It’s a philosophy community!

Haha thanks ☺️

No point to it, just my random thoughts!

I agree that’s how biologists define human. Can human also be defined by criteria of other disciplines? Or is it an exclusively biological concept?

How do people typically define human?

What if an imaginary person lived in a state of nature, in isolation from other humans? Would they simply cease to be human, if they had no experience of tension or conflict with other humans? I recall a comment to this effect by Hannah Arendt.

I hadn’t heard of the series ‘Madmen’ previously (I’m not in US and didn’t even own a TV during the years it aired); but have just read a bit about it and seems a fascinating study of 1960s America, maybe I’ll check it out.

Does the title of the series also reference Ancient Greece? (“For instance, I remember someone asking Sophocles, the poet, whether he was still capable of enjoying a woman. ‘Don’t talk in that way,’ he answered; ‘I am only too glad to be free of all that; it is like escaping from bondage to a raging madman.” - Plato)

I also don’t like the word “duty”. It is associated in my mind with cold and repressive Stoic, religious, patriarchal and manipulative power dynamics. Could some kind of voluntary and chosen ‘obligations’ be admitted, rather than ‘duties’?

I think I understand what you’re suggesting, but I think your comment about duty needs to be qualified: What I think is bad is non-voluntary duty, not duty in-itself. Duties/obligations can provide many benefits and are necessary for any system of law to function, but they must be accepted and entered into by a voluntary choice. Like the idea of a social contract. For example, the choice to have children incurs a duty to care for them until they reach adulthood; whereas, being born isn’t a voluntary choice of the child, so the child doesn’t have any duty or obligation towards their parents unless they choose to accept one.