The Human Nature and Free Will

The term “human nature” is vague and very broad, giving many philosophers the opportunity to try and apply a meaning to it. Throughout history, theories have ranged from having complete free will as a gift from God to having no human nature at all. Two particular theories that I’d like to analyze are Sigmund Freud’s psychological view and Aristotle’s ethical view. Although both Freud and Aristotle believe that the mind plays a key role in human nature, they differ in that one believes that there is no complete rationality while the other believes that rationality is our natural function.

Sigmund Freud, one of the most well known psychologists to this day, was known as the “Father of Psychoanalysis”. The main focus of psychoanalysis was the human personality that is hidden away in the unconscious mind. The most commonly known analogy for this is the “tip of the iceberg” analogy. Freud believed that the human mind resembled an iceberg because the portion of the iceberg that could be seen represented the conscious mind whereas the unknown portion of the iceberg represented the unconscious mind that causes us to act the way we do.

According to Freud, a person’s personality depended on the conscious mind, the preconscious mind and the unconscious mind, as well as the three components of personality: the id, the ego and the superego. The id is considered to hold the basic human instincts and is present as soon as one is born. It belongs in the unconscious mind and works off of pleasure. Freud believed that most instincts were derived from two innate sources: the “Eros” (the life instinct) and the “Thanatos” (the death instinct). “Eros” consists of the urge to love, be creative, and sexuality (libido). “Thanatos” is the urge to use ...

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...ts. In animals, they grow and reproduce, and it can be seen whether or not an animal is happy or sad based on body language.

As an objection to these claims, one may say that a flaw of Aristotle’s theory is that while he believes that everything is done with good reasoning behind it, it cannot be said that all events are good. Clearly, rationality goes out the window if someone is under the influence of alcohol or drugs, so if while inebriated a person were to do something morally wrong, say, rape a woman, how can one justify that it was good? Also,

(Counter argument)

Overall, I feel as though Freud’s theory of an unconscious mind is the superior view on human nature. I say this because although many critics have made claims about the validity of the theory, it doesn’t change the fact that this was a breakthrough that paved the way for future psychological works.