{"id":724,"date":"2014-01-25T13:53:20","date_gmt":"2014-01-25T19:53:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/?p=724"},"modified":"2014-01-27T22:26:17","modified_gmt":"2014-01-28T04:26:17","slug":"the-difference-between-human-nature-and-beasts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/2014\/01\/25\/the-difference-between-human-nature-and-beasts\/","title":{"rendered":"The Difference between Human Nature and Beasts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;From the beginning nature has assigned to every type of creature the tendency to preserve itself, its life and body, and to reject anything that seems likely to harm them, seeking and procuring everything necessary for life, such as nourishment, shelter and so on.\u00a0 Common to all animals is the\u00a0impulse to unite for the purpose of procreation, and a certain care for those that are born.\u00a0 The <em><strong>great difference\u00a0between man and beast<\/strong><\/em>, however, is this: the latter adapts itself only in responding to the senses, and only to something\u00a0that is present and at hand, scarcely aware of the past or future.\u00a0 <em><strong>Man, however, is\u00a0a sharer in reason<\/strong><\/em>; this enables him to perceive consequences, to comprehend the\u00a0causes of things, their precursors and their antecedents, so to speak; to\u00a0compare similarities and to link and combine future with present events; and by seeing with ease the whole course of life to prepare whatever is necessary for living it.&#8221;\u00a0Cicero, <em>On Duties<\/em> I. 11. eds. and trans. M.T. Griffin and E.M. Atkins (Cambridge 1991), p.\u00a06. [Emphasis added]<\/p>\n<p>According to Cicero, how does reason differentiate human beings from\u00a0other animals?\u00a0 Humans share in reason that gives them the ability to\u00a0perceive, comprehend and\u00a0compare the\u00a0interrelated nature of past, present, and future events.\u00a0 Thereby,\u00a0reasonable human beings prepare for living.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;From the beginning nature has assigned to every type of creature the tendency to preserve itself, its life and body, and to reject anything that seems likely to harm them, seeking and procuring everything necessary for life, such as nourishment, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/2014\/01\/25\/the-difference-between-human-nature-and-beasts\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,63,62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cicero","category-nature","category-reason"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=724"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":737,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724\/revisions\/737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}