Nature (Lat. natura) designates, within the philosophical tradition, the essence of a being — that which makes it what it is. The constitutive nature of the human person is its rational nature: by its very essence it is endowed with reason (Bexten 2017, pp. 184 ff., 223 ff.) (German).
Various Meanings of “Nature”
The dissertation distinguishes several meanings of the word “nature” (Bexten 2017, pp. 223 ff.) (German):
- Constitutive nature: The essence of a being, its essential form
- Nature as totality: “Nature” in the sense of the physical world
- Nature as opposed to culture: The natural as opposed to the made
For personal ontology, the first meaning is decisive.
Nature and Person
Boethius defines the Person as naturae rationalis individua substantia: the person is an individual Substance of rational nature. Nature determines what a being is; the person is the who that possesses this nature. Thomas Aquinas deepens this: the person is “the most perfect in the whole of nature” (perfectissimum in tota natura).
Nature, Form, and Act
The constitutive nature stands in close connection with form and matter as well as act and potency. The rational soul is the essential form of the human being; it determines his nature as a spiritual being in the body. The principle agere sequitur esse states: from the rational nature follows the capacity for rational person-behavior.
Nature and Person-Behavior
Nature contains the faculties (potencies) that are actualized in person-behavior: reason, freedom, self-consciousness, intentionality. Yet nature is more than its actual realization: an embryo has a rational nature, even when it does not yet actually exercise reason.
Counter-Position
The empirical-functionalist concept of person recognizes no constitutive nature: it determines the person solely by actually present capacities. John Locke and Peter Singer detach the person from any fixed nature and make it the result of contingent properties.
Constitutive Nature
The constitutive nature (natura) is that inner principle of a being which determines its essence and thereby fixes what it is according to its kind. Thomas Aquinas understands natura as principium operationis: nature is the origin of activity proper to a kind. The constitutive nature thus determines not only what a being is, but also what it strives toward of itself and what it is capable of doing (cf. Bexten 2017, pp. 128–135) (German).
As a form of Nature in the general sense, the constitutive nature is distinct from merely accidental determinations. It stands in close connection with form as the essence-determining principle of Substance. For the Person, the constitutive nature is the rational nature (natura rationalis). Because the human person is essentially endowed with reason, it possesses the disposition for knowing, willing, and loving.
Human nature as constitutive nature grounds the unity of body and spirit and is the ontological ground of the Dignity of every human person.
Ontological relations:
- is a form of: Nature
- has form: Rational Nature
Human Nature
Human nature is rational nature in bodily realization (cf. Bexten 2017, ch. 4.6.6) (German). It is always determined as male or female — as man or woman — and includes the ordering toward the Person of the other sex.
As a form of rational Nature, it is the inner principle that makes the human being what he essentially is. Spaemann, drawing on Boethius, puts it thus: “The being of persons is the having of a nature.” Human nature constitutes the human person as a person. It is not something the person has, but that whereby the person exists as this particular person. Every human person possesses exactly one human nature.
Ontological classification: Superordinate concept: Rational Nature, Nature, Form; chapter reference: ch. 4.6.6
Natural Foundations of Life
The natural foundations of life comprise the natural conditions — air, water, soil, climate, biodiversity — that are indispensable for bodily life and thus for the First Dimension of Personhood. As a material resource, they form the precondition for the Person as a body-soul unity to be able to exist at all.
The human person depends on the natural foundations of life and at the same time bears responsibility for their preservation. Ecological responsibility is grounded not primarily in an abstract notion of conservation, but in the insight that the destruction of the natural foundations of life endangers the conditions of existence of present and future persons. An ecosystem is a necessary condition for the First Dimension of personhood.
Ontological Classification
Superordinate concept: Material resource
Ontological relations:
- is a necessary condition for: First Dimension
- is subject to: Ecological Responsibility
Ecological Responsibility
Ecological responsibility is the duty of the person to preserve the natural foundations of life and to deal with them carefully (cf. Bexten 2017, pp. 322 ff.) (German).
This responsibility is grounded not primarily in a proper right of nature, but in the Dignity of present and future persons who depend on intact ecosystems as a precondition of a life worthy of human beings. As a spiritual being, the person does not simply stand within nature, but over against it in a relation of responsibility — as guardian, not as exploiter.
Ecological responsibility is closely linked with intergenerational justice. Whoever destroys the earth robs persons to come of their foundation of life. It serves the common good and belongs to the concrete demands of justice.
Ontological relations:
- is a form of: Responsibility
Ecosystem
A network of living and non-living entities in mutual dependence. A necessary condition for the bodily existence of the person.
Ontological relations:
- is a form of: Entity
- is a necessary condition for: First Dimension: Pre-Conscious Personhood
- (inverse) domain: is a necessary condition for
- (inverse) range: damages
Ecosystems as a Condition of Personhood
Ontological relation: Ecosystems are a necessary condition for the Dimensions of Personhood — in particular for the bodily existence of the Person in the First Dimension. Without intact natural foundations of life, the person cannot actualize its dimensions. From this the ontology derives ecological responsibility. This relation connects the philosophy of nature with personal ontology: because the body, as a form-matter composite, depends on material conditions, every damage to the ecosystem has, indirectly, personal relevance. The relation also grounds the duty toward future persons: the preservation of intact ecosystems is the precondition for future persons too being able to actualize their Dimensions.
- Domain: Ecosystem
- Range: Dimension of the Fundamental Form of Reality
Ecological Damage as Oblivion of the Person
Ontological relation: An entity damages an ecosystem. The damaging of natural foundations of life affects the Person indirectly, because natural foundations of life are a necessary condition for the bodily existence of the person (is-a-necessary-condition-for relation). Ecological damage is therefore always also a form of oblivion of the person — a forgetting of the dependence of bodily personhood on intact ecosystems.
Rational Nature
The rational nature (natura rationalis) is the specific form of the constitutive nature that grounds the personhood of the human being. Following the classical definition of Boethius — persona est naturae rationalis individua substantia — the dissertation determines the rational nature as that which constitutes the human being as a person (cf. Bexten 2017, pp. 88 ff.) (German).
The rational nature comprises the capacity for rational knowledge, free volitional act, and moral self-determination. What is decisive is this: the person possesses the rational nature not as an acquired property, but as an essential mark. Even where the capacity for reason cannot be actually exercised — for instance in the embryo, in coma, or in severe disability — the rational nature remains as a substantial determination.
Thomas Aquinas distinguishes clearly between the faculty (potentia) and its realization (actus). The absence of the act does not abolish the faculty.
Animal Welfare
Animal welfare is an obligation resulting from the intrinsic value of sentient animals. This obligation is weaker than the duty toward persons, but real — it cannot be reduced to mere considerations of utility, but is grounded in the intrinsic value of sentient living beings. The intra-animal distinction between higher and lower animals — drawn along the criterion of the central nervous system and of demonstrated sentience — gives this obligation its graduated form.
The personal-ontological classification is decisive here: animals are not persons. They lack the spiritual interiority, the self-reflection, the freedom, and the capacity for self-transcendence that constitute personhood. Nevertheless they are also not mere things or mechanisms. As sentient beings they possess an objective value that calls for an appropriate response. This response consists in respecting their welfare. That means: sparing them unnecessary suffering, respecting their natural needs, and shaping their living conditions so that they correspond to their nature.
The obligation to animal welfare follows not from an equation of animal and person — such an equation would be ontologically untenable. It follows from the general insight that every being possessing an intrinsic value deserves treatment appropriate to it. The responsibility of the person toward sentient animals is part of its more comprehensive ecological responsibility toward Nature as a whole.
At the same time it holds: the hierarchy of values remains intact. The rights of the person take precedence over animal welfare. It would be a perversion of the ordo amoris to place the welfare of animals above the dignity of the person. But this precedence does not release the person from its duty toward animals — it only orders that duty.
Ontological Classification
- Superordinate concepts: Obligation, Objective Value
Ontological relations:
- is a form of: Obligation
- is a form of: Objective Value
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology.
Further sources:
- Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae, I, q. 29 (on the person as an individual substance of rational nature)
- Boethius: Contra Eutychen et Nestorium, ch. 3 (on the definition of the person via rational nature)
- Spaemann, Robert: Persons: The Difference between ‘Someone’ and ‘Something’, transl. O’Donovan, Oxford University Press 2006 (on the connection between nature and personhood)
- Locke, John: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), Book II, ch. 27 (on the empiricist concept of person without a constitutive nature)
- Singer, Peter: Practical Ethics, Cambridge University Press 1993 (on the functionalist dissolution of nature as counter-position)
Ontological classification: Superordinate concept: Form; subordinate concept: Constitutive Nature