised field projects on mammals in East Africa. He conducted a research project for the National Trust on the behavioural and physiological effects of hunting deer with hounds. Duncker, Hans-Rainer, Professor Dr. Dr., since 1953 study of Biology and since 1955 also of Medicine in Hamburg, Tübingen, Kiel, Vienna and Kiel; 1964 Dr. rer. nat. (Zoology, Anthropology and Anatomy) at the Christians-Albrechts-University Kiel; 1965 Final Medical State Examination, University of Hamburg; 1967 Dr. med. at the Medical Faculty of Hamburg; 1969 Venia legendi for Anatomy, Medical Faculty of Hamburg; 1971 Full Professor of Anatomy, Medical Faculty, Justus-Liebig-University Giessen; 2001 Professor emeritus, JustusLiebig-University Giessen. Main Fields of Research: Patterns and cytology of extra-cutaneous pigmentations in reptiles, amphibians and fishes; Lung-air sac system of birds; Evolution of the functional anatomy of the respiratory apparatusses from fish to mammals including the differentiations of coelomic body cavity septations; Embryology of the respiratory systems in birds, mammals and man; Morphometry and scaling relationships of body size and organ parameters in vertebrates; Evolution of homoiothermy in birds and mammals; Evolution of the ontogenetic modes in birds; Evolution of structural and functional complexity in vertebrates; Evolutionary anthropology and the evolution of human languages and cultural abilities. Gethmann, Carl Friedrich, university Professor Dr. phil. habil., lic. phil. Studies of philosophy at Bonn, Innsbruck and Bochum; 1968 lic. phil. (Institutum Philosophicum Oenipontanum); 1971 doctorate Dr. phil. at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum; 1978 Habilitation for philosophy at the University of Konstanz. 2003

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honorary degree of doctor of philosophy (Dr. phil. h.c.) of the Humboldt-Universität Berlin. 1968 scientific assistant; 1972 Professor of Philosophy at the University of Essen; 1978 private lecturer at the University of Konstanz; since 1979 Professor for philosophy at the University of Essen; lectures at the Universities of Essen and Göttingen. Called to the Board of Directors at the Akademie für Technikfolgenabschätzung Baden-Württemberg combined with a full professorship of Philosophy (1991, refused) and to full professorship at the universities of Oldenburg (1990, refused), Essen (1991, accepted), Konstanz (1993, refused) and Bonn (1995, refused). Since 1996 Director of the Europäische Akademie zur Erforschung von Folgen wissenschaftlich-technischer Entwicklungen Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler GmbH (European academy for the study of the consequences of scientific and technological advance). Member of the Academia Europaea (London); member of the Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften; member of the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina (Halle); member of the Bio-Ethikkommission des Landes Rheinland-Pfalz; main fields of research: linguistic philosophy/philosophy of logic; phenomenology and practical philosophy (ethics of medicine/ethics of environment/technology assessment). Müller-Terpitz, Ralf, Dr. iur. Studies of law at the Universities of Bonn and Geneva from 1987 till 1992. In 1994, he completed his thesis on the “Participation of the German Federal Council (Bundesrat) in European Union matters”. Afterwards, he absolved a practical training in judicial affairs in Cologne and New York. Following the bar exam in 1996, he worked in the legal department of a German telecommunications company in Düsseldorf. Since 1998, he is research assistent to Professor Dr. Wolfgang Löwer at the University of Bonn, Institute of Public Law. His major scientific focus lays on constitutional law, telecommunications and Internet law as well as the law of biomedicine. In the latter context, he is just about to finish a habilitation on the “Legal status of the unborn child in German constitutional and in international law”. Prieß, Kathrin, Dr. rer. nat., studied Biology and Applied Oceanography in Berlin, Barcelona and Perpignan, where she graduated in 1992 (M ès Sc.). She gained a PhD in Marine Environmental Sciences in 1997, under the auspices of both the “Université de la Méditerranée” in Marseilles and the University ChristianAlbrecht of Kiel. For her work on growth variations of massive reef corals she was awarded the Scientific Award of the Doctoral School “Environmental Sciences – Earth System”. She did her post-doctoral research on coral reef ecology at the Centre d’Océanologie de Marseille (1997–1998) and at the Interuniversity Institute for Marine Sciences of Eilat/Tel Aviv University (1999). In 1998 she was a Ramón y Cajal Scholar and EPTA co-ordinator in the Office for Scientific and Technology Options Assessment (STOA, DG4) at the European Parliament in Luxembourg. She was member of the scientific staff of the Europäische Akademie Bad-Neuenahr-Ahrweiler GmbH from November 1999 till March 2004. She has co-ordinated two project-groups “Biodiversity – scientific foundations and social Relevance” and “Environmental standards low-dose effects and their risk evaluation”.

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Schwemmer, Oswald, Lic. phil. 1966, Dr. phil. 1970, Dr. phil. habil. 1975. Visiting Professor at the Universities of Hamburg, Frankfurt, Göttingen, Aachen, Augsburg, Innsbruck, Salzburg, Graz and the Emory University in Atlanta. Professor for Philosophy at the Universities of Erlangen-Nürnberg (1978–1982), Marburg (1982–1987), Düsseldorf (1987–1993) and since 1993 at the HumboldtUniversity in Berlin. 1979–1982 Director of the Interdisciplinary Institute for the Philosophy and History of Science at Erlangen. 1984/85 Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Philosophy of Science of the University of Pittsburgh. Since 1991 Director of the German Edition of Ernst Cassirer’s unpublished manuscripts. Valerius, Klaus-Peter, Dr. rer. nat. Dr. med. Following education in Berlin and further studies in Göttingen and Giessen, he obtained his Dr. rer. nat. at Giessen, Germany, where he analysed the evolution of the specifically human characteristics in social organisation, cognitive abilities and sexual behavior, based on a comparison between humans and apes. Another field of interest is the functional anatomy of the bronchial system in mammals, which became the subject of his Dr. med. thesis in Giessen and Göttingen, Germany. K.-P. Valerius now lives in Giessen and teaches human anatomy for medical students. He is the author of several books on human anatomy. Vowinckel Gerhard, Dr. rer. pol., apl. Professor for Sociology at the University of Hamburg and at Helmut Schmidt University of the German Armed Forces. Gerhard Vowinckel studied sociology, political economy, psychology, and biology at Hamburg university (diploma 1973). He obtained his Ph. D. in 1978. His habilitationthesis (1983) dealt with the civilization of emotions and their physical expression, combining historical-sociological analysis with approaches of biology and development psychology. He was appointed Associate Professor at Hamburg University in 1998. Using biological, psychological, and sociological approaches in analyzing phenomena of social and cultural history he has published on educational ideas, on forms of military organisation, on the evolution of moral concepts, etc. (http://gerhardvowinckel.bei.t-online.de/gerhard.htm). Research interests: connecting biological, psychological and sociological approaches to human behaviour, history and social ecology of moral/political mentalities, emotions.

Contents

Human as a Biological and Cultural Being Hans Rainer Duncker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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The “Exceptional Position” of the Human Being – a Moral-political Concept Gerhard Vowinckel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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The Human: Between Having a World and Being a Self Oswald Schwemmer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Social Structure, Sexuality, and Intelligence in Human Evolution – a Synopsis Klaus-Peter Valerius . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Genes, Instincts and Identity Patrick Bateson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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The Special Status of the Human Being as a Topic of Practical Philosophy Carl Friedrich Gethmann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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The “Uniqueness” of the Human Being in Constitutional Law Ralf Müller-Terpitz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Human as a Biological and Cultural Being

Hans Rainer Duncker Introduction 1 The present situation of the evolutionary biology of modern humans An understanding of the evolution of organisms on earth and especially of the phylogenetic development of modern mankind and its cultural history is strikingly limited by our one-way thinking, in which the disciplines of science and humanities deal with these questions. Explaining only linear evolutionary developmental lines of single distinct structural or functional features makes it impossible to acquire an integration of a thinking in complex functional and hierarchical interrelationships. However, these interrelationships are a basic feature of all organismic evolution and human cultural developments. The present view of biological evolution is based on the synthetic theory which combines Darwinian ideas of mutations and selection with underlying molecular genetic mechanisms. Herein conceptions of linear alterations of different structural or functional features are represented for the characterization of evolutionary developments. The large number of these mentioned linear evolutionary lines, as put forth by the different disciplines, documents past evolution. But these descriptions are unable to comprehend the most characteristic feature of evolution: The consecutive appearance of new functional and structural capabilities in evolving organisms by the interconnection of altered functional or structural features into qualitatively new functions, resulting in constructions of increasing hierarchies, which are responsible for the continuous emergence of qualitatively new functional and structural phenomena. These emerging phenomena are the essential characteristics of evolution. The striking lack in the present way of thinking and the interpretation within the different disciplines, which are involved in evolutionary questions, is a consequence of another general fault of these disciplines: They don’t deal with the specific connections and interrelationships of their investigated phenomena. They only elaborate causal connections, which can be analysed experimentally, but not the multiple functional interrelationships, which can only be investigated by comparative system-analyses. The descriptions and interpretations of results are restricted to an explanation of causal connections, and thereby an integration of new results into the given multiple functional interrelationships of the organism is lacking. Especially missing is the demonstration of the specific functional importance of these new causal relations for the development of new functional phenomena of the organism, for its functional and structural evolution.

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Viewing organismic evolution in this specific way modern humans have a large number of structures and functions in common with many organisms and specially with our nearest relatives, the anthropoid apes. This is the basis of expressing our great reverence for all other creatures, together with whom we coexist and share this earth within its biosphere. We devote special respect to our nearest relatives especially to the gorillas and chimpanzees, which have so many features in common with us. But beyond this deep respect we also are responsible for a correct scientific image, to describe and explain the specific differences, by which humans are distinguished from their relatives, defining which characters constitute the special position of humans. This special position of modern humans depends, on the one hand, on specific structural and functional developments of the human body, which occurred during recent phylogeny of Homo sapiens sapiens. On this basis of the specific anatomy and ontogeny of the human body the special position of mankind is based on the other hand to a great extent on his social and cultural developments and especially the development of languages, existing in more than six thousand different cultural and linguistic communities. The importance of these specific structures and functional abilities of the human body and their specifically altered ontogenetic developments, upon which the social and cultural developments of human communities depend, will be explained in detail.

2 The first basic mechanism in the evolution of organisms 2.1 The development of side effects of functional systems into new main functions To understand the specific evolutionary development of humans it is necessary to describe two basic features of organismic evolution. First, the incredible richness in the evolution of organisms is produced by the development of side effects of their existing functional systems into new main functional purposes with newly emerging functional phenomena. All the required functions of organisms maintaining their existence, such as metabolism, interactions with the surrounding environment, growth and reproduction, are performed by functional systems that consist of a number of different elements. These elements are arranged in such a functional and topographical order that their causal interactions fulfill the purpose of the functional system, e.g. the synthesis of a specific amino acid, or the absorption of photons by specific membrane-bound molecules for the photosynthetic energy transfer, but also specific locomotory pattern for ventilating the lungs or species-specific design of legs for special forms of running. This performance of a functional purpose is strongly controlled by selection, because no organism can survive, in which one of the essential numerous functional systems does not work correctly. In this way even highly complex functional systems and their multiple integrations into complicated functional structures are preserved throughout evolution. One main characteristic feature of these functional systems is the fact that in addition to the basic fulfillments of their specific purposes, most of them comprise other functional properties based on their composition out

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of rather complicated elements. These are at the cellular level often proteins working as enzymes, or at the organ or organismic level certain functional or structural elements as a lung ventilation mechanism or the structural and functional design of legs. The additional functional properties of these system elements represent the side effects of single functional systems, which make up, for instance as enzyme proteins, the properties of membrane systems and membrane potentials, the osmotic concentration of the cytosol of the cell or the basic structural elements of a cytoskeleton. In the same way ventilatory motor pattern possess together with other functional developments the potential of becoming an important part for the evolution of vocalization mechanisms, and specific leg structures and movements can also be integrative elements for the digging of holes (Duncker 2001). The evolution of these side effects of existing functional systems into main or primary functions of derived new functional systems is a very important mechanism of evolutionary developments: This general evolutionary process occurs by doubling or multiplication of parts of the genome, which is well documented by recent molecular genetic investigations (Hennig 1995, Maynard Smith 1998). By such a doubling one part of a genome with its genes controls precisely the original functional system with its main functional purpose, whereas the genes of the doubled part are subject to evolutionary change, by which the former side effect is converted into a new functional purpose. This constitutes the step-by-step generation of new functional systems as well as their functional coupling into quite new functional interrelationships. In this way the primary vertebrate branchial basket for the ventilation of the gill pouches for gas exchange evolved successively by multiple steps in one functional line into the language production apparatus of humans (Duncker 2001). Thus, throughout evolution continually qualitatively new functional and structural phenomena are emerging. In this way the richness of different hierarchical levels of functional and structural systems are generated, each one depending upon the underlying levels. These mechanisms are responsible for one of the main characteristics of evolutionary developments from bacteria to man, the progressive emergence of phenomenologically new functions and structures.

3 The second basic mechanism of organismic evolution 3.1 The heterochronic modifications of ontogenetic developmental time tables and time patterns This second important evolutionary mechanism that is causing a great productiveness of the evolutionary process is made up by heterochronic changes of ontogenetic developmental time tables of different organ systems (McKinney, McNamara 1991, McNamara 1997, Minugh-Purvis, McNamara 2002). These developmental changes are responsible for the emergence of a multiplicity of different organismic forms and ecological interrelationships in the biosphere of the earth, including the evolution of modern man. All cells, organs and organ-

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isms are determined in their growth and in the ontogenetic development of their single functions and structures by developmental time tables for each of these functional and structural elements. These developmental time tables have to be adjusted one to another, so that the different functions, which depend reciprocally on one another to perform the general cellular, organ or organismic functional needs, are functionally available at the proper time. These ontogenetic developmental time tables are often determined by those ontogenetic developmental processes that require the available time span as the necessary minimal time for their development. The intensive reinvestigations of the problems of the evolution of avian ontogenetic modes, which were primarily elaborated by Portmann (1936, 1938, 1939, 1954), have demonstrated the great importance of heterochronic changes of ontogenetic developments for the evolution of higher vertebrates. The heterochronic alteration of the ontogenetic developmental time tables of their organ systems is a general mechanisms of their evolutionary modifications and adaptations (Starck 1989, 1993, Starck & Rickleffs 1997, Duncker 1998a, 2000a). The ontogenetic development of birds is characterized by the existence of two remarkable features: First, the developmental processes of the different organ systems with their consecutive developmental steps are rigidly organized in all birds independent of their special ontogenetic mode. Thus, all birds, from highly precocious species to extremely altricial groups, possess the same general ontogenetic time course for the development of their body. Second, however, the ontogenetic differentiations of the various organ systems underlie extensive changes as far as their detailed developmental time tables are concerned. These heterochronic developmental time-table changes result in totally new ontogenetic phenomena, such as the emergence of altricial nestlings incapable of existing on their own and depending fully on intensive brood care (Starck 1989, 1993, Duncker 1998a, 2000a). Compared to the precocious hatchlings of fowls, ducks and geese, which move independently and feed alone after hatching, the ontogenetic developmental time tables of a large number of organ systems in these altricial nestlings are drastically altered. The development of feathers and the ossification of the skeleton are strongly retarded according to the lack of movement in the nest and the close contact and warming by the parents. The intestines are enormously extended for processing a strongly increased amount of food for the drastically accelerated growth rate. These changes together with the intensive brood care enabled a very special time course for forebrain development: Without the necessity of own movements, feeding, thermoregulation and selfprotection after hatching, the non-functioning forebrain proliferates enormously for ten days, then for the next ten days it is concerned with cellular differentiation and making neuronal interconnections, to be imprinted in the last two nestling days in taking over the species-specific songs, food and nesting behaviours. At fledging, these altricial birds have the comparable locomotory and feeding abilities and independence like precocious hatchlings. However, by virtue of their specific altricial postnatal ontogeny, they have developed a characteristically high degree of cerebralization, exceeding the forebrain size of precocious birds by tenfold. This cerebralization is responsible for the highly developed social structure of song birds and parakeets and their specializations in locomotion and feeding.

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4 The consequences for the understanding of the evolution of modern humankind The described developments of side effects of existing functional systems into new functional primary purposes and their integration into new and more complex functional systems are one basic evolutionary mechanisms in the phylogeny of organisms. These integrations are responsible for the generation of qualitatively new functional and structural levels and abilities. As well, heterochronic changes of time tables in the development of different organ structures and functional abilities result in entirely new functional phenomena. These basic mechanisms are also the essential mechanisms for the origin of important structural and functional features of the human body, which characterize the biological evolution of humans. This is also true for the specific human ontogeny, from fetal development up to the end of postnatal growth and puberty, even under the aspect that the evolution of mammalian ontogenies started from very altricial newborns and proceeded to highly precocious newborns in different mammalian orders such as ungulates and primates. In this context the human newborn is a highly derived precocious young, very specifically adapted to and depending on its long-term social and cultural development within its own social community, as will be described later.

5 The biological evolution of modern humankind 5.1 The paleoanthropological time scale According to general interpretation of paleoanthropology the evolution of modern humans started with the australopithecines 3.5 million years ago (Henke, Rothe 1994, 1999, Conroy 1997, Tattersall 1997). They already possessed an upright, bipedal mode of locomotion, preferentially on the ground, thereby extending their area of living into the expanding savannahs of East Africa. In addition to their upright body position, the australopithecines possessed the size and weight of present-day chimpanzees. The evolution of humans is characterized by an increase in body size and weight, shaping the appearance of the body of modern humans in a very specific way. This evolution gave rise to some new species of Australopithecus and later different species of Homo, some of whom attained remarkable body sizes. Starting more than 1.5 million years ago some of the developing species of Homo migrated out of Africa into the Eurasian continent in several waves and developed into specific forms, which became extinct long ago. The last branches of this human evolution are the Neanderthals and modern humans, two subspecies of Homo sapiens, which have been developing independently from one another for at least 500,000 to 600,000 years. They also migrated into Europe and Asia, probably living for longer times in adjacent regions, but according to molecular genetic investigations not interbreeding. The last Neanderthals became extinct about 35,000 years ago (Tattersall 1999). All living humans of all ethnic groups are mem-

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bers of the species Homo sapiens sapiens, which also invaded Australia and the American continent several 10,000 years ago. 5.2 The evolution of growth and size To demonstrate the specific structures and functions of the body of modern humans, we must depend on comparisons with the bodies of anthropoid apes, especially chimpanzees, who in many characteristics and dimensions resembled the body of australopithecines, including brain size. The increase in body size towards modern humans was attained in a very special way: Despite the fact that the birthweight of the human newborn exceeds that of a newborn chimpanzee by 160 %, both newborns possess identical lengths of the trunk and extremities (Portmann 1951, Duncker 1998b), even though the duration of intrauterine development in humans is extended by about 16–20 %, compared to chimpanzees (Duncker 1990, 1998b). Also the human growth curve is quite similar to that of chimpanzees up to an age of six to eight years, when chimpanzees have reached adulthood. In humans growth continues for many years, especially being accelerated at the specific growth phase of puberty, ending beyond 15 to 20 years of age (v. Harnack 1990, Uliijaszek et al. 1998). Whereas in chimpanzees the length of the trunk is doubled during postnatal growth and that of the arms and legs by a factor of 1.7, in humans trunk length increases 2.65 fold at birth, and 3.3 fold for arms, nearly 4 fold for legs (Duncker 2000b). Beyond this remarkable increase in the trunk size as well as the length of the arms and legs, the general construction of the human body, especially the development of the waist demonstrates very special biomechanical conditions: The waist is the constructional result of an independent swinging of the shoulder girdle and pelvic girdle in opposite directions during walking and running, which is an expression of a bioenergetically optimal performance for long duration walking and running over long distances in savannah environments (Preuschoft, Witte 1993, Witte et al. 1999, 2001). 5.3 The extension of life phases This extended growth phase in humans is only one example of the numerous heterochronic alterations in the different life stages of modern man. After the extended duration of gravidity, the period of childhood and youth is prolonged up to the age of 20 years. Adulthood and the reproductive period extend up to an age of at least 45 years, and continues into the human-specific grandparent period for another 20 years. Beyond populations living under extreme ecological conditions such as reindeer hunters in the ice age or eskimos in the arctic, grandparents have existed in all ethnic and cultural groups (Ulijaszek et al. 1998). As a quite new development since the second half of the last century in western technological societies, the fourth generation of senior citizens is experiencing a further 20 year extention of the human life span, which, of course, also depends on substantial social and medical support (Duncker 1998b). These human-specific periods of life determine very important social functions for the different generations.

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5.4 The prolongation of brain growth and increase of learning capacities Moreover, the long duration of childhood and youth determines the length of brain growth, especially the growth and maturation of the cerebral cortex (Farber, Njiokiktjien 1993, Kolb, Whishaw 1996, Duncker 1998b). In the same way the period of life is extended, which is dominated by the acquisition of new locomotor abilities, cultural-technical capacities, new languages and a vast amount of knowledge about cultural-technical performances, which to a certain extent are prolonged throughout the period of adulthood. One principal characteristic of the prolongation of the human body growth period up to the end of puberty is the extended ability of the locomotor system to acquire new patterns of movements, from technical handlings up to artistic abilities, such as playing musical instruments (Duncker 1998b, 2000b). Beyond this growth period, these capacities for learning new motor patterns diminish rapidly, whereas the acquisition of a vast amount of cultural knowledge, the so-called neutral knowledge, is maintained throughout adulthood. 5.5 The special differentiation of the hands In addition to the development of the overall form of the human body, its specific dimensions and the construction of the trunk including the waist and the length of the arms and legs, the human hand has undergone an amazing evolution (Wehr, Weinmannn 1999, Wilson 2000). The mobility and flexibility of the single fingers have been increased, especially the thumb, so that the tip of the thumb can be placed into precise opposition to the tip of each of the other fingers, forming a tweezerslike grip with all fingers. The musculature of the hand and fingers has evolved to perform powerful as well as very precisely controlled movements by virtue of the high content of neuromuscular spindles, a very unusual combination of physiological features. Thus, a highly differentiated dexterity of the human hand has evolved, but the fulfillment of this dexterity requires an extremely long time of training to master all the skills associated with the hand: for example, playing with intricate toys, managing the handling of a fork, knife and spoon or chopsticks, learning to write, and numerous locomotor patterns, required for the manual performance of different trades and crafts. All the craftsmen skills are traditionally learned during the pubertal growth phase. After reaching adulthood, for most persons the ability to learn new locomotor and behavioural patterns diminishes drastically. 5.6 The evolution of the language producing apparatus and development of speaking Another portion of the locomotor system that underwent a very special development during human evolution, was the movement apparatus of the nose and mouth together with pharynx and larynx, which performs primarily the in- and exhalation

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of air and the intake and processing of food together with all the necessary control functions. In mammals including apes and chimpanzees, this apparatus plays also an important role in thermoregulation through the vascularized mucous membranes of the nose, palate and tongue, and it is used for the innate vocalizations of the animals. The evolution of the nose-mouth-pharynx system towards modern humankind includes the musculature of the lips, jaws, tongue, soft palate, pharynx, larynx and vocal folds, which gain an exponentially increased movability and control by the cerebral cortex. Macroscopically this evolution is characterized by an elongation of the pharynx and a size reduction of the epiglottis, which in newborn humans still possesses the size and position of the adult chimpanzee, approaching and lying on the soft palate (Aiello, Dean 1990, Jones et al. 1992, Conroy 1997, Henke, Rothe 1999). The adult human condition is first attained by differential growth at the end of the first year of life. The child then gradually acquires the ability of learning to speak the language of its community. By the elongation of the pharyngeal region and the reduction in the length of the epiglottis this apparatus is able to produce language, using the highly differentiated muscular systems of the tongue, soft palate, jaws and lips, pharynx, larynx and vocal folds, which are capable of extremely rapid and precisely controlled movements. By virtue of these differentiated movements the form of the upper respiratory channel, the vocalization tract, can be continuously changed during expiration, allowing the formation of the vowels and consonants, dependent on the finely tuned air vibrations, which are superimposed on the expiratory air flow as basic frequencies by the oscillations of the vocal folds. However, this evolution of the upper respiratory tract for language production as a secondary function goes hand in hand with the loss of its thermoregulatory function, which is so important in all other mammals including the anthropoid apes. Additionally, beyond forming words and sentences for social communication of distinctly factual information, human speech has the frequently underestimated function for communication of the emotional situations of the speaker and the emotional relationship with social partners (Kolb, Whishaw 1996, Deacon 1997). This socially important communication of the emotional relationship is transmitted by very fine speech modulations, the speech melody, which are produced by modulation of muscle activity and can be precisely recognized by social partners. The production of speech and singing is essentially supported by the highly differentiated abdominal wall musculature, which is responsible for the very precisely regulated pressure of the expired air stream. Evolution of the upper airways for highly specialized language production was combined with a loss of the thermoregulatory function, because both functions cannot be performed simultaneously by the same apparatus. This functional change became possible by the reduction of body hair and the spread of sweat glands all over the naked skin, a quite new feature in the evolution of the human body.

6 The human senses and their functional hierarchy 6.1 The “naked” human The remarkable feature of the nakedness of the human body is not due to a loss of the hair of the body, but by a maximal reduction in the size of the hairs of most parts

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of the body surface. The tips of these small unpigmentated body hairs are reaching maximally 1 mm beyond the surface of the skin, due to a heterochronic restriction in the growth of these hairs. Regularly in both sexes only the hairs of the scalp, the eyebrows, the eyelids and the openings of nose and ears, are regularly growing terminal hairs of different length, and with the onset of puberty also the pubic and axillary hairs grow to normal size, and in numerous ethnic groups in males also the hairs of the beard, on the chest and even on the back and on the extremities (Montagna 1976, Williams, Warwick 1980). This very specific evolution of human body hair cover (Montagna 1985) has been misinterpreted since ancient times and even by philosophical anthropology of the last century, to be an expression of the defencelessness and loss of biological instincts of modern man (Duncker 1998b), in spite of some authors since the 17th century, who have tried to emphasize the fundamental importance of the highly differentiated haptic sensory function of the naked human skin (Benthien 1999, Zeuch 2000, John 2001, Zimmer 2001). As one point the functional importance of this special feature of naked human body has been discussed in respect to the special thermoregulatory necessities of the upright walking and hunting modern human, together with the unique distribution of sweat glands all over his skin (Montagna 1985, Kreger 1999–2001). However, the specific evolution of the sensitivity of the human skin, which is a basic feature for modern humans (Duncker 1998b, 2000b), has not especially been mentioned. By the drastic reduction of body hair, the high sensitivity of the prehensile skin of the hands and feet of monkeys and anthropoid apes has been extended over the entire integument of humans, no longer being hindered by the possession of a body fur. This evolution goes together with the human specific differentiation of the lip region, which is highly specialized for touch sensitivity, as is the tip of the tongue. This increase in overall skin sensitivity is accompanied by an increase in the dimensions of the dorsal column, the posterior funiculus of the spinal cord, which is responsible for conduction of the highly developed epicritic skin sensitivity, being representated cortically by the large somatosensory postcentral gyrus (Williams, Warwick 1980, Drenckhahn, Zenker 1994). Due to this general ignorance of the functional imports of the nakedness of the human skin, the skin has been regarded as a sensory organ of the “lower senses”, which is also an ancient philosophical topic, not having been revised even by recent anthropologists. 6.2 The haptic and proprioceptive perceptions In contrast to this classical view, in which the visual system is the leading sense organ and our main mode of recognizing reality, our basic sensory system is made up by the haptic impressions of the tactile senses of the skin including all proprioceptive impressions from our locomotory systems. In this way newborns recognize all social contacts and objects of their material world initially by the newly evolved lip region and the tip of the tongue during the so-called “oral phase”. Avoiding the Freudian psycho-sexual overinterpretation of this developmental phase, it is now also called “oral-captative phase” (Schultz-Hencke 1988, Elhardt 1998), demonstrating the importance of haptic perceptions for the development of the multisensorial recognition of social members and material objects (Gibson, Walker 1984,

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Berger 1994, Montagu 2000). Later on with growing movability and increasing dexterity of the hands, the tactile recognition of the world is supported and subsequently substituted by the hands. In this way adults also identify objects threedimensionality by touch, recognizing their shape and surface qualities. This tactile recognition of reality is supported by the visual system, which develops functionally after birth. All primarily haptically recognized objects, which are in parallel also recognized visually, can in the future be identified by the visual system. But even in adults, this sequence of recognition is performed by our sense organs in the same order. Each real comprehension of new objects requires first the haptic recognition of its three-dimensionality and surface characteristics, before it can be identified visually, which is subsequently the dominate mode of identification. These basic relationships constitute the hierarchy of our sense organs, in which our visual system is subordinate to skin senses. Traditionally, our visual system is viewed as being dominant, because it is our most important sense organ for distant objects, together with the acoustical system. This has been tought since ancient times, and also modern philosophical considerations, e. g. Kant, are mainly based on the principal importance of the “visual appearance” (Kant 1977). Remarkably at this general foundation of human cognition on the visual perception is that even Kant has stated in his “anthropology in pragmatic respect” (Kant 1983) the importance of the sense of touch for the perception of the material appearance of objects and organisms (John 2001). The above-mentioned dominance of tactile perceptions of the skin in their described hierarchical cooperation with the visual and acoustical perceptions are acting constantly together with those perceptions from the proprioceptive system. This has been demonstrated so convincingly by recent investigations on the problems of astronauts with orientation during free flights in the gravity-free stratosphere. Our visual and acoustical systems constantly require calibration by our proprioceptive and tactile perceptions, working under gravity, to which they are adapting in rather short time periods. Without these proprioceptive and skin perceptions the location, intensity and size of all visually and acoustically perceived objects cannot be precisely recognized (Lackner, DiZio 2000). 6.3 The reception and modulation of pain sensations The sensitivity of the skin and the locomotor apparatus relies not only on different sensations such as touch, pressure, vibration and perception of position and its changes, but also on the second important category of sensations, the different kinds of pain and temperature. There are basical differences between the uptake, conduction, representation and recognition of touch and position impressions on the one hand and pain sensations on the other. The touch and proprioceptive sensations are directly conducted by axon collaterals of afferent neurons in the dorsal column in strict somatotopical order, enabling the precise somatotopic representation and epicritical recognition of mechanical sensations in certain subregions of the postcentral somatosensory cortex. This representation in the form of the socalled homunculus reflects the density of the peripheral receptors and the functional importance of the respective skin regions (Drenckhahn, Zenker 1994, Bir-

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baumer, Schmidt 1996, Trepel 1999). In contrast, pain sensations of the skin and the locomotor apparatus are connected in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord with other neurons of functional reflexes to retract the body part from the pain stimulus, to reduce self-inflicted pain actions and to induce defence movements for self-protection. At the same time these pain-conducting neurons in the dorsal horn are also connected to neurons forming the conducting tracts towards the brain. However, pain transmission in the dorsal horn is already at this level modulated by encephalin-producing neurons, which are activated according to the general current physiological situation, to enable forceful counteractions without pain inhibition (Drenckhahn, Zenker 1994, Birbaumer, Schmidt 1996, Adler 1996, Trepel 1999, Zenz, Jurna 2001). These encephalin neurons of the dorsal horn are additionally innervated by descending tracts from the brain stem, especially from the midbrain region (Birbaumer, Schmidt 1996, Trepel 1999). Thus the perception of pain through the spinal nerves as well as through the trigeminal nerve can also be modulated by social learning according to the importance that the community attaches to the expression of pain. In the upper brain stem, especially in the midbrain reticular formation, a number of different nuclei, which produce several opioid peptides such as endorphin, dynorphin and metencephalin, modulate substantially the transmission of pain into the cerebral cortex through the spino-reticulo-thalamic tracts (Drenckhahn, Zenker 1994, Birbaumer, Schmidt 1996, Trepel 1999). During intensive work or stress, even strong pain will not be recognized. This brain stem pain modulation system also underlies fundamental cultural imprinting through early social learning: Each social community determines, to which extent the social expression of pain and the social consideration of painful events possess importance for social life. This importance can change during the historical development of societies, but basically it always influences the behaviour of its social members. Social learning determines by internal feed back to what extent and duration pain is recognized by a single person (Birbaumer, Schmidt 1996). In a very similar way individuals can also learn recognition and social expression of pain, which start from minor and/or short-term sensations. This is one of the mechanisms by which the recognition of chronic pain arises, which is characteristic for many psychosomatic diseases (v. Uexküll 1996). Recent investigations have demonstrated that the cortical recognition of pain depends on different cortical areas; the most posterior part of the somatosensory gyrus, the adjacent dorsolateral parietal cortex, the anterior insular cortex and the cingular cortex cranial to the knee of the corpus callosum (Treede et al. 1999). 6.4 The functional hierarchy of the processing of haptic and pain sensations Tactile skin sensations, and the mostly unconscious proprioceptive sensations from the locomotor system, as well as pain sensations of both organ systems, represent in the first line physiological sensations determining biological protective functions to maintain the integrity of the body. Beyond this physiological protective function, all touch and proprioceptive sensations are conducted by the phylogenetically old

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spinothalmic tract systems (including the spinoreticular and spinotectal system), which are mostly multineuronally organized, via the thalamus into the postcentral somatosensory cortex areas, mediating crude touch sensory information, but lacking precision in tactile discrimination. However, this system is important for activation of the highly differentiated dorsal column of the spinal cord, which is made up of direct axon collaterals of the sensory spinal ganglion neurons, and which conducts the strongly somatotopical organized epicritical somatosensory and proprioceptive sensations to the different somatosensory cortex areas (Drenckhahn, Zenker 1994, Trepel 1999). This dorsal column system, making up 40 % of the cross-sectional area of the cervical spinal cord, is the most highly evolved human conductory system for all sensations from the naked skin and the locomotor apparatus, having been developed in accordance with the extreme importance of skin perceptions in humans. This is also expressed in the vast extension of the cortical representation of these perceptions and the highly differentiated cortical processing of this information into somatosensory cognition. These three components, the highly evolved sensitivity of the entire body surface, the massively increased dorsal column conducting system and the large cortical representation of the skin sensations, determine the intense sensitivity of the human skin and its importance for the recognition of all social and material reality (Duncker 1998b, 2001b). On this basis the skin represents the major human sensory organ for developing feeling of one’s own body and self-awareness, for differentiating the own body from other social members and organisms and from material objects (Montagu 2000). Skin sensations are the basis of all cognition (Gibson, Walker 1984, Berger 1994, Nicolaisen 1994, v. Uexküll 1996, Elhardt 1998). Not only the afferent connections and the expansion of the somatosensory cortical area, but especially the vast number of connections with other sensory areas and with the secondary and tertiary areas of association are responsible for the exponentially increased processing of human skin sensations. Thus, beyond simple recognition of the feeling of touch sensations, the different levels of feelings and sentiments have been developed, primarily by complex processings and interrelationships with sensations from other sensory organs, with social situations, individual intentions and knowledge as well as with the large capacity for memory of biographic and episodic events, which are responsible for our highly differentiated emotionality (Ulich 1995, Kolb, Whishaw 1996, Zimbardo, Gerrig 1999, Montagu 2000). Our emotions range from good or bad feelings of direct skin contact with living or material objects to the feeling for certain social relationships or ownership of special toys and tools up to special feelings of intimacy with one’s own home habitat including clothing and food, the feeling of special relationships to certain kinds of thinking and beliefs, also to certain artwork and music, certain lifestyles and planing of the own way of life up to the highest and most intensive levels of feeling, that of love. It comprehends love to a person and to his relatives, or the vitally necessary relationships to his country, his own social and cultural world and the world of religious beliefs, creative imaginations and art. In this richly graded hierarchy of levels of feelings one level depends on the foregoing, as they have primarily developed after birth (Köhler 1996, Zimbardo, Gerrig 1999). In the adult also the actual processing of skin sensations and differentiated feelings takes place in a similar way, the higher levels originating from the underlying ones.

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Compared with the other skin sensations, the sensations of pain, their conduction and lastly their cortical processing and perception are quite different in their functional mechanisms, their topographical organizations and the significance for the individual. The physiological processes of pain reception and the conduction of pain sensations underlie the described modulation by encephalin/endorphin spinal neurons and brainstem nuclei according to physiological and/or psychological situations as well as to socio-cultural learning in response to the social attention and importance of social demonstration of pain. Besides this basic modulation the projection of pain stimuli is, in contrast to the precise somatotopic projection of skin touch sensations, multineuronal and quite diffuse via intralaminar thalamic nuclei into the named cortical areas. Beyond the described physiological reactions for protection of the body integrity cortical recognition has fundamental importance for the development of body consciousness and social self-awareness (Adler 1996, Anzieu 1996, Morris 1996, Benthien 1999). Painful sensations not only induce protective body reactions, and cortical recognition enables consciousness not only of the limitations and outer borders of the body, but also of personal limitations in body movement and contact with other social members and material objects. At the next level of pain recognition the individual person learns in which way his actions and the intentions in his social and material world are limited. A person often experiences painfully the limitations of the social intentions, forcing other persons to do or not to do what one wants, but also limitations in competition in sports, social and language arguments or intellectual competence. In a similar way personal limitations are painfully experienced in all trials of social and professional intentions, the trials attaining certain social and professional positions through training and learning in school, professional education and studies. Growing up and becoming an adult is a painful process, in our highly institutionalized societies as well as in tribal cultures with their initiation rituals. Also all kinds of personal relationships can be recognized as being painfull, especially with the loss of social partners and relatives, the loss of native surroundings, of the known and intimate social and living conditions and language, of the intellectual thinking and of religious beliefs. The most intensive recognition of all these spheres of reality, from self-awareness of own body up to the social and cultural identity of a person, is a painful one. The painful recognition of all these levels of individual life is therefore the most impressive experience of life, the basis of all cultural creativity, as expressed in biographies of artists and scientists (Anzieu 1996, Morris 1996, Benthien 1999). 6.5 The body appearance and its importance for the self-expression of a person The extreme sensitivity of the skin with the highly differentiated cortical processing of skin sensation is only one aspect of the functional importance of naked skin for human beings. Naked skin is also the most important organ of the body for self expression, exponentially more meaningful than a skin with a dense fur (Bammes 1964, Morris 1977, 1997, Crone, Salzmann 1991, Eibl-Eibesfeldt 1997, Jarrassé 2001). This expression of the naked appearance works during all static presentations of the body, but it is even ten times more meaningful during all body move-

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ments. Body movements not only serve the functional necessity of handling and locomotion, but they also have important components for the expression of feelings and social intentions, with large individual variations in the extent and mode of expression. The musculatur of the face is especially highly differentiated for these expressions, so that the feelings and social intentions of a person can be demonstrated in an extremely fine-tuned manner. In a similar way, this is also true for the hands (Wehr, Weinmann 1999, Wilson 2000). Both face and hands are also the principal organs of tactile recognition of the social and material world. When the naked body is visible, these expressions of the face and the hands are substantially supported by the expression of the entire body, by body language. This expression of the naked body is basically influenced by the very special distribution and amount of subcutaneous fat tissue (Martin 1995, Ulijaszek 1998, Duncker 1998b, 2000b). Both skin and subcutaneous fat constitute a biological unit, depending upon one another for a life time in their development, as all plastic surgeons know. A person integrates short-term demonstrations of feelings and intentions into their expressions by the special way in which he or she performs actual movements. Long-term changes in body appearance are formed by the general life style of a person and the long-term state of feelings and social intentions. A person who does not often smile or laugh as a child, will not have developed laughing folds in her face. In this way the general life style, the nourishment and the overall state of activity, the professional work and athletic activities are expressed by the special use and hyperthrophy of certain muscles or body parts or alternatively their hypotrophy (Bammes 1964, Duncker 1998b). These include the molding of the subcutaneous fat tissue as well. This richness of expression, especially of the naked body, and the intensified expressions of the moving body have attracted artists throughout the ages, stimulating them to portray the human face and body on canvas and as sculptures (Bammes 1964, Crone, Salzmann 1991, Jarrassé 2001). The growing child develops rather early a feeling for self expression of its naked body, demonstrating feelings and social intentions to its family members and other persons, even those feelings and intentions that the child does not wish to present to everyone. Thus, already long before puberty children develop non-sexual shame (Hassenstein 1987, Duncker 1998b) and a behaviour upon which social tactile taboos are built. Already a baby regulates its skin contact with the mother and other family members, determining time and duration of these contacts. These regular skin contacts are the fundamental basis for the development of body consciousness of the growing child, for its emotionality and ability to develop intensive personal contacts, but on a self-determined basis, expressing rather early basic characteristics of the child’s personality. These more or less intensive tactile skin contacts with other persons underlie strong changes in selectivity during the development of the child and youth reaching into adulthood. Contacts with mother and other family members are gradually reduced with increasing age. During school age the intensive skin contacts with members of peer groups of the same sex become increasingly important. These contacts are gradually substituted during puberty by those with a partner of the opposite sex. After attaining full maturity, skin contacts with the one selected sexual partner dominate all other, which have mostly vanished (Morris 1977, Eibl-Eibesfeldt 1997, Duncker 1998b, 2000b).

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6.6 The social importance of the body appearance and its cultural consequences These intensive touch sensations of skin contact over the entire body are an indispensable element of a strong, long-term pair bond (Baker, Bellis 1995, Valerius 1998, Diamond 2000). Compared to our nearest relatives, the anthropoid apes, and as far as we know and can deduce from ethological investigations, these human skin contacts increase exponentially in intensity and especially in cortical processing and recognition with the different levels of feeling and personal relationships. This intensity of feeling, upon which pair-bonding depends, is most profoundly expressed in the orgasm, which is specific to humans and unknown in animals (Baker, Bellis 1995, Jones 1997). The importance of these personal skin contacts and the increased intensity of feeling in pair bonding is especially demonstrated by the high frequency of sexual intercourse in humans, especially outside of the time of ovulation, totally unknown in the animal kingdom, and even after menopause (Diamond 2000). Social tactile taboos and the intensity and frequency of overall body skin contact including sexual intercourse and orgasm in the pair relationship demonstrate the great importance of the strongly increased skin sensitivity for the special structure of the social life of humans. The significance of the body appearance for the entire social life of a person from birth to old age is determined by the development of the age-specific social tactile taboos and the behaviour of shame, which is depending on that taboo developments. These human specific developments restrict tactile skin contacts to intimate personal relationships, and the majority of cultural communities also restricts demonstrations of the naked body only to related persons (Duncker 1998b, 2000b). Therefore in most communities the naked body surface is decorated or covered by the various kinds of jewelry for different parts of the body, or by body paintings, ornamental scars, tattooings and hairstyles (Eibl-Eibesfeldt 1997, Beckwith, Fisher 1999, Caplan 2000) and especially by the different types of clothings. These kinds of decorations or coverings of the naked body have been developed in such an immense diversity in the different cultural communities and for different social and ritual purposes. By the lack of direct skin contacts for social communication due to the far reaching social tactile taboos the visual appearance of the body gained immense social importance, especially for the purpose of social differentiations. These diferentiations, which are documented by the respective special form of body paintings, tattooings, jewelry and especially by all possible types of clothings, have to be observed carefully in most communities by their members. These documentations of social rank and function of the single person are important for all forms of social life, and especially at feasts, rituals and special types of cooperative working Eibl-Eiberfeldt 1997, Beckwith, Fisher 1999). The development of nakedness of the human skin, the cortical processing and cognition of the skin sensations and the fundamental importance of the very selective, but intensive skin tactile contacts from birth to old age prohibit the use of the skin as a general social organ of communication, as it is the rule in simian and anthropoid ape communities, as exemplified by their social grooming. This is one reason for human social tactile taboos. The principal reason for this fundamental

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change in social communication from apes to humans is the highly differentiated cortical processing and cognition of skin contact sensations and their basic importance for the development of body consciousness, rich emotionality and differentiation of social relationships. This is a result of human brain evolution resulting in an exponentially increased recognition of the social and material world (Valerius 1998, Duncker 1998b, 2000b). These highly differentiated interrelationships can no longer be expressed and generally communicated in the society by skin-touch interactions among different individuals. This functional necessity was achieved by the specific evolution of the sound production system of the upper respiratory tract, enabling man to develop a unique system of languages, which incorporates the possibility of the development of an exponentially differentiated system of social communication (Dunbar 1998, Deacon 1997).

7 The evolution of the human brain 7.1 The increase in brain size far beyond the expected brain weight-body weight relationship The increase in brain size from australopithecines to Homo sapiens in the 3.5 Mill. years of human evolution is dramatic, starting from the chimpanzee-like total braincase volume of 400–450 cm3 to a human brain-case volume of 1350–1600 cm3. The weight of the brain increased from approximately max. 400 g to an average of 1250 g in females and 1375 g in males (Aiello, Dean 1990, Jones et al. 1992, Martin 1995, Knußmann 1996, Henke, Rothe 1999). The body weight doubled from australopithecines to modern man. According to the general mammalian brain weight/body weight relationships the weight of the brain should increase 1.5 fold with the doubling of the body weight, but in human evolution it increased 3.5 times. This increase is mainly due to an increase in the cerebrum and in proportional correlation also in the cerebellum. Moreover, the surface of the cerebral cortex increased even 4 fold (Rapoport 1990, Duncker 1998b, 2000b). Because brain tissue is the metabolically most expensive tissue of the body, this dramatic increase in human brain tissue mass runs up a heavy metabolic mortgage debt: In older fetusses and newborns the brain occupies 13 % of the body mass but more than 60 % of the resting metabolic rate of the entire body. In adults the brain makes up 2 % of the body mass and even 20 % of the resting metabolism (Martin 1995, Ulijaszek et al. 1998). These astonishing metabolic requirements of the growing human brain explain another unique appearance of the human newborn: Newborn chimpanzees possess only 3 % of their body weight as subcutaneous fat tissue (Sarnat, Sarnat 1994), but newborn humans 16 % or more (Ulijaszek et al. 1998). Brain tissue can only metabolize glucose, but not fatty acids as in musculature. However, during starvation brain tissue can supply aerobic metabolic energy needs with ketone bodies, which are provided by fat tissue under these conditions. Thus, the subcutaneous fat tissue of newborns is an important reserve substance for brain metabolism during hunger. This amount of subcutaneous fat tissue remains into adulthood, moulding in a gender-specific manner the appearance of the naked body. In females the amount of subcutaneous fat tissue is increased to

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25 % of body weight or more (Ulijaszek et al. 1994), being functionally directly coupled with female reproductivity. Additionally, the appearance of the female body is characterized by the unique formation of permanent breasts, unknown in apes. The breasts consist mainly of fat tissue, which is replaced in gravidity by the rapidly growing glands of lactation (Drenckhahn, Zenker 1994). Sufficient milk production is necessary for supplying the metabolically demanding brain of the newborn. Besides these functional needs the permanent breasts are a visual signal of the women reaching reproductive maturity. 7.2 The cerebral cortex The evolutionary increase in human brain size is most specifically due to the increase in the cerebrum, including the basal ganglia, the diencephalic thalamus and the cerebellum, but, the cerebral cortex and its internal connections are amounting for the dominate proportion of increase. However, there was not a homogeneous increase of all cortical areas, compared to the chimpanzee brain, which is most equivalent to the australopithecine brain. The primary sensory areas of the cerebral cortex, the visual, auditory and the somatosensory cortex as well as the primary motor cortex, are only moderately enlarged. More intensively enlarged are the surrounding association areas of the cortex including the secondary motor cortex areas. But the great increase in the human cerebral cortex is mainly due to the entirely new development of the tertiary association areas between the sensory and motor cortex areas, including the parietal, occipital and temporal association areas as well as the large fronto-basal cortex (Rapoport 1988, 1990, Ricklefs, Finch 1996, Duncker 1998b). These tertiary areas are responsible for development of the parietal sensory speech centers and the frontal motor speech areas. The human cerebral cortex is differentiated into more than 50 areas, which can be distinguished according to their cyto- and myeloarchitecture, as described by Brodmann (Brodmann 1925, Drenckhahn, Zenker 1994). However, the functionally best known cerebral cortex, the visual cortex, is differentiated into an exponentially greater number of functionally different cortical areas than demonstrated by cyto- and myeloarchitecture (Birbaumer, Schmidt 1996, Kolb, Whishaw 1996). The same is true, as far as it is known, for the motor areas and the large number of premotor areas (Geyer et al. 2000). These functionally different fields are especially distinguished by their various connections to various other cortical areas, not only to those in the neighbourhood, but also over larger distances via large association bundles (Geyer et al. 2000, Fadiga et al. 2000). Also the relatively large interindividual variations of the boundaries of the different cytoarchitectonical and functional cortex areas have been demonstrated recently at the example of the human somatosensory cortex (Geyer et al. 2001). These features characterize the specific structural and functional differentiations of the human cerebral cortex. 7.3 The functional dominances of the cerebral hemispheres The second important functional differentiation of the human cerebral cortex is the development of the very different functional dominances of the two hemispheres.

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Functional differences between both cerebral hemispheres are known to a certain extent in other mammals and vertebrates (Springer, Deutsch 1998). But in humans these differences become exponentially more pronounced during their development over the first 15 years of life, producing very substantial functional dominances of both hemipheres (Kolb, Whishaw. 1996, Birbaumer, Schmidt 1996). Each hemisphere generally repesents the controlateral body side and its sense organs. However, in addition to these general functions, the left hemisphere is responsible for speech production and semantic comprehension of language and for the control of complex voluntary movements, even in most left-handed persons (Kolb, Whishaw 1996). Moreover, the processes of consciousness depend on a functioning left hemisphere. It also serves word memory and logical-abstract thinking, especially sequence-analytical thinking (Birbaumer, Schmidt 1996, Kolb, Whishaw 1996, Springer, Deutsch 1998). In contrast, the right hemisphere, which is constantly involved in all body actions and sensory perceptions, is responsible during speaking for the speech-melody and the non-verbal comprehension of language, for spatial control of all movements and orientation as well as for control of the mimic and body language expressions (Birbaumer, Schmidt 1996, Kolb, Whishaw 1996, Springer, Deutsch 1998). In the right hemisphere non-verbal, spatial memory is stored, and it is responsible for all complex pattern analysis from visual, auditory and tactile perceptions, i. e., memory of faces, buildings and landscapes as well as melodies or complex three-dimensional tactile objects. All emotional, pictorial and imaginative thinking we owe to the function of our right hemisphere. Thus, it is responsible for a great part of our cultural creativity. 7.4 The long lasting ontogenetic development of the cerebral cortex The human cerebral cortex begins its main functional activity after birth, when the sensory input is fully working. Cytologically all cortical neurons are differentiated and lie in their final topographical position, but their dendrites are only poorly developed and only a basic set of interconnections are already established (Kostovic 1990, Semenova et al. 1993, Kolb, Whishaw 1996). The newborn performs all its actions and reactions through the fully developed and functioning brainstem, including the functionally fully developed ancient olfactory cortex and basal forebrain nuclei. The functioning sense organs of the newborn are the olfactory, auditory and tactile systems, which work mainly at the brainstem level, regulating the vital reflexes of breathing, suckling and maintaining contact with the mother (Duncker 1998b). The visual system starts its functional development when the newborn first opens its eyes, requiring two to three months under constant stimuli from a richly differentiated visual environment to develop the highly complex processings of the incoming visual information. Only after this development, the newborn is able to see pictures and recognize and differentiate visually the mother, other relatives and material objects (Birbaumer, Schmidt 1996). This ontogenetic process of developing specific cortical functions by continuous processing of incoming sensory information and functionally relating this information with information from other sensory organs to etablish cortical interrelationships, including

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those to motor cortex areas, represents the general mode of functional development for all neocortical areas (Semenova et al. 1993). This remarkable ontogenetic development of the manifold increased human cerebral cortex underlies the same heterochronic changes as general human body growth: Cortical structural and functional development continues up to the end of puberty, approximately to the 20th year. In this development the cortical thickness doubles and the size of the surface of the different cortical areas grows fourfold, increasing the cortical volume eight fold (Semenova et al. 1993, Kolb, Whishaw 1996, Duncker 1998b, 2000b). This growth has its greatest intensity during the first years of life and reaches final cortical dimensions asymptotically. The functionally important features of this long-term growth include continuously growing dendritic trees of intracortical neurons as well as continuously sprouting and elongating axon collaterals for establishing their intracortical connections with neurons of neighbouring cortical columns, but also the further development of their association and commissural connections. Thus, the growing neurons deliver continuously new structural possibilities for new interconnections and thus for new functional developments of the individual. As far as it is known, these growth processes and functional developments of the cerebral cortex do not take place with an identical time schedule and intensity in the different areas of the brain (Semenova et al. 1993). Their specific growth time patterns and their correlation with the different developmental locomotor and cognitive stages of the child and youth are as yet unknown. However, the human specific, extreme temporal extension of these structural and functional developmental processes for a period of 20 years are the neuronal basis for the long-term social, cultural and professional developments of the single person within the different human societies. 7.5 The cortical basis of consciousness and self-awareness For a proper understanding of the function of the human brain and especially the highly differentiated capacities of the cerebral cortex, one other evolutionary development is important. All consciousness and self-awareness in humans are dependent on proper cortical functions during a state of wakefullness, which is controlled by mesencephalic nuclei of the reticular formation, the ascending reticular activating system (Drenckhahn, Zenker 1994, Schmidt, Thews 1995, Trepel 1999). The selection of the internal vegetative and/or external sensory information that is biologically most important for the person at any time point, is performed by the limbic system. It determines during short-time periods the specific cortical processing and combination of these vital perceptions, so that the biologically necessary reactions, locomotor activities or behavioural actions will be produced (Drenckhahn, Zenker 1994, Schmidt, Thews 1995, Trepel 1999). Both these control systems of the activity of the cerebral cortex and the combinations of its different areas are shared with all other mammals and especially the apes. Almost totally newly developed in human evolution is the nucleus basalis Meynert in the basal forebrain, which supplies all cortical areas directly with cholinergic fibers (Rapoport 1988, 1990, Kolb, Whishaw 1996, Trepel 1999). These control, in addition to the two other systems, the overall cortical activity during the wake state.

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Anthropoid apes have demonstrated in numerous experiments high cognitive capacities up to the ability to process symbolic signs and their meaning. However, they perform these abilities only in experiments using rewards, not on their own (Valerius 1998). The activity of the newly evolved nucleus basalis stimulates humans, starting at birth, to continuously explorative activity in the social and material world. This special functional construction of the human brain is responsible for all playing activities and trials of children, leading up to social, cultural and technical creativity of adults.

8 The evolution of human languages and planning activities 8.1 The needs for a differentiated social communication as the origin of languages The mentioned development of the sensitivity of the naked human skin and the exponentially increased cortical processings of sensory information resulted in the development of the human-specific different levels of feelings and sentiments as well as different levels of pain and suffering, which are essential for the development of the individuality of the growing child with its very specific emotionality. An essential component of this development is the high expressivity of the naked body through facial mimic and body language. This high skin sensitivity and expressivity led to non-sexual shame and social tactile taboos. Thus, in human societies communication via social grooming such as in monkeys and anthropoid apes became impossible (Dunbar 1998, Valerius 1998). Additionally, the limited differentiation of communication by social body touch contact has made this type of communication system unsuitable for human social communication to express the highly differentiated feelings, sentiments and perceptions of our social and material world as well as for insights into the relationships of social partners or material objects and for the exchange of ideas and ways of thinking and beliefs. These communicative purposes could only be served by a new system of communication capable of rich internal differentiation to express the highly complex human perceptions, cognitions, thinkings and emotionality. The only system capable of this differentiation was a highly evolved sound communication system, that of languages. For this purpose, besides the anthropoid system of producing a limited number of emotional cries by the brain stem, in humans the larynx-pharynx-mouse-nose system has been extensively evolved for language production, basing on the evolution of the cortical motor and sensory speech centers. Thus, a dramatic co-evolution of the human cerebral cortex and the ability of human societies for language production took place (Jerison 1973, Jerison, Jerison 1988, Aiello, Dean 1990, Jones et al. 1992, Crystal 1995, Deacon 1997). We possess good reason to believe that the driving force for this co-evolution was the extremely intensified necessity for an exponentially evolved social communication, which first enabled the exponentially increased social cooperation among modern humans (Tomasello. Call 1997, Cavalli-Sforca 1999), becoming the basis for all further cultural developments and exploitations of the environment for food and energy.

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8.2 The social basis of the development of thinking and belief In this co-evolution the development of the cortical motor and sensory speech centers are only the “externally” visible marker of a differentiation of the cerebral cortex. These speech centers have been recognized because they are major sites for the large number of different aphasias, disturbances in the production or understanding of speech (Kolb, Whishaw 1996, Birbaumer, Schmidt 1996, Deacon 1997). Recent non-invasive investigations demonstrate that the production as well as the reception of speech depend on the activity of several cortical areas beyond the motor and sensory speech areas in cooperation with these in a complicated network structure, differently for each hemisphere (Birbaumer, Schmidt 1996, Deacon 1997, Friederici 1999, 2001). However, the production and understanding of language are only one end result of the cortical processings of perceptions and cognition of social relations and insights into the material world. They are also essential for thought processes of an individual concerning relationships and emotions for social communication among members of ones own cultural group (Ulich 1995, v. Uexküll 1996). Cortical processing and social communication of these perceptions and insights can only develop through intensive interaction, in which language communication and understanding are essential for the further differentiation of cortical processings and vice versa. Thus, speech centers are not the only endpoints of these cortical interconnections between different sensory organs and their association areas for the processing of perceptions as well as the connection to different motor cortex areas and the frontobasal cortex. These cortical processing networks are also responsible for the abstraction of different perceptions to general categories, which result in the generation of symbolic forms of thinking, so characteristic for human formal-abstract thinking (Deacon 1997). The human thinking process does not only differentiate and categorize social and material objects, but especially their spatial distribution and temporal relations into finely graded categories. The same is true for social interrelationships and the highly differentiated relationships to material objects and their technical handling and use. A special differentiation is characteristic for the mental processing of all levels of feelings, sentiments, emotion and sufferings (Kolb, Whishaw 1996, Birbaumer, Schmidt 1996). These feelings are the basis of all processes of conscious thinking and self-awareness, continuing into the fields of belief. All these spheres of personal thinking and beliefs owe their differentiated, personal existence to a continuous social communication, which determinates the personal thinking and emotions of an individual (Ulich 1995, v. Uexküll 1996). 8.3 The cortical origin of the syntactic structure and the socio-historical origin of the semantic meaning of languages In human societies this social communication depends primarily on language communication, which is supported by speech melody, facial expressions and body language (Kolb, Whishaw 1996, Birbaumer, Schmidt 1996). But what is the structure of a human language, that enables it to serve this highly demanding communication? At the first level, words are developed as symbolic sound systems to name or label cer-

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tain social or material objects or categories of objects (Deacon 1997). This development of words depends on intensive social communication over a long historical process. The formation of words as symbolic sounds and the changes that occur during the historical development of a language are not only the result of social conventions within the single language communities and their history, but they are also imprinted by special cortical mechanisms in the motor production of sounds as words (Kolb, Whishaw 1996, Birbaumer, Schmidt 1996). Besides nouns, verbs arise to comprehend all kinds of actions, movements and developments in space and time. Next, words as pronouns and articles, adverbs and adjectives arise to articulate certain relationships between objects and/or actions and to characterize special qualities or features of these objects and actions and their interrelationships (Crystal 1995, Bodmer 1997, Klosa et al. 1998). These interrelationships are not expressed by an arrangement of the words by chance, but in all languages they are arranged according to a strict syntactical order, which itself determines many of the interrelationships: This represents the next level in the hierarchical organization of language. The syntactic configuration of sentences expresses in a basic design of a sentence the order of the cortical symbolic processing of interrelationships between objects and actions (Deacon 1997). Thus, basic syntactic structure of languages expresses basic mechanisms of thinking, which are determined by cortical capacities and abilities for symbolic processing. Investigations of language perception by children have demonstrated that children initially have a command of the syntactically correct structure of sentences using the dominant motor speech areas (Friederici 1999, 2001), which were formerly thought to be only responsible for syntactically correct production of speaking. Only syntactically correct sentences are further analysed by children semantically for their content, whereas adults compensate syntactic errors to catch the semantic content. The following level of the syntactic structure of languages is made up by the declination of nouns and the conjugation of verbs. These possibilities of languages increase the differention of interrelationships of objects and actions exponentially, especially in relation to their arrangements in space and time. Declinations and conjugations are a direct, immediate expression of the subtle differentiations, in which the cerebral cortex processes the perceived relationships of all objects and actions in their spatial and temporal arrangement and order. This is most profoundly demonstrated by the richness of declination and conjugation patterns of original languages, e.g. the European national languages at the time of their origin as High Old German Or Old French, or tribal languages, which were not subject of considerable historical developments or mixings with other languages (Jungraithmayr 2001). These languages exceed considerably the four singular and plural declination cases of nouns and the six basic temporal categories of verb conjugations in modern European languages. The syntactic structure of many languages with its hierarchical organization of several levels demonstrates the differentiation of a cortically determined processes of thinking (Deacon 1997). However, languages are also subject to historical developments in the context of a general historical development of their societies. These language developments regularly reduce the highly, originally differentiated syntax of the original language, often by consequence of social exchange and incorporation of other social and language groups. In this developmental process syntactical differentions are substituted by idiomatic phrases to preserve the precision of language expressions, as American English clearly demonstrates. Within the syntactial frame-

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work of language, being determined by the cortical processing machinery (Calvin, Bickerton 2000), the semantics of languages thus develop within the different sociocultural communities independently from one another, expressing the special content of thinking and beliefs of a particular society over a long historical development. Thus, the semantics of a single language contain the historically accumulated cultural richness of its language community. 8.4 The importance of the planning activities of the fronto-basal cortex for the structure of the personality In addition to the multilevel processing of feelings, pain and suffering as the basis of all emotionality, the highly differentiated processing of all thinking and beliefs as the basis for all explorative activity and social contact and language communications, the evolution of the human cerebral cortex comprises functionally a third important function, which characterizes this species as humans: their continuous planning of activities. Due to a continuous stimulation of the activity of the cerebral cortex by the forebrain nucleus basalis, especially the activity of the enormously enlarged fronto-basal cortex, the most recent development in human brain evolution is providing this planning activity. Even infants during the wake state exhibit this activity by continuous exploratory activities of the social and material world within its attainable surrounding. Acquiring increasing locomotory capacities and independent motility, the child extends its exploring activity to all objects and actions within its reach. It also develops continuously ideas about activities, which will be performed next or tomorrow. In this way the child develops more and more plans for short-term and long-term activities of different kinds. These planning activities extend beyond youth, thereby also including ideas about the arrangement of the whole life cycle, the desired professional education and performance, the intended social role and preferred cultural, athletic and artistic activities. The personality of adults is decisively shaped by the richness of continuous short- and long-term planing of activities including perspectives of one’s own life style (Kolb, Whishaw 1996, Trepel 1999). Together with the highly developed emotionality and the social language communication these continuous planning activities characterize humans in an exceptional way, being different from all other animals. This is dramatically demonstrated by infarcts to the forebrain, by which an important aspect of the basic personality of a person can be lost, losing the ability to plan short- and long-term activities (Kolb, Whishaw 1996).

9 Special form of human sexual behaviour and human social structure 9.1 The fundamental differences between the sexual behaviour of anthropoid apes and humans During human evolution the structures and functions of the secondary sexual characteristics and sexual behaviour have been fundamentally modified, compared with

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our nearest living relatives, especially the chimpanzees. Chimpanzees live in groups, which are dominated by an old male and his sons, whereas the females are regularly incorporated from other groups. During their 36 days of the reproductive cycle, the females demonstrate a very striking estrus, characterized by a marked swelling of the naked pink anogenital skin, lasting 5 to 6 days, starting 2 to 3 days before ovulation. During estrus the females present themselves to all males for short copulations. In contrast, the bonobos, the smaller rain tree forest chimpanzees, live in female-dominated groups with immigrating males. During their 36 day-reproductive cycles the females also possess remarkable, but comparably smaller anogenital skin swellings, which last for a longer period of about 25 days. They do not only present themselves to males of their group, but also to females for copula-like intensive body contact, which serves for social pacification (Napier, Napier 1967, Kortlandt, Heinemann 1969, Goodall 1988). Quite in contrast, the human female does not show any sign of ovulation, the genital region is covered by the newly evolved pubic hair. According to recent investigations it is questionable, whether human females produce pheromones and humans possess pheromone receptors. In females the glandular activity in the axillar and pubic region does not secrete any significant marker of the ovulation period. With the exception of the menstruation period this seclusion of the reproductive cycle and lack of any demonstration of the different phases of the reproductive cycle, which is called the “crypsis”, are characteristic for humans and an important basis of their highly derived sexual behaviour (Valerius 1988). 9.2 The social consequences of the highly derived form of human sexual behaviour Crypsis, hiding the sexual cycles and reproductive readiness to the members of the community, goes hand in hand with social tactile taboos. Apart from the intensive tactile contacts during childhood and youth with members of the family or later of the peer group, in adulthood intimate skin contacts are practised only with the partner, usually from the other gender, being a substantial component of intense pair bonding. This pair bonding determines the general mode of human sexual behaviour, in which intimate body contact and sexual intercourse take place only between the two partners (Valerius 1998). The establishment of this human-specific pair relationship is destined by a long social and cultural development of each person. This development imprints a very special personality to an individual with all its individual abilities, ways of thinking and beliefs, intentions and ideas, even including thoughts on the style of life and the projected, imagined profession and social role. Children already select their playmates according to their specific personality and abilities, their interests for sporting activities, explorations and mutual ventures. In a similar way pair relationships develop, often over long periods of time with increasing knowledge of the socially and culturally highly differentiated personality of the potential partner, leading to increasing occurrence of body contact and ultimately to intimate skin contact and sexual intercourse, experiencing all levels of feelings and desire. This dominant form of adult partnership, which determines the main avenue of human sexual behaviour, is stabilized by the general attempts of the single person to choose that partner, who appears to guarantee dur-

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ing the expected life together the maintenance of this very individual mode of living (Lamparter et al. 2001, Stuhr et al. 2001). Every person is a socio-culturally highly differentiated individual with very special styles of living, preferences, interests and activities. Biologically, this long-term partnership has another very important meaning: Care for the growing children must be stable over long periods of time, not only to guarantee a sound emotional and social development, but also to enable the necessarily long-lasting social and cultural development of the single child, to become a differentiated member of its social community, able then to take over the responsibilities of handing down cultural traditions. These are biological necessities, because humans are biologically dependent on their cultural and technical abilities for survival within the various environments in which they are living. These drastic changes in the evolution of human sexuality are based on very significant alterations in social and sexual behaviour, especially in males,as it has been outlined in the contribution of Valerius in this volume. In modern humans the strong coupling between the somatic gender of the body and the sexual behaviour has been drastically loosened in both genders. As a consequence of the etablisment of the pair relationships, males no longer compete with one another for females to establish a harem. Thus non-related males develop social cooperation, which is found in the animal kingdom beyond the hunting cooperation in some carnivore species mostly as social behaviour of females. This social cooperation of non-genetically related males became the important behavioural basis of social life of modern humankind. This newly evolved social cooperation enabled creative cultural developments by joining together the insights and inventions of different individuals into technical and cultural innovations, especially on the basis of their social language communication and their joint mutual endeavors. – In a similar way the loosened relationship between the differentiation of the somatic gender of the body and the sexually determined behaviour led for females to activities beyond social cooperation in the care of the young. So females developed new social interactions within their society as well as for the exploration of the material world and for the exploitation of resources of the ambient world. Thus they became involved in cultural creative and artistic aspects of their society. – Loosening of the somatic gender from the sexual-specific behaviour led as a specific feature of human evolution to the situation, that in all ethnic and cultural communities 4–6 % of the males and 2–3 % of the females develop a propensity in their sexual behaviour for their own gender, practising homosexual behaviour. This human homosexuality is quite different from all so-called homo- or isosexual behaviour in the animal kingdom (Valerius 1988).

10 Principles of the biological evolution of modern human 10.1 The evolution of the human body and its functional capabilities One complex of factors, which were responsible for the course of the phylogenetic development of Homo sapiens sapiens, have been explained by the principles of the evolutionary theory according to Darwin in the modern form of the synthetic theory (Mayr, Provine 1980, Maynard Smith 1998), describing the basic mechanisms of this

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evolution. However, for a profound understanding of the evolution of organisms in general, it is indispensable to elaborate an understanding of the continuous emergence of new complex functional systems that have been constantly developed during the entire organismic evolution (Duncker 1998a, 2000a). This is especially true for the very specific human evolution, which characterizes the structure of the body of modern humans and its functional capabilities, which enable humans to develop all their social and cultural achievements (Duncker 1998b, 2000b). These functional features, which distinguish modern humans so basically from anthropoid apes with their already high social intelligence, have been explained in the aforegoing chapters. Among these are: the extended fetal and postnatal ontogenetic development through heterochronic mechanisms, which are responsible for the size and dimensions of the upright human body including the highly specialized arms and legs. The special structure and functional abilities of the arms and hands are the basis of all functions used with tools and tool-making for the technical manipulation of various ambient environments, which enabled all technical-cultural developments.The prominent feature of the human evolution is the drastic enlargement of the cerebral cortex and its 20 year growth and functional differentiation period. By the evolution of the upper respiratory tract into the system of phonation, speech production became possible on the basis of the highly evolved cortical speech centers. Together with the general changes in human sexual behaviour and the social cooperativity of genetically non-related males, the highly evolved social communication through language became the basis of all cultural developments. 10.2 The evolution of high levels of sensory perceptions as well as languages for intensive social communications These developments make up the structural-functional frame upon which the highgrade cortical processing of sensory perceptions and the development of the richly differentiated feelings and hierarchical levels of sentiments, sufferings and all emotionality depend. These highly differentiated cortical processings are in continuous reciprocity with the symbolic formulation of these processes in the form of language (Deacon 1997), with its rich syntactic and semantic framework for the purpose of intensive social communications, which in turn also determine the differentiation of feelings and emotionality as well as the language employed in this. These functional differentiations depend mutually one upon the other. Moreover, they are always interconnected with the planning activities of the individual, the social intentions and trials to influence social interactions and developments. This imprints the very special personality of a person, who attempts to stabilize his or her own very specific way of life, of thinking and beliefs within the rather safe framework of a long-term pair relationship. 10.3 The specific retardation of the human newborn as prerequisite for its social and cultural developments The most remarkable feature of the biological evolution of modern human is the fact that human newborns, despite the 16–20 % elongated intrauterine development, are strongly retarded in the biological development of their locomotor and behavioural

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capabilities, especially in comparison with the newborns of anthropoid apes, who are able to cling to the mother very soon after birth and who acquire already in the first few months of life significant locomotor and behavioural abilities. In contrast, the human newborn is a “supportling” (Tragling, Hassenstein 1987), which depends in this stage on overall care and supply by the mother at least for more than the first six months of life. In opposition to the general opinion, human newborns are not altricial nestlings. They are specially derived precocious young, biologically adapted to their specific social and cultural developments after birth. This long-term development depends on the continuous care and supply of the maturing children and youth up to the end of puberty by the parents, which is biologically and socially guaranteed by the stability of their pair relationship. 10.4 The human specific ontogenetic social and cultural developments This long-term developments are no longer determined biologically and genetically in their contents, but only by the socio-cultural conditions of its society and the continuous interactions of the developing child and youth with its social community. For these social and cultural developments the body provides the framework in form of its functional capabilities, which are determined biologically-genetically. In this way the specific time table of the growth of the body and its brain supports only the capacity for all the occuring functional developments at specific time schedules, but this somatic development of the body does not determine the social and cultural form and meaning of these functions. Special features of the biologically developed functional capacities determine or limit only the width of the ranges in which the social and cultural functions and abilities can be learned or adapted. These are what we know as the different talents and gifts of individual persons, but also their different basic temperaments and emotionalities. The retardation of the biological-genetical postnatal development of humans is a very special result of the biological evolution of modern humans, it is a highly derived adaptation for the socio-cultural development. This somatic retardation is reciprocal to the extreme extension of the socio-cultural ontogenetic development of modern humans. This ontogenetic retardation reveals the ontogenetic socio-cultural developments of modern humans as a biological necessity. The survival of mankind depends totally on the amount and differentiation of the specific socio-cultural developments of their children in their respective own social community and ethnic group.

11 Human socio-cultural development – from birth to adulthood 11.1 The great differences in the postnatal development of anthropoid apes and humans The young of all animals, including higher monkeys and anthropoid apes, are characterized by the fact that during postnatal ontogeny locomotion and behaviour mainly develop on the basis of genetically determined mechanisms. These locomotor and behavioural

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abilities are produced by internal developmental processes in a strictly time-dependent arrangement. Playing activities of young are instrumental in exercising and producing better performance of these locomotor and behavioural abilities. Only very few locomotor or behavioural capabilities are acquired by social handing down from the mother, i.e., social model learning during the development of the young (Eibl-Eibesfeldt 1999), as it has been documented for the Japanese red-faced monkeys or for chimpanzees. 11.2 The fundamental importance of social model learning for the development of the human newborn, from emotionality up to locomotion Already Portmann (1951) has stated that the remarkable retardation of the newborn human in comparison to newborn anthropoid apes is probably a very specific adaptation to the exponentially increased amount of social and cultural learning of humans. This has been confirmed in the meantime by a greater number of investigations, which demonstrate this adaptive or model learning from the locomotor system: “supportling” (Hassenstein 1987, Duncker 1998b, 2000b) and the social relationships (Nicolaisen 1994, Köhler 1996) up to the basic features of emotionality (Pauli-Pott 2001, Pauli-Pott et al. 2003). For this unique characteristic of the human postnatal ontogeny, the development of the body and its brain serve the growing organism with functional possibilities in a strictly time-dependent sequence. However, these possibilities are not yet developed by an internal genetical program into any definitive performable function. Which of the different generally possible functional potentialities will be realized into performable functions during ontogenetic development depends almost entirely on social learning in the newborn and growing child. These social and cultural learning processes including acquisition of the language of the specific sociocultural community of the developing child are wholly determined by the knowledge and the cultural and technical abilities that have been accumulated in this community throughout its entire history. Socio-cultural learning makes up the most important component that determine the specific personality of a growing child and youth. However, the functional potentials to acquire all the social, cultural and technical capabilities and skills of a community differ greatly among different persons, they are known as the differing individual talents and abilities of a person. Beyond these various talents, the single growing child demonstrates very different modes and extremely varying amounts of acquiring the social and cultural knowledge and skills of its own society. All this knowledge and these skills are in no way biologically-genetically determined, but only by the social model learning via imitation of seen actions and later especially by the continuous language communication in the cultural community of the upgrowing child (Markowitsch 1992, 1996, Birbaumer, Schmidt 1996, Heinemann 1996, Kolb, Whishaw 1996). This non-genetic, socio-historical determination of the upgrowing members in the single respective highly differentiated cultures makes up the uniqueness of mankind. The diversity and the high flexibility within these socio-cultural developmental abilities are documented by the more than 6000 different linguistic-culture communities, into which modern humans have primarily differentiated despite their practically identical genetical structure (Jones et al. 1992, Crystal 1995, Bodmer 1997).

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11.3 The acquisition of first social and emotional competence The human newborn has to be characterized, based on its evolutionary biology, as a highly derived precocious newborn, which is biologically adapted in a very specialized way to assume a vast amount of social and cultural abilities by model learning from mother, family and social community. This remarkable feature is not only characterized by the retardation of its locomotor capacities, by which it is termed a “supportling”. In a similar way it possesses a retardation of its social behaviour, and moreover also its emotionality is only developed in form of basic temperaments, which have to be adjusted socially. The newborn starts communication with the mother via olfactory, acoustical and tactile senses, trying to adjust its own vegetative rhythms of sleep and awakeness to those of his mother and her community. In the wake state it always tries to control its own excitation by looking at the mother to arouse its own excitement, after a while turning away. Later in development when the visual system becomes functional, this behavioural pattern of making eye contact with the mother and then looking away is even more pronounced (Köhler 1996). The mother guards also the development the emotionality of her newborn by positive or negative reactions to the baby’s actions, thus scaffolding the development into a general frame, expected by the social community (Nikolaisen 1994, Pauli-Pott 2001, Pauli-Pott et al. 2003). Thus, the newborn adapts itself to the daily rhythms of its society and also to the expected emotional reactions of its community. It is imprinted very early by the melody of the language of its community, and it begins to differentiate between itself and the mother as living objects, in contrast to all material objects. These are the first steps in the development of cognition, which is primarily based on tactile and pain senses, first by the so-called oral-captative phase, and then increasingly supplemented by the other senses, of which the visual system as well as the acoustical system develop greater importance as long-distance sense organs. This is the physiological framework, within which the newborn and its mother establish their social relationships via more or less continuous interaction during the wake state. Attaining increasing acquaintance with other family members and gaining increasing knowledge of the material world, the baby develops on the described basis body conciousness, selfawareness, and feelings and emotionality building up to the emergence of self-confidence by the intensive social communication and exploration of the material world, at the same time also developing its cognitive capabilities step by step.

12 The acquisition of the unique human locomotor abilities and language competence 12.1 The development of locomotor capabilities In the second half of the first postnatal year the baby attains greater locomotor abilities with its arms and hands as well as with the body generally. Thus, the initial main mode of tactile recognition of social and material objects with the lips and tongue is increasingly supported and later substituted by the hands, with growing manual minute motor

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control (Wehr, Weinmann 1999). The tactile dominance of the hands becomes especially important with increasing own mobility, first by crawling, later by running: at first everything has to be touched in order to recognise its real existence in its threedimensionality and its surface qualities, which additionally can be recognized visually. Later, the visual identification of known objects is sufficient for the recognition of these tactile-known objects, but all unknown objects first have to be recognised by intensive touch. Besides the touching recognition of the ambient world the locomotor and behavioural development of the child occurs predominantly by social model learning, by which children acquire most of their locomotor and behavioural abilities. The physiological basis of these motor-learned tasks is made up by a very special mechanism, known from neurophysiological investigations in higher monkeys as the activity of so-called “mirror neurons” (Gallese et al. 1996, Rizzolatti, Fadiga 1998, Fadiga et al. 2000, Umilta et al. 2001, Williams et al. 2001). Observed locomotor and behavioural actions of members of their group, which attract their attention and seem to be socially important are not only perceived with their visual cortex, but simultaneously the observing animal innervates those neuronal circuits in his different motor cortex areas, basal ganglia and motor control system, which represent neuronally the observed motor action of a social member. Only a slightly increased excitation of these neuronal circuits of the “mirror neurons” leads to the performance of the observed motor action. These visual perceptions and the correlated motor-system innervation in the recognition of locomotion and behaviour of social members support the take over of locomotor and behavioural actions in monkeys, which are thus learned by social traditioning.These abilities for social model learning of movement and behavioural actions are obviously exponentially increased in humans (Jarvelainen et al. 2001, Rossi et al. 2002). This can especially be seen by observing children, who copy perfectly observed locomotor actions. 12.2 The learning of language and the acquisition of linguistic competence Already immediately after birth the newborn is learning the melody of its mothers speech, but also the specific rhythm and melody of its ‘mother language’. Beyond speech melody, which is so important for emotional communication, the baby recognizes first the meaning of single words, their reference to certain social or material objects or actions. Already this stage of understanding enhances communication enormously, and is followed by a stage of understanding the meaning of sentences and differentiated relationships between certain objects and actions. These stages of understanding develop before the child begins to speak. With the onset of its own active use of speaking, at the end of its first year or in its second year of life, the child starts, besides its vocalisations, to produce first single words with specific meanings, later to formulate first four-word-sentences, thus increasing stepwise its competence in the active use and performance of language (Deacon 1997, Butzkamm 1999, Friedirici 1999). Also this acquisition of linguistic competence takes place in form of social-model learning, comparable the acquisition of new movements and behavioural actions. Probably also for this learning of language production the leading mechanism is the activation of the “mirror neuron system” (Rizzolatti, Arbib 1998). Being guided by the acoustical perception of spoken language, the innervation of the

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neuronal circuits, which are responsible for the motor production of speaking, seems to work in a similar way as in the production of hand and body movements. This becomes especially obvious by the fact that children are not simply learning their ‘mother language’, but they also acquire directly and inevitably the specific speaking habit and speech melody of their mother or family. These correlated activities of sensory perception and motor innervation in our brains is required fundamentally for the vast amounts of socio-cultural model learnings, the importance of which is ofter ignored, e.g. in educational and professional training, ranging from reading of languages to extremely differentiated technical and athletic skills. These learning activities of the growing child increase manifold by communication through language. During its further development, beyond the reference to certain objects and actions, the onset of the symbolic use of words and syntax arises in language usage, and thereby the acquisition of the basic abilities for formal-abstract thinking (Deacon 1997, Butzkamm 1999). In this way the mental operations with distinct categories arise, which are designated in hierarchical levels by words, their syntactic relationships and the semantic meaning of sentences. All these developmental steps in the acquisition of increasing understanding and competence in a language as well as perfection in language production are not neural or mental processess developing in isolated individuals, but rather these essential developments can only take place through continuous social communication, without which only “monkey see, monkey do” communication can develop. 12.3 Human cultural developments as the result of continuous interactions of locomotor capabilities, language communications and cognitive developments These social and linguistic developments in children are intensively interwoven with the development of their locomotor abilities and their cognitive capabilities. The very complex locomotor abilities, which are highly specific for modern humans, are determined by an enlargement of the forebrain, which is the phylogenetic youngest area of the human brain (Spatz 1964, Starck 1975, 1982, Rapoport 1988, 1990). The frontal lobe of the human cerebral cortex contains, in addition to the primary motor cortex, the secondary and tertiary motor areas including the speech motor centers. It also houses the large frontal and basal cortex areas, which are responsible for the initiation of all types of movements including all short- and long-term intentions and planning of a person, which in turn are important components determing a specific personality. The size of the frontal motor cortex in general has evolved in strict size correlation to the large basal ganglia, both of which are reciprocally involved in the planning and initiation of all kinds of voluntary movements, behavioural actions and the general modes of temporal arrangements (Birbaumer, Schmidt 1996, Kolb, Whishaw 1996, Trepel 1999). The elaboration of this forebrain exceeds greatly the functional size that would be necessary for initiation and control of all locomotor patterns for body movements itself (Duncker 1998b, 2000b). The large, most prominent part of this forebrain motor system enables humans to develop vast amounts of locomotor patterns, which are needed for handling of the immense number of toys, tools and instruments leading up to very specific handcraft skills (Wehr, Weinmann 1999, Wilson 2000). The human

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use of hands as tools and for working with tools depends on the extensive neuronal apparatus of the motor forebrain/basal ganglia system. Acquisition of all these cultural and technical patterns of movements is characterized by one other fundamental dependency: the learning of new locomotor patterns takes place to a large extent only as long as the growth of the body continues, up to the end of puberty(Duncker 1998b). Beyond this time the ability to acquire new locomotor patterns is drastically reduced, however, it shows a wide range of individual variation. The empirical knowledge of these time dependencies of locomotor learning led to the historically developed social institution of apprenticeship for learning specific skills of different trades and handcrafts during the pubertal growth phase. In contrast, all other learning processes, those of biographical and episodical content and the vast amounts of cultural-technical knowledge, so-called neutral knowledge, continues through adulthood up to advanced adult age (Markowitsch 1992, 1996, Birbaumer, Schmidt 1996). The acquisition of all these cultural and technical locomotor patterns, including all artistic skills from painting and sculpturing, up to playing instruments, singing and dancing possess beyond the locomotor component one important aspect of being a human: These locomotor actions within the social and material environments, the manipulations of the surrounding world for the exploitation of its resources are the essential mechanisms of all cultural and technical developments, upon which the standard of living of each cultural group depends. All these locomotor activities serve also a second important aspect of human actions: All cognitive knowledge of the world, all insights into the social order of the community and the natural laws of our ambient world can only be developed by handling and manipulating this social and material world. Humans acquire their knowledge about the structure and functional relationships of their world only by their handling and manipulating actions, by which they extract their understanding and comprehension, from their practical experience and technical inventions up to scientific insights and artistic creations (Janich 1997, 2000, 2001).

13 The development of the human cognitive capabilities This cognitive development is a product of the continuous social exchange processes and communication, which cannot be separated from all other developments of social competence, locomotor abilities and gaining insight into the social and material world. Of these continuous interactions, those between cognitive development and the acquisition of language competence are the strongest, because language competence represents and expresses most directly the conceptual regularities of the speaking person and his mental capacities in a community carrying out continuous language exchange (Deacon 1997, Butzkamm 1999). 13.1 The development from innate sensomotoric intelligence to categorical and symbolic thinking and language competence The newborn starts all its social interactions and the exploration of its social and material world with its innate sensomotoric intelligence (Piaget 1975, 1992, 1996,

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1997). These inborn cognitive abilities support already important developments during the first years of life. First, the newborn learns to differentiate between mother and other persons and non-living material objects. Thus, the baby begins to recognize its world and initiates the development of cognitive capacities (Nicolaisen 1994, Köhler 1996). Characteristic for this cognitive development of the first years of life is the dependency on direct contact with real objects of the ambient world. Through these contacts the baby or child becomes acquainted with all the living and non-living objects of its world, their social and functional properties and meaning and its own relationship to all these objects including those that it owns (Habermas 1996). These experiences and knowledge are the material basis for all social interactions of a child and its trials to control these social interactions, and to guide them into directions that are intended by the child, especially upon increasing development of own wishes and intentions. Besides these primary social purposes of the growing child it acquires knowledge of the richness of its social and material world and develops a vast and rich memory, which is primarily always activated by direct sensomotoric contact with the respective objects. Dealing with these social and material objects and their social and functional meanings the child is increasingly developing object categories, developing symbolic representations for these categories (Deacon 1997). This development of symbolic categories is a decisive prerequisite for the speaking in sentences and accelerates exponentially with the acquiring of this step of language, especially with the stepwise increase in the performance of its own language production. The use of these symbolic object and action categories is one of the basic features, which determine the syntactic structure of a language (Deacon 1997, Butzkamm 1999). This syntactic structure is organized by cortical processing mechanisms, which via social language communication determine reciprocally also the cognitive development of the child. Thus the ways of thinking of a specific society are channeled by the brain mechanisms of syntactic language production as well as by the historical development of the thinking in this society by the semantic language contents, which merge to their culture specific ways of language usage and cognitive processing of all social and material objects and their interactions. 13.2 The result of the continuous interdependent cooperations of growing locomotor abilities, social language communications and cognitive developments: the origin of formal-abstract thinking and purposeful manipulations of the social and material world Within this interactive basis which originates primarily from only concrete thinking that is induced by the perceivable reality of objects, the growing child develops actions and relationships that are gradually sorted into generalized categories of objects and actions. Beyond the age of four years, these categories develop progressively into more abstract terms which eventually become named by words and syntactic forms. The ability for formal-abstract thinking begins to develop from the increasing usage of generalized categories between the age of eight to ten years. This development includes language expression of abstract categories and symbolic thinking operations (Deacon 1997, Butzkamm 1999). The development of this type

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of thinking is a product of intensive social language communication. This formalabstract thinking is regularly fully developed at the age of 15 years. This type of thinking can only be found in humans, and it is directly and reciprocally related to the symbolic meaning of words, syntactic structures and semantic phrases (Deacon 1997. Bischof 1998). These abstract mental operations are not restricted to the direct thinking operations and their language expressions. This development of abstract thinking is directly correlated with the growing experience of the child with its locomotor learning and performances. By these explorative interactions the child increasingly gains insight into the order and arrangement of the social and material world and their objects and relationships. These insights are a direct result of the experimenting manipulations of these objects or their handling with tools and instruments (Janich 1997, 2001). On the other hand, these growing insights into the interrelationships of the social and material world and their regularities are the indispensable basis for all technical inventions and scientific cognition (Janich 1997, 2000, 2001). In a very similar way these experiences with and insights into the own body and its locomotory capabilities and into the structure of the social and material world as well as the cognition of the regularities of this world and the own personality in it are also the basis of all artistic productions, which try to express these insights into this world and the human nature to the social community. This is the origin of all kinds of art, of singing, playing of instruments, painting and sculpturing, dancing, theatrics and celebrating rituals, which are as old as modern humans are (Augusta, Burian 1971, Jelinek 1972, Vialou 1992). These developments of languages for intensive social communications, of highly derived locomotor capabilities for the use and manufacturing of tools in interdependence with the growth of formal-abstract thinking for the manipulation of the social world and the exploitation of the material world by technical inventions, are resuling in the stepwise historical development of insight into the structure and function of these social and material worlds. These insights are expressed in the different kinds of art as well as in all technical inventions and the knowledge systems of science and humanities. Only this entire interdepending complex of language competence, locomotor abilities, formal-abstract thinking, manipulation of the social and material world and gaining insight into their structure, which is expressed in arts, humanities and science, makes up human culture.

14 The development of emotionality, social competence and self-confidence 14.1 The importance of permanent social communications and exchanges for these developments All these developments of social and language competence, locomotor abilities, technical skills and cognitive capabilities as well as stabile emotionality, body consciousness, self-confidence and the ability for intensive social contact depend in addition to all regular family communication and social exchange processes on the opportunity

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of children to play with one another. The human play process of children possesses one striking difference in comparison to that of animal young: the latter are mainly excercising precise genetically determined locomotor and behavioural patterns (Hassenstein 1987, Eibl-Eibesfeldt 1997, 1999). In contrast, human children must acquire even their locomotor and behavioural patterns by social model learning, and especially all social behaviours, language competence and cognitive abilities through various social contacts and exchanges (Nicolaisen 1994, Ulich 1995, Köhler 1996, Butzkamm 1999). During contact and exchange processes of playing children, they do not perform innate social behaviours, but rather acquire quite new social relationships and experiences, thereby new forms of communication and exchange in a playwise trial and error process. In this way they obtain a feeling for self-confidence of their own social competence and roles, as well as of their own locomotor and cognitive capabilities. Thus, children attain and defend their intended social role by experiencing their own developmental possibilities. It is primarily in these play processes that children can freely develop their emotionality, body self-awareness and self-confidence (Hassenstein 1987, Ulich 1995, Eibl-Eibesfeldt 1997). 14.2 The development of emotionality and the special function of the right cerebral hemisphere One of the fundamentally important interdependencies in human postnatal development are those between the growth of a sound emotionality, the development of a solid body consciousness and the establishment of a stabil self-awareness and selfconsciousness, on which a sound development of all social interrelationships and interactions depends. The functional basis of these developments lies in the highly differentiated, continuous interactions between the right hemisphere, which is responsible for all emotional, imaginative and pictorial feeling and thinking, and the left hemisphere, which directly controls all motoric actions and language production (Birbaumer, Schmidt 1996, Kolb, Whishaw 1996). Beyond these well known differences, the right hemisphere is enabling the rich, but very indistinct feeling of the self, whereas the left hemisphere is responsible for the definitely outlined awareness of the self (Bischof 1998). A sound development of emotionality depends basically upon a safe relationship to the mother and other family members, which supports a rich differentiation of all right hemispheric feelings as well as the performance of the left hemispheric controlled locomotory self-expressions (Nicolaisen 1994, Köhler 1996). At all these locomotory actions of language production, facial expressions, gestures and body language, the specific self-expression component is produced by the activity of the right hemisphere, modulating all speech and body movements (Birbaumer, Schmidt 1996, Kolb, Whishaw 1996). These interrelationships determine the individual speech melody and body language (Molcho 1999). Severe disturbances of these developments of emotionality, self-awareness and self-expression, for instance by emotional deprivation or cruelty to the upgrowing children, are producing strong life-long disorders of emotionality and body selfawareness, which result in heavy deficiencies for the development of sound social contacts and interactions (v. Uexküll 1996), up to hurting and wounding the own body (Sachsse 1999, Streeck-Fischer 1999).

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14.3 The development of self-confidence as the indispensable requirement for all cultural creativity The development of this self-confidence and self-awareness is the one important internal aspect of the socio-cultural development of humans that enables the single growing and adult person to acquire a conscious awareness of the reality of oneself and the ambient world. According to Metzinger (1999a, 1999b, 2000) the cortical representations of ourself and our world are primarily model-like representations, expressed in many formulations of our language such as: ...it feels like..., .. it looks like.., it seems to be like.... But in the actual necessity of being forced to react or to start an action, this model-like representation is taken directly as the given basis for existing reality, upon which all actions are based. Also self-confidence and awareness of the reality of our world are determined by the personal development of a child via continuous social interactions and exchange processes: The possibility for awareness of the cortical representations of self and ambient world depends entirely on social communications for its detailed structure and content and thus on the acquisition of those special ways of thinking and beliefs that a single cultural community has developed in its history. This socially developed acquisition of self-confidence and awareness of the surrounding world is the most important component, upon which all short- and long-term planing of a person depend including the general outlines for personal life styles. Reciprocally, all cultural and social developments are also a result of self-confident actions and cooperation among members of a society. These reciprocal abilities constitute the personality of a human being. Without the ability of modern humans to develop self-confidence through the evolution of their brain functions as a result of continuous social communications, no planing by single persons or communities, no social or cultural developments would have occurred. Human self-confidence is the irreplaceable requirement of all cultural developments, reciprocally, culture is a product of self-confident modern humans. 14.4 The acquisition of social competence and the emergence of personality All these socio-cultural aspects of growing children and youngsters, who are developing locomotor and cognitive capabilities, body self-awareness, emotionality and self-confidence, are one side of the coin, the other side of it being the stepwise growth of their social relationships together with the gradual increase in their competence in all social interactions (Damon 1984).This increasing knowledge of the complex structure of the social world, of its regularities, behavioural rules and normative values enables the upgrowing child, to enlarge continuously also their shortand long-term planning behaviour. These planning thoughts extend to ideas on their social and professional role including perspectives for their style of life. All these developments, especially the planning intentions, are united and expressed in the formation of the personality of the growing human. Besides the assembly of these very different potentialities of growing human, the formation of personality is con-

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stituted by a unique combination of specifically developed skills in the different fields of activities, from social and cognitive competence to very specific types of self-confidence and life planing. These developments are the outcome of very specific talents of the single upgrowing child and youth, which are the result of highly selective and unique use of broad developmental possibilities of the social community and its educational and professional training systems. This personality, especially expressed in the self-confidence and planing activities of an individual, demarcates humans from all other animals including anthropoids apes. 14.5 The emergence of cosmologic thoughts and religious belief as the basis of moral behaviour and ethic In the historical development of all cultural societies of modern man, the thinking of a person, being initiated by interactions of formal-abstract thinking and self-confidence, has led to thoughts beyond the border of perceptible space and time, developing ideas on the origin of its own species and the place of the own social community and its members in the perceived world, as well as on the relationship to other human beings and communities which do not belong to the own cultural society. These thoughts developed historically into the different cosmologic-religious beliefs and conceptual systems of various cultural societies, which possess a rich multiplicity and high diversity. These cosmologic-religious systems are not only a byproduct of the human way of thinking and imagination, in contrast, they have to fullfill important social tasks in all cultural communities: These cosmologic systems and thoughts are the origin of all ethical principles, specific for the single cultural communities and their religious beliefs, from which the morals of all actions of the community members have arisen. In the same manner rules are derived for social behaviour, as well as for acquisition of food, clothing and shelter, for the exploitation of the surrounding world, including social restrictions, taboos, leading to the development of punitive and legal systems. 14.6 The origin of educational systems for the handing down of cultural traditions The development of the personality of each individual is incorporated into the rich differentiation of the socio-cultural system of the community, in which this development takes place. Both are reciprocally dependent on one another as the two sides of a coin. This social and cultural differentiation of a community consists of a broad array of developmental, educational and professional learning and training possibilities, which the community offers in continuous reciprocal interactions with the abilities and talents of the developing person. However, these reciprocal dependencies, on the one hand, the richness of the socio- and cultural differentiations and, on the other hand, the developments of the unique personality of the growing individual depend on a third very important feature of all human societies: Historically, by way of social tradition mechanisms they have developed complex systems for handing down all the knowledge, cultural-technical capabilities and skills, ways of

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thinking and beliefs including ethnic principles and moral rules for social behaviour, restrictions and taboos. In tribal communities the old narrators, shamans and priests carry out these responsible tasks, in addition to and beyond all education and training by the family and community. For this handing down of social and cultural traditions all the cultural ceremonies and religions rituals represent an important component not only for social and cultural transfer to the forthcoming generation, but also for strengthening of social and cultural identity of the community. Together with the historically increasing development and differentiation of the different social and cultural societies of modern humans, the institutions for handing down of social and cultural traditions, the different technical and professional skills and the vastly growing amounts of knowledge of the diverse fields of cultural and technical activities are also differentiating into multiple institutions. These we know in modern, advanced industrial societies, as kindergarten and multilevel school systems, professional training institutions, colleges and universities.

15 The outstanding socio-cultural development and history of humans 15.1 The uncountable functional possibilities for the development of different social and cultural abilities of humans and the immense diversity of autonomous language and cultural groups The entire socio-cultural development of humans from birth up to old age takes place in the context of the functional developmental possibilities that the developing body puts at the disposal of the growing individual. However, regarding the contents of the developing socio-cultural capabilities of the growing individuals, these are determined by social learning within their own language and social community. Beyond the differences of individual persons regarding their learning abilities, which we honor as their biologically based individual talents, the mechanisms of the socio-cultural ontogeny are in principle similar for all growing humans. Modern humans are characterized by a vast amount of abilities to learn new locomotor patterns continuously as long as they are growing, most of which are required for the handling of cultural-technical artefacts and professional manipulation of tools and instruments. These abilities for learning include the language-producing motor patterns of the upper respiratory tract, not only for the learning of a language inherent to the specific society, but also for the potential learning of different foreign languages. These learning capacities also contain the possibilities for the acquisition of all kinds of social behaviour, of vast amounts of knowledge from the richly differentiated, various cultural and professional fields, as well as knowledge and behaviour within the highly complex commercial, political and legal systems of the advanced industrial civilizations. These facts demonstrate that modern human populations, which are genetically rather identical in relation to their capacities for the development of their languages and social and cultural capabilities, possess such immense broad functional possibilities for these developments.

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15.2 The history of the single social community determines the specific matter of its cultural and language developments All these social and cultural capabilities have been established during the historical development of the individual cultural society. This historical development covers several ten thousands of years, lying maximally in the order of one hundred thousand years. In this time span the radiation of modern mankind took place into primarily more than six thousand different linguistic and cultural societies. However, the roots of these developments, which led to the development of the socio-cultural systems of modern mankind, starting from abilities of higher monkeys and anthropoids to develop social traditions, are at least two million years old, as documented by tools of prepared stone and the use of fire. Burials and funerals, which represent cosmologic-religious thinking and beliefs, which could only have developed by intense social language communications, first arose thirty five thousand years ago. The same time span is documented for the oldest stone carvings and cave paintings, which demonstrate similar social communication and language developments. These are the basis of creative formal thinking and abstract and symbolic, cosmologic-religious imagination, as artistic depictions of man and his ambient world demonstrate (Augusta, Burian 1971, Jelinek 1872, Vialou 1992). These socio-cultural developments of modern humans have not yet arrived at a final state for any of the presently existing cultural societies. All current cultural societies are undergoing rather extensive further differentiational processes, which modify essentially the initial conditions for the newborn and youth growing up within these communities. Thus, the entire range of socio-cultural knowledge and abilities, which have to be imparted to the new generation, underlies a continuous adjustment to the changing cultural-technical conditions of life, to the growth and change of educational systems, to the changes of social behaviour within the community, to the developmental changes of different institutions of the society, and especially to the changes and developments in thinking and beliefs in the society and its language developments. All these changes constitute continuous adjustments of the socio-cultural basis for the development of the new forthcoming generation. These changes have occurred at varying velocities during different historical epochs of the various cultural communities as well as in different cultural societies, such as tribal societies up to advanced industrial societies. All these socio-cultural changes determine the long-term modifications of the complex system of traditions of a cultural community, and thereby they adapt the developmental prerequisites for the new generation to the current conditions of the community. In this way the socio-cultural contents of all developmental processes of growing children and youth are continuously changing to varying degrees and velocities. This is an important basis upon which the variability of persons from different cultural societies and systems develop, but also the basis for the rather short-term adaptations of the locomotor and cognitive abilities of the growing generation, their development in the social educational systems, in the ways of thinking, beliefs and language usage. Changes of this kind and velocity, which are by no means determined biologically or genetically, are generally inaccessible to genetic alterations, which require a much longer time period for such complex changes.

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16 The fundamental differences between the biological ontogeny of the human body and the individual ontogenetic socio-cultural development of humans 16.1 The undiscussed contrasting principles of the biological versus the socio-cultural development This means in consequence: The biological evolution of mankind followed the basic mechanisms of the synthetic evolutionary theory according to Darwin’s principles, which also govern the embryonic and foetal ontogeny of the human body and its postnatal growth. This development of all functional potentialities of the body is genetically determined, including the large individual variations, especially with respect to the different locomotor, social and intellectual talents of different persons. In contrast, the social and cultural determination of the content of these functional possibilities, the characteristics of single functions themselves and their qualities, are entirely determined by the socio-cultural development of the growing child through social model learning. These include the constitution of the social relationships, the emotionality and the locomotor and cognitive capabilities of the growing person up to language competence, thinking and beliefs, which result in the development of the personality of the growing individual. This entire complex of social model learning follows mechanisms that correspond to a large extent to the concepts developed two centuries ago by Lamarck for the explanation of biological evolution (Jahn 1998). These Lamarckian principles describe the historical development of each single language and cultural community as well as the continuous adaptations to the changing socio-cultural conditions of the single communities. Starting from the ability of higher monkeys and anthropoid apes to develop social traditions, this social model learning of modern humans exceeds the capacities of anthropoid apes exponentially. This enormously enlarged human capacity, which results in the development of language and personality during a drastically prolonged postnatal growth and differentiation, determines the uniqueness of mankind. Thus, humans are characterized as biological and cultural beings by two very different phylogenetic and ontogenetic developmental processes, which are not only determined by very different time parameters, but also by quite different developmental mechanisms, biological-genetically for the body and its functional possibilities, and social model learning for all locomotor, social, cultural and intellectual capabilities including language and personality. The explanation of the biological evolution of modern human to its unique appearance and functional characteristics can be answered within the concept of evolutionary biology only by considering the increasing ecological superiority of humans and their cultural-technical abilities to survive under such a great variety of very different environmental and living conditions (Henke, Rothe 1994, Tattersall 1999).

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16.2 The development of cultural identity of the upgrowing generations Contrasting in this way biological evolution and socio-cultural developments of modern humans, one important complex of the postnatal socio-cultural development from birth to higher adult age has to be discussed. The question arises on the basis of the immense broad functional possibilities for social and cultural developments, what are the factors, which determine the development of the cultural identity of growing children? Shortly after birth the newborn recognizes not only his mother by means of olfactory, tactile and acoustical perceptions, but it is also imprinted by the speech melody of its “mother language”, which it can differentiate soon from other languages, without understanding any of the informational content, independent of who is speaking. In its further development the baby learns stepwise to understand words, later sentences and their meaning, long before it is able to speak itself. Understanding of language develops long before own language production and understanding even of whole tales is attained long before a competent speaking performance has been aquired. On this basis already in the first year of the life the baby is not only imprinted by the melody of its native language, but comprehends increasingly the meaning of fairy tales, continuing into the understanding of historical myths, religious stories and basic cosmologic ideas in the subsequent years of life (Bischof 1998). Tales, myths, stories and ideas are integral components of the feeling, thinking and beliefs of a socio-cultural community, and thus the growing child incorporates these ideas, concepts and ways of thinking of its community as the basis for the further development of its own feelings and thoughts. The special historical and religious features as well as the specific ways of feeling, thinking and belief, by which the single culture is characterized, determines the cultural identity of an individual, which in most persons cannot be changed later in life, especially not, when adulthood is reached. In this way cultural identity is determined, and this identity is lifelong reinforced by the continuous exchange processes with the own social group, which speaks the same language, performs the known social behaviours and belongs to the same religious community. By these continuous social and linguistic communication processes a social community not only integrates the upgrowing children into its cultural thinking and tradition, but it also enforces the identity for all of its members.

17 The specific exchange processes between different human cultures 17.1 The unique characteristic of cultural developments: the exchange processes between different cultural groups Only in very remote areas and in isolated tribal communities the socio-cultural development of the new generation takes place solely within this community and without any exchange contacts. In most other communities already playing children from different social or even ethnic groups, from different language groups and

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religious backgrounds come into contact with one another. Thus, already at this stage an exchange begins, by playing with the toys of others, through first attempts of language communication and learning other forms of social behaviour. This continues into the kindergarten period and through formal schooling, incorporating various exchanges in ways of thinking and beliefs. One important feature is the common use of the mutual fabrics, toys and athletic equipments, and later the common use of similar instruments, capital goods and vehicles. An extended form of this cultural exchange is participation in the same school and professional education. These processes of socio-cultural exchange can especially be observed in our western so-called multicultural societies. However, in these western societies the exchange processes are very differently evaluated and practised by the different social, ethnic and religious groups, ranging from strict separation from other groups or even segregations up to an endeavour to integrate, even to assimilate into another, often dominating group. 17.2 The highly variable historical and social conditions for these cultural exchange processes and their extremely varying extent Generally, within the human specific possibilities for these socio-cultural exchange processes, which are a potential basic constituent of the historical development of all human cultural communities, we have to state that they are used in extremely different extents, from total rejection of cultural-technical exchange and attempts to establish total social and political isolation, up to intensive exchange processes with ethnic, language and cultural assimilation; the latter is the basis of the development of advanced civilizations. There may have been cultural-technical exchange already between Neandertals and modern humans (Tattersall 1999). Intensive exchange processes for at least technical knowledge have been demonstrated for prehistoric times (Müller-Karpe 1998). This continued to varying extents in the history of different countries and their social and ethnic communities. In all advanced civilizations these exchange processes have been documented. In the course of colonization not only missionaries promoted these exchange processes, but also royalty by inviting craftsmen and traders into their realms for economic development. In the same way the travelling journeymen completed their professional education by an exchange with colleagues from other countries, in the same way as travelling students and scholars founded the European university system. This way of cultural-technical exchange was evaluated as being so important that each professional group possessed its own social and legal regulatory systems to guarantee the personal safety of its commissioners in foreign towns and countries. This exchange processes between different social, language and ethnic communities and entire cultural systems can contain all aspects and objects of human cultural activities, from cultural-technical artefacts such as tools, weapons, instruments, clothing and objects d’art, and especially the ways of producing and using these objects and artefacts. Also, social behaviour, language usage, cultural-technical educational systems and methods, as well as ways of thinking and belief can be exchanged, adopted or fully assimilated. These various ways and

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processes of exchange between different social, language and cultural societies demonstrate another unique characteristic of the cultural development of modern humans. Such processes of exchange do not exist within biological evolutionary developments, with the only very few exceptions of the transfer of genetic material by infection with viruses or bacteria. An exchange of such huge structural and functional elements between differentiated multicellular organisms is impossible. The Lamarckian principles of adapting the changing conditions of historically developing communities into the basic socio-cultural requirements for the development of the new generation generally broadened and enlarged these exchange processes between different social and cultural groups and societies. By these mechanisms the cultural developments of modern humans gained an important second input, which determines all cultural and technical developments of advanced civilizations. This is especially visible in the last two hundred years in the industrial societies. Also this second mechanism of human cultural development is unique to modern mankind, being an impossible component of biological evolution. 17.3 The high vulnerability of the socio-cultural developmental and exchange processes Finally, one important aspect of all socio-cultural developments should be mentioned, which characterizes the unique cultural developments of humans in contrast to all genetically and epigenetically directed biological developments of the human body. These biological developments can be disturbed by different processes, from genetical aberrations to disruptions in the developmental sequences, producing malformations. However, these are rather rare events. Compared to these biological developments, all socio-cultural developments of single persons from birth to adulthood are not fixed in any way like biological developmental steps. They are open to be influenced by the highly different social conditions of the growing child, to its varying actions and reactions and that of its communication partners, such as mother, family and other members of his community. If these multiple interactions take place in a regular sound and healthy manner, they are leading to a sound social and psychological development of the child. However, the developments are exponentially more vulnerable than all biological developments due to the open arrangement of all interactions and communications. Especially the development of the psycho-social relationships is open to many disturbances, which is expressed not only by a remarkably high number of troubled social relationships and psychological diseases, but also by a great number of psychosomatic maladies (v.Uexküll 1996, Sachsse 1999, Streeck-Fischer 1999). The socio-cultural development of humans from birth to adulthood incorporates an extremely high flexibility and the fascinating possibilities of the growing up of highly differentiated personalities and socio-cultural creativities, upon which the historical development of the several thousand different language and cultural systems depends with their great differences in social organization and behaviour. However, this flexibility of human socio-cultural development is, on the other hand, also a rather precarious and endangered development for the single person.

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References Adler RH (1996) Schmerz. In: v. Uexküll T, Psychosomatische Medizin, 5. Aufl., hrsg. von Adler RH, Herrmann JM, Köhle K, Schonecke OW, v. Uexküll T, Wesiack W. Verlag Urban & Schwarzenberg München. 262–276 Aiello L, Dean C (1990) An Introduction to Human Evolutionary Anatomy. Academic Press, London Anzieu D (1996) Das Haut-Ich. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt a.M., Taschenbuch Wissenschaft 1255 Augusta J, Burian Z (1971) Menschen der Urzeit. 4. Aufl., Verlag Dausien, Prag Baker RR, Bellis MA (1995) Human Sperm Competition. Copulation, Masturbation and Infidelity. Chapman & Hall, London Bammes G (1964) Die Gestalt des Menschen. Hand- und Lehrbuch der Anatomie für Künstler. VEB Verlag der Kunst, Dresden Beckwith C, Fisher A (1999) Afrika. Kulte – Feste – Rituale. 2 Bände. Bucher Verlag, München Benthien C (1999) Haut. Literaturgeschichte – Körperbilder – Grenzdiskurse. rowohlts enzyklopädie. Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Reinbek bei Hamburg Berger KS (1994) The Developing Person through the Life Span. Worth Publ., New York Birbaumer N, Schmidt RF (1996) Biologische Psychologie, 3. ed., Springer Verlag, Berlin Bischof N (1998) Das Kraftfeld der Mythen. Signale aus der Zeit, in der wir die Welt erschaffen haben. Taschenbuch-Ausgabe. Piper Verlag, München Bodmer F (1997) Die Sprachen der Welt. Geschichte – Grammatik – Wortschatz in vergleichender Darstellung. Parkland Verlag, Köln Brodmann K (1925) Vergleichende Lokalisationslehrem der Großhirnrinde in ihren Prinzipien dargestellt auf Grund des Zellenaufbaues. 2. Aufl., Verlag Barth, Leipzig Butzkamm W und J (1999) Wie Kinder sprechen lernen. Kindliche Entwicklung und die Sprachlichkeit des Menschen. Francke Verlag, Tübingen Calvin WH, Bickerton D (2000) Lingua ex Machina. Reconciling Darwin and Chonsky with the Human Brain. MIT - Press, Cambridge, Mass. Caplan J (ed) (2000) Written on the Body. The Tattoo in European and American History. Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton Cavalli-Sforza LL (1999) Gene, Völker und Sprachen. Die biologischen Grundlagen unserer Zivilisation. Hanser Verlag, München Conroy GC (1997) Reconstructing Human Origins. W. W. Norton & Co., New York Crone R, Salzmann S (1991) Rodin. Eros und Kreativität. Prestel-Verlag, München Crystal D (1995) Die Cambridge Enzyklopädie der Sprache. Studienausgabe. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt a.M. Damon W (1984) Die soziale Welt des Kindes. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt a.M. Deacon TW (1997) The Symbolic Species. The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain. W. W. Norton & Co., New York Diamond J (2000) Warum macht Sex Spaß? Die Evolution der menschlichen Sexualität. Goldmann Verlag, München Drenckhahn D, Zenker W (eds)(1994) Benninghoff Anatomie, Bd. 2, 15. Aufl. Urban & Schwarzenberg, München Dunbar R (1998) Klatsch und Tratsch. Bertelsmann Verlag, München Duncker HR (1990) 21. Respirationstrakt. In: Hinrichsen KV, Humanembryologie. Springer Verlag, Berlin, 571–606 Duncker HR (1998a) Die Steuerung der molekularbiologischen Evolution durch die Gesetzmäßigkeiten der komplex verknüpften Funktionssysteme, dargestellt am Beispiel der Evolution der Vogelontogenesen. Theory Bioscienc. 117, 42–77 Duncker HR (1998b) Evolutionsbiologische Neubewertung der stammesgeschichtlichen Entwicklung des Menschen und seiner Ontogenese. Sitzungsber. Wiss. Ges. Frankfurt a.M. Bd. 36 (5), 205–327, Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart Duncker HR (2000a) The evolution of avian ontogenies – Determination of molecular evolution by integrated complex functional systems and ecological conditions. In: Peters DS, Weingarten M (eds) Organisms, Genes and Evolution, F. Steiner Verlag Stuttgart, 147–168 Duncker HR (2000b) Die Kulturfähigkeit des Menschen. Vorstellungen einer evolutionsbiologischen Anthropologie. Spiegel der Forschung d JL-Univ. Giessen 17(2), 22–39 Duncker HR (2001) The emergence of macroscopic complexity. Zoology 103, 240–259

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Dunbar R (1998) Klatsch und Tratsch. Wie der Mensch zur Sprache fand. Bertelsmann Verlag, München Eibl-Eibesfeldt I (1997) Die Biologie des menschlichen Verhaltens. Grundriß der Humanethologie. 4. Aufl. Piper Verlag, München Eibl-Eibesfeldt I (1999) Grundriß der vergleichenden Verhaltensforschung. Ethologie. Piper Verlag München Elhardt S (1998) Tiefenpsycholigie. Eine Einführung. 14. Aufl. Verlag Kohlhammer, Stuttgart Fadiga L, Fogassi L, Gallese V, Rizzolatti G (2000) Visuomotor neurons: ambiguity of the discharge or ‘motor’ perception? Internat. J. Psychophysiol. 35, 165–177 Farber D, Njiokiktjien C (1993) Pediatric Behavioural Neurology, Vol. 4: Developing Brain and Cognition. Suyi Publications, Amsterdam Friederici AD (ed) (1999) Language Comprehension: A Biological Perspective. 2nd edit. Springer Verlag, Berlin Friederici AD (2001) Vom Hören zum Verstehen: Neuronale Grundlagen der Sprachverarbeitung. In: Winnacker EL, Dichgans J, Erker G, FritschH, Hölldobler B, Winterfeldt E, Donner W (eds) Verh. Ges. Dtsch. Naturf. Ärzte, 121. Versamml, Hirzel Verlag, Stuttgart, 113–119 Gallese V, Fadiga L, Fogassi L, Rizzolatti G (1996) Action recognition in the premotor cortex. Brain 119, 593–609 Geyer S, Matelli M, Luppino G, Zilles K (2000) Functional neuroanatomy of the primate isocortical motor system. Anat. Embryol. 202, 443–474 Geyer S, Schleicher A, Schormann T, Mohlberg H, Bodegard A, Roland PE, Zilles K (2001) Integration of microstructural and functional aspects of human somatosensory areas 3a, 3b, and 1 on the basis of a computerized brain atlas. Anat. Embryol 204, 351–366 Gibson EJ, Walker AS (1984) Development of knowledge of visual-tactual affordances of substance. Child Development 55 (2), 453–460 Goodall J (1988) Schimpansen. In: Grzimeks Enzyklopädie Säugetiere, Bd. 2, hrsg. v. Grzimek B et al. Kindler Verlag, München, 463–481 Habermas T (1996) Geliebte Objekte. Symbole und Instrumente der Identitätsbildung. de Gruyter Verlag, Berlin v. Harnack GA (1990) Wachstum, Entwicklung, Reife. In: v. Harnack GA. Heimann G (eds): Kinderheilkunde, 8. Aufl., Springer Verlag, Berlin, 1–14 Hassenstein B (1987) Verhaltensbiologie des Kindes. 4. Aufl., Piper Verlag, München Heinemann U (1996) Neurobiologie. Neurobiologische Grundlagen des emotionalen Verhaltens. In: v. Uexküll T, Psychosomatische Medizin, 5. Aufl., hrsg. von Adler RH, Hermann JM, Köhle K, Schonecke OW, v. Uexküll T, Wesiack W. Verlag Urban & Schwarzenberg, München, 120–135 Henke W, Rothe H (1994) Paläoanthropologie. Springer Verlag, Berlin Henke W, Rothe H (1999) Stammesgeschichte des Menschen. Springer Verlag, Berlin Hennig W (1995) Genetik. Springer Verlag, Berlin Jahn I (ed) (1998) Geschichte der Biologie. 3. Aufl., Fischer Verlag, Jena Janich P (1997) Kleine Philosophie der Naturwissenschaften. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchh., München Janich P (2000) Was ist Erkenntnis? Eine philosophische Einführung. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchh., München Janich P (2001) Die Begründung der Geometrie aus der Poiesis. Sitzungsber. Wiss. Ges. Frankfurt a.M. Bd. 39 (2), 23–46, Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart Jarvelainen J, Schurmann M, Avikainen S, Hari R (2001) Stronger reactivity of the human primary motor cortex during observation of live rather than video motor acts. Neuroreport 12, 3493–495 Jarrassé D (2001) Rodin. Komet Verlagsges., Frechen Jelinek J (1972) Das große Bilderlexikon des Menschen in der Vorzeit. Artia Verlag, Prag Jerison HJ (1973) Evolution of the Brain and Intelligence. Academic Press, New York Jerison HJ, Jerison I (eds) (1988) Intelligence and Evolutionary Biology. Springer Verlag, Berlin John M (2001) Historisch-Philosophischer Exkurs über den Tastsinn. In: Grunwald M, Beyer L (eds) Der bewegte Sinn. Grundlagen und Anwendungen zur haptischen Wahrnehmung. Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel, 15–24 Jones RE (1997) Human Reproductive Biology. 2nd edit., Academic Press, San Diego Jones S, Martin R, Pilbeam D (1992) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Evolution. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge UK Jungraithmayr H (2001) Persönl. Mitteilung

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Kant I (1977) Kritik der Urteilskraft. In: Kant I, Werke in 12 Bänden, hrsg. von Weischedel W, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt .a M., Band 10 Kant I (1983) Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht. Hrsg. von Becker W, Reclam Verlag, Stuttgart Klosa A, Scholze-Stubenrecht W, Wermke M (eds) (1998) Duden Bd. 4: Grammatik der deutschen Gegenwartssprache. 6. Aufl., bearb. v. Eisenberg P, Gelhaus H, Henne H, Sitta H, Wellmann H. Dudenverlag, Mannheim Knußmann R (1996) Vergleichende Biologie des Menschen. Lehrbuch der Anthropologie und Humangenetik. G. Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart Köhler L (1996) Entstehung von Beziehungen: Bindungstheorie. In: v. Uexküll T, Psychosomatische Medizin, 5. Aufl., hrsg. von Adler RH,Herrmann JM, Köhle K, Schonecke OW, v. Uexküll T, Wesiack W. Verlag Urban & Schwarzenberg, München. 222–230 Kolb B, Whishaw IQ (1996) Neuropsychologie. 2. Aufl. Spektrum Akad. Verlag, Heidelberg Kortlandt A, Heinemann D (1969) Schimpansen. In: Grzimeks Tierleben, Bd. 11, Säugetiere 2, hrsg. v. Eibl-Eibesfeldt I et al., Kindler Verlag, Zürich, 19–49 Kreger DC (1999–2001) Human Thermoregulation and Hair Loss. Online im Internet: http:// www.humanevolution.f2s.com/anth501.html Lackner JR, DiZio PA (2000) Aspects of body self-calibration. Trends in Cognitive Sci. 4, 279–288 Lamparter U, Deneke FW, Stuhr U (2001) Über den Einfluß der Erfahrung. forschung 1/2001, 20–22 Markowitsch HJ (1992) Neuropsychologie des Gedächtnisses. Hogrefe Verlag, Göttingen Markowitsch HJ (1996) Neuropsychologie des menschlichen Gedächtnisses. Spektrum d. Wiss, Sept. 96, 52–61 Martin R (1995) Hirngröße und menschliche Evolution. Spektrum der Wiss. Sept. 95, 48–55 Maynard Smith J (1998) Evolutionary Genetics. 2nd edit. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford Mayr E, Provine WB (eds) (1980) The Evolutionary Synthesis. Perspectives on the Unification of Biology. Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, Mass. McKinney ML, McNamara KJ (1991) Heterochrony. The Evolution of Ontogeny. Plenum Press, New York McNamara KJ (1997) Shapes of Time: The Evolution of Growth and Development. Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, Baltimore Metzinger T (1999a) Willensfreiheit. transparente Selbstmodellierung uns Anthropologiefolgenabschätzung. In: Meyer-Krahner F, Lange S (eds) Geisteswissenschaften und Innovationen. Technik, Wirtschaft u. Politik Bd. 35, Schriftenreihe d. Fraunhofer-Inst. f. Sxstemtech. u. Innovationsforsch., 120–134 Metzinger T (1999b) Subjekt und Selbstmodell. Die Perspektivität phänomenalen Bewußtseins vor dem Hintergrund einer naturalistischen Theorie mentaler Repräsentation. Mentis Verlag, Paderborn Metzinger T (ed) (2000) Neural Correlates of Consciousness. Empirical and Conceptual Questions MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. Minugh-Purvis N, McNamara KJ (eds) (2002) Human Evolution through Developmental Change. Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, Baltimore Molcho S (1999) Körpersprach der Kinder. Taschenbuch-Ausgabe. Goldmann Verlag, München Montagna W (1976) General review of the anatomy, growth, and development of hair in man. In: Toda K (ed) Biology and Disease of the Hair. Univ. Park Press, Baltimore, XXI–XXXI Montagna W (1985) The Evolution of Human Skin (?). J. Human Evolution 14, 3–22 Montagu A (2000) Körperkontakt. Die Bedeutung der Haut für die Entwicklung des Menschen. 10. Aufl., Verlag Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart Morris D (1977) Manwatching. A Field Guide to Human Behaviour. Triad/Panther Books, Frogmore, St.Albans Morris D (1997) Mars und Venus. Das liebesleben der Menschen. Heyne Verlag, München Morris DB (1996) Geschichte des Schmerzes. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt a.M., Taschenbuch 2529 Müller-Karpe H (1998) Grundzüge früher Menschheitsgeschichte. Bd. 1–5, Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart Napier JR, Napier PH (1967) A Handbook of Living Primates. Morphology, Ecology and Behaviour of Nonhuman Primates. Academic Press, London Nicolaisen B (1994) Die Konstruktion der sozialen Welt. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen

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Pauli-Pott U (2001) Frühkindliche Temperamentsmerkmale - normative Stabilität und Bedingungen ihres Wandels. Habilitationsschrift, Fachbereich Medizin d. J.L.-Univ. Gießen. 1–290 Pauli-Pott U, Mertesacker B, Bade U, Haverkock A, Beckmann D (2003) Parental perceptions and infant temperament development. Infant Behavior & Development 26, 27–48 Piaget J (1975) Der Aufbau der Wirklichkeit beim Kind. Ges. Werke Bd. 2. Klett Verlag, Stuttgart Piaget J (1992) Psychologie der Intelligenz. Verlag Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart Piaget J (1996) Das Erwachen der Intelligenz beim Kinde. Ges. Werke Bd. 1. 4. Aufl. Verlag KlettCotta, Stuttgart Piaget J (1997) Das Weltbild des Kindes. 5. Aufl., Dtsch. Taschenbuch Verlag, München Portmann A (1936) Die Ontogenese der Vögel als Evolutionsproblem. Verh. Schweiz. Naturforsch. Ges., 224–241 Portmann A (1938) Beiträge zur Kenntnis der Postembryonalentwicklung der Vögel. Revue Suisse Zool. 45 (6), 273–348 Portmann A (1939) Nesthocker und Nestflüchter als Entwicklungszustände von verschiedener Wertigkeit bei Vögeln und Säugern. Revue Suisse Zool. 46 (12), 385–390 Portmann A (1951) Biologische Fragmente zu einer Lehre vom Menschen. Schwabe Verlag, Basel Portmann A (1954) Die postembryonale Entwicklung der Vögel als Evolutionsproblem. Acta XI. Congr. Int. Orn. (Basel), 138–151 Preuschoft H, Witte H (1993) Die Körpergestalt des Menschen als Ergebnis biomechanischer Erfordernisse. In: Voland E (ed) Evolution und Anpassung. Warum die Vergangenheit die Gegenwart erklärt. S. Hirzel Verlag, Stuttgart, 43–74 Rapoport SI (1988) Hypothèse. Brain Evolution and and Alzheimer’s Disease. Revue Neurol. (Paris) 144, 2, 79–90 Rapoport SI (1990) Integrated phylogeny of the primate brain, with special reference to humans and their diseases. Brain Res. Rev. 15, 267–294 Ricklefs RE, Finch CE (1996) Altern. Evolutionsbiologie und medizinische Forschung. Spektrum Akad. Verlag, Heidelberg Rizzolatti G, Fadiga L (1998) Grasping objects and grasping action meanings: The dual role of monkey rostroventral premotor cortex (area F5). Novartis Found Symp. 218, 81–103 Rizzolatti G, Arbib MA (1998) Language within our grasp. Trends Neurosci. 21, 188–94 Rossi S, Tecchio F, Pasqualetti P, Ulivelli M, Pizzella V, Romani GL, PasseroS, Battistini N, Rossini PM (2002) Somatosensory processing during movement observation in humans. Clinical Neurophysiol. 113, 16–24 Sachsse U (1999) Selbstverletzendes Verhalten. Psychodynamik – Psychotherapie. Das Trauma, die Dissoziation und ihre Behandlung. 5. Aufl., Verlag Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen Sarnat HB, Sarnat M (1994) When is it best to be born? A phylogenetic perspective. In: AmielTison C, Stewart A (eds) The newborn infant. One brain for life. Les Editions INSERM, Paris, 47–52 Schmidt RF, Thews G (eds) (1995) Physiologie des Menschen. 26. Aufl., Springer Verlag, Berlin Schultz-Hencke H (1988) Lehrbuch der analytischen Psychotherapie. 5. Aufl. Thieme Verlag, Stuttgart Semenova LK, Vasilyeva VA, Tsechmistrenko TA (1993) Structural Transformationof the Cerebral Cortex in Postnatal Ontogenesis. In: Farber D, Njiokiktjien C (eds) Pediatric Behavioural Neurology Vol. 4: Developing Brain and Cognition. Suyi Publications, Amsterdam. 9–43 Spatz H (1964) Vergangenheit und Zukunft des Menschenhirns. Jahrb. Akad. Wiss. Literatur Mainz, 228–249 Springer SP, Deutsch G (1998) Linkes Rechtes Gehirn. 4 Aufl., Spektrum Akad. Verlag, Heidelberg Starck JM (1989) Zeitmuster der Ontogenesen bei nestflüchtenden und nesthockenden Vögeln. Cour. Forsch.-Inst. Senckenberg 114, 1–319 Starck D (1975) Die Hominisation. Neenkephalisation. In: Kurth G, Eibl-Eibesfeldt I (eds) Hominisation und Verhalten. Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart, 201–233 Starck D (1982) Vergleichende Anatomie der Wirbeltiere aud evolutionsbiologischer Grundlage. Bd. 3, Springer Verlag, Berlin Starck JM (1993) Evolution of avian ontogenies. Current Ornithology 10, 275–366 Starck JM, Rickleffs RE (1997) Avian Growth and Development. Evolution within the AltricialPrecocial Spectrum. Oxford Univ. Press, New York Streeck-Fischer A (ed) (1999) Adolenszenz und Trauma. 2. Aufl., Verlag Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen

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Stuhr U, Lamparter U, Deneke FW, Oppermann M, Höppner-Deymann S, Bühring B, Trukenmüller M (2001) Das Selbstkonzept von “Gesunden”. Verstehende Typenbildung von LaienKonzepten sich esundfühlender Menschen. Psychother. Soz. 3, 2 , 98–118 Tattersall I (1997) Puzzle Menschwerdung. Auf der Spur der menschlichen Evolution. Spektrum Akad. Verlag, Heidelberg Tattersall I (1999) Neandertaler. Der Streit um unsere Ahnen. Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel Tomasello M, Call J (1997) Primate Cognition. Oxford Univ. Press, New York Treede RD, Kenshalo DR, Gracely RH, Jones AKP (1999) The cortical representation of pain. Pain 79, 105–111 Trepel M (1999) Neuroanatomie. Struktur und Funktion. 2. Aufl.,Verlag Urban & Fischer, München v. Uexküll T (1996) Psychosomatische Medizin, 5. Aufl., hrsg. von Adler RH, Herrmann JM, Köhle K, Schonecke OW, v. Uexküll T, Wesiack W. Verlag Urban & Schwarzenberg, München Ulich D (1995) Das Gefühl. Eine Einführung in die Emotionspsychologie. 3. Aufl. Beltz Psychogie Verlags Union, Weinheim Ulijaszek SJ, Johnston FE, Preece MA (eds) (1998) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Growth and Development. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge UK Umita MA, Kohler E, Gallese V, Fogassi L, Fadiga L, Keysers C, Rizzolatti G (2001) I know what you are doing: A neurophysiological study. Neuron 31, 155–165 Valerius KP (1998) Sozialstruktur, Sexualität und Intelligenz in der menschlichen Stammesgeschichte. Tectum Verlag, Marburg Vialou D (1992) Frühzeit des Menschen. Verlag Beck, München Wehr M, Weinmann M (1999) Die Hand. Werkzeug des Geistes. Spektrum Akad. Verlag, Heidelberg Williams JHG, Whiten A, Suddendorf T, Perrett DI (2001) Imitation, mirror neurons and autism. Neuroscience Biobehavioral Rev. 25, 287–295 Williams PL, Warwick R (eds) Gray’s Anatomy, 36th edit., Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh Wilson FR (2000) Die Hand – Geniestreich der Evolution. Klett – Cotta, Stuttgart Witte H, Preuschoft H, Grifka J, Bär HF, Fischer MS (1999) Das Bewegungsorgan Wirbelsäule zwischen evolutionärem Erbe und funktioneller Anpassung. Orthopädische Praxis 35 (11), 1–5 Witte H, Blitzinger J, Schilling N, Preuschoft H, Fischer MS (2001) Was hat der Sportbiomechaniker von den Ergebnissen biomechanischer Analysen an Tieren? In: Nicol K, Peikenkamp K (eds) Apparative Biomechanik – Methoden und Anwendungen. Tagungsbd. 5. Schrift. Dtsch. Ver. Sportwiss. Bd. 115. Czwalina Verlag, Hamburg, 23–37 Zenz M, Jurna I (2001) Lehrbuch der Schmerztherapie. 2. Aufl., Wiss. Verlagsges. mbH Stuttgart Zeuch U (2000) Umkehr der Sinneshierarchie. Herder und die Aufwertung des Tastsinns seit der frühen Neuzeit. Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen Zimbardo PG, Gerrig RJ (1999) Psychologie. 7. Aufl., hrsg. von Hoppe-Graff S, Engel I. Springer Verlag, Berlin Zimmer A (2001) Gestaltpsychologische Ansätze zur Analyse der haptischen Wahrnehmung. In: Grunwald M, Beyer L (eds) Der bewegte Sinn. Grundlagen und Anwendungen zur haptischen Wahrnehmung. Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel, 77–88

The “Exceptional Position” of the Human Being – a Moral-political Concept

Gerhard Vowinckel 1 Theological origins In a didactic poem written in the winter of 1215–16 by the Upper Italian clergyman Thomasin of Zirclaria you can read: ein ieglîch dinc sîn orden hât, daz ist von der natûre rât, âne alters eine der man der sînen ordn niht halten kan1 (1852, lines 2611 ff.) And some lines further: ez ist in der werlde niht sô hêr daz ûz sîm orden welle bestân, wan alterseine der toersche man. die vogel vliegent imme luft daz wilde ist in des berges gruft und in dem wald; die vische swebent in dem wazzer dâ si lebent. anders uns ze tuon geschiht, wan wir welln behalten niht unsern ordn noch unser leben. (1852, lines 2626 ff.)2 The whole creation keeps to the creator’s will, every creature according to its nature, only man does not. With his fall man deviated from the creators will, from his own divine nature. Nevertheless this nature remains the moral standard obliging even the sinful human being. But ever since he tasted the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, man goes astray, disregarding moral laws and the God-given order of society. The human being alone holds a unique, an exceptional position among the creatures, while the animals stick to the bounds assigned to them.

1 2

Every thing has its order, that is according to the rule of nature. It is man alone who cannot stick to his order. Nothing in the world is so exalted that it would stand out of its order except man alone. Birds fly in the air, the game is in the mountains grave and in the forest; the fishes float in the water where they live. Differently we happen to fare as we will not keep our order and our life.

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2 Arnold Gehlen: the instinct-forsaken animal Evidently the cognitive pattern of the Philosophische Anthropologie is very old: On one side the animal, whose behaviour is determined by its natural instincts, which guide it firmly. On the other side the defective human being who has lost his nature and who is thrown into moral disorientation by his intellect, which reveals to him the contingency of all behavioural norms. In Arnold Gehlen this reads as follows: Unlike the animal (...) the human being is exposed to an indefinite and immearurable open world with a plenty of unforeseen possibilities. (1961, 33) Because of his lack of instincts and (...) because of the unique excess of impetus likewise given with his instinctlessness and non-specialization – in short, because of the even physical tuning of human nature to the intellect, the human being shows wherever we observe him a certain tendency towards degeneration and easily exceeding plasticity and corruptibility of a plenty of frequently unused adaptabilities, moreover a tendency towards degeneration implicit in the said excess of impetus. (1961, 38)

This sinful condition is the result of evolution during which the human being fell off his nature, off the dependable guidance by animal instincts. According to Thomasin, man is redeemed from evil by recalling the divine law, his natûre. According to Gehlen, humans are cultural beings by nature (1961, 78). Now any glimpse into ethnographic texts reveals that the cultural institutions of human social life are contingent (1961, 47). How then can culture afford behavioural security to a human being endangered, unbalanced and overcharged with passions by his very nature (1970, 97)? Gehlen’s answer is: the human being must unconditionally surrender to the norms valid in his own society. He must so deeply absorb the rules the social institutions impose to his behaviour that all consciousness of the contingency of these rules vanishes. The socialised human being then shows the spontaneous “readiness of a character to choose and refuse, all the more convincing, the less a need of justification, an idea of different possibilities appears” (1961, 39). Acquired instincts replace the lost innate ones, the “primarily withheld automatisms” (1956, 47). A “character” views moral laws in the same way like Thomasin: as part of the natural order of things. When someone has internalised a moral point of view so thoroughly that he no longer has even the “idea of different possibilities”, then for him moral value judgements are nothing attributed to the objects of judgment by the person judging; for him moral good and evil are inherent in acts or in human beings; for him value judgements are findings of facts. Moral impetus is “transferred to the object of behaviour and the appealing and urging function emanating from it” (1956, 39). “The habituation of acting (...) has (...) the effect of suspending the question of sense.” (1956, 69) But the firm orientation of a “character” always remains exposed to attack by the intellect – biblically: by the consumption of the fruits from the tree of knowledge. Human beings can question the sense of the institutions. But, according to Gehlen, this sense is as much beyond human grasp as, according to the bible, are the inscrutable ways of God. Humans cannot really comprehend it, but by their rash thinking they threaten the “stabilising forces”, “the forms that an endangered,

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unbalanced and affectively overcharged being finds to bear himself and his fellow beings” (1970, 97). In short, they menace social peace (1970, 101). Gehlen’s Philosophische Anthropologie had a great influence on the concept of the human being in the social sciences in post-war Germany. His portrait of humans as the defective beings whose behaviour after the loss of natural adaptations is determined solely by culture, has dispensed generations of social scientists, whether Right or Left, from dealing with biological theories of behaviour. This is true even though Gehlen himself was persona non grata for many because of his Nazi-past and because of the conservatism of his teachings.

3 Emile Durkheim: The salutary compulsion of things In Gehlen’s thinking the “exceptional position” of the human being is the key concept of a conservative moral policy. His ideas largely resemble those of Émile Durkheim, the great classic of French sociology. (Vowinckel, 2000) Unlike Gehlen, whose influence was limited to German-speaking countries, Durkheim’s reception in America made him a figure of international importance. Durkheim, too, teaches that the human being holds an exceptional position among animals. Following their instincts, animals live in natural harmony with their social environment. “It was the awakening consciousness which disrupted the state of balance in which the animal was peacefully sleeping.” (1973 b, 282) The awakening consciousness expanded the horizon of human desires beyond all limits; it withdrew to the passions the firm hold within here and now. Durkheim also views human intelligence as the source of human misery. It bursts the bounds restricting human wishes to the spatially and timely presence and opens up to them the infinite space of the imaginable. Where hope no longer finds a hold in the real world, it must necessarily be disappointed. “For unlimited wishes are,” as Durkheim writes, “by their definition unfulfillable; and it is not without reason that this insatiability is seen as the symptom of an illness. (…) There is (...) nothing that could appease them. An insatiable thirst is a never-ending chastisement.” (1973 b, 281) Exiled from the paradisical narrowness of animal existence after eating from the tree of knowledge, the human being can regain happiness and peace of mind only through submitting humbly to the commandments of society. “The entirety of moral rules,” writes Durkheim, “is in fact an ideal protective wall around each person against which the waves of human passions break” (1973a, 95). If this wall gives way then the desires lose moderation and restriction. Individual mental life and society plunge into chaos. Only discipline can prevent this (1973a, 101). Speaking about discipline Durkheim does not mean self-discipline, which could arise from the worldly wisdom of the acting individuals. The discipline he means arises from the compelling strength of collective consciousness. For Durkheim collective consciousness is not at all the summary or the shared content of individual consciousnesses. It does not arise from the thinking of individual humans. Durkheim never tires of emphasising that common consciousness imposes itself to individual consciousness “from outside”. It is society as a reality beyond the individuals which expresses itself in common consciousness and takes possession of the individual.

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The theological origin of the idea of an exceptional position of the human being is more obvious in Durkheim’s teachings than in Gehlen’s. In his work on the elementary forms of religious life (1981) he interprets “God” as the concrete conception – if you can say so – which humans of pre-scientific times formed for dealing with the ubiquitous and scarcely comprehensible power, which not concrete persons but the anonymous collective will of the many, which society had over them. Durkheim’s sociology of religion does not attempt to explain God away. On the contrary, it is, in a sense, an argument for the existence of God, because it scientifically proves the reality of that power which was conceived as divine by the humans of pre-scientific times. The moral-political aspect of Durkheim’s sociology is this: he forms his concept of society in such a way that it can take over the function which the concept of God had in pre-scientific times, namely, to guarantee the inviolability of the normative order. Accordingly, in his methodological key work The rules of sociological method from 1895 Durkheim stated as “first and most fundamental rule (…): consider social facts as things” (1964). According to Durkheim societies are part of nature; the moral laws to which they conform are, as he asserted, as real as the laws of nature and as compulsory (1973 a, 161, 300; 1977 a, 317). By inquiring into these moral laws sociology helps people to realise their necessity and to comply with them voluntarily. It makes people virtuous and thus free (1973 a 161 f.). The scientific reconstruction of God as the “concrete” symbol of society must not, as he says, deprive the latter of its holy, sacrosanct nature (1973 a, 64, 151). Moral education must preserve to the norms the natural dignity, the authority of a higher reality, otherwise it does not work. Durkheim’s society takes that place in secularised thinking, which God has in religion, that of the grand être, of humanity in Comtes thinking. The sociologically established understanding of their own dependence and inferiority must bring humans to voluntary submission (1965, 203). If common consciousness loses strength then the dams that restrain human desires and passions get leaky. Anomy spreads. Divested of its outer support, individual mental life plunges into chaos, into a whirl of conflicting and insatiable desires – even down to the extreme consequence: suicide (Durkheim 1973b). Anomy in Durkheim’s sense is associated with an increase of the general awareness of the contingency of social norms. Social facts lose the appearance of things. Judgements about facts that ascertain the objective goodness or evilness seemingly inherent in humans or their deeds become value judgements attributed to humans and their deeds by the persons judging. These value-judgements result from a particular value perspective, which turns out to be one among a variety of perspectives and thus reveals the contingency of the judgement. What Piaget (1965) describes as decentration, as the overcoming of childlike sociocentrism, namely the transition from morals of authority to morals of co-operation, in Durkheim’s sociology it takes the appearance of a disastrous development for society and the involved individuals.

4 Summary In Durkheim’s, as well as in Thomasin’s and Gehlen’s teaching the exceptional position of the human being lies in the fact that his behaviour can deviate from the path of virtue, on which the animals are securely guided by their instincts. For Thomasin

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it is God who ordained this path of virtue when he created the world. Gehlen knows that scientifically considered there is no such path of virtue. But as moral relativism deprives humans of their inner stay and menaces society with anarchy, humans should allow themselves to be penetrated by the idea of objective, natural norms. Artificial instincts must compensate for the loss of natural ones. Gehlen’s tenor is: scientifically social norms are contingent rules for the attribution of moral value, but for our own salvation we should take the moral value of acts and actors as selfevident facts. Durkheim, too, wants to stabilise the instinct-forsaken humans by means of social norms. Unlike Gehlen he insists on the scientific objectivity of moral values. This objectivity is pre-scientifically guaranteed by divine powers, in which he recognises the society of scientific sociology. He meets the peril of individual and social anomy, brought about by the secularisation of social norms, by deifying society.

References Comte A (1974) Soziologie. Stuttgart: Kröner Durkheim E (1965) Die Regeln der soziologischen Methode. Neuwied/Berlin: Luchterhand, 2. Aufl. Durkheim E (1966) Montesquieu et Rousseau. Précurseurs de la Sociologie. Marcel Rivière 1966 Durkheim E (1973a) Erziehung, Moral und Gesellschaft. Neuwied/Darmstadt: Luchterhand Durkheim E (1973b) Der Selbstmord. Neuwied/Berlin: Luchterhand Durkheim E (1977b) Über die Teilung der sozialen Arbeit. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Durkheim E (1977a) Die Entwicklung der Pädagogik. Zur Geschichte und Soziologie des gelehrten Unterrichts in Frankreich. Weinheim/Basel: Beltz Durkheim E (1981) Die elementaren Formen des religiösen Lebens. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Gehlen A (1956) Urmensch und Spätkultur. Bonn: Athenäum Gehlen A (1961) Anthropologische Forschung. Reinbek b. Hamburg, Rowohlt Gehlen A (1970) Moral und Hypermoral. Frankfurt a. M./ Bonn: Athenäum Piaget J (1965) The Moral Judgment of the Child. New York: The Free Press Vowinckel G (1995) Verwandtschaft, Freundschaft und die Gesellschaft der Fremden. Darmstadt Wiss. Buchgesellschaft Vowinckel G (1996) Gesinnungstäter und Strategen. Politisch-moralische Denkformen und soziale Lebensräume. Konstanz: Universitätsverlag Vowinckel G (2000) Happiness in Emile Durkheim’s sociological policy of morals. In: Journal of Happiness Studies 1, 2000, 447–464 Thomasin von Zirclaria (1852) Der Wälsche Gast [1215-16]. (Hg.: Rückert, H.) Quedlinburg/ Leipzig: Bibl. d. ges. dt. National-Literatur Bd. 30

The Human: Between Having a World and Being a Self

Oswald Schwemmer Such is the property of things: The natural finds all the world scant space, While the synthetic needs an enclosed place. Goethe, Faust II, 6882-68841

1 Technical visions without the human Today we are in the midst of a world-wide discussion of technical visions of the future. The main topics in this discussion are computer technology, nanotechnology and robotics. The central theme, however, is mankind: the possible elimination of diseases, the ways that life could be extended far beyond what we can now imagine, but also mankind’s (previous) indispensability, which could be dispensed with in the future. The model of thought dominating these discussions, is that of comprehensive replicability, the replicability of human organs, human activities, and, in the end, of human beings themselves. Some rejoice at this prospect as happy news while others bemoan it as a threat. In any case, a contest has ensued concerning the most daring images of future technical worlds. The message of these technologies is that mankind is engaged in making itself superfluous. In addition, the sciences of man are joining in this swan song in their own way. Increasingly, they eliminate concrete existence; the individual’s own life history and particular being or self disappears from their theories. This is especially the case where these theorists have declared themselves to represent the avant-garde of scientific progress. We find that mankind has mutated for them into something exclusively theoretical in nature, the intersection of conceptual systems or historical developments, of social or economic functions or of cultural media and their technological applications. Technological progress and the self-declared progress of the sciences are heading hand in hand for a new world, be it a brave or a base new world. In any case it is portrayed as a world in which the classic themes of human history – or, one should 1

“Das ist die Eigenschaft der Dinge: Natürlichem genügt das Weltall kaum, Was künstlich ist, verlangt geschloßnen Raum.” The present English translation is a revision of the original translation by Arndt (Goethe 2000, Hamlin edition): Such is, you see, a property of matter: Things natural find all the world scant space, While things synthetic want a sheltered place.

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add, of previous human history – become unnecessary and superfluous: suffering and need, sickness and death, loneliness and despair. Instead, the point now is to move ahead, so to speak, in a triumphal march towards happiness and riches, to health and security, to mastery over the world and, in the end, even to immortality. A look back to the present teaches us that this march of triumph found in visions of the future is – at least so far – only a virtual march, a rhythm of fantasies and not real steps made along the ground. A look back is sobering, even if we regard only the actual state of technology, that is, the hard factual foundation for these highflown visions of the future. Nanotechnology is only a research program, robots have been able to perform tasks, comparable to the behavioural possibilities of a fly, and computers have been able to attain their, in fact, gigantic and growing computational capacities in a highly one-sided manner in the area of hardware while they are a source of irritation due to their software problems. The question is whether this quite meagre real state of affairs – in comparison to the visions of reality – can be alleviated by means of technical progress alone. Or are the problems confronting us here perhaps more fundamental than the problem of the limits of technology? Put more exactly: can technology get along without human beings if it is supposed to do and exceed what human beings can do? How much human action does even the best technology require in order to fulfil its purpose? In the end, the old question is waiting for us: What is Mankind and what is it not? This is conjoined with a new question: What is a computational or intelligent machine and what is it not?

2 Calculation or: What can computers do? We can find a way to answer these questions by means of a mediating question: What can computers do? They can perform calculations, and they can perform ever calculations that are more complex increasingly quickly. No human being can compete with them. However, what are calculations and most important of all, what are they not? Calculations can be represented by means of algorithms. They are steps, by means of which series of signs can be transformed by means of particular rules. Calculations are transformations in a world of signs. In this world, only that exists that is recognised by these rules as a sign and can be used for a transformation. A sign to which none of the rules in this world can be applied does not belong to this world of signs. Calculations are operations in a world of explicitly defined signs and rules. Whatever is not explicitly defined is not calculable. This observation has led – especially in our culture – to consequences concerning the nature of our thinking and knowledge and, moreover, as we shall see, to consequences concerning the nature of every further kind of orientating activity.

3 Thought and knowledge as calculation An understanding of our thought and knowledge oriented to the activity of calculation can be roughly characterised as follows. Since we can only obtain certain knowledge

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based on calculations, we must therefore find calculable quantities even in our perceptions. We can then build our knowledge upon the basis of such data. We apprehend this knowledge in conceptual sign systems with logical and mathematical rules and so obtain theories. Because Newton’s classical mechanics served as the paradigm of science in the Modern Age and could be presented as a logically and mathematically ordered system of concepts and formulas, and because this science stood at the same time as the high point of human knowledge, this kind of knowledge was viewed as the ideal of knowledge and thought in general. This view still prevails even today. Thought and knowledge are regarded as essentially a matter of logical inference and mathematical calculation, at least in their most highly developed form. Briefly put, the regulated use of symbols is taken in general to be a matter of calculation. All other forms of human orientation are modelled after this ideal image. And wherever forms of orientation do not present themselves as types of calculation, they are not seen as another, independent way of having or disclosing a world, but rather as instances of an insufficiency in our understanding that needs to be eliminated. It is assumed that it will be possible to get behind the enigma of these other forms of orientation, such as motor, emotional or aesthetic forms, when it becomes possible to describe and reconstruct them too as activities of calculation. This inference brings us to the first reason for the erroneous assumptions in contemporary discussion. Since it is assumed that all activities of human intelligence in toto can be understood as types of calculation, it is also believed that it is possible to reproduce all these functions of intelligence by means of computers. This leads directly to a further conclusion: Computers can be regarded like human beings or, more precisely, like the human mind – with the one difference that the computers, if not yet at present, then in a few years, will be able to do everything much better than human beings are able to, simply on the basis of what the limited biological and especially neural reserve capacities in human beings will ever permit them to accomplish. With this conclusion, we have come to the bedrock upon which the present-day discussion is taking place.

4 Life processes and calculation This bedrock may be characterised by means of a remarkable reversal. All that which, already in school, was usually most difficult for us and appeared to be easy only for the especially gifted, is the easiest for a computer: namely calculation in the widest sense, operations with symbols, movements within an artificial language. In contrast, what we were easily capable of doing – often from early childhood on – without even noticing that we had learned something, was to move in our everyday world, to recognise situations, to orient ourselves in space and time – whereby I also mean in social space and in our experienced, lived time –, to speak in our mother tongue, to give expression to our feelings, etc. All this is very difficult for computers and, in some cases, seems to be completely impossible. It is remarkable that this simple state of affairs does not seem to be remarkable to today’s disputants. The first reason for this blockage to our amazement is the further hope that even these achievements, which are bound up with the bodily character of our existence,

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can be reconstructed as calculations and then reproduced in machines, that is, in robots. This hope can be understood as a continuation of the conviction that all human intellectual achievements can be reconstructed as calculations. By extending this belief in reconstructibility to human bodily achievements, one can then go further and see all life processes as processes of calculation and, accordingly attempt to reconstruct them in the same manner. This appears to be the hope of nanotechnology, which strives to reconstruct the basic building blocks of life.

5 Environments and isolated systems: organisms and machines This view of life brings us to a second reason for the above-mentioned blockage to our amazement. The belief that life processes can be understood as the results of calculations and attempts to create models of them on this basis both overlook a fundamental characteristic of all life, a feature whose absence is actually a necessary condition for all technical operations in the classical sense. It is the environmental relationships in life processes. For a drastic illustration, one could attempt to put a computer into a pasture and see if it gives any milk. On the other hand, a cow cannot calculate. This drastic comparison is supposed to call attention to a point, which provides the demarcation: Whereas computers as symbolic machines form their own systems and are linked to one another in networks, all living creatures stand in a correlative relationship to their particular environment. A living creature’s inner organic and outer motor behaviour cannot be described or even understood without considering these correlative relationships. To live means to build up one’s own identity as a unit of action and reaction in correlative relationships, in activities directed towards – and reactions to – the environment. Life, isolated in itself, is not possible. Life cannot be realised in isolated systems. This means that the concept of life is the opposite of that of technology in the sense of classical mechanics and the machines based upon it. Life as an activity of interchange with the environment, technology as a functioning in isolated systems – with this opposition we have the basic difference between organisms and machines. From this, a variety of other differences follows. In contrast to machines, the interactive relationships of organisms lead to a form of existence or life, which can be characterised both as making reference to and involvement in its world. Take the example of perception. Perception is an accomplishment, or, better, it is a process that comes about from the complex interplay between a living body and its organs on one side and its relationships to the world in the perceptual situation on the other. Metaphorically, we can characterise this state of affairs by saying that in its perceptions a living creature does not just exist as a closed unity opposite to its environment, but rather also as a kind of ”intermediate being”, as a process which interweaves both the shaping of and adjusting to stimuli from the environment, a process which is simultaneously receptive and creative with regard to its environment. Living creatures exist by constantly enacting this kind of relationship towards their environment and reacting to it, so that they stand in a dynamic relationship towards it.

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6 Intermediate being and being inside These formulations may appear abstract to you but they take on tangible form if we compare the operations of a robot with the actions of human beings or the behaviour of living creatures in general. A robot is a machine, which, with all the complexity of its software and all the refinement of its mechanical construction does not posses this ”intermediate being” of organic creatures. Every action and reaction is guided by the programs, which have, so to speak, been implanted in it. These may be ever so variable and – in a figurative sense – capable of learning: They are and remain programs whose operations are guided by algorithmically generated sequences of signs. Of course, it is possible to build functions with variables into these algorithms and so make reactions to a variation in situations possible. However, this variability in the guidance is itself algorithmically guided, is – simply put – an internal feature of the construction of the robot or of its software. The robot’s actions and reactions do not result, as in the case of living creatures, by means of an interchange between its inner world and the environment, but solely from the connection between the signal input and operations, which take place completely internally within the robot. This electronic and mechanical inner world of the robot remains an isolated system in respect to the environment, even when the circuitry makes a variability of reactions possible. The decisive thing is that all the operations of the robot follow from the electronic and mechanical programs that are built into it and in this sense are guided solely from within. This means on the other hand that outside the programs, circuits, and mechanical functions, that is, the complete ”internal equipment” of the robot, there is no point of reference or authority for the correction of errors. The robot remains by itself, alone with its technical equipment.

7 Interactions and operations If we are dealing with clearly defined and – as far as the need for action is concerned – standardised situations, such a structure is outstandingly well adapted for praxis. However, if we are dealing with historical situations, then such a structure can lead to disaster. Human beings are always concerned, despite the generality of typical characteristics, symptoms, courses of events, etc. with the singularity of complex situations, in which many factors unite together in a unique way. To be able both to recognise the physiognomy of something singular and to react in an appropriate way, that is a task for which an organism is much better prepared than a machine. Physiognomy was mentioned here intentionally, for it is in fact the exemplary case involving the holistic comprehension of expression and ‘gestalt’. This is something that we are usually able to perform effortlessly and with no problems in everyday life, but which for a computer involves much greater and more problems than the most difficult calculations do for us. The strength of computers lies in their capacity for symbolic operations; that is, operations with explicitly indicated sequences of signs. The strength of human beings is based upon the form of human existence in its entirety: in their perceptive, motor, emotional, associative and expressive interactions.

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Its software guides a computer’s operations. Only what its software has registered in its own way can become a stimulus for its operations. Computers perform the operations which are defined by their software – and only these. In this sense they are self-contained creatures, which must trace everything back to what is their own: their own built in software. In Greek, something limited only to what is its own is called ok fbfki. And whoever limits himself to what is his own is called k fbftodn. The computer, to speak with the Greeks, is a highly intelligent and, most of all, an unbelievably fast idiot: one who knows what is its own in its world of signs, and which knows this so perfectly that it is able to perform great feats of calculation with algorithms in this world. Robots are computer-guided machines with motor mechanisms, which are built so as to reproduce human motor activities in many ways. In our comparison between the operations of computers and the interactions of human beings they clearly belong with the computers, even when they are built so as to resemble the outer form of human beings and the course of their movements approaches to that of humans. They can be as little entrusted with tasks which require interactive competence as computers can be. As long as the damage which they can cause, due the absence of such competence, is limited to the demolition of kitchens and similar property damage, and as long as they are supposed to operate in clearly marked out paths requiring no interactive competence, they are excellently adapted even to replace human beings. However, as soon as they deal immediately with life processes and as they are introduced into a network of interactions, they can no longer be left alone.

8 Synchronisation and calculation There is a further difference between the computer’s calculations and human intellectual achievements and processes of consciousness. It is a difference that neurobiology was first able to identify positively, but which nonetheless never has been completely unnoticed by careful observers of human existence. Even classical philosophy had described the intellectual capacities of human beings as ”syntheses”, as the ability to unify different thoughts, perceptions, feelings, strivings, etc. Various philosophers have suggested different forms, in which these syntheses are supposed to take place. In the late 18th century, Kant proposed a solution that has preoccupied the thinking of philosophers since then – at least in the German-speaking province of the philosophical world. A supreme instance, which Kant addresses as the transcendental subject, is supposed to provide a unified and comprehensive order in all areas of our knowledge. This final point of reference is supposed to provide the clear and distinct identifiable unity guiding all intellectual activities. In this regard, this notion in fact accords with a computer model although it is not – at least directly – concerned with operations on signs, but rather with the activities of consciousness. Neurobiology showed us that we could not locate a Kantian centre in our brain. As especially Wolf Singer was able to show in his investigations, the ”syntheses” between neural processes function according to quite different principles. Without pretending, as a philosopher, to be in possession of specialised knowledge, which I do not really have, but which I can only report on, at least the following can be stated. These ”syntheses” come about by means of the synchronisation of oscilla-

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tions, of oscillation phases.2 Particularly interesting is that this synchronisation also functions over non-adjoining regions of the brain and for its part is not initiated or determined in the course it takes by means of some higher guidance centre.3 Putting these findings into metaphors from the world of everyday experience, we can say that our brain works more according to musical or auditory principles than the elementary causal models of impact and thrust. These elementary conceptions are not simply dispensed with, rather they are introduced into dynamic form relations, which can be characterised by certain frequencies, or changes in frequencies and their correlative relationships. With this, I have returned to my opposition between syntheses in human consciousness on one hand and the calculations of symbolic machines on the other. The fact that not only atomic events, but rather the forms of the connections between events are related to one another, does not just depend upon the physical place in which the events take place nor only upon whether these events impinge on one in a spatial manner, but solely upon whether their temporal forms are synchronised or perhaps are also connected with one another in some other way and can be brought into a new form or not. In other words, in the neural network of our brain, the ”syntheses” of our consciousness are temporal form relations that come about by means of a variety of particular neural events. There will probably turn out to be further dimensions of complex form relations in addition to these temporal form relations, such as synchronisation, so that we have so far only been speaking of a fundamental level. Even now, it has been established that these form relations cannot be interpreted as calculations. This is because they are not generated by means of rules, but are united via forms of oscillation, which we encounter in the perceivable field of our everyday experience, for example, in such phenomena as resonance or interference, beats and breaks. By the way, it might be that it was this oscillation metaphor of experience that led Helmuth Plessner as early as 1926 (in: Plessner 1975) to regard the human mind as a resonance phenomenon.4 2

3

4

“Das Bindungsproblem resultiert aus der distributiven Organisation des Gehirns und dem Fehlen eines singulären Koordinationszentrums. Die Ergebnisse der vielen, gleichzeitig ablaufenden Sinnesfunktionen werden parallel an die ebenfalls zahlreichen exekutiven Zentren weitergegeben, ohne daß vorher alle Informationen an einen Ort zusammengeführt würden. Wie dennoch ganzheitliche Wahrnehmung und wohlkoordinierte Bewegungen zustande kommen, ist unklar. Es muß Metarepräsentationen für die Ergebnisse dieser Teilprozesse geben, doch diese können ebenfalls nur nichtlokale Gebilde sein, also wiederum einem distributiven Prinzip folgen. Wir vermuten, daß die Einbindung verteilten Neuronengruppen in diese Metarepräsentationen durch die zeitliche Synchronisation neuronaler Antworten erfolgt. Die Signatur, welche die Aktivität verteilter Neuronengruppen zusammenbindet, wäre die präzise zeitliche Synchronisation der entsprechenden Aktivitätsmuster. Die Metarepräsentationen wären also dynamische Gebilde mit räumlicher und zeitlicher Dimension, und dies sollte dann auch für die Inhalte des Bewußtseins gelten.” (Singer 2000). “Es gibt keinen Ort, wo alles zusammenläuft und interpretiert wird, wo entschieden und geplant wird, wo der Homunkulus zu finden wäre, der “ich” sagt. Vielmehr finden wir eine Fülle verschiedener Areale, die alle nur bestimmte Teilfunktionen erfüllen und aufs engste miteinander vernetzt sind. Auf dem Zusammenspiel aller dieser verteilten Prozesse entstehen dann auf geheimnisvolle Art kohärente Wahrnehmungen, koordiniertes Verhalten und letztlich auch Bewußtsein. Niemand kann zur Zeit befriedigend erklären, wie das vor sich geht.” (Singer 2000). “Geistiges Leben braucht dazu [i.e. to appear] Resonanz und wird nur in Resonanzphänomenen faßbar.” (Plessner 1975: 16).

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No matter what particular approach is taken in analysing the forms of neural activity, we can say that in any case our brain does not just work like a computer and hence cannot be replaced by a computer. Let us take a further step and consider our perceptions. Intelligent activity is involved even in our perceptions and hence in neural processes. What we see, as we know, is derived only to a small extent from the actual visual stimuli in the particular situation. The image-worlds stored in our memory permit us to see anything at all. Bergson’s laconic formulation of this was: ”perception ends by being merely an occasion for remembering.” (Bergson 1991: 66). Wherever our memory or, rather, our recollections, play such an important role, associations are always involved, and we find resonance relations which provide that fine co-ordination to our perceptions, which I have designated as a living ”intermediate being”, of a continual relationship to the environment. With this, we also find another structural difference from calculations in our sensory orientation. Moreover, where this difference concerns dealings with other living creatures, it can also be a matter of vital importance.

9 Human beings in their symbolic worlds Everything presented here so far has been directed to the difference between symbolic machines and organic living creatures. However, a second dimension of human existence has yet to be considered, to which we now turn the cultural dimension of human existence. However, here we meet with a truly astounding situation. Whereas the difference between symbolic operations and organic processes may seem clear, cultural activities all seem to be concerned with precisely what computers do: that is, they are matters of symbolic operations. For what is our culture besides a multi-dimensional field of symbolic systems, processes and configurations? To put this more concretely: what is culture besides the sum of our symbolic worlds, in which language, the arts, technology, sciences, religion and many other systems of belief and forms of action, which offer us an orientation in life? No matter how we regard the concept or essence of culture, it seems in any case to be an obvious and inescapable fact that we are deeply fashioned by the symbolic worlds in which we live, and that their influence effects us in the innermost excitements of our feelings and perceptions, our speech and movements, our desires and our beliefs, our taste and the way we present ourselves, our thoughts and our thoughtlessness, in brief, our whole life. In everything we see, the images we have seen and which belong to our world come alive again. Whatever we see, we see, so to speak, through the images of our image worlds. We hear what we hear through the works of our auditory world and, moreover, also through our world of noises and sounds. And we could continue enumerating in this manner. This outlook is described and summarised in my book The Cultural Existence of Human Beings (Schwemmer 1997). Just as we stand in a correlative relationship to our physical environment as living creatures, so too we do this as well in respect to our symbolic environments. We are therefore not only living creatures, but also, as Ernst Cassirer has said symbolic creatures. Man, he said, putting it into the briefest formula, is an animal symbolicum (Cassirer 1972: 26), a symbol-making and symbol-using creature, who lives and moves in his symbolic worlds.

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Let us look here again at computers that I called “symbolic machines”. This appears to suggest a commonality, which brings them closer to human beings than could be the case when the latter are taken as creatures living in an environment. However, in fact there is a fundamental difference here as well. It can initially be described in a similar way as the difference between being inside and “intermediate being”, between operations and interactions. We need to keep in mind that even where symbol processes are concerned, they operate in computers according to the programs that are built into them, and so in this sense they do not form an environment, but rather belong to the computer’s inner world. But for human beings symbolic worlds are part of the environment in which they live and in which they can find their particular own being, their individuation as particular personalities.

10 Creativity, being a self and relationships to the other and the others 10.1 Creativity It pays to take a closer look at this difference. The first thing to notice can be brought under the heading of creativity or novelty. The symbolic worlds that human beings can create are inestimable in their variety and they cannot be limited except by the stipulation that they have gone through a process of symbolisation. Human forms of expression, once they have overcome the threshold of articulation, have no limits. It is of course a historical fact that in particular cultures nonetheless a certain style, a particular characteristic of expressive forms takes shape and becomes the signum of these particular cultures. However, these processes are not therefore necessary, and in the great epochal changes in our cultural tradition, they have often proven to be contingent. In our philosophical tradition, this distinctive form of creating novelty has been taken repeatedly as a revelation of human freedom or creativity. In fact, this is by far a much more comprehensive conception of freedom than is usually considered in discussions of the freedom of the will. In this broader conception the main concern is, that human beings – taken within their symbolic worlds and so within their cultural and social life – make themselves what they are. By contrast, discussions of the freedom of the will concentrate upon the moment of decision making, and detach it from a person’s life history and circumstances. Such discussions do not do justice to this more comprehensive understanding and so they lead to insoluble aporias, as philosophical discussions have shown for centuries. As far as creativity is concerned, a remark is order about the corresponding claims made in this regard for computers. We are told computers are sometimes able to deceive us, e.g. by being able to produce poems or music pieces of high artistic quality. Indeed computers can deceive us in this way. And they can do this by being fed with the corresponding data and programmed with “creative” rules plundered from human beings. Furnished in this way, it may happen that the computers produce things which we take to be the production of a, perhaps ingenious, human being.

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However, here we have to bear in mind, that we implanted into the computers a piece of evolution and a piece of our cultural history as well. Both the rules and the data are results of a long historical development, in which individuals have taken part in the composition of knowledge – in fact this is a completely contingent development, the history of which may better be characterised as a fabric of associations rather than as the rules of a calculation. The assertion that a computer is able to do the same things as a human being therefore cannot be proven by the fact that computers can deceive us. Such deception would be evidence for this claim only when computers would be able to go beyond the knowledge implanted in them so as to induce and sustain a further historical development equalling or even surpassing the previous actual historical development of our knowledge. To gain well-founded knowledge about this we do not even need to wait for the future further development of cognition. Rather, we may now already refer to our historical knowledge. Therefore, for a discussion of the assertion that a computer is able to compose like Mozart, we could outline the following scenario. One does not feed the computer with the entire works of Mozart (including the principles of composition found in this work), but only with the work which Mozart had composed up to a certain year of his life, for example until the age of sixteen. The question is then whether the computer is able to attain the same level of compositional art which Mozart reached, for example, in his late operas – and does this without any further works of Mozart being “implanted” in it. And we can generalise this procedure. Through such a scenario we can see whether the computer, with all the knowledge given to it by document- or programfiles, and with all the complex networks, into which it is integrated, actually is able to develop in a historical way that equals or surpasses, by its own development, the further course of history as it actually took place. This test, and not the deception by a computer into which the corresponding knowledge has already been “implanted”, could not only deliver an argument for the quasi-historical qualities of the computer but also could teach us what computers really are able, and unable, to do. Above all, however, in this way we could be taught what the specific abilities of human beings are and how we can describe their structure as distinguished from the operations of computers. 10.2 Being a self In this way, we are led to a second point characterising human existence in symbolic worlds. Although the symbolic worlds confront us constantly with new forms and configurations, they also provide the basis for the cultivation and preservation of our selves. This is of existential importance. You can understand my idea by attempting to imagine a world without symbolic worlds. In a strict sense it is impossible for us to imagine this. Nonetheless, we can think of something approaching it by imagining a return to the beginning of a cultural situation. Such a beginning situation can only be characterised by reference to basic features of our existence, which human beings can never avoid and which they can nevertheless bring under their control. On one hand, it consists of our imaginings, the flood of images which rush through our conscious-

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ness, and on the other hand, our insatiable need to give expression to these, our imaginings – as well as our emotions, which are bound up with them. Our culture as a whole can be regarded as the broadly conceived and constantly repeated attempt to develop expressive forms that are able to bind together the imaginative whirlpool and the emotional turmoil of our consciousness. It is hard for us today to feel the elementary violence, which human beings at the beginning of culture were subjected to by their imagination and the tumult of their emotions. If we attempt nonetheless to put ourselves in the situation at the beginning of culture, we discover a world in which human beings are constantly drawn into a flood of images and feelings: into a flood, against whose currents they resist by means of their own activity so as to save themselves by finding a fixed and secure position. The words ’flood‘ and ’currents‘ have been consciously chosen here. This manner of speaking calls to mind the changes and constant shifting as well as the pull, which is exerted by the stream which carries us along. The source of this current is consciousness itself. Consciousness at first is nothing but the surfacing of imaginings and emotions. Anything and everything can be the occasion for this surfacing, both external events and inner excitations. Fantasy and reality are not yet differentiated. It is possible even for us to put ourselves in such a situation, at least to an extent, particularly when we are left alone and our fantasy runs wild, so we imagine things that frighten us and cause anxiety or which, although unfortunately less frequently, transport us to a state of joy and triumph. Such a heightening of consciousness and the collapse which follows it are not the only characteristic features of this initial consciousness, but also the ubiquity of images and feelings. For an easily ignited consciousness, everything is an occasion for imagination as well as for emotion. Constantly changing, full of ambiguity, incalculable and mysterious, that is how the world presents itself to a consciousness, which is not yet culturally, anchored or fixed. Abandoned in this kind of world, it is haunted by a flood of changing images and pulled into diverging streams of emotions. The mere fact that this world of flux could be lent stability by expressions, even if just for a moment, must have been felt as an enormous liberation.5 Expressions are the beginning of a new world in which human beings are able to liberate themselves and so find a fixed form, which they create by means of which things take shape. The act of joining in a dance and sharing images figures and markings and – along with these – gestures, mimetic actions and utterances marking the beginning of speech, all these are the first symbols which make up this new world. The works, which have survived from these early times, bear witness to how strong and new the experience ignited in this new world was. The intensity of expression in early cave paintings and figures speaks to us from across the centuries 5

Ernst Cassirer gives an emphatic depiction of this historical moment at the beginning of the history of human consciousness: “When, on the one hand, the entire self is given up to a single impression, is ‘possessed’ by it and, on the other hand, there is the utmost tension between the subject and its object, the outer world; when external reality is not merely viewed and contemplated, but overcomes a man in sheer immediacy, with emotions of fear or hope, terror or wish fulfillment: then the spark jumps somehow across, the tension finds release, as the subjective excitement becomes objectified, and confronts the mind as a god or a demon. – Here we have the mythico-religious protophenomenon which Usener has sought to fix with the term ‘momentary god’.” (Cassirer o.D., first published in 1925: 33).

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and all cultural boundaries with a dramatic immediacy, compared to which many contemporary forms of expression from our own culture seem to pale as trivial, casual, or overstrained self-presentations. The power of images, stemming from the force of our imaginings and the accompanying violence of emotions, is subdued by means of works of the imagination and symbols in general, by entreaty in language, and all the other expressive acts which serve to introduce form into this imaginative pandemonium.6 The originary act of expression at the beginning of our culture transfigures the whirl of imaginings and the tumult of emotions into a form. It is both the process of taking on form7 and a formation of a self, the process of becoming a self. With the expressive forms at the beginning of our culture a world of symbols is created, which from now on offers preformed possibilities for the course of human expression along ordered paths. Rather than succumbing to the gyrations and streams of his imaginings and emotional insecurity, mankind is thus able in his new world of expressive forms to find steadiness and security and so to become at home in this world. We can say, our “being a self ”, is the product of a historical development which extends beyond our biography into the development of our cultural traditions. As such, they are always endangered, they must continuously be renewed and preserved. Nevertheless, whatever can be attained and preserved can also be lost. This danger corresponds to the anxiety we feel, when we consider the prospect of losing the order achieved in a cultural world of expressive forms, for this means losing the foundations of our own self. This anxiety is deeply rooted in us, more deeply than we want to recognise in our everyday lives. However, many everyday situations show especially well how very present this anxiety is and how it leads us repeatedly to completely inappropriate reactions. Such reactions are found especially wherever symbols of cultural order are breached. Violations of the order for clothing can often call forth considerable excitement and lead to stronger reactions than real damage does, when it is brought about by an action which in other respects is considered to fit with the accepted order. Whoever violates a human being’s symbolically established identity often makes deeper wounds than weapons are able to inflict. 10.3 The Relation to the Others After emphasising the new order, which can arise in symbolic worlds, and the significance of symbolic worlds for the being of the human self, the third point, namely, the inter-individuality of symbols will be addressed now. With our utterances, we bring 6 7

For a more detailed account refer to Schwemmer 1997 especially chap. IIII. As “becoming of form” Cassirer referring to Plato characterises each process of life: “We meet up with completely formless life as seldom as we meet up with a completely lifeless form. The distinction that we draw between them in thought does not refer therefore to two metaphysical potentialities, each of which is in itself and is conceived through itself; instead, we only meet up with two accents that we fix in the process of becoming. Becoming is in its essence neither mere life nor mere form; rather, it is the becoming of form – a¡i¡mfn ¡fn kpmf_i, as Plato said.” (Cassirer 1996: 15).

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forth objects, which, from now on, become part of our common world, to which in principle everybody has access and which in this sense are public. These objects are things which people can remember whose outlines can be reproduced and then reconsidered, to see if they have been correctly reproduced. We retain their unchanging appearance by fixing their present, pregnant sensory character as things. Symbols provide our thoughts firmness and fixity by means of this thinghood. If we did not have a world of thing symbols, our thoughts could and would simply emerge in our consciousness and then disappear. They would remain private: more or less fleeting elements of a stream of consciousness. In this stream of consciousness, our thoughts would move us more than we would be able to effect them.8 This changes with the introduction of thing symbols. These are not the fleeting elements of our stream of consciousness, but things which are produced and perceived publicly. They are therefore things which no longer just mirror our momentary representation of the world, but rather can attain and preserve their existence independently of it. Others can produce them just as well as we can ourselves. Others can comprehend them just as well as we can. They are elements of a public life, which follows rhythms different from those of our stream of consciousness. Most of all, however, they are based upon the shared activities of human beings, acting and speaking with one another. By the same token they support and fashion these shared activities. They are the bridges, upon which human beings are able to meet one another9 and so they build the personal relationships between human beings, the bridges to the others.

11 Symbolic existence and symbolic operations We have distinguished three aspects of the cultural character of human beings: in contrast to natural development, the creation of novelty, the initiation of the personal being of a self and relationships to the others in a public sphere, that is, in inter-individual public symbolic worlds. These characteristics can help us to understand the fundamental difference between the symbolic existence of human beings and the symbolic operations of a computer. How do human beings use their symbols and symbolic systems and what significance do they have for them? We are led to an answer here by recognising that for human beings, although they acquire their identity in these expressive forms, in the symbols they create and use, are nonetheless not identical with these expressive forms. The existence of the human mind – that is to say, mankind’s thoughts and feelings, wishes and ideas, perceptions and sensations, strivings and moods – this intellectual existence is not what we find in these expressive forms. 8

9

William James (1968: 50) speaks of a “big blooming buzzing confusion”, which “my reader” will find, if he “can succeed in abstracting from all conceptual interpretation and lapse back into his immediate sensible life at this very moment”. With this I refer to Cassirer’s critical remark about Heidegger’s solipsism, which is documented in the report of the Davos debate in 1929. In the world of symbolic forms a “bridge is constructed from individual to individual”. “Vom Dasein aus spinnt sich der Faden, der durch das Medium eines solchen objektiven Geistes uns wieder mit anderem Dasein verknüpft. Und ich meine, es gibt keinen anderen Weg von Dasein zu Dasein als durch diese Welt der Formen.” (Heidegger 1991: 292 f.).

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This can be illustrated by reference to Kleist’s well-known text Über die allmähliche Verfertigung der Gedanken beim Reden (On the gradual formation of thoughts while speaking).10 In speaking, something develops anew, if we are not just reading aloud or repeating something. What we say, is also that, which, in saying it, we recognise to be what we wanted to say and so recognise as that, which we think. At the same time, what we say, as soon as we say it, begins to take on a life of its own. As part of a language, in which so many others have also expressed themselves verbally and in writing, including ourselves in other situations, it enters into a variety of connections with these other spoken and written instances of language, which we did not comprehend when we spoke nor which we are able to grasp. Whatever is said, separates itself from the person who says it, and from the situation, in which it was said. Moreover, this occurs simultaneously with and in the course of speaking, in which we gradually produce our thoughts. The language in which we express ourselves, and indeed all the symbolic worlds in which we move are already there as forms of expression, when we begin to articulate ourselves in them. Whatever we say is embedded in all that has already been said.11 Whatever we articulate is always imbedded in what has already been articulated. Our entire intellectual life and exis-

10

11

Here is the whole paragraph of this literary masterpiece: “Ich glaube, daß mancher große Redner, in dem Augenblick, da er den Mund aufmachte, noch nicht wußte, was er sagen würde. Aber die Überzeugung, daß er die nötige Gedankenfülle schon aus den Umständen, und der daraus resultierenden Erregung seines Gemüts schöpfen würde, machte ihn dreist genug, den Anfang, auf gutes Glück hin, zu setzen. Mir fällt jener ,Donnerkeil’ des Mirabeau ein, mit welchem er den Zeremonienmeister abfertigte, der nach Aufhebung der letzten monarchischen Sitzung des Königs am 23. Juni, in welcher dieser den Ständen auseinander zu gehen anbefohlen hatte, in den Sitzungssaal, in welchem die Stände noch verweilten, zurückkehrte, und sie befragte, ob sie den Befehl des Königs vernommen hätten? – ,Ja‘, antwortete Mirabeau, ,wir haben des Königs Befehl vernommen‘ – ich bin gewiß, daß er bei diesem humanen Anfang, noch nicht an die Bajonette dachte, mit welchen er schloß: ,ja, mein Herr‘, wiederholte er, ,wir haben ihn vernommen’ – man sieht, daß er noch gar nicht recht weiß, was er will. ,Doch was berechtigt Sie’ – fuhr er fort, und nun plötzlich geht ihm ein Quell ungeheurer Vorstellungen auf – ,uns hier Befehle anzudeuten? Wir sind die Repräsentanten der Nation.’ – Das war es, was er brauchte! ,Die Nation gibt Befehle und empfängt keine.’ – um sich gleich auf den Gipfel der Vermessenheit zu schwingen. ,Und damit ich mich Ihnen ganz deutlich erkläre’ – und erst jetzt findet er, was den ganzen Widerstand, zu welchem seine Seele gerüstet dasteht, ausdrückt: ,so sagen Sie Ihrem Könige, daß wir unsre Plätze anders nicht, als auf die Gewalt der Bajonette verlassen werden.’ – Worauf er sich, selbstzufrieden, auf einen Stuhl niedersetzte. – Wenn man an den Zeremonienmeister denkt, so kann man sich ihn bei diesem Auftritt nicht anders, als in einem völligen Geistesbankrott vorstellen; nach einem ähnlichen Gesetz, nach welchem in einem Körper, der von dem elektrischen Zustand Null ist, wenn er in eines elektrisierten Körpers Atmosphäre kommt, plötzlich die entgegengesetzte Elektrizität erweckt wird. Und wie in dem elektrisierten dadurch, nach einer Wechselwirkung, der ihm innewohnende Elektrizitätsgrad wieder verstärkt wird, so ging unseres Redners Mut, bei der Vernichtung seines Gegners zur verwegenen Begeisterung über. Vielleicht, daß es auf diese Art zuletzt das Zucken einer Oberlippe war, oder ein zweideutiges Spiel an der Manschette, was in Frankreich den Umsturz der Ordnung der Dinge bewirkte. Man liest, daß Mirabeau, sobald der Zeremonienmeister sich entfernt hatte, aufstand, und vorschlug: 1) sich sogleich als Nationalversammlung, und 2) als unverletzlich, zu konstituieren. Denn dadurch, daß er sich, einer Kleistischen Flasche gleich, entladen hatte, war er nun wieder neutral geworden, und gab, von der Verwegenheit zurückgekehrt, plötzlich der Furcht vom dem Chatelet, und der Vorsicht, Raum.” (Sembdner, 1977: 320f.). Compare here the formulation from Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1984: 130): “Was wir zu sagen haben, ist das, was wir über das schon Gesagte hinaus gelebt haben – in der kohärenten Verformung der anonymen Sprache.”

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tence is embedded in the symbolic worlds, in which the intellectual existence of others has left their traces. We live therefore in the constant interplay between an expressive will that itself takes on form and the expressive forms it produces in the medium of symbolic worlds. We can explicate this by resorting again to the metaphor of resonance. Resonance in a vibrating system occurs based on periodic influences in a similar frequency. Tones are resonance phenomena. The unity of a tone arises so from the joint vibrations of different events: the production of vibrations and their reverberations in a medium. The productive gesture of the expressive will and its reverberations in the medium of symbolic form combine to form the identity of an expression which, like the musical tones we can hear sounding between players – persons who simultaneously give expression both to some content and to themselves. We can take this image further and think of the ”harmony in contrariety”, which Heraclitus visualises with the image of the strings of the bow and the lyre.12 This image can characterise the whole of human existence: The vibration of the strings of the soul becomes audible by being strung between the arms of the bow or the (upper) yoke and the (under) tailpiece of the lyre. The identity of a sound can therefore never be found in the soul alone and never only in the, so to speak, tension holders of the symbolic worlds, but only in the intermediate existence of the living tension between both. As such an intermediate existence, a human being is neither simply psychic life nor expressive form. Human identity consists of the tension between these two poles, of a harmony in contrariety. This tension is seen in the fact that even the symbolic worlds retain an irrevocable difference from their human creators. Language, images, and the worlds of movement which make up the cultural environment are never a sufficient medium in which human beings can fully express themselves or understand one another. Because human beings always remain different from these symbolic worlds, they need all of them. Moreover, they need them in their reciprocal interaction. The different symbolic worlds compose a living fabric. They can only become a medium for human forms of expression at all, in which a human also forms his own life, by being interwoven with one another. For example, if someone would attempt, in intellectual exaggeration, to only articulate himself by means of language and put everything that moves him at all and which he wants to express, into an explicit formulation, he would let his life ebb away in small talk and trivialise his personality by the explicitness of what he says. Only when what we say is related to our actions and is combined with our images and feelings, does it become a medium of expression for human beings. Moreover, this holds for all the other symbolic worlds as well. They can only become media for a living expression, if and insofar as they relate to one another and this variety is present in the expression. Someone, who does not permit any reference to images, feelings and other symbolic worlds in his language, becomes stultified in his expressions and, for others, without any expression at all. 12

Heraklit, fragment 51: “They do not understand how that which differs with itself is in agreement: harmony consists of opposing tension, like that of the bow and the lyre.” Compare also fragment 8: “That which is in opposition is in concert, and from things that differ comes the most beautiful harmony.” (Freeman 1966).

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All this – and much more – does not hold for computers. The symbolic operations of the computer are one-dimensional. They are unambiguous and completely defined steps, by means of which series of signs are generated – and they are nothing else but this. A relationship to other symbolic worlds can only be established in a synthetic way, namely by transforming these other symbolic worlds into the system of signs, within which the computer performs its operations. Because of this, for example, the computer cannot understand any metaphors. According to the concept of a computer, it may be described as consisting of precisely those operations, that it can execute. It possesses, if we can put it in these terms, a clear and exhaustible identity. It is what it can do and in this sense, it is present. It cannot be lost in thought like a human, it cannot be thinking of something and at the same time be musing about other thoughts, feel something and simultaneously sense something else, perceive something and simultaneously ponder other things. It is foolish therefore, to want to try understanding human beings by reference to computers. Yet, it is understandable. For if we consider the inner tendencies of our conceptual language and, moreover, if we do this within the philosophical tradition that forms and uses clear and distinct concepts, then we prefer the complete clarification to the remaining enigma, we prefer an unambiguous identity to the endurance of difference, we prefer the dissolution of the fabric to its unbounded exploration. In fact, the methodical demands and guidance provided by the main rationalistic lineage of our philosophical tradition strengthen and encourage us in this tendency, to take unequivocalness and completeness of description as the highest goals of philosophical activity and thereby, so to speak, to flatten everything into one-dimensional exactitude. This is the kind of exactitude, with which we then in fact try to assimilate ourselves to the functioning of computers. The next task now would be to explicate the differences between the symbolic existence of human beings and the symbolic operations of computers: the importance of these differences for creativity, for being a self, and for the relationship to the other. It would be necessary to speak about the association between something that is actually inapplicable to something new and how this association does not remain an external happening that can be traced back to a series of symbolic operations, and how, rather, in the process of association, a segment of the individual’s life history gets developed, so that an episode of the person’s lived experience contributes to the existence of the person’s self. Then one would have to consider how this ”being a self ” can only develop indirectly, by means of a detour via how the other’s self-relatedness relates to others and the experience of otherness within the self. It would be necessary to consider how these are all aspects of a kind of transcendence, whose very structure is inapplicable to machines. Hence, the symbolic existence of human beings is inconsistent with the symbolic operations of computing machines, and these machines cannot possess a relationship to the world and have no “being as a self ”. They only function within their symbolic systems – in terms of a kind of sameness without any “being as a self ”, in an inner world without a relationship to the surrounding world and so their symbolic operations are not intellectual accomplishments. To develop all this here would be a large undertaking. In the framework of this paper it only has been possible to offer a fragmentary glimpse at the contrast

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between the symbolic existence of human beings and the symbolic operations of computers. Nonetheless, I hope that at least the direction can now be discerned in which we must think, if we want to grasp the enduring possibilities of human intellectual life, and the direction in which we should not think, if we want to imagine the way in which even the fastest and most complicated computers can develop.

References Bergson H (1991) Matter and Memory (Matière et mémoire 1896, Paris, transl. by Paul NM, Palmer WS). Zone Books, New York Cassirer E (1946) Language and Myth (Sprache und Mythos, 1925 Leipzig u. Berlin, transl, by Langer SK). Dover, New York Cassirer E (1972) Essay on Man. An introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture, 6. ed. Yale University, New Haven, London Cassirer E (1996) The Phylosophy of Symbolic Forms. Vol 4: The Metaphysics of Symbolic Forms (Philosophie der symbolischen Formen. 4. Teil Metaphysik der symbolischen Formen, transl. By Krois JM) Krois JM, Verene DP (eds) Yale University, New Haven, London Freeman K (1966) A complete Translation of the Fragments in Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Goethe JW von (2000). Faust II (Faust 2. Teil 1833, Stuttgart u. Tübingen transl. by Arndt W). In: Hamlin C (ed) Faust .Norton Critical Edition. Norton, New York Heidegger M (1991) Gesamtausgabe. I. Veröffentlichte Schriften 1910–1976. Bd 3 Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik (1929). Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt/Main James W (1968) Some problems of Philosophy. A Beginning of an Introduction to Philosophy. Greenwood, New York Merleau-Ponty M (1984) Die Prosa der Welt. Wilhelm Fink, München Plessner H (1975) Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch. Einleitung in die philosophische Anthropologie. 3. Aufl, De Gruyter, Berlin, New York Schwemmer O (1997) Die kulturelle Existenz des Menschen. Akademie Verlag, Berlin Semdner H (ed) (1977) Heinrich von Kleist. Sämtliche Werke und Briefe, 2. Bd. 6. Aufl, Carl Hanser, München Singer W (2000) Wir benötigen den neuronalen Code. Ein monotones Faszinosum: Müssen die Ingenieure vor der Komplexität des Gehirns kapitulieren? Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 24. August 2000, 196: 41

Social Structure, Sexuality, and Intelligence in Human Evolution – a Synopsis

Klaus-Peter Valerius The symposium and also the present collection of proceedings have been entitled “On the uniqueness of humankind”. The main question in this context is: Are we unique? Almost every non-biologist would say “Yes, of course”. Almost every biologist, comparing us to apes, will answer “No, at least there are no principle differences”. To go into the historical background of this “No” is not the aim of this paper. However, it is intended to present arguments in favour for the evidence of severe differences between chimpanzee and human: 1. Language is an exclusively human character (Aiello 1996). Language is using thoughts to communicate via symbols (Jerison 1988). Apes did not develop such a communication. No doubt that apes can be trained to use our language (Rumbaugh et al. 1996). What we can see from these experiments is not that apes had anything like a language. What we can learn from speaking apes is the way in which chimpanzees think their thoughts. Speaking apes tell us, that thinking mechanisms are not a profound difference between apes and humans. Given the symbols, chimpanzee thoughts have proven to be comprehensive to us. However, where is the big difference concerning the cognition of apes and man, if thinking is not so different? 2. Our inborn ability to motivate ourselves for the examination of our material environment is the real cognitive difference to apes. Humans possess an interest bringing them to the cognitive occupation with things for their own sake and without any predictable reward (Valerius 1998). Where the motivation misses, the thought can never arrive and intelligence is useless! Looking at human cognition from this point of view, thinking is what relates us to chimpanzees, motivation is what clearly separates us. 3. Our social system and our sexuality are both unique, probably the most striking difference to monkeys and apes. They are based on an emotional bonding between the sexual partners (Fischer 1990; Rodseth et al. 1991; Eibl-Eibesfeldt 1997) and the resulting formation of primary groups. Consequently, in human communities women and men, who are not genetically related to each other, live and work together (Rodseth et al. 1991). Another unique human character is the amount of inter-sexual people living in any human population. As far as we know, about 5 % of males and about half as many women show sexual interest exclusively for members of the own sex (Baker and Bellis1988; LeVay 1994; Pillard and Bailey 1998), a sexual orientation called genuine homosexuality, and the percentage of inter-sexual people is further increased by people who assume sexual attributes of the opposite sex. There is nothing comparable to this human kind of inter-sexuality in any known primate species (Valerius 1998).

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4. And culture? Do chimpanzees have culture? All depends on what is meant by culture! If the definition of the term culture is in no way different from the definition of the term tradition, and thereby the terms tradition and culture become equal, of course then nearly any social vertebrate has culture, and any socially learned behaviour is culture. However, on closer inspection culture has to be defined at a next higher level compared to tradition. Surely, culture comprises traditions – but there must be a large number of cumulative traditions, these traditions must be interwoven, and there has to be a cultural evolution that changes and develops traditions and thereby culture over time. For the development of culture, the mutual influence of tradition and language is of special importance. Language as a system to communicate via thoughts and traditions maintained by language both supply a possibility to share complex concepts that form the basis of morality or religiousness in a community. Language allows to transfer these concepts to the next generation (Duncker 2001). Culture without cultural evolution does not make sense, as well as life without a biological evolution is unthinkable. Biologically seen, culture is a medium that buffers selective pressures and gives them a new direction. Often, selective pressures are buffered by traditions without giving rise to any genetic changes. Obviously, there is no reasonable discussion about culture without a definition. This definition should be a biologically tinged, simple, reductionistic definition of culture, concentrating on the demarcation of the term “tradition”, and thus on the difference between human and animal (Valerius 1998): Culture in an evolutionary, anthropological sense comprises many divers material and social traditions and genetically determined behaviours. The combination of these elements results in an emergence of new qualities. The essential new quality is the ability of human communities to survive in their environments without needing or acquiring direct biological, genetic adaptations to all life situations. Culture is therefore indispensable for the survival of humans. Culture is based on a reciprocity: On the one hand humans adapt their traditions according to their environment, on the other hand humans influence their environments using their traditions. In reverse, culture has a feed back on humans. It becomes a medium, by which environmental conditions only indirectly affect the human genome. Culture influences the direction of biological selective pressures and creates new cultural selective pressures. Culture is subdivided into manifold, complex emergent hierarchy levels. It generates independent evolutionary change and historicism. To argue that chimpanzees have culture necessarily requires a misuse of the term culture. 5. Another important question arises: Are there biological roots to religiousness and morality? Are there any biological Darwinian mechanisms, that could explain, why humans of all cultures share the need and the ability for religiousness and morality (Sommer 1993)? Many anthropologists search for one key character, which can be seen as the first major step in a new direction, opening the door to hominisation, making all the other steps possible, that followed later on. I agree with this idea of one key character. However, concerning another question, I am in a strict opposition to most primatologists

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observing apes in the field. It seems obvious, that we can never find this key character in the behaviour of the African apes. They did not develop this key character – otherwise they would have followed us on our evolutionary pathway. Therefore, whatever it is – we will not find the essential starting step to hominisation in the behaviour of today’s apes. Following this simple thought, especially some bizarre ideas that developed from the Food-for-Sex-Hypothesis and all this Meat-Eating-and-DistributingPolitics are no longer tenable. That is what chimpanzee do! Our key character must concern a much more outstanding, general and fundamental aspect of primate life, and it must not exist in chimpanzees. Among all these specific human traits enumerated here, one is outstanding, general and fundamental, influencing us in many ways: human monogamy. A general character underlying the social structures of most old-world-primates is their living in social systems determined by male exogamy and by strong female genealogical relations (Maryanski 1996). In these primate societies, females live in a hierarchy of grandmothers, mothers, children and grandchildren, sisters, cousins, aunts and so on (Fox 1975). Female intelligence is mainly used to organise these female relations. Male intelligence is also a social intelligence, but mature males leave their native groups and aspire a leading position in a foreign group. Male social intelligence is therefore directed towards foreign groups and against other males, who attack from outside, trying to displace them. Their social interest is not directed into their native group, but out of this group towards foreign animals, who are not members of their own social unit (Vogel 1979). The social and biological characters of humans, especially the stronger social integration of females (Dunbar and Spoors 1995; Beckmann and Beckmann 1996; Salmon and Daly 1996) show clearly that hominisation once started from an ancestor with such a social system. The social systems of modern African apes are totally different and in no way representative of precursors of human traits (Valerius 1998). The most astonishing difference to the social organisation of non-human primates, and especially to the social organisation of our nearest relatives, is the general human character of an emotional bonding to the sexual partner, who thereby becomes a partner in all aspects of life. Sexual bonding and the evolution of monogamy were an important biological success. Lovejoy (1981) argued correctly, that monogamy was a way to combine a long childhood and dependence on the mother with short birth intervals. Compared to apes, fertility increases and mortality decreases because of monogamy. Is monogamy a biological human heritage given to us by Darwinian mechanisms? Monogamy, for a number of reasons, is the original form of man and woman living together (Fischer 1990; Voland 1990; Baker and Bellis 1995; Eibl-Eibesfeldt 1997). It is the social organisation in all early egalitarian hunter-and-gatherer societies (Alexander et al. 1979; Knauft1991) and up to the present time monogamy is the most common basis for the formation of families worldwide. In the SouthAmerican Ache, which allow all forms of sexual relations, those people living in long, stabile monogamous relations claim to be happy much more often than those living in different polygamous or polyandrous families society (Hill and Hurtado 1995). In the Ache, monogamy is the only form of stabile marriage over a long time, sometimes for decades. We have to ask for special characters in human social and sexual behaviour, that bring humans to live in pairs. There are several such biologi-

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cal traits (Valerius 1998). The term “sexual crypsis” means that nearly all aspects of human female sexuality, especially ovulation and the fertile days of the female cycles, are not announced to the community by a special smell or an oestrus (Baker and Bellis 1995). This is an important difference to all non-human primates. Further biological traits of our monogamous heritage are sexual shame (Eibl-Eibesfeldt 1997), emotional bonding, probably becoming more deeply intensified by sexual intercourse dependent on the hormones of the neurohypophysis, sexual jealousy, and mourning for the dead partner, all being observable in all kinds of culture. What were the consequences of monogamy for human evolution? Monogamy gives rise to the formation of primary groups or families. This primary group is a unique social unit. Most of the social flexibility of human cultures goes back to variations based on the primary group. Families are social units additional to the weak genealogical clan relationships of the Hominoidea in general (Valerius 1998). The family does not replace genealogical social relations – just the opposite is true. Human societies are characterised by a highly complex coexistence of female and male genealogical structures. This coexistence results in life-long relations of mothers and of fathers to their descendants and to other relatives. Combining patrilinear and matrilineal principles in one community requires a large number of individuals living together. Such communities are subdivided into several groups comprising a few families. This organisation requires new mechanisms to prevent incest. A biological mechanism to prevent incest is the very human trait of “Falling in Love”, typically between unfamiliar partners, who are not part of the same group, but of the same community. Traditional incest taboos and marriage rules are cultural adaptations to this human social curiosity (Valerius 1998). A major effect of the parallel existence of matrilineality and patrilineality in the same, large community concerns the potential for the success of new genetic characters spreading over the whole community. If biological and traditional mechanisms ensure a kind of in-community-exogamy, then there is no need for a transfer of individuals from one community to another. This transition would be even more difficult for each individual, if foreign traditions and later cultural differences seriously interfered with the integration of foreign individuals, who would have to enter their new communities as adults and thus with a drastically reduced ability to adopt new traditions. This gives a valid explanation for the extreme genetic uniformity of all modern humans, causing scientists to suppose a bottleneck effect in human evolution. In addition, it also explains the very drastic differences developed within a short time, which today separate humans from apes. In comparison, the differences among the recent species of apes have remained small. Why was monogamy a key-character for hominisation? The firm bonding between man and woman, secured by cultural rituals, did not fundamentally change the social relationships between the females. Women formed at that time and up until today the backbone of human communities. Women live particularly in their social relationships (Dunbar and Spoors 1995; Beckmann and Beckmann 1996; Salmon and Daly 1996). Especially the genealogical relations have an outstanding meaning for female thinking and acting. Beyond that, for women the firm socially accepted relationship to the sexual partner means a release from the alternative situation, in which female non-human primates live – namely as a potential sexual partner or as a mother or female relative. Although a woman is the sexual partner of

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her husband and the female relative to other humans, she now can be accepted in new, totally different social and non-social roles, completely independent from reproduction. This advantage also concerns men, who likewise must no longer be seen as sexual partners, male relatives or competitors for reproductive or other resources. This allows both sexes, to assume the most diverse cultural functions and roles in the community. However, for the every-day life of a man, the firm and culturally secured relationship to a woman means a fundamental difference. After the wife has been found and the relationship has been sealed by a ritual differing between cultures (for instance a marriage), practically all the mode of life of a man will be completely different from that of his non-human male comrades. The constant, direct sexual competition to other men is drastically reduced. The acquisition and defence of a social position entitled to reproduce will no longer consume the entire time, effort, attention and intelligence of men (see Chance 1996). In male non-human primates, intelligence is aligned to processes outside of the own social group towards opposing possible competitors. Since this component directed out of the group is set free by firm pair relationships, males were predetermined to shift the orientation of their cognitive capacities, their motivation, from the social out to the material environment. Sexual competition between males now depends on the success in dealing with the material world. In this way, non-social abilities determine social positions. Material and social traditions are linked into a mutual dependence. This mutual dependence of social and material traditions was the starting point for the evolution of culture. Motivation and intelligence in the male sex gradually shifted to the non-social, material environment, and the image of the environment in the brain is expanded by the image of this material world. Thus, sexual pair bonding explains the evolutionary mechanisms behind the transmission of intelligence from the social to the material range and illuminates the biological reason behind the enlargement of the brain in hominisation (Valerius 1998). Please note that the differences between social and material intelligence described here, point less to the level of the quality of the thinking processes itself. It points to the motivation to use intelligence in one of these ranges and thus to train thought procedures useful in this area. The motivation for an occupation with the material environment led to a control of wide ranges of this environment by two developments. With the image stored in the brain accumulating more and more details, a growing understanding of the causal relations in the material environment became possible, and secondly tools and techniques of the most diverse kind were developed. Both processes presuppose the formation of language and of extensive, long lasting traditions. Thus, the new generation could assume, supplement and extend the knowledge of their ancestors, and thereby, in the end, develop culture. With non-human primates, the development, and above all the passing on of traditions stable over many generations to a large extent are limited to the females (Nishida 1971; Vogel 1979; Izawa 1988), who pass on learned behaviour to their youngs. Therefore the transition of traditions to the next generation in primate societies follows the genealogical lines of the females (nut cracking in Thai-forest chimps (Matsuzawa 1996)). At least in primate societies with male exogamy the male sex is excluded largely from passing on traditions to own descendants. Among most primates, the introduction and the conser-

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vation of traditions are assigned to the females. However, after what has been said until now, the emergence of new material traditions in human communities must have taken place in the male line. Thus, traditions must have been passed on from father to son. How have men acquired this ability for the formation of traditions? First, let me discuss another question, because the answer to both problems will be the same. How was it made possible to integrate all these unrelated men living in pair relations into one social community? The pair relation and the reduction of the sexual competition among men resulting from it, led to a large number of men not closely related, living together in the same group. These men had to get along with one another under constant contact and even to co-operating with each other. This kind of social integration of unrelated men and women into one social community does not occur among any other primate species. How did human males acquire social abilities? At the same time and indispensably connected with monogamy and the orientation of the male motivation into the material world pointed out so far, a second process must have occurred. The contradiction, which results from the underdeveloped ability for social integration of male primates in general on the one hand and from the need for human male social integration and human male traditions on the other hand, was solved by the evolution in an astonishing way. Simultaneous with the pair bonding and the associated use of the liberated intellectual capacities within the material range, the firm genetic coupling between sex and the most diverse originally sex related behaviours and abilities was loosened. This uncoupling process led to a redistribution of the individual elements of behaviour in the human individual, largely independently of her or his sex. “Female” characteristics, like social motivation, and “male” characteristics, like material motivation, can now be united in the same person independent of the sex. Behavioural patterns originally linked to the sex have thus been freed, their individual components, which have retained their genetic basis, could now be mixed in each individual human being. This process of genetic uncoupling is a substantial factor explaining the derived social ability of men to live in families. It also explains the female ability to deal with material, non-social problems. Further, the uncoupling process is a substantial source for human individuality (Valerius 1998). The mixture of the elements of human behavior independent from the sex not only concerns general social or material behaviour, but does not exclude behaviour and personality characteristics directly related to sexual propagation. When the physical sex and these direct sexual, non-physical parameters are uncoupled, a further typically human phenomenon develops: the wide field of human inter-sexuality. Under this term a number of human genuine phenomena are summarised here including genuine homosexuality, which describes a lifelong sexual orientation to the own sex, trans-sexuality and transvestism. All these phenomena are based on a recombination of originally male and originally female sexual behaviour in one person, as it is known for humans only (MacDonald and Pavelka 1995). The new combination of originally sex-bound characteristics takes place in each individual; statistically however, the most frequent case is the combined hereditary transmission of the originally female or male characteristics together with the originally “associated” sex. Therefore, statistical investigations have shown differences

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in the distribution of non-physical characteristics between the sexes. This distribution corresponds to equilibrium between female and male characteristics in each of the two sexes, which is the result of the specific evolution of humans. If one summarises these observations on the smallest common denominator, then it can be stated that, even in our modern society and independently of their socialisation, women on the average have a very much stronger interest in social questions and spheres of activity than men. On the other hand, the motivation of men on the average lies clearly in the material, extra-social range (MacCoby and Jacklin1974; Allemann-Tschopp 1979; Kolb and Whishaw 1996;). How can this contradiction between the inter-individual variability and the statistically raised sex-typical distribution be understood? Obviously genetic uncoupling and individual redistribution of those characteristics that are sex-bound in the animals does exist. However, just as obvious, this redistribution is by no means statistically balanced and does not resolve itself neutrally. Neither are all these characteristics distributed evenly (there are characteristics more frequent with one sex than with the other), nor is the distribution of characteristics altogether balanced (there are more characteristics, which were assigned to the female sex originally and can now be found in the male sex frequently, than vice versa). There is however another major effect of monogamy and the shift of our motivation and intelligence from the social to the material world. This shift also initiated a transfer of the social ways of acting and thinking into the cognitive handling of the material world. If a personality is attributed to things and phenomena in the material world, and thereby things are seen as living beings, then a personal relation to these things and phenomena can be developed, which resembles social relations to other group members. This process enables humans to employ the original and familiar social ways of thinking within the analyses of material problems. Vogel (1989) spoke of: “... the transmission of the cognitive-intellectual powers over a nearly-social into a extra-social world.” Ingenious functional relations, as they can be observed anywhere in the natural environment, between the organisms and their inanimate environment or between different organisms, can be explained in this way. If one assumes, again in analogy to human behaviour, that these single components of the environment act intelligently and purposefully, nature appears understandable. With an increasing knowledge of the operational principles in nature and with the development of new cognitive processes for the grasping of the material environment, the direct personification of things became redundant. This new, neutral view, not based on personal, social-like relations to the material environment, becomes more and more successful and now displaces the original, still necessary acceptance of an indigenously acting person into an abstract sphere – for example ghosts and Gods. Thus, the transmission of socially derived thinking procedures into the material environment explains the emergence of religions and assigns a biological origin to religiousness. This very old idea goes back to Tylor at the end of the 19th century (Cancik et al. 1988). The reverse process, the transmission of cognitive abilities derived from analysing the material environment into the social range, explains the biological roots of another fundamental human characteristic – of true, even of altruistic

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morality. The ability acquired in the human evolution to transfer intelligence from the social range into the material environment certainly led to altered cognitive processes. Even if the newly orientated motivation constitutes the more important portion of the human ability to control the material environment, the material subject must have improved new intellectual qualities. The mental handling of material problems requires above all a completely new mental point of view of the thinking person. Thoughts starting from and ending at the own person do not play a role in the solution of material problems. The solution of problems within the extra-social range can be found best, if the problem is analysed from a neutral point of view – and thus without the construction of a personal relationship, as it is necessary for the solution of social problems. This neutrality is not to be misunderstood. The motivation to solve a technical problem of course results from a personal interest and the discovered solution will be used to fulfil personal needs. Nevertheless, the cognitive process of finding the solution is something completely different from the motivation behind it. In other words: In order to be able to think successfully in the material world, the ancestors of modern humans had to give up the inflexible point of view with the own person in the centre, as it is defined by social relations. The fundamental ability to this “change of the perspective”, particularly the ability to shift the point of view into the life situation of another comrade (empathy), has surely been developed in the social range. However, the task of giving up a personal relation and the neutrality of the point of view specified above are not abilities to be used in social relations. Therefore, these new qualities must have developed in the occupation with the material environment. These derived abilities could not remain without effects on the self-awareness of human ancestors. The neutrality of the point of view gained in material thinking was now reflected into the cognitive processes employed in the social range. In consequence, humans could now regard their social environment from the point of view of other individuals, or even from a neutral position. Independent of their own requirements, the community could be analysed neutrally – and without doubt, it will appear completely different. This feedback of cognitive capacities evolved in the material range into social thinking made it possible to see other group members in a new light – as equal beings with the same abilities and needs. The evolutionary old, pre-existing ability for empathy already found in chimpanzees, on one hand competed with this new ability for a neutral analysis of social structures. The stronger the emotional relationship with others, the more difficult it will be to make fair decisions. On the other hand, empathy complements neutral thinking. This urge for justice in co-operation with the ability for empathy opens decision alternatives. Decisions no longer have to be dictated exclusively by genetic advantages, and a not at all completely, but at least noticeably free will comes into existence for the first time. The need for justice, which is an important part of morals, results from the shift of thinking processes from the material to the social sphere. Thus the evolutionary roots of human morality can be understood from the thesis introduced here (see also Vogel 1989). A brief summary of the mechanisms I suppose to have been active during hominisation should be added here. There is growing need to oppose the powerful modern trend towards simplification and linear thinking in modern evolutionary biology. Socio-biology clearly is a valuable contribution to evolutionary biology. But a claim

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of socio-biology to be the only valuable causal evolutionary thesis has to be rejected as being as it was called “over-selective”. What mechanisms exceeding mutation and selection of single genes have I supposed in my thesis? A major mechanism generating new qualities in evolution has been known for more than a century – but it is simply out of fashion. I refer to the emergence of new qualities by the integration of single elements into a combined unit at a next higher level. To quote Mayr (1984): When two entities are combined at a higher level of integration, not all the properties of the new entity are necessarily a logical or predictable consequence of the properties of the components.

This principle becomes increasingly more and more important, the nearer we approach the modern Homo sapiens in his evolution. The combination of those ancestral thinking mechanisms derived in the social area and derived modes of thinking evolved in the analyses of the material world, both added to the fundament of animal social behaviour, brought about the emergence of religiousness and of morality. The important difference to the thinking common to socio-biologists is that there is no selective force explaining the emergence of religiousness and morality. And in fact socio-biologists cannot explain, how morality and true altruism could have evolved in an evolution selecting advantage in the multiplication of genes (Alexander 1987; Vogel 1988). The selective forces acted on the emergence of the single elements – in this case on the development of motivation and intelligence directed to our material environment, and – far earlier in primate evolution – on the generation of complex social systems and the abilities necessary to be successful in these social systems. The combination of these units in one individual created unpredictable new qualities – religiousness and morality, without ever affording selective pressure. Selective pressures have formed the special characters of the different religions and moral systems of different populations according to their needs – but they have not created religiousness and morality. A further mechanism important for the understanding of our evolution is somehow related to the last one. Selection may not only favour a specific physical or non-physical character of an animal. It may as well favour a genetic mechanism, which results in a number of new characters. These new characters must not occur in one individual, but may be spread in a population, so that one individual shows one character, another individual shows another completely different character. If the majority of these characters going back to the same genetic mechanism are judged positively, then a minority of characters may even be judged negatively. In my example, uncoupling sex and behaviour is of great advantage for most individuals of a population, allowing our completely unique human social patterns to come into existence. A minority of a few percent of inter-sexual individuals will be nearly excluded from any genetic fitness. However, their disadvantage is more than compensated by the advantage for the heterosexual majority, and that is what keeps the mechanism alive. The emergence of new qualities by the integration of single elements on the one hand, and the mechanism of genetic uncoupling on the other hand, both produced human characters, as culture, religiousness and morality or inter-sexuality, that are not adaptations to any kind of natural environment, they are not adaptive.

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This is why culture, religion or moral are adaptable to any kind of environment – to any kind of natural and cultural environment. Gehlen (1993) stated correctly, that there is no specific biological environment for human, no specific nutrition or lifestyle – and for this reason the concept of an “Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness” (Bowlby 1984; Foley 1995/96) is not applicable to the last steps in our evolution. A common characteristic quality of all the ideas presented here and of many others, is that they can be understood as going back to the same mechanism: abilities, physical or non-physical qualities were set free from their original binding to a defined circumstance, they were liberated from their original biological destination. They can now be employed in totally new constellations. This liberation leads to new combinations of characters, and the new combinations lead to unexpected new qualities in the sense of Mayr. But let us try to find some biological hardware behind all these theoretical considerations. What biological mechanisms can explain such uncoupling phenomena? Roughly about 40 % of our genetic material go back to so-called mobile elements (Amariglio and Rechavi 1993). These mobile elements can be classified into different categories, but their biological origin is not yet clear. They accumulate with time during biological evolution. They are able to move, to change their position within the genetic material of an individual. And this process does not happen every few millions of years – it happens all the time – preferably during gametogenesis and during the earliest embryological stages. By the insertion of a mobile element into a new site in a chromosome, the sequence of genes in this chromosome will be altered. This means that genes can be separated from regulatory DNA, activating or inhibiting their transcription. Multiplied genes can be coupled to new regulatory elements. Genes themselves can be altered by a shift in the nucleotide sequence, and finally genes can be taken up by mobile elements and can be inserted into new locations. This mechanism is known to occasionally produce genetic disorders such as hemophilia A, neurofibromatosis, B-cell lymphoma and breast cancer. But what mobile elements can attribute to our biological evolution is uncoupling the genes underlying specific abilities from the genes binding them to the functional circumstances, under which these abilities evolved. Let us return to the prerequisites of culture. All the enumerated evolutionary revolutions, such as transferring the emotional bonding between mother and child to the sexual partner, transferring social motivations and intelligence to the material environment, transferring social abilities and the ability to maintain traditions to the male sex, transferring nonsocial, material motivations to the female sex, and others such as transferring the functions of social activities like grooming to language, transferring nonsexual social behaviours involving touching the body of a partner into the range of sexual behaviours, setting free the relation between sexual intercourse and ovulation, all share one general parameter: genetic uncoupling. Thus culture in the beginning seems to be not so much more than the freedom to use a great variety of inborn, genetically fixed biological abilities under circumstances, for which the biological evolution did not invent them. In this way, culture is not the opposite thing to nature, it is the liberation of natural abilities from natural purposes.

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Acknowledgements I would like to address my special thanks to Hans-Rainer Duncker, with whom I shared countless conversations on this topic, so that in the end I am uncertain which ideas go back to him and which are originally my own. What I presented here was a medley of his and of my thoughts.

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Maccoby EE, Jacklin CN (1974) The psychology of sex differences. Stanford University Press, Stanford Maryanski AM (1996) African ape social networks. In: Steele J, Shennan S (eds) The archaeology of human ancestry. Routledge, London, New York Matsuzawa T (1996) Field experiments on use of stone tools by chimpanzees in the wild. In: Wrangham RW, McGrew WC, De Waal FBM, Heltne PG (eds) Chimpanzee cultures. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.), London. Mayr E (1984) Die Entwicklung der biologischen Gedankenwelt. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York McDonald Pavelka MS (1995) Sexual nature: What can we learn from a cross-species perspective? In: Abramson PR, Pinkerton SD (eds) Sexual nature, sexual culture. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, London Nishida T (1971) Local traditions and cultural transmission. In: Smuts BB, Cheney DL, Seyfarth RM, Wrangham RW, Struhsaker T (eds) Primate societies. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, London Pillard RC, Bailey M (1998) Human sexual orientation has a heritable component. Human Biology 70: 347–365 Rodseth L, Wrangham RW, Harrigan AM, Smuts BB (1991) The human community as a primate society. Current Anthropology 32: 221–254 Rumbaugh DM, Savage-Rumbaugh ES, Sevic RA (1996) Biobehavioral roots of language. In: Wrangham RW, McGrew WC, De Waal FBM, Heltne PG (eds) Chimpanzee cultures. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.), London Salmon CA, Daly M (1996) On the importance of kin relations to Canadian women and men. Ethology and Sociobiology 17: 289–297 Sommer V (1993) Die Vergangenheit einer Illusion: Religion aus evolutionsbiologischer Sicht. In: Voland E (Hrsg) Evolution und Anpassung: Warum die Vergangenheit die Gegenwart erklärt. Hirzel, Stuttgart Valerius K-P (1998) Sozialstruktur, Sexualität und Intelligenz in der menschlichen Stammesgeschichte. Tectum Marburg Vogel C (1979) Geschlechtstypisches Verhalten bei nicht-menschlichen Primaten. Evolutionsbiologische Aspekte zur Entstehung der Geschlechterrollen in menschlichen Gesellschaften. Homo 30: 179–192 Vogel C (1983) Personale Identität und kognitiv-intellektuelle Leistungsfähigkeit im sozialen Feld nicht-menschlicher Primaten. In: Schenkel R (Hrsg) Biologie von Sozialstrukturen bei Tier und Mensch. Veröffentlichung der Joachim-Jungius-Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften Hamburg Nr. 50. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen Vogel C (1988) Gibt es eine natürliche Moral? Oder: Wie natürlich ist unsere Ethik. In: Meier, H. (Hrsg): Die Herausforderung der Evolutionsbiologie. Piper, München, Zürich Vogel C (1989) Vom Töten zum Mord. Carl Hanser, München, Wien Voland E (1990) Ehegründung und Ehescheidung in evolutionsbiologischer Sicht. In: Seifert G (Hrsg) Ehestabilisierende Faktoren. Veröffentlichung der Joachim-Jungius-Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften Hamburg Nr. 63. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen

Genes, Instincts and Identity

Patrick Bateson Introduction The image of the Sun going round the Earth, or even more simply crossing the sky, seemed like an obvious statement of the truth to our ancestors. Science readily toppled this conceited view of our place in the Universe. Will the firmly held belief that humans are unique suffer the same fate? It is often supposed that all shreds of human distinctiveness succumb in the face of advances in the understanding of evolutionary process, genetics and the cognitive abilities of animals. Hand-in-hand with this apparent collapse of conventional wisdom has come a mounting scepticism about human agency. All responsibility for the consequences of our actions is diminished to the point at which, it is claimed, no blame can be attached to anything we do. In all this turmoil, the issue of human uniqueness may have been something of a red herring, distracting attention from what is morally the much more serious matter of individual agency. For, despite all the undoubted continuities, every species is unique. Foley (1987) alluded to this when he called his book about human evolution “Another Unique Species”. Qualitative differences can always be reduced to quantitative ones. But the suggestion that we should not be held responsible for our actions is dangerous stuff and itself needs to be examined with very considerable scepticism. Is it really the case that the advances in molecular biology, genetics, evolutionary thought and the neurosciences have had such serious implications for the way we should think about our own capacity for choice? The importance of the emotions in controlling human behaviour certainly suggests to some that each of us is in the grip of our genes. We seem to be surrounded by examples of irrational behaviour, such as when people are in love, in lynching mode or maddened with war fever. The brain (and the genes that contribute to its construction) are such that, when people make conscious choices, they don’t really know what they are doing. Or so the argument goes. And it concludes with the claim that the presumptions of law, morality and common sense are wrong. In short, the notion that we are all responsible for our own actions is under attack. I shall argue that the grounds for the attack are much weaker than is commonly supposed in the modern world dominated by the advances in biology.

The emotions It is obviously the case that the choices and decisions that people make during their lives need not involve conscious thought. People may choose a course of action without knowing why or reflecting on what they do. It just seemed to them the thing to do at the time. Those who wish others to buy their wares seek to manipulate choice. Advertisers

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link their products with sexual arousal. Supermarkets tempt customers to buy things they did not know they wanted by skilful arrangements of displays or by wafting the aroma of freshly baked bread through the ventilation system. In one of a series of experiments foreign words, made familiar to students by printing them on tee shirts, were preferred by the students over foreign words they had not seen before (Murphy et al. 1995). As people become familiar with certain commercial brands through repeated exposure to advertisements, they will prefer to buy them – mainly because they are familiar. Another experiment showed the value of hunches in a gambling task designed to simulate real-life decision-making. Volunteers could win or lose facsimile money by choosing cards from various packs. Unknown to them, choosing cards from ’bad’ packs led to overall losses, while ’good’ packs produced overall gains. After they had experienced some losses, normal people began to choose cards from the ’good’ packs before they had consciously realised which strategy worked best. After further experience, they became consciously aware of the difference between the good and the bad packs of cards and ceased to play on the basis of hunch (Bechara et al. 1997). This study indicated how non-conscious biases advantageously guide behaviour before conscious knowledge or rational analysis comes into play. Inchoate preferences guide and facilitate conscious evaluation and reasoning. People with particular sorts of damage to the pre-frontal cortex of the brain provide living proof that rational thought and conscious analysis are insufficient to function well in the real world. Their ability to make even apparently straightforward decisions – especially decisions involving social or personal subtleties – is severely impaired, despite their normal performance in almost any test of intelligence, memory or reasoning. When left to their own devices, they remain engaged in a trivial activity neglecting the important activities of daily life. After one such patient, who had had a tumour removed from the critical brain area, returned to work, he would not stick to any schedule set for him. When sorting documents he would spend a whole day reading one letter. He lost his job and by degrees his whole life fell apart. Such patients seem to lack the biasing that the emotions normally provide when making decisions about budgeting time (Damasio 1994).

Instinct It might seem like game set and match for the biological argument. The emotions dominate. It is argued that they represent our biological roots and are required for setting the priorities that best enable us to survive and reproduce ourselves. They are instincts adapted to their ancestral uses by the Darwinian evolutionary process of natural selection. But what are instincts? Charles Darwin (1859) himself wrote: I will not attempt any definition of instinct. It would be easy to show that several distinct mental actions are commonly embraced by this term; but everyone understands what is meant when it is said that instinct impels the cuckoo to migrate and to lay her eggs in other birds’ nests. An action, which we ourselves require experience to enable us to perform, when performed by an animal, more especially by a very young one, without experience, and when performed by many individuals in the same way, without their knowing for what purpose it is performed, is usually said to be instinctive. But I could show that none of these characters are universal. A little dose of judgement or reason ... often comes into play, even with animals low in the scale of nature.

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Darwin wisely refused to provide a comprehensive definition because the concept had so many different dimensions to it. The same is true to-day. At their simplest, instincts may be nothing more than reflex reactions to external triggers, like the kneejerk or the baby’s sucking of a teat in its mouth. In more complex forms, they are a series of movements all co-ordinated into a system of behaviour that serves a particular end, such as locomotion or non-verbal communication. Human facial expressions have characteristics that are widely distributed in people of many different cultures. The emotions of disgust, fear, anger and pleasure are read off the face with ease in any part of the world. An enormous archive of photographic records of human expressions in different cultures at different stages of economic development. The similarities in, for example, the appearance of the smile or the raised eyebrows are striking (Ekman et al. 1987). The cross-cultural agreement in the interpretation of complex facial expressions is also remarkable. People agree about which emotions are being expressed. They also agree about which emotion is the more intense, such as which of two angry people seems the more angry. At their most complex, instincts are thought to provide the basis by which the individual gathers particular types of information from the environment in the course of learning. The acquisition of language by humans is such a case (Pinker 1994). Children acquire words and the local rules of grammar from the adults around them, but the way they do so is often thought to be shared by all humans. Therefore, the underlying process is believed to be inherited, internally motivated and adaptive. It is obvious that the differences in spoken language between a French person and a German are not due to genetic differences. Therefore, apart from the act of speech itself, the proposed universal and instinctive characteristics of all humans are not going to be discovered in the surface organisation of such behaviour. The concept of ’instinct’ is very far from being unitary. Evidence that a behaviour pattern, or the developmental process that gives rise to it, serves a current biological function does not constitute evidence that the behaviour pattern in question is unlearned. Nor does it follow that humans are unaware of all “instinctive” acts of which they are capable or unable to control them.

Adaptation and design Most non-biologists are familiar with the proposition that living organisms’ bodies, brains and behaviour have been adapted over the course of evolution to the conditions in which they lived. An adaptation is a characteristic that makes the organism better suited to survive and reproduce in a particular environment – better suited, that is, than if it lacked the crucial feature. The perception that behaviour is designed springs from the relations between the behaviour, the circumstances in which it is expressed and the resulting consequences. The closeness of the perceived match between the tool and the job for which it is required is relative. In human design, the best that one person can do will be exceeded by somebody with superior technology. If you were on a picnic with a bottle of wine but no corkscrew, one of your companions might use a strong stick to push the cork into the bottle. If you had never seen this done before, you might be impressed by the selection of a rigid tool small enough to get inside the neck of the bottle. The tool would be an adaptation of a kind. Tools that are better adapted to the job of remov-

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ing corks from wine bottles are available, of course, and an astonishing array of devices have been invented. One ingenious solution involved a pump and a hollow needle with a hole near the pointed end; the needle was pushed through the cork and air was pumped into the bottle, forcing the cork out. Sometimes, however, the bottle exploded and this tool quickly became extinct. As with human tools, what is perceived as good biological design may be superseded by an even better design, or the same solution may be achieved in different ways. Biologists have been properly warned not to write evolutionary accounts in which the past is seen as leading purposefully towards the goal of the present blissful state of perfection (Gould and Lewontin 1979). A clear distinction is necessarily and wisely drawn between the present-day utility (or function) of a biological process, structure or behaviour pattern, and its historical, evolutionary origins. Darwin noted, for example, that while the bony plates of the mammalian skull allow the young mammal an easier passage through the mother’s birth canal, these same plates are also present in the mammals’ egg-laying reptilian ancestors. Their original biological function clearly must have been different from their current function. This thought has relevance to how the idea of design may be reconciled with the realities of human behaviour.

Failure of adaptations It is, alas, all too obvious that humans do stupid things that run counter to their best interests. It is obvious that some adaptations which benefited humans in the past have become dysfunctional in the radically different modern world. Behaviour such as seeking out and receiving pleasure from eating sweet or fatty foods was doubtless vital in a subsistence environment, but in a well-fed society it does more harm than good. Part of the problem could be that human behaviour was adapted to circumstances in which people no longer live or to those which are rendered non-functional by conditions in which they now find themselves. Gambling, which generally ruins lives, seems wholly irrational but makes sense in a world in which the delivery of rewards is rarely random. If you have done something that produced a win, it is usually highly beneficial to repeat what you did – except when you get into a casino. Similarly, the tendency of parents to protect their children from all contact with unknown people after hearing of a child murder on television would have been beneficial in a small community where such news might represent real danger. In the modern context, such risk averse behaviour in a society in which the incidence of child murder has remained constant for decades merely impoverishes their child’s development. Even though they were once welldesigned, the emotions may now play havoc with our lives. They have become “The Enemy Within” (Sutherland 1992). Clearly, the emotions can be de-railed not only by the conditions of modern life or by the loss of brain function, but also by drugs. This can provide a handy defence for lawyers. In 1979 the Mayor of San Francisco and one of his officials were gunned down by a man called Dan White. At his trial White was convicted of manslaughter instead of first degree murder. White’s lawyers produced an original argument which came to be known as the Twinkie Defence. One of the sugary junk foods is known as Hostess Twinkies. Dan White was addicted to these sugary foods

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and his lawyers managed to persuade the court that his brain had been so deranged by Hostess Twinkies that he should not be held fully responsible for his actions. The worrying thing about this argument is not that the scientific basis for it is so slender. It is part of a pattern which steadily erodes the conception of humans having intentions for which they be held responsible.

Selfish genes The deterministic character of modern biology seems to go further and subvert the common-sense view that individuals can make free choices. Humans are all blundering robots, programmed to do all those things that keep them alive and help them to pass on their genes to another generation. Most famously, Dawkins (1976) suggested that the way to understand evolution is not in terms of the needs of the individual (or the group or the species), but in terms of the needs of genes. Genes recombine in each generation to form temporary federations. The alliance forms an individual organism. By reproducing, individuals serve to perpetuate the genes which in the next generation recombine in some other kind of alliance. Genes are selfishly intent on replicating themselves by the best possible means. Dawkins was clearly and deliberately using a device to aid thought when he attributed motives to genes. He obviously did not suppose that gene really have intentions. It is easier for most people to get their minds round the workings of a complex system by thinking about how that system strives to reach a specific end state. The language of intentions can be played many ways. When the ambient environmental temperature during development is crucial for the expression of a particular phenotype, changes in temperature by a few degrees may lead to a startling evolutionary change. It may lead to extinction – such as is predicted for turtles whose sex depends on temperature early in development and after global warming would all end up as females. Would not such cases give as much status to a necessary temperature value as to a necessary gene? The temperature value is also required for the expression of a particular set of phenotypes – a balanced sex ratio in turtles before global warming. It is also stable (within limits) from one generation to the next. It may even be transmitted from one generation to the next if the survival machine makes a nest for its offspring. The bird is the nest’s way of making another nest (Bateson 1978). Dawkins’ riposte to my tease was that nest material does not have the permanence of DNA (Dawkins 1978). Later he developed the point. Nests do not have the causal significance of genes (Dawkins 1982: 98). There is a causal arrow going from gene to bird, but none in the reverse direction. A changed gene may perpetuate itself better than its unmutated allele. A changed nest will do no such thing unless, of course, the change is due to a changed gene, in which case it is the gene that is perpetuated, not the nest.

In concluding his discussion of alternative ways of thinking about evolution and development and my concern that he was giving too much status to the gene as programmer, Dawkins (1982: 99) wrote: As is so often the case, an apparent disagreement turns out to be due to mutual misunderstanding. I thought Bateson was denying proper respect to the Immortal Replicator. Bateson thought that I was denying proper respect to the Great Nexus of complex causal factors interacting in development.

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Reflecting on this debate 20 years later, I think that more was at issue than different emphases and interests. Dawkins’ response showed how easily we get snarled up in the language. The details of the evolutionary mechanism involving small changes in DNA had been mixed up with the intentions that were rhetorically attributed to genes. While Dawkins was quite justified, in my view, in developing his parable of genes’ intentions, he was wrong when he treated this language as having a straightforward relationship with the language of what genes actually do. Selfish gene-speak does not easily translate in the causal statements of population biologists even though the users are ostensibly talking about the same issue. For population geneticists, a genetic difference is identified by means of a biochemical, physiological, structural or behavioural difference between organisms (after other potential sources of difference have been excluded by appropriate procedures). Dawkins suggested that his move backwards and forwards between the language of gene intentions and the more orthodox language of the consequences of genetic differences was acceptable because they are simply alternative ways of describing the same thing. To make his point, he described perception of the Necker cube. The front edges of the line drawing of the cube suddenly flip to the back as we look at them. Each perceived image of the cube is as real as the other and Dawkins suggests that, in similar ways, the teleological and mechanistic images of evolution translate backwards and forwards into the other. However, it does not make any sense to attribute motives to a comparison as may be illustrated by another parable. Consider the spread of a new brand of biscuit in supermarkets from the perspective of the recipe. While shoppers may compare biscuits and buy one brand, it is the recipe used for making desirable biscuits that survives and spreads in the long run. Therefore, the word in the recipe that makes the biscuit successful is selfish, because it serves to perpetuate itself. So far so good. But my parable loses all coherence if I conclude by adding that the difference in the wording of recipes used for making successful and less successful biscuits is selfish. It is worth developing the biscuits in a supermarket parable just a little further. Do shoppers really select a word in a faithfully reproduced recipe? Are the words in recipes the units of the shoppers’ selections? It is an odd idea since shoppers respond (among other things) to the outcome of the cooking process which gave rise to the biscuits. For very similar reasons many biologists, myself included, disliked the idea of genes being treated as the units of selection in Darwinian terms. After all, Darwin had used his metaphor of “natural selection” because he had been impressed by the ways in which plant and animal breeders selected the characters which they sought to perpetuate. Of course, the gene selection idea grew up because it made sense of those cases in which the consequences of an act favoured the survival of genetically-related individuals rather than the actor. Dawkins (1982) helpfully advanced the argument when he drew a distinction between “replicators” and “vehicles”.

Making an individual The developmental processes creating phenotypes have been the major concern of much contemporary thought (Bateson and Martin 1999). The modern emphasis has served to put empirical flesh on notions of what generates the variation in the raw

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material for differential survival and reproductive success. Once the phenotypes are created, developmental theory has not much to say about differential survival and differential reproductive success. However, the necessary conditions for re-creating the characteristics of the successful entity in the next generation or for generating similar characteristics in kin such as siblings or cousins is once again the province of developmental thought. The conditions shared by related entities will commonly consist of genes but will include a great many non-genetic factors (Oyama et al. 2001). Operating as it does on individuals that have developed within a particular set of conditions, Darwinian evolution does not require a simple correspondence between genes and adaptive behaviour. If those conditions are stable for many generations then the changes that matter will arise from segregation of factors that give rise to individual differences. Individuals vary; some survive and reproduce more successfully than others because they possess a crucial characteristic; and close relatives are more likely to share that characteristic than unrelated individuals. Apparent design is produced, even when it is at the end of the long and complicated process of development. But the environment does not cease to be important for evolution just because it remains constant. Change the environment and the outcome of an individual’s development may be utterly different. From the standpoint of design, systems of behaviour that serve different biological functions, such as cleaning the body or finding food, would not be expected to develop in the same way. In particular, the role of experience is likely to vary considerably from one behavioural system to another. In predatory species such as cats, cleaning the body is not generally something that requires special skills tailored to local conditions, whereas capturing fast-moving prey requires considerable learning and practice to be successful. The osprey snatching trout from water does not develop that ability overnight. Animals that rely upon highly sophisticated predatory skills, such as birds of prey, suffer high mortality when young as a result of their incompetence and those that survive are often unable to breed for years; this is because they have to acquire and hone their skills before they can capture enough prey to feed offspring in addition to themselves. In such cases, a combination of different developmental processes are required in order to generate the highly tuned skills seen in the adult. The commonly used image of a genetic blueprint for the development of behaviour is misleading because it is too static, too suggestive that adult organisms are merely expanded versions of the fertilised egg (Bateson and Martin 1999). In reality, individuals play an active role in their own development. Even when a particular gene or a particular experience is known to have a powerful effect on the development of behaviour, biology has an uncanny way of finding alternative routes. If the normal developmental pathway to a particular form of adult behaviour is impassable, another way may often be found. The individual may be able, through its behaviour, to match its environment to suit its own characteristics – a process dubbed ’niche-picking’. At the same time, playful activity increases the range of available choices and, at its most creative, enables the individual to control the environment in ways that would otherwise not be possible. A low-tech cooking metaphor serves to shift the focus onto the multi-causal and conditional nature of development (Bateson and Martin 1999). Using butter instead of margarine may make a cake taste differently when all the other ingredients and

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cooking methods remain unchanged. But if other combinations of ingredients or other cooking methods are used, the distinctive difference between a cake made with butter and a cake made with margarine may vanish. Similarly, a baked cake cannot readily be disaggregated into its original raw ingredients and the various cooking processes, any more than a behaviour pattern or a psychological characteristic can be disaggregated into its genetic and environmental influences and the developmental processes that gave rise to it. Well-meaning attempts to break out of the nature-nurture straitjacket have often resulted in an obscure and bewildering portrayal of development as a process of impenetrable complexity (what Salman Rushdie once described in another context as a P2C2E – a Process Too Complicated To Explain). Indeed, development seemed so unfathomably complex to eighteenth-century biologists that they believed that it must depend on supernatural guidance. The processes involved in behavioural development do indeed look forbiddingly complicated on the surface. Some would argue that it is worse underneath and that such order as is found is generated by dynamical systems of great complexity. In contrast to an agenda that easily renders development a Process Too Complicated To Explain, I prefer to argue that simplicity and regularity may be found in the developmental processes that give rise to unique individuals. Confidence in that conclusion comes not from general principles but from the careful analysis of particular cases. The essence of development – change coupled with continuity – starts to make sense. It becomes possible to understand how the individual is so responsive to events at one stage and so unaffected by them at another. Order underlies even those learning processes that make individuals different from each other. Knowing something of the underlying regularities in development does bring an understanding of what happens to the child as it grows up. The ways in which learning is structured, for instance, affect how the child makes use of environmental contingencies and how the child classifies perceptual experience. Yet predicting precisely how an individual child will develop in the future from knowledge of the developmental rules for learning is no easier than predicting the course of a chess game. The rules influence the course of a life, but they do not determine it. Like chess players, children are active agents. They influence their environment and are in turn affected by what they have done. Furthermore, children’s responses to new conditions will, like chess-players’ responses, be refined or embellished as they gather experience.

The adaptable planner Whatever claims are made for the role of the emotions in both guiding and misguiding behaviour, humans have shown remarkable capacity for rapid change. The transformation of man-made environments, and subsequent human adaptations to them, have been abrupt and recent, relative to human evolutionary history. The earliest forms of civilisation, in the shape of systematic farming, emerged less than 10,000 years ago. The first written records appeared 6,000 years ago in Mesopotamia and China, and the wheel was invented not long afterwards. Industrialised societies started to emerge within the past 200 years and computers only became ubiquitous in the later part of the twentieth century. The changes in environmental conditions from

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those in which humans evolved have been radical and have occurred when genetic change has been negligible. Opportunism plays an important role in driving historical change. As in a large restaurant, many different dishes are being cooked at the same time in the kitchen of behavioural development. Occasionally the behavioural dishes are thrown together and something quite novel – and useful – is produced by chance. Humans are perfectly capable of appreciating the value of their own experiments, and the emerging effects have had an extraordinary influence on human history. The combination of spoken language, which has obvious utility in its own right, and manual dexterity in fashioning tools, which also has obvious utility, combined at a particular and relatively recent moment in evolutionary history to generate written language. The discovery of written language took place several times and in several forms in different parts of the world, with ideas represented by pictures or spoken sounds represented by symbols. Once invented, the techniques were quickly copied and became crucial elements of modern civilisation. It was that active combining of different capacities that started the whole remarkable cultural sequence of events. Such opportunism is directly relevant to the matter in hand, the discussion of decision, freedom of will and moral responsibility. I shall make what may seem like a surprising suggestion for a biologist. My response to the claim that humans are robots in the grip of their genes is this. A well-designed brain should respond to the consequences of the behaviour it generates. If an understanding of the likely consequences can be achieved without actually performing the act, then a person who knows that they will be rewarded or punished for certain acts is bound to be influenced by that knowledge. A brain designed in that way facilitates the evolution of societies with explicit social approval of certain activities and explicit disapproval of others. The rules for what is or is not acceptable may be arbitrary, but only fools and the brave will ignore them. The evolutionary approach to psychology does not imply that individuals do not make free choices. Individuals clearly do make a big difference to what happens in their lives through their decisions. They may be surprised by the consequences of their own actions. A well-designed brain should be able to anticipate the consequences of various courses of action and choose between them on the basis of their likely costs and benefits. Planning before doing is clearly of great advantage. The evidence stares us in the face. People do make well-considered decisions and they benefit from doing so.

References Bateson P (1978) Review of the Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. Anim Behav 26: 316–318 Bateson P, Martin P (1999) Design for a Life: How behaviour develops. Cape, London Bechara A, Damasio H, Tranel D, Damasio AR (1997) Deciding advantageously before knowing the advantageous strategy. Science 275: 1293–1295 Damasio AR (1994) Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. Grosset/Putnam, New York Darwin C (1859) The Origin of Species. London, Macmillan Dawkins R (1976) The Selfish Gene. Oxford University Press, Oxford Dawkins R (1978) Replicator selection and the extended phenotype. Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie 47: 61–76 Dawkins R (1982) The Extended Phenotype. Freeman, Oxford

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Ekman P, Friesen WV, O’Sullivan M et al. (1987) Universals and cultural differences in the judgments of facial expressions of emotion. J Pers Soc Psychol 53: 712–717 Foley R (1987) Another Unique Species. Longmans, Harlow Gould SJ, Lewontin RC (1979) The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian program: a critique of the adaptationist programme. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 250: 281–288 Murphy ST, Zajonc RB, Monahan JL (1995) Additivity of nonconscious affect – combined effects of priming and exposure. J Person Soc Psychol 69: 589–602 Oyama S, Griffiths PE, Gray RD (2001) Cycles of Contingency: Developmental Systems and Evolution. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. Pinker S (1994) The Language Instinct. Penguin, London Sutherland S (1992) Irrationality: The Enemy Within. Constable, London

The Special Status of the Human Being as a Topic of Practical Philosophy

Carl Friedrich Gethmann The discussion about the special status of the human being (“Sonderstellung des Menschen”)1 in the 20th century is marked by two main points of focus. For one thing, the founding fathers of philosophical anthropology (Scheler, Gehlen, Plessner) with the help of the biological knowledge of their time (above all in the framework of morphology and behaviour theory) claimed the existence of a special status.2 After the changeover of biology to evolution theory and genetics the subject of the special status of the human being compared with other animals in connection with the programme of “the natural sciences of man” has come under more intensive discussion once again.3 From the philosophical point of view, the common methodological character of these two developments lies in the fact that on the basis of bio-scientific descriptions an attempt is made to supply explanations for various phenomena of life that raise humankind above the realm of other animals. Although the situation in the biosciences has undergone a dramatic transformation in the last 80 years, both discussion circles are characterised by a common approach in that they endeavour to grasp the special status of man in a descriptive manner. In contrast this essay is concerned with the prescriptive question of whether indeed and possibly under what conditions the human being should be accorded a special status. Thus the question as it is posed within the framework of philosophical anthropology and the programme of scientific research on human beings belongs in the sphere of the rationality of knowledge (“theoretical reason”), whereas the question raised in this essay falls within the sphere of the rationality of action (“practical reason”).4 Regarding the relationship between the theoretical and the practical question one might initially consider applying the uncontroversial, complementary variant. Hardly anyone will have difficulty in recognising that besides the theoretical ques1

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The German notion “Sonderstellung” (English: special status or exceptional position) must not be confused with “Einzigartigkeit“ (“uniqueness”). The term Sonderstellung distinguishes the human being as an example of a species that possesses a special status in relation to other species – but also other species may be endowed with a special status. Uniqueness (similar to “individuality”), on the other hand, refers to one member of the species Homo sapiens in relation to other members of the same species. See in particular: M. Scheler, Die Stellung des Menschen im Kosmos (The Status of Man in the Cosmos); A. Gehlen, Der Mensch (Mankind); H. Plessner, Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch (The Stages of Organic Development and Mankind). Compare, for example: H.-R. Duncker, “The Biological Fundaments of Human Cultural Developments”. In principle, the following contemplations pursue the practical approach, like the one developed by W. Kamlah in his Philosophischen Anthropologie (Philosophical Anthropogy), however, they attempt to define more precisely the linguistic fundaments and ethical conclusions.

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tion one can also pose the practical question. The thesis put forward in this essay, however, is not so uncontroversial. In the following it shall be shown that: a. the practical takes methodological precedence over the theoretical question; b. the theoretical question is thus methodologically dependent on the practical, whereas the reverse does not apply; c. it is even conceivable that the answer to the practical question is positive (affirming the special status), whereas, in contrast, the answer to the theoretical question is negative (negating the special status), without this giving rise, from the point of view of practical philosophy, to problems of consistency. On the basis of this thesis, the relationship of dependency between practical philosophy and the scientific research on human beings is one-sided. It could even come about that the practical question remains unaffected by the biological discussion, apart from illustrative effects.

1 The self-experience of the agent and the unsubversibility of the first-person perspective It belongs to the elements of the action experience of the acting being that the authorego of the action cannot be reduced to the acting being in the sense of a description of an action without semantic loss. The perspective of the 1st person (“the executive ego” of an action) must not be confused with the perspective of the 3rd person (“the reporting ego” of an action). The confusion of the executive ego, as the subject, with the reporting ego as the object of a report constitutes an error in which the executive and the reporting perspectives are confused with one another. Anyone, for example, who executes a promise but behaves as though he has reported about a promise is performing a kind of contradictory execution (contradictio exercita). For the necessity to distinguish between the executive ego and the reporting ego, an argumentation based on a form of retorsion5 can be formulated. A being that in the execution of actions perceives itself as the actions themselves cannot set itself up purely as the object of reporting. Assuming that it reports about someone, then it must necessarily presuppose itself as the author-ego of the action of reporting (albeit not necessarily as the author of the reported action). Anyone who having once principally perceived himself as the author of an action, though he may see himself in relation to each and every event of an action as the mere object of the report, he may not uphold this view for every event of an action as such. The author of an action cannot repudiate his own original role. Thus the classification of possible objects of a report can be divided completely and disjunctively into two sub-classifications, namely those whereby it may be taken that they are merely the objects of a report, and those whereby it can be presupposed on penalty of contradictory execution that they are not. In this classification lies the basis of experience for the distinction in popular philosophy between subject and object. If the “I” of the primary act experience cannot be completely reduced to the “he” of the act description, then the attributive self-ascriptions of the acting being 5

Compare: C.F. Gethmann, Article. ‘Retorsion’.

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are not to be regarded as special cases of third-person descriptions either. By means of ascriptions, the acting being ascribes to himself attributes of self-experience, with descriptions the author reports on moments of third-person experience, which in borderline cases can also be those of third-person self-experience.6 One difficulty in rendering the distinction plausible through language lies in the fact that grammatically the surface structure of ascriptions and descriptions are often indistinguishable. The ascription “I am in pain”, being structured the same way, can be misconstrued as, “He is in pain”. The respective deep structure of the two utterances, however, signifies quite a different status. This can be recognized, for example, by the fact that the utterance, “I am in pain” can be revised by the acting being himself but cannot be falsified by another acting being. The ability to be falsified is at all events no criterion for the sense of ascriptions. In contrast to this, the utterance “He is in pain” can be treated in regard to behavioural pain indicators according to criteria applicable to the ability to be falsified. The example shows that between ascriptions and descriptions there is no simple, translation relationship (for example, of the kind: “I am in pain” is true if “He is in pain” is true and he = I).7 The ascriptions that the agent forms on the basis of self-experience gained in connection with his actions cannot be reduced to the agent in the sense of descriptions of his actions without semantic losses. For a theory of subjectivity (personality) it is already from the beginning decisive that the ego in the perspective of the first person is not confused with the subject of a report in the third person. The attributive self-descriptions of the agent are not to be interpreted as special cases of foreign ascriptions: but rather on the contrary it is to be assumed that the category of world description has its origin in self-experience. The differentiation put forward here between ascriptions and descriptions has nothing to do with the problem of introspection. Here it should be noted that besides the self-ascriptions (which usually remain implicit) there are also reports of the type self-reports, which because of the emphatic use of “I” are easily confused with self-ascriptions. This shows that the self-experience of the acting being in the sense of act presuppositions must be strictly distinguished from so-called “selfobservation”, i.e., self-reports in the sense of act propositions. This differentiation shows that the use of the term “reflection” in what follows from the self-awareness theory of John Locke is characterised by a fatal ambiguity. It is suggested that the individuality experienced by the agent in his actions (he ascribes his actions to himself as their very originator) should be differentiated from the “exemplariness” according to which every human being can interpret every other human being as an example of a species. 6

7

The differentiation between ascriptions and descriptions is made with a certain reference to the English law philosopher, H.L.A. Hart, “The Ascription of Responsibility and Rights”. Hart confines his research on ascriptions to moral self-ascriptions like,“I am responsible.”; but in principle it is also possible to regard self-ascriptions that are not “morally” relevant in this sense. Hart, however, does not differentiate clearly between executive and report perspectives so for his critics the necessity to make a differentiation remained in doubt. Thus the argumentation is close to the results of H.-N. Castañedas’ philosophical language research into the meaning of ‘I’ and ‘he’, above all for example, in: “‘He’. A Study in the Logic of Self-consciousness”.

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The questions in applied philosophy that deal with the relationship between man and nature are currently often posed in the form of a question regarding the right “... centrism”.8 For a number of philosophers, (alleged) “Anthropocentrism” is a position that has played a major role in determining contemporary philosophy, science and technology and which is responsible for the exploitation of nature by man. In contrast to this, the position of Pathocentrism is propounded, the primary advantage of which exists in the fact that, besides the human being, animals capable of experiencing pain or suffering are also recognized as moral subjects. For many authors, this conception is also too narrow and they demand “Ecocentrism”, which includes all living beings in their entirety, including their respective habitats, in the practical reflection. The criticism levelled against Anthropocentrism has gained particular emphasis through the criticism raised by Peter Singers against “Speciecism” as the core error of Anthropocentrism.9 Speciecism, according to Singer, is the conception that man is entitled to a special normative status solely by virtue of the fact that he belongs to the species homo sapiens. This self-authorization is compared by Singer with racism or sexism within the species, so that Anthropocentrism falls under suspicion of being the ideological justification of man’s position of power in respect to his environment. The dispute over the right “...centrism“ is obviously founded upon differing views as to who is at the “centre” of a life sphere and how this “central” position is to be understood. The fact that it is impossible to substitute completely the executive perspective by the reporting perspective can indeed be well illustrated by the optical metaphor of centre and periphery. Just as he who sees is always at the centre of the optical periphery, even when, in borderline cases, he is moving at the periphery of his field of perception, the I-author of the (speech) act always positions himself as the centre of his world. This centrality is an operative Apriori, that always begins to function when an action is taken. Since it is a matter of the central position of the acting being, “Pragmacentrism” is always suggested for this as the corresponding proposition of the structure. “Pragmacentrism” is thus the short form for an a priori structure proposition. This short form completely leaves open the questions as to which living beings, evidencing the structure of this operative centrality, are rightfully subsumed within a zoological classification. Only when the operative centrality is correlated with the empirical theory that precisely the species homo sapiens evidences this structure will pragmacentrism become “anthropocentrism”. Empirical premises may be true or false. Whether the empirical premise leading from pragmacentrism to anthropocentrism is true is currently subject to considerable doubt. In this respect there exist problems of surplus and deficit, i.e., on the one hand, it is discussed whether or not non-human living beings have the structure of centrality (other reasoning beings, beings capable of feeling pain or suffering), on the other hand, it is under discussion as to whether certain human beings should not or cannot be regarded as qualifying for operative centrality (embryos, foetuses, newborn babies, comatose persons or those suffering from advanced dementia, among others). With regard to this discussion, taking the position of anthropocentrism also means taking over a considerable empirical and/or normative burden of proof. 8 9

Compare this in more detail with: C.F. Gethmann “Pragmazentrimus” (Pragmacentrism). P. Singer, Practical Ethics.

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Both “pragmacentrism” as well as “anthropocentrism” are concerned with structure propositions, whereby Anthropocentrism contains, at the same time, an empirical subsumption with regard to which the structure propositions are to hold valid. Normative problems in the narrow sense are thus far not referred to. If, however, the theory is supported that those examples of the species homo sapiens to which centrality is attributed in the framework of Anthropocentrism shall have special rights, then one can speak of (human-) speciecism. Thus speciecism as opposed to pragmacentrism contains both an empirical and a normative premise.10 This normative premise can be specialised further, for example along the lines that those examples of the species homo sapiens determined by specie-centrism have the right to “exploit” all other living beings for the purpose of their own survival (or formulations of that kind). This position could be labelled as “Humanegoism”. In the sense of a clear differentiation of positions it shall be emphasised that one can be a pragmacentrist without being an anthropocentrist, then one leaves it open, whether, for example, angles, chimpanzees or other beings possess the characteristic of centrality. One can, for example, also be an anthropocentrist without being a speciecist, in that although one regards human beings as precisely those acting beings possessing centrality one does not, however, make essential reference to the zoological category of the species. Then, one holds the conviction that precisely the human being, by coincidence, meets the qualifying criteria of the structure of centrality, but not for the reason because he is to be allocated to a particular species. And finally, one can be a speciecist without being a human-egoist, for example, in that one is of the opinion that although the human being is entitled to a “special status”, this is specifically derived, however, from altruism, the capacity for modesty, the capacity for circumspect concern towards the environment and so on. If one accepts the validity of the differentiations put forward, then one realises immediately that the historical claim of P. Singer, according to which the modern philosophy of subjectivity is claimed to be “speciecistic”, is too strong, and that it even reflects features of a certain deviousness. In fact, however, the historical reconstruction shows that the core of the modern philosophy of subjectivity is pragmacentristic, that in regard to anthropocentrism, certain casual approaches are observable, but that under no circumstances can one speak of human-egoism.11 The human natural sciences fundamentally presuppose man as the object of research, i.e. as seen from the reporting perspective. From this it is already clear that although they are able to make valid descriptive statements about human 10 11

Regarding the problem of specieism, compare: C.F. Gethmann, “Praktische Subjektivität und Spezies” (Practical Subjectivity and Species). Singer’s historical, philosophical theory, according to which classical universalism is per definition speciecistically based, is, however, untenable. Thus Kant’s proposition on the extension of “all” is emphatically not related to “human beings” but rather to “reasonable beings” (compare in particular: Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, WW IV 446f; Die Metaphysik der Sitten, WW VI 223). Kant is, of course, not to be understood as speculating about reasonable beings that are not human, such as purely mental beings. It is far more a matter of the methodological question as to the “binding grounds” that can lie neither in the “nature of man” nor in the “circumstances in the world”. Kant (in the terminology of this paper) starts out from the centrality of the acting being, but does nor confine in any way the scope of possible acting beings to examples of the species homo sapiens.

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nature, they are not able to give a full, descriptive explanation of the human being. Without doubt, the natural sciences on human beings, are cognitively successful. In many and interesting cases, they are also operatively successful (e.g. in some therapeutic areas); in a large number of cases similar success may be expected. Man is an object of the natural sciences just like every other substrate of the universe. Therefore, the question is not whether man may be the object of the natural sciences but rather whether this is the sum total of his role. The answer to this question, for principle, methodological reasons, before taking into account any normative considerations, must be in the negative, because it is, of course, man himself that conducts the natural sciences. As long as the sciences, including the human natural sciences, exist at all, man exists as the subject – namely in his active role as executor of the sciences. Man cannot deny his own existence or repudiate himself as the subject and acting being, most especially not by way of conducting the sciences. The differentiation between the perspectives of the first and third person is reflected in the question whether actions are to be regarded as primary means to achieve ends (action theoretical “finalism”) or as the effects of causes (action theoretical “causalism”). This question is often discussed as a theoretical alternative. Initially, however, one should start from the presupposition of a description pluralism. That actions may be described as the effects of causes and that such descriptions also serve well established ends should not be disputed. In this framework it may be conceded without further ado that methodologically there can be scientific research on human beings that methodically leads these to sound findings and that these findings also serve interesting ends. Besides that it is undisputable that in the sphere of law, let’s say, it must be possible to presuppose that the agent is the originator of his own actions in the sense of attempts to realise ends. The same thing applies to contexts of forming moral judgement or in context of up-bringing. Regardless of the plurality of these basic positions in action theory, the question may be raised as to which interpretation of actions should be given methodological primacy. This question is to be answered in the sense of a methodical primacy of the finalistic interpretation of action. To justify this it may be pointed out that even the most inveterate causalist does not interpret the formation of his theory as driven solely by causes. More important, however, is the consideration that especially the pluralism of the interpretation of actions in action theory leads to the question as to which terminological context is to be chosen to which end. One could argue, for example, that the cause-effect way of seeing things recommends itself when disruptions of an expected course of action are to be explained. Whoever questions the ends of a terminology, however, gives precedence to the ends-means interpretation. This means that the agent is quite right to understand his actions, from the methodological point of view, primarily as the attempt to realise ends, whatever descriptive reports he receives (e.g. from the viewpoint of natural science). This consideration leads to the result that the means of knowledge and the aims of knowledge gained in scientific research on human beings only ever occur within the framework of a causalistic interpretation of action and thus the self-experience of the agent, for several reasons does not hit the point. For methodological reasons the attributes of the human agent discovered by research in natural science cannot fully include the self-ascriptions of the agent as the originator of actions.

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2 Human being and person If a being is ascribed the role of a “person”, then this being is interpreted as being the bearer of moral entitlements and legal rights. Entitlements and rights are assigned with obligations and duties, even if one does not have to presuppose symmetry (like Kant does). Thus there can be bearers of entitlements who are not in a position to assume obligations. In the framework of such an asymmetry theory it is perfectly acceptable to speak of the “rights of future generations” or “animal rights”.12 On the basis of our reflections so far, it is clear that the assignment of entitlements and obligations respectively has a principally ascriptive and not a descriptive status for the undertaking or not undertaking of action. The question of person status in the prescriptive sense therefore, for methodological reasons, cannot be a topic for the scientific research on human beings. Whether the human being really is a “secondary nest escaper” (A. Portmann) or whether he possesses special microbiological entities in the form of “Memes” (R. Dawkins) is therefore immaterial in respect of the question of moral and legal maintenance of the law. The other way round, however, there could be no natural sciences of human beings if the aware human being were not in a position to set himself aims in the pursuit of knowledge and to choose the means (that he considers to be) adequate to reach these ends. The human being, as an agent, has a special status in practice irrespective of the question whether such a special status is “discovered” by scientific research on human beings or not. The problem of “pragmacentrism” as a structure problem has so far been clearly distinguished from the normative question as to who is recognized as having entitlements and obligations. Every acting being must come to terms with the possibility that the aims he sets may conflict with those that in their realisation do not coincide (not only: not simultaneously) with his own. If the aim set by the acting being, holding for himself priority before all other aims, is characterised by being inaccessible in the third person ascription, and if this “privilege”, however, also applies equally to the other acting beings involved, incompatible aims will ultimately collide so that there is no “natural” privilege ranking for the setting of aims. The acting beings find themselves in a situation of “conflict”. Conflicts form the basic life-world experience through which the invention of moral convictions and ultimately their criticism in the framework of ethics is to be explained. Conflicts among parties of principally equal rank can only be overcome by the relinquishing (at least) of one purpose, the modification (at least) of one purpose or by a trade-off of the consequences of a course of action (quartum non datur). An elementary sub-division of such means of resolving conflicts can be made by distinguishing between the non-discursive (i.e. those that are settled by more or less manifest forms of force) and the discursive (i.e. those that pursue a path step-by-step through reasoning and counter-reasoning).13 12 13

Regarding the consequences for the moral and legal status of animals, compare: C.F. Gethmann, “Tierschutz als Staatsziel”. By the reference to “discursivity” the points are in no way already set in the direction of “discourse ethics”; Discursivity in the meaning of Aristoteles and Kant rather signifies the dynamic form according to which a finite being must work out its convictions, namely by pursuing stepby-step a process of argumentation – while a infinite being acquires its convictions “in one fell swoop” (by intuition). Cf. C.F. Gethmann / Th. Sander, “Rechtfertigungsdiskurse”.

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Discourses concerning the resolving of conflicts shall be called “moral” discourses.14 The aim of the “undertaking” of ethics, as a philosophical discipline, consists in making a critical contribution to the discursive solution of conflicts. This aim is valid to the same degree for the important paradigms of ethics, the ethics of virtue (Aristoteles), the ethics of obligation (Kant), and the ethics of usefulness (Bentham). If the question is raised with regard to moral competence, then the question is more accurately expressed by who shall be recognized by the acting being as being competent to take part on an equal level in moral discourses. In ethics, the standard answer to this question is that “everyone” must be recognized as having this competence. This proposition of ethical universalism is, however, extensionally in no way clearly determined. Differentiations with regard to the way of viewing possible acting beings, thus, for example, that of Kant between human beings and reasoning beings, draw attention to the necessity to determine a logical, clear use of “all” in moral contexts. Were one now to argue that “all” signifies precisely examples of the species homo sapiens, one would indeed have fallen into the trap of speciecism. Thus the methodological problem remains, namely, to formulate a proposition for the extension of “all” without speciecistic argumentation and without the metaphysical presupposition of a realm of “reasonable beings”. Initially, it appears to be simple to reject both ethical particularism, viz. the awarding of moral privileges on the basis of belonging to a species, faith, nation, race, class, gender- and also a fortiori ethical solipsism. Ethical particularism potentially always produces conflict when the thus morally privileged groups begin to interact with one another. If one refuses to recognize the moral competence of someone who acts in a conflict-oriented manner, the conflict is not resolved but rather aggravated and made more acute. Consequently, it will be useful to relate the extension of moral competence to “all” those that are capable of producing conflicts and thus at least to all those who understand how to confront others with their own desired ends, claims, interests, viz. modes of making demands. With this intentional aim it may be possible to facilitate the extensional, but fundamentally the question remains, however, how to decide which beings one wishes to recognize as having the capacity to produce conflicts. Should, therefore, universalism be right in the sense that particularism (and more especially solipsism) should be regarded as disfunctional positions, the question still remains to whom we should attribute moral competence with good reason and according to what rules the process of awarding this attribute should be accomplished. Every acting being, in setting an aim, presupposes that he himself is competent to participate in moral discourses, since, given that he is serious in pursuing his ends, he will ascribe to himself the capacity to stand up for them in moral discourses – irrespective of the fact that he may possibly prefer to assert his aims by non-discursive means. By experiencing himself as the acting being, the acting being presupposes an ability: in that being sure that he has a scheme of action at his disposal, he is sure that he is able to carry out the act (transform the scheme into reality) without having to actually perform the act for the purpose of verifying the abil14

This definition of morality is neutral towards certain moral convictions, e.g.. egoistic or altruistic. Technically it is inept to define only certain moral convictions (e.g. as is common practice in the English language area: the altruistic) as “moral”. One disadvantage of this, among others, lies in the fact that by labelling altruistic actions as moral, it becomes true analytically.

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ity.15 Here it is not a matter of a metaphysical relationship between act and potency, but rather of elementary presuppositions in the self-experience of the acting being, namely to be in possession of a scheme of action that under certain surrounding conditions can be implemented at any time. It is a matter of pragmatic competence in relation to pragmatic performance. In this, the performance, although it is in the reporting perspective, the reality out of which the competence is characterised in the executive perspective is not the criterion that evidences the existence of the competence. In the borderline case there is always competence that is performatively not put into practice. In the context of moral discourses it is always a matter of the ability to plan the realisation of aims and to proceed by actions along the path towards their realisation. Anyone who sets aims may experience that these can come into conflict with others and with aims set by others, i.e. that they are not simultaneously realisable. According to the aforesaid, knowing how to incite action also does not mean actually carrying out such incitements. Also in the case of incitement it is necessary to differentiate between the scheme of action and its realisation, between competence and performance. Whoever is cognizant of the means of incitement can provoke conflicts and, at least in an elementary manner, participate in discourses on how to overcome them, he possesses moral competence. The predicates that semantically characterise the moral competence of the acting being are to be understood as self-ascriptions. The originator of the action perceives himself in the executive perspective as the practical subject. This presupposes that he, being qualified to be recognized as morally competent in moral discourses on the setting of aims, makes a demand that he implicitly directs at himself and others, addressing it, namely, to everyone that he himself recognizes as morally competent. Anyone who, in the social context, performs an act sees himself confronted with the aims set by others who claim the recognition of moral competence. “Moral Competence“ is, in the first instance, an ascriptive predicate, which also applies to possible definers like “selfconscious”, “capable of remembering”, “capable of suffering”, etc. For this reason, it is methodologically impermissible to formulate the question regarding an acting being in terms of the criterion whether or not he possesses those attributes on the basis of which he would qualify in the reporting perspective to be awarded moral competence. A question of this nature is an instance of the error of confusing the executive with the reporting perspective. This does not preclude that understanding can be reached descriptively regarding the capacities of living beings and that there are contexts in which such an understanding is sensible. This also applies to understandings concerning “ability”, if one asks, for example, “Is he finally able to speak English?”. The “ability” of the moral competence is, however, an ability of self-interpretation, through which uno et eodem actu a self-claim is raised. This, as already repeatedly underlined, cannot be translated into the reporting perspective without semantic loss. With this thesis, however, the question is still not answered whether all human beings are persons (deficit question) or whether all persons are human beings (surplus question). Especially in connection with the current heated discussion which 15

The term “Scheme of Action” is derived from W. Kamlah / P. Lorenzen, Logische Propädeutik, 58. Vgl. ebd. 100ff. The relationship between Schemes of Action and the Ability to Actualise is established in W. Kamlah, Philosophische Anthropologie, 66f.

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has again arisen on the question as to whether the human being in its prenatal phase of development is entitled to the status of a person, the simple identification of a human being as a person is called into question. In any case, the acceptance of awarding the human being the status of an agent experienced as an originator of actions while still in the early stages of embryonic development might well be burdened with considerable difficulties. On the other hand, of course, one should not simply fall back on the simple thesis that such an experience on the part of the embryo does not manifest itself. An over-interpreted manifestation principle, in this connection, would lead to insurmountable difficulties in respect of sleeping, unconscious, traumatised or demented persons. The various problems in defining the limits currently under discussion in applied philosophy make it seem appropriate to follow those differentiations that are laid down in the German civil law book, namely that initially it is to be presupposed that the status of a person exists in the phase between birth and death. This thesis has a provocative effect on many because the presupposed concept of the inalienable status of a person (“Unveräußerlichkeit”) is confused with the concept of the unconditional (“Unbedingheit”). Indeed, it is a fact that the status of a person is inalienable, in this sense Kant says that personal dignity can have no price.16 From this, however, it does not follow that the status of a person should be ascribed unconditionally in the sense that there can be no gradation. In respect of the current discussion attention must be drawn, above all, to two aspects: a. Even if one does not award person status to human life before birth and possibly does not recognise the human being as a person after death, this does not mean that the human being in this phase of life has no claim to protection and can be treated without moral respect. One can argue against the misuse of embryos, for example, without awarding them the status of a person. b. Even when there are good reasons to award person status to human beings, this does not rule out the gradation of entitlements and obligations. It is to be noted that the civil law makes the awarding of the rights and duties of human beings dependent upon reaching certain age levels without, so far, anyone ever having felt this as a contradiction to the claim to person status. Similarly this applies to the withdrawal of rights and obligations in the case of guardianship or care relationships. One can obviously recognize the inalienability of the person status without having to relinquish the possibility to establish graded levels of entitlements and duties.

References Castañeda H-N (1966) ‘He’. A Study in the Logic of Self-consciousness. Ratio 8: 130–157 Dawkins R (1967) The Selfish Gene, Oxford Duncker H-R (2002) The Biological Fundaments of Human Cultural Developments and Their Unique Functional Integration. In: Grunwald A, Gutmann M, Neumann-Held EM (eds) On Human Nature. Anthropological, Biological and Philosophical Foundations, Berlin, among others, 53–72 Gehlen A (1962) Der Mensch. Seine Natur und seine Stellung in der Welt. Berlin 1940, Frankfurt a.M., Bonn7 1962 Gethmann CF (1995) Art. ‘Retorsion’. In: Mittelstrass J (ed) Enzyklopädie Philosophie und Wissenschaftstheorie, vol. 3, Stuttgart, 597–601 16

Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, WW IV, 434.

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Gethmann CF (1998) Praktische Subjektivität und Spezies. In: W. Hogrebe (ed) Subjektivität. Paderborn, 125–145 Gethmann CF (2002) Pragmazentrismus. In: Eusterschulte A, Ingensiep AW (eds) Philosophie der natürlichen Mitwelt. Grundlagen – Probleme – Perspektiven. Würzburg, 59–66 Gethmann CF (2001) Tierschutz als Staatsziel – Ethische Probleme. In: Thiele F (ed) Tierschutz als Staatsziel? Naturwissenschaftliche, rechtliche und ethische Aspekte. Bad NeuenahrAhrweiler, 50–76 Gethmann CF, Sander T (1999) Rechtfertigungsdiskurse. In: Grunwald A, Saupe S (eds) Ethik in der Technikgestaltung. Praktische Relevanz und Legitimation, Berlin et al.,117–151 Hart HLA (1948/49) The Ascription of Responsibility and Rights. In: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 49, 171–194 Kamlah W (1973) Philosophische Anthropologie. Sprachliche Grundlegung und Ethik, Mannheim u.a. Kamlah W, Lorenzen P (?1973) Logische Propädeutik. Vorschule des vernünftigen Redens. Mannheim u.a. Kant I (1968) Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten. In: Kants Werke (Akademie), Band IV, Berlin, 385–464 Kant I (1968) Die Metaphysik der Sitten. In: Kants Werke (Akademie), Band VI, Berlin, 203–494 Plessner H (1928 31975) Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch. Berlin Portmann A (1951) Biologische Fragmente zu einer Lehre vom Menschen. Basel Scheler M (1928 81975) Die Stellung des Menschen im Kosmos. Darmstadt, München Singer P (1993) Practical Ethics. 2nd Edition, Cambridge

The “Uniqueness” of the Human Being in Constitutional Law

Ralf Müller-Terpitz 1 Introduction From a juridical point of view, it is difficult and somehow misleading to speak of a “uniqueness” or “special status” (“Sonderstellung”) of humankind in our constitutional order. Constitutional law – like law in general – does not know any other subject, any other protagonist than the human being himself. Contrary to a termite state, the coexistence of individuals in a human community is not rigidly and entirely controlled by instincts. Accordingly, inherited behavioural dispositions must be supplemented by artificial rules of conduct. This explains why rules of custom, convention, religion, and last but not least, of law arose in the course of cultural development (Zippelius 1997: 13). Hence, law is a genuine human phenomenon. It consists of a binding and, in principal, enforceable code of conduct which has been established by humans for humans and which is continuously renewed. This applies in particular to the constitutional order which virtually contains a “contrat social” stipulating the basic principles on which a human society is founded and uniting this society to a state community. The Herrenchiemsee-draft of 1948, a draft convention to the German Basic Law (Grundgesetz – GG), unmistakably expressed this function in its first article: “The state exists for the sake of the human being and not the human being for the sake of the state”. In the present context, this statement, which of course has to be understood as a counter-reaction to the barbarous regime of National Socialism, gains an additional meaning by underlining the distinct anthropocentric starting point of our constitutional understanding. The existence of the human being, his fundamental need for protection and – as the American Declaration of Independence of 1776 expresses it – “Pursuit of Happiness” is the essential legitimation for every constitutional order. Therefore, constitutional law does not only attribute a special but the “central” status to humans. The analysis of the human genome or the BSE-crisis might have reminded him of what he successfully tried to forget: his biological proximity to animals. However, for the constitutional interpretation this perception is without any importance. Nevertheless, it is convenient to scrutinize the constitution on statements related to the legal status of our fellow-creatures (“Mitgeschöpfe”), i. e. especially animals. Their status, and not the status of humans, has to be the key issue of the following discussion. For that purpose, it is necessary to analyse what protection constitutional law grants our environment and how far the predominance of man, especially with regard to his basic rights, can hereby be subject to restrictions (2). Beyond this “classical tension” between humankind and nature, the present analysis has to be

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extended to a further issue: More than ever, the latest discoveries in bioscience raise the question from which moment on the human being steps into the above mentioned “central status”, i. e. when pursuant to constitutional law human life originates and to which extent such life is constitutionally protected. Furthermore, future developments could threaten the uniqueness, the singularity of man himself. Techniques like reproductive cloning or germ cell therapy do not question the singularity of the species Homo sapiens but of human individuals. It will be interesting to learn what possible answers the German constitution provides for these relatively new ethical and legal problems (3).

2 The legal status of our fellow-creatures in constitutional law 2.1 Historical perspective In the beginning, constitutional law did not consider the needs of our fellow-creatures at all. The process of establishing the German Basic Law was entirely dominated by the material and moral collapse of the German nation. Not without reasons, the fathers and mothers of the Basic Law put a catalog of basic rights at the top of the constitution opening with the triad “dignity” (art. 1 par. 1 GG), “liberty” (art. 2 par. 1 GG) and “equality” (art. 3 GG). The following basic rights – such as freedom of religion, speech, profession and property – are nothing but specifications of these fundamental principles. It goes without saying that these basic rights have been conceived only for humans and not for other creatures (Stern 1988: 1056–1057). Hence, man was initially the only living being to be noticed by constitutional law. According to the bibletext “I put you above fish, birds and all other animals ...” (I Mose/Genesis 1.28) the human being was measure and focus of all state regulation. Juridical basis for this superiority is art. 1 par. 1 GG, the leitmotiv of the German constitutional order, that declares human dignity as inviolable. Aspects like environmental or animal protection were only taken into5 consideration if they coincided with human interests. Art. 2 par. 2 GG e. g., the basic right guaranteeing life and physical integrity of man, obliges the state to safeguard just the ecological minimum of human existence, i. e. the air to breathe and the water to drink. Like all the other fundamental rights stipulated by the German constitution, it consequently contains an evident anthropocentric alignment. 2.2 Line of development to a “purged” anthropocentrism a) The constitutional development did not stop at this point. Due to the alarming environmental destruction by humankind, the protection of flora and fauna soon moved into the focus of social and thereby legal interest. The strict anthropocentric character of the constitution provoked an “ecological counter-reaction” claiming protection of the environment not only for the benefits of humankind but for its intrinsic values. The most far reaching demand was to grant nature and its creatures

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individual rights which should be exercised by pressure groups on a trust basis. Legal capacity – so the argumentation – is not a characteristic solely attributed to humans, like the construct of juristic persons (e. g. joint stock or limited liability companies) illustrates (Weber 1993). However, this comparison does not convince because the legal construction of a juristic person has been designed according to human necessities. In contrast, it once more underlines that the legal system – including the constitutional order – is in every respect defined by man and organized along his requirements. Nature and its creatures are not able to communicate with the human being and to articulate their genuine interests. Consequently, environmental rights have to be formulated by man which could or would never conceive such rights without taking his own vital interests into account. Hence, with regard to the environment the most important meaning of individual rights, to guarantee life, physical integrity, freedom and non-discrimination of its subjects, could not be realized (Epiney 20001; Heinz 1990: 421–442). Accordingly, the stipulation of rights for nature and non-human creatures does not necessarily lead to a more intensive legal protection. On the contrary, such protection can also be achieved by an objective environmental protection clause, especially if it is supplemented by the possibility of popular action. The German constitution – like other foreign constitutional orders – has taken this way. It started in the seventies on the Länder-level. After several unsuccessful efforts, the Federal Republic followed in 1994 with a clause that has been introduced into the Basic Law as art. 20a and that has been amended by an animal protection clause only recently2. In its present version, the provision runs as follows: “The state, also in its responsibility for future generations, protects the natural foundations of life and the animals in the framework of the constitutional order, by legislation and, according to law and justice, by executive and judiciary.” The term “natural foundations of life” does not only include the main environmental media like air, water and soil but also plants, animals and microorganisms in their natural living space (Murswiek 20033) whereas the newly added animal protection clause primarily refers to individual animals, i. e. farm animals and other animals living in captivity (s. infra 2.3). b) The question whether art. 20a GG is prevailed by an anthropocentric or an ecocentric understanding was purposely left open during the constitutional consultations. For an anthropocentric perspective, some legal experts refer to the expression “future generations” whereas for an ecocentric approach others claim that not only the “human” but the “natural foundations of life” in general (emphasis by the author) have to be protected. Ultimately, this question can be left unanswered. One could also imagine that both perspectives have found favour in this provision. From a juridical point of view, this controversy is of purely academic interest. Due to the fact that our knowledge about ecological mechanisms is rather poor, the environment should be extensively protected even if its utility for human purposes might not always be directly comprehensible. That is why art. 20a GG is increasingly interpreted as an expression of a “purged” anthropocentrism understanding the interests of humankind and safeguarding its natural foundations in a broad sense. 1 2 3

art. 20a, no. 26–27. s. Federal Law Gazette, 2002, Part I: 2862. art. 20a, no. 30.

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Finally, this “purged” conception is not really distinguishable from an ecocentric point of view (Epiney 20004; Murswiek 20035). In addition, the protection of the natural foundations of life can only be realized “within the framework of the constitutional order”6. Hence, environmental protection becomes a constitutional objective that has to be weighed up with other conflicting constitutional values. Even though environmental protection is in principal not inferior to such other values, it cannot prevail with regard to the most important individual rights such as dignity, physical integrity and protection of human life. To give an extreme but illuminating example: One of the last living snow leopards is just about to kill a child. No doubt: We would – and from a constitutional point of view would have to – shoot the snow leopard. But not only such extreme situations reveal the dominating status of the human being in our constitutional order. In the daily conflict between economic and ecological objectives environmental concerns often have to step back behind human economic interests. To exemplify this with the help of par. 19a et seq. of the Federal Environmental Protection Act (Bundesnaturschutzgesetz7) that contain EEC-based provisions regarding the establishment of a coherent ecological network under the title “Natura 2000”: An investment project which is realized within the boundaries of a “Natura 2000”-protection area must be subjected to an assessment of its environmental implications. In the light of the conclusions of this assessment, the project has to be prohibited if it might have adverse effects on the ecological area. Nevertheless, the project may be admitted if imperative reasons of overriding public interest, including those of a social or economic nature, speak in favour of its execution, even if the project affects a so-called “priority natural habitat type” or a “priority species”. In this case, the competent national authority only has to ask for a statement by the EEC-Commission. How this protection mechanism works out in practice could be observed with regard to a big investment project in Germany not long ago: The “Mühlenberger Loch”, a singular wild life and bird protection area near Hamburg, may be partly filled up to give space for additional buildings of the Daimler Chrysler Aerospace Company. The list of such examples could be easily extended. Still, the case is suitable to illustrate that our treatment of the environment and its creatures can to a great extent be legally “proceduralised” and “rationalized”, but ultimately not withdrawn from human grip where material human interests, including those of social and economic nature, are in question. 2.3 The protection of animals in constitutional law As previously indicated, the initial version of art. 20a GG solely covered the conservation of wildlife species but not the protection of individual animals, i. e. of farm animals and other animals living in captivity (Caspar/Geissen 2002: 914; Obergfell 2002: 2297). At first, their protection was intentionally excluded from this provision. 4 5 6 7

art. 20a, no. 28–29. art. 20a, no. 26. s. art. 20a GG. Federal Law Gazette, 1998, Part I: 823.

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Later on, efforts to establish a protection clause for individual animals on the federal constitutional level repeatedly failed (for references s. Obergfell 2001: 193). Once again, some of the Länder – such as Rhineland-Palatinate and North-Rhine-Westphalia – took the lead and amended their constitutional orders with an animal protection clause. However, it has to be stressed that such constitutional provisions on Länder-level do not really improve the legal status of animals because they depend to a great extent on legislative specification. Yet, the legislative jurisdiction for animal welfare is attributed to the Federal Republic8 and not to the Länder. In consequence, the animal protection clauses of the Länder are nothing but sweet-sounding “constitutional poetry”. The Federal Republic finally followed the Länders’ example with a respective constitutional amendment of art. 20a GG in July 2002 (s. supra 2.2). It is well known that the housing of farm animals and scientific animal experiments represent the most urging problems of animal protection. In Germany, these subjects are regulated on the statutory level by the Federal Animal Protection Act (“Tierschutzgesetz” – TSchG9). Par. 1 TSchG – which contains the leitmotif of this act – declares: “Based on the responsibility of the human being for the animal as a fellow-creature it is the aim of this Act to protect its life and welfare”. With regard to this declaration, the Federal Constitutional Court regularily speaks of “ethically motivated animal protection”10. Some authors deduce from par. 1 TSchG that the Act protects animals because of their intrinsic values and thus follows a pathocentric and not an anthropocentric approach (Caspar 1999: 288–291; same for art. 20a GG in its amended version Caspar/Geissen 2002: 913). Yet, as the Animal Protection Act in principal presumes the availability of animals for humans and only provides regulations for the modalities of housing, killing and experiments, it is to be doubted whether this interpretation is accurate. On the contrary, it is more likely that also in this context the law pursues a “purged” anthropocentric perspective (Heinz 1990: 430–431). However, it is hard to determine what concrete juridical conclusions can be deducted from such considerations. Contrary to this dispute, the legal status of animal protection in the federal constitutional law has always been of great importance, though one has to emphasize that this question is not always of relevance: Basic rights, such as the freedom of profession and property11, which are only granted under proviso of legality, may of course be restrained for purposes of animal protection as far as such restrictions are proportional. Consequently, they have to pursue a legitimate purpose and must be appropriate, necessary and reasonable. In Germany, animal protection was always considered to be a legitimate purpose because art. 74 par. 1 no. 20 GG authorizes the Federal Republic to decide on according legislation and, as a consequence, federal legislation is expected. The freedom of profession and property can hence be restrained for purposes of animal protection if such restrictions concur with the above mentioned principles (Caspar/Geissen 2002: 917; Löwer 1999: 56–57). Thus the requirements for keeping animals as stipulated in par. 2 TSchG (appropriate nutrition, care and a

8 9 10 11

s. art. 74 par. 1 no. 20 GG. Federal Law Gazette, 1998, Part I: 1105. Entscheidungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichts (BVerfGE) (Federal Constitutional Court) 101, 1 – “Hennenhaltungsverordnung” (housing of hens in battery cages) (F.R.G.). art. 12 and 14 GG.

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suitable housing environment) are obviously compatible with our constitutional order. As far as the Federal Government is empowered by par. 2a TSchG to issue ordinances, it has broad scope to define appropriate housing conditions. Therefore, it would not have been necessary to urge the Federal Constitutional Court by way of action to abolish the ordinance for laying hens, which granted each hen the “remarkable” space of 450 square centimetres (= 2/3 of a conventional sheet of paper!). The Federal Government could have much earlier disposed the passage from a battery cage to the more suitable non-cage system. Generally speaking, the national constitutional law does not inhibit appropriate provisions for animal housing. More often, on the national level animal welfare legislation has to face political – and not legal – obstacles in a mainly market oriented and boundless European Union. However, the constitutional rank of animal protection is of eminent importance if it leads to a restriction of basic rights that are not restrained by a proviso of legality, such as the freedom of religion12 and the freedom of research13. Such restrictions are for example stipulated in par. 7 et seq. TSchG with respect to scientific animal experiments. Basic rights like art. 5 par. 3 GG, guaranteed without proviso of legality, can only be restrained by other colliding constitutional values. Therefore, animal protection (and the corresponding provisions in the Animal Protection Act) can only be a justified restriction to the freedom of research if itself possesses constitutional value. Until the just recent amendment of art. 20a GG, the Basic Law did not contain an explicit animal protection clause. Hence, the constitutional rank of animal protection was controversially discussed, denied by the Federal Administrative Court and parts of the legal literature whereas others tried to motivate it with reference to human dignity14, custom law15 or the federal jurisdiction granted by art. 74 par. 1 no. 20 GG (cf. Löwer 1999: 59–61, Obergfell 2002: 2297, both with further references). All these arguments had to face material objections that – due to reasons of space and further legal relevance – need not to be discussed here. The amended Art. 20a GG now unequivocally sets clear that animal protection is an objective of constitutional value and hence may legitimate proportional restrictions even of unconditionally granted basic rights. Still, the question remains unanswered why despite these dogmatic uncertainties it took several attempts to ultimately clarify the legal situation on the federal constitutional level. To answer this question one has to know that in the past the demand for constitutional clarification had been repeatedly rejected by different interest groups, inter alia by research organizations fearing a more severe justification for scientific animal experiments. Momentarily, a researcher who wants to carry out such experimentation has – among other conditions – to “scientifically motivate” its imperative necessity for a specific scientific purpose and its ethical adequacy with regard to the suffering probably caused to the experimental animals (s. par. 7 sec. 2 and 3, par. 8 sec. 3 no. 1 TSchG). Thus the Animal Protection Act grants the researcher a so-called “assessment prerogative”16 which means that the licensing 12 13 14 15 16

art. 4 GG. art. 5 par. 3 GG. art. 1 par. 1 GG. cf. art. 2 par. 1 GG. s. Federal Constitutional Court. Chamber of the first Senate, June 20, 1994 – 1 BvL 12/94 – NVwZ 1994: 894.

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authority or, in case of action, a court can only check the assessment’s plausibility but do not have the power to substitute the researcher’s scientific and plausible assessment with their own one. However, research organizations fear that under an explicit constitutional protection clause this allocation of competence could be changed in favour of the executive and judiciary allowing them to decide according to their “individual preferences”. From a constitutional point of view, theses fears seem not necessarily to be justified. It is more likely that the “assessment prerogative” of the researcher is guaranteed by art. 5 par. 3 GG. The freedom of research would be unproportionally restrained if a third person (official or judge) could finally rule on the imperative necessity and ethical adequacy of a scientific project (this interpretation has of course not been unchallenged; especially since the amendment of art. 20a GG authors like Caspar/Geissen 2002: 915 or Obergfell 2002: 2298 propagate the opinion that the “assessment prerogative” can no longer be attributed to the researcher but must now definitely be exercised by the licensing authority and the judges; just recently, the administrative court of Giessen17 has adopted a similar point of view). Furthermore, it has to be reminded that the animal protection clause is only granted within the “framework of the constitutional order” (s. supra 2.2). Therefore, experiments that are necessary to promote human health or protect human life, could neither be restricted nor forbidden. Here again, the predominance of the human being in our constitutional order becomes evident. To give an example: Chimpanzees, which from a biological point of view are very close to humans, can be infected with polio to test the efficiency of an anti-polio vaccine, as long as alternative and secure testing methods are not available even though the infection will necessarily cause the death of some of the animals. Besides, an overall prohibition of research with primates, like New Zealand issued not long ago (s. Joachim Müller-Jung 1999), could probably not be justified under German constitutional law. Nevertheless, it has to be admitted that through the introduction of an explicit animal protection clause on the federal constitutional level the freedom of research will get under further pressure in future.

3 The special status of the human individual in constitutional law However, the present subject – the “uniqueness”, the “special status” of the human being in constitutional law – should not be restricted to the relationship humankind – environment but also take into consideration the constitutional status of the human individual himself. His uniqueness is increasingly questioned by modern bioscientific developments and techniques: The possibility of eugenic selection at the beginning of life prevents the individual from becoming a member of the human species and thus from receiving constitutional protection. This selection is – for example – made possible by the controversially discussed technique of Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) that allows screening of embryos in vitro for specific genetic defects and – in case of a positive diagnosis – its rejection (for further medical details s. Caesar 1999: 17

s. Judgment of 13 August 2003, application no. 10 E 1409/03.

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26–42; Kollek 2000: 27–74). But also embryonic stem cell research or therapeutic cloning in “Dolly”-manner that could possibly open the door to consuming embryo research and use in a near future (Rendtorff et al. 2000) regards a similar issue. All these techniques raise the question to which extent unborn life is constitutionally protected and thereby beneficiary of the above mentioned (s. supra 1) “central” status attributed to man by our constitutional order (3.1). Furthermore, the new bio-technical possibilities do not only concern unborn but born human life as well. Its uniqueness and naturalness is questioned by techniques such as reproductive cloning or germ cell therapy. Even though these techniques pursue different aims they nevertheless have in common that the genetic disposition of a human being is partly or even entirely formed according to the blueprint or the conception of a third person. They too have to be scrutinized for constitutional restrictions (3.2). Before entering into further details, it is important to answer some general misunderstandings: The following statements refer to a social, ethical and juridical debate which – at least in Germany – has not yet been finished and which – due to reasons of complexity and space – can only be touched on briefly. Furthermore, they express legal reflections. It is necessary to emphasize this because in the present discussion ethical judgements are not always clearly distinguished from juridical deductions. Thus the constitutional interpretation is often burdened with the ethical standards of the respective beholder. However, the constitution does not contain an imperative guidance for all questions being discussed controversially in the present context. Assertions that the Basic Law compellingly prohibits this or demands that have therefore to be handled with caution. In many issues of the biomedical discussion, society and politicians themselves will have to articulate finally what they deem to be permissible or not permissible in future. 3.1 The protection of unborn life in constitutional law When does the protection of life start according to German constitutional law? To which extent is the constitutional protection irreversible? Criterion for these questions is art. 2 par. 2 GG – “Everyone has the right to life ... ” on the one hand (a) and art. 1 par. 1 GG – “Human dignity is inviolable” – on the other (b). a) From an historical perspective, it cannot be entirely decided whether the constitutional guarantee of life (art. 2 par. 2 GG) also refers to unborn forms of human existence. The Parliamentary Council, a constitutional assembly that drafted the Basic Law, discussed this question without result (Iliadou 1999: 135). Also the Federal Constitutional Court has not yet expressed a final opinion on this subject. Although the court acknowledges a constitutional protection for unborn life beginning “at least” at the moment of implantation (i. e. 14 days post conception)18, it was not forced to decide on the previous period until now. According to the dominating opinion in juridical literature, constitutionally protected human life in the sense of art. 2 par. 2 GG already starts with the conjunction 18

BVerfGE 39, 1 (37) “Schwangerschaftsabbruch I” (termination of pregnancy I) (F.R.G.); BVerfGE 88, 203 (251–252) “Schwangerschaftsabbruch II” (termination of pregnancy II) (F.R.G.).

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– in vitro or in vivo – of egg and sperm. It is based on the argumentation that from this moment on the genetic identity, the uniqueness and individuality of the germinating life is determined and develops in a process of growing and unfolding not to but as a human being (Iliadou 1999: 113 with further references; Isensee 2001: 252–253). Of course, this opinion has not remained unchallenged: Other concepts refer to the moment of implantation (Coester-Waltjen 1984: 235; Hofmann 1986: 258–259; Taupitz 2001: 3438), to the beginning of cerebral functions (Hofmann 1990: 119; Sass 1989: 167–174), to the moment of perception (Koppernock 1997: 114–116) or – like Norbert Hoerster again recently – to the moment of birth arguing that only born human beings are able to develop a “will to survive” (Hoerster 1995: 69 et seq., 2001). However, apart from material constitutional and philosophical objections against such an interpretation, Hoerster has not yet furnished the biological evidence for his thesis (s. Spaemann 2001). Anyway, the ability to determine a clear caesura between the existence and non-existence of human life speaks in favour of the dominating opinion (Schulze-Fielitz 200419). Its constitutional understanding fully corresponds with the life guarantee’s ratio legis: In 1949 art. 2 par. 2 GG was inserted in the Basic Law especially as reaction to the inhuman destruction of so-called “unworthy” life (i. e. mentally ill persons) under the regime of National Socialism. Generally speaking, the constitutional guarantee of life insofar stipulates a “prohibition of differentiation” between different stages of human development or consciousness and different forms of human existence. Nothing but the affiliation to the biological species homo sapiens shall therefore be sufficient to activate the application of the fundamental life guarantee. As biologists teach us, “species-specific” (“artspezifisches”) human life does not start at the moment of birth or implantation but already with conception (Höfling 2001a: 374–375; Iliadou 1999: 139–145 with further references; for the biological background s. Bodden-Heidrich et al. 1998: 15 et seq.). However, art. 2 par. 2 GG is guaranteed but under proviso of legality20. From a constitutional perspective, restrictions of life – i. e. its killing – are therefore principally not excluded. In consequence, some legal experts deem it admissible to legally distinguish between different stages of human life, e. g. between life existing just after fertilization and life after successful implantation (Caesar 1999: 53; Dreier 2002: 378–381; Schulze-Fielitz 200421). The pressure to justify restrictions shall grow according to the development of the germinating life. At first glance, this interpretation of the constitutional life guarantee seems to correspond with the statutory regulation of the German abortion law: Pursuant to par. 218 sec. 1 of the Penal Code (“Strafgesetzbuch” – StGB)22, it is generally legal to prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg23. Furthermore, abortion is not punishable until the 19 20 21 22 23

art. 2 par. 2, no. 29. s. art. 2 par. 2 sentence 3: “Intrusion on these rights may only be made pursuant to a statute.” art. 2 par. 2, no. 67. Federal Law Gazette, 1998, Part I: 3322. Contrary to this provision, par. 8 of the Embryo Protection Act (“Embryonenschutzgesetz” [ESchG] – Federal Law Gazette, 1990, Part I: 2746) rules that embryos in vitro are legally protected from the moment of conjugation. This different treatment of unborn life in vitro and in vivo on the statutory level has always been a starting point for material criticism (cf. Renzikowski, 2001: 2757 with further references).

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end of the twelfth week if the pregnant woman has previously attended a pregnancy consultation or has been sexually abused24. After the twelfth week, abortion is only legal if it aims at averting danger from either the life or the physical and psychological integrity of the pregnant woman25. Nevertheless, this statutory conception should not lead to the misunderstanding that in the end constitutional protection of unborn life depends on its respective stage of development. Obviously, such an interpretation would contradict the above described ratio legis of art. 2 par. 2 GG as “prohibition of differentiation”. Therefore, the stage of development cannot be a relevant criterion for the intensity of constitutional protection26. Hence, restrictions of life based on the proviso of legality can only be justified if they do not refer to biological characteristics of the human being and aim at protecting another constitutional value of highest rank. The State may for example require its citizens to serve in the Armed Forces during a state of defense or kill a kidnapper with a socalled “final rescue shot” as far as he represents a serious threat to the hostage’s life which cannot be suppressed other than liquidating the aggressor. The fact that the legislator has ruled different statutory provisions with regard to unborn and born life only reflects his effort to fulfil the constitutional obligation of life protection against infringements by third persons (e. g. the pregnant woman, the physician who carries out the abortion or the researcher who is interested in embryo research), an obligation that the Federal Constitutional Court has derived from the guarantee of life in the abortion cases27, by different and – with regard to the respective circumstances – adequate means. One can certainly argue about the question whether the statutory measures taken grant unborn life efficient protection. With regard to more than 130,000 abortions per year it certainly has to be denied. But this lack of efficiency on the statutory level does not in principal release the state from its constitutional obligation to protect unborn life even from the moment of conception. b) Before drawing any conclusions from this statement, it is necessary to look at another issue first: Not only the right to life but also the guarantee of human dignity plays an important part in the German discussion about modern biomedical techniques. Pursuant to art. 1 par. 1 GG, human dignity is inviolable which means that it can under no circumstances be subject to any state restrictions. Hence, each intrusion on human dignity is considered to be unconstitutional. Moreover, the state authorities are not only obliged to respect human dignity but also have the duty to protect it against interference from private persons, such as researchers, physicians or parents28. Recognizing the fact that human dignity is burdened with a philosophical history of more than 2000 years, it is not a tangible juridical topos at all. Only in the following cases is a violation of human dignity generally consented to: torture, arbitrary discrimination and humiliating treatment. Furthermore, art. 1 par. 1 GG entitles to 24 25 26 27 28

par. 218a sec. 1 and 3 StGB. par. 218a sec. 2 StGB. BVerfGE 88, 203 (251–252) “Schwangerschaftsabbruch II” (termination of pregnancy II) (F.R.G.). BVerfGE 39, 1 (41) “Schwangerschaftsabbruch I” (termination of pregnancy I) (F.R.G.); BVerfGE 88, 203 (251) “Schwangerschaftsabbruch II” (termination of pregnancy II) (F.R.G.). cf. art. 1 par. 1 sentence 2 GG: “To respect and protect it is the duty of all state authority.”

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the minimum of material existence. Obviously, the above described biomedical techniques do not touch these topics. But also the “theory of performance” (“Leistungstheorie”) by Niklas Luhmann (1965: 68 et seq.), considering human dignity as something that has to be gained in a successful process of self-finding, as well as the “theory of communication” (“Kommunikationstheorie”) by Hasso Hofmann (1993: 364), understanding human dignity as a social acknowledgement through a positive assessment of social claims for respect, do not prove a violation of human dignity in the present cases; both interpretations refer to a born subject. However, human dignity is generally not interpreted in a positive but in a negative way by focussing on the process of intrusion: Pursuant to the so-called “object formula” (“Objektformel”), developed by Günter Dürig (1956: 127) and adopted by the jurisdiction of the Federal Constitutional Court29, human dignity prohibits humiliating a human being “to an object, to a means, to a fungible matter”. It is obvious that this paraphrase refers to the second categorical imperative of Immanuel Kant (1974: BA 67) demanding that “humankind, in the person of oneself as well as in the person of each other, shall at any time be used as a purpose but never solely as a means”. Hence, the principle of human dignity prohibits the use of another human being solely as a means to an end, i. e. to put his whole existence in the egoistic interests of a third person (Neumann 1998: 161). This understanding of human dignity as “prohibition of instrumentalisation” is not necessarily limited to born human life. Consequently, the Federal Constitutional Court repeatedly ruled that every form of human existence – born or unborn – is entitled to the constitutional protection granted by art. 1 par. 1 GG30. Here again, this protection starts with the biological creation of human life, i. e. with conception (Iliadou 1999: 119–132 with further references). The procreation of embryos for consuming embryo research seems to be a paradigm of this “object formula”: The whole existence of an embryo is put exclusively in the service of foreign interests – embryonic stem cell research and, possibly later on, tissue engineering. However, it is far more difficult to answer this question for the PGD because here a genetically damaged embryo is not really used for foreign purposes but solely rejected. Thus the answer remains ambivalent if in all biomedical cases one can really speak of a violation of human dignity as guaranteed under constitutional law. Furthermore, a legal opinion demanding a clear and systematic distinction between the guarantee of human dignity and the guarantee of life is becoming more and more popular (Hofmann 1993: 376; Dreier 200431; Iliadou 1999: 117–133; Neumann 1998: 158). According to this opinion, the protection of life should principally fall within the scope of art. 2 par. 2 GG, whereas art. 1 par. 1 GG is considered primarily to be a basic principle generally serving as guidance for governmental action. Besides, art. 1 par. 1 GG shall be applied subsidiarily if no other special basic rights, such as art. 2 par. 2 GG, are concerned or the infringement of life represents at the same time an instrumentalisation in the described manner. This opinion cannot be finally assessed here. Nevertheless, the above mentioned statements 29 30 31

BVerfGE 30, 1 (25–26) “Abhörurteil” (wiretapping judgement) (F.R.G.). BVerfGE 39, 1 (41) “Schwangerschaftsabbruch I” (termination of pregnancy I) (F.R.G.); BVerfGE 88, 203 (252) “Schwangerschaftsabbruch II” (termination of pregnancy II) (F.R.G.). art. 1 par. 1, no. 70.

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once again underline that it is not at all certain whether the constitutional principle of human dignity is always applicable with regard to modern biomedical challenges. Hence, it is necessary to carefully analyse the respective and concrete circumstances. c) What do all these conclusions mean for the biomedical technique of PGD, embryo research and therapeutic cloning? According to a strong legal opinion in Germany, PGD constitutes an infringement of par. 1 sec. 1 no. 2 and par. 2 sec. 1 ESchG (s. Faßbender 2001: 2747–2748; Renzikowski 2001: 2754–2757). From a constitutional point of view, PGD could nevertheless be admitted at least for such couples who bear the disposition of a grave genetic illness with the consequence that their children will probably have no or only a very small chance of survival. In such extreme – but also rare – cases it would not be compatible with the mother’s human dignity to “instrumentalize” her for the transfer of an embryo that with near certainty will have no or only a very short vital perspective. As the guarantee of human dignity is generally considered to be the highest value in our constitutional order the embryo’s right to life has to step back under such circumstances. In cases of less grave illnesses or in cases when PGD only serves as a means for eugenic selection with regard to the embryo’s sex or other certain physical dispositions (if at sometime possible), its right to life and its right to human dignity prevail. Of course, the line between grave and less grave genetic illnesses will not always be easy to draw. However, such difficulties cannot serve as a justification for an overall prohibition of PGD. The procreation of embryos for embryonic (stem cell) research or therapeutic cloning, which are equally forbidden under the Embryo Protection Act32, must lead to the constitutional assessment that both techniques are not compatible with the embryo’s right to life and human dignity. The freedom of research and the right to physical integrity of future generations do not entitle to the utilization of constitutional values like human life and dignity (Dreier 2002: 377). What is non-controversial for born human beings must also be valid for unborn human life which from a constitutional point of view is of equal value. The argument that such forms of research are carried out in other (European) countries and one day could lead to the development of therapeutic applications cannot be considered as justification to annul mandatory constitutional standards. With regard to embryonic stem cell research, the statutory discretion is thus constitutionally limited. As a consequence, the legislator may force scientist to primarily concentrate on adult stem cell research, even if this research should on the long run be less promising. In addition, research may be carried out with imported embryonic stem cells, as just recently made possible by the Federal Stem Cell Act33 (cf. Taupitz 2002). Last but not least, the legislator could possibly allow the use of so-called “surplus human embryos” for research purposes which are dedicated to destruction anyway, as suggested by the German Research Foundation not long ago (s. Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft 2001). However, it is yet an unanswered and disputed question whether such a form of “embryo consumption” is compatible with the German constitutional order (pro: Kloepfer 2002: 421; Müller-Terpitz 2001: 283; contra: Höfling 2001b: 44–45). 32 33

s. par. 2 and par. 6 ESchG. Federal Law Gazette, 2002, Part I: 2277.

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3.2 The uniqueness of born life in constitutional law In addition, the individual’s uniqueness can also be questioned if it is created according to the model or conception of a third person. Especially the technique of reproductive cloning leads to a nearly identical copy of a “human original”. But also germ cell therapy can be used, at least fragmentarily, to manipulate the genetic disposition of a future descendent. Both techniques therefore raise the question to what extent the Basic Law grants a “right to genetic accident”. a) Reproductive cloning shall be the starting point of the following considerations. Supposing this technique would be available for the safe reproduction of humankind: Does art. 1 par. 1 GG oblige to an overall prohibition of this technique? At present, the dominating legal opinion in Germany is inclined to affirm this question: The uniqueness of man, his unique individuality – so the argumentation –, would belong to the essential elements of the constitutionally guaranteed human dignity (Benda 1985: 1733; Isensee 2001: 253–254). The clone would be solely put into the egoistic interests of the “original”, would be solely used as a means for foreign purposes (Neumann 1998: 160). Polemically speaking, this would be the case if the German Football Association cloned the players of the successful world champion team of 1974 to bring German football back to international standard. However, it has to be doubted whether such abstract allegations are suitable to stand the demands of a much more complex reality. Not long ago (2001), the social physician Ulrich Müller, for example, pointed at the fate of 40 to 50 young men every year, who are castrated as a result of a car accident or cancer and who can no longer have children with their partners. And what about a couple, in their early forties, no longer able to have children, that loses their only and young child in a car crash? As an artificial technique of reproduction, cloning could help such couples to fulfill their wish for a “child”. Are these “children” really procreated only because of a specific genetic disposition or not rather because of the “reproductive emergency” of the respective “parents”, and thus without intention of instrumentalisation? This difficult question cannot be answered here. Nevertheless, one has to warn of precipitately and definitely closing the chapter “reproductive cloning” with reference to art. 1 par. 1 GG. From a social, ethical and constitutional perspective, the last word has not yet been spoken. Moreover, it has to be emphasized: the legislator can also regulate this question without taking reference to human dignity. The as yet unsolved technical risks of reproductive cloning, the personality protection of the artificially created human being from psycho-social damages that may occur because it has to grow up with the consciousness of being a copy of somebody else, the diffuse family relationships – these all are reasons legitimating an overall prohibition of reproductive cloning as momentarily stipulated in par. 6 ESchG. However, later generations may assess this issue differently. b) The present analysis shall close with a constitutional assessment of the germ cell therapy. Here again, some authors demand an imperative prohibition with reference to the principle of human dignity. The singularity of the human, his individuality and uniqueness should be constitutionally guaranteed by protecting the inherited genetic information. An “intentional improvement”, so the reasoning, would neglect human nature as the basis of man’s dignity (Flämig 1985: 57). How-

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ever, with Georg H. Fey and Carl Friedrich Gethmann (2001) one has to object that it also belongs to the nature of a human being to shape his destiny by himself as far as his knowledge and power render it possible. Accordingly, the opinion that restrictions pursuing a therapeutic aim cannot be considered as a violation of human dignity is becoming more and more popular among legal experts (Bickel 1996: 175; Isensee 2001: 262). Indeed, it is not comprehensible why therapeutic restrictions with the objective of avoiding certain monogenetic illnesses (e. g. haemophilia) should be considered as such a violation. On the contrary, with regard to the state’s obligation to protect its citizens the legislator must as well consider the claim of future generations for physical integrity and health. However, it would violate human dignity to manipulatively attribute specific genetic dispositions, such as good looks, intelligence or sportiveness, to a future human being, only because these dispositions are at a certain moment in time appreciated by the respective dominating opinion in a society. Such forms of “human designing” are solely driven by the interests of the “designer”. Anyway, such dreams – or rather nightmares – of “designer babies” should not be dramatized. Obviously, the genetic mechanisms are far too complex to make such visions come true in a near future. Therefore, “slippery slope”-arguments have as well to be considered with mistrust. From a legal perspective, such an argumentation is skating on thin ice anyway. In the long run, it will not be able to prevent reasonable forms of therapy. Momentarily, a legal prohibition of the germ cell therapy, as stipulated in par. 5 ESchG, can be justified by the fact that this technique has not yet been developed sufficiently. However, from a constitutional point of view, prohibition will become fragile if this circumstance falls away.

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