Whether the result of harsh developmental experiences or other causes, living with reduced sensitivity is costly. Occasionally, we might encounter a sensitive person bemoaning the difficulties which their heightened sensitivity seems to engender in their own life. Yet while greater sensitivity might occasionally bring pain and discomfort, it also facilitates a fuller experience of being alive. This is why despite such complaints, no healthy intelligent person would voluntarily reduce their perceptive and/or cognitive abilities.
People with circumstances resulting in them lacking such sensitivities, have, in fact, already been reduced in their human potential; they have failed to develop an important way of experiencing the world around them, one that is highly valued by all who possess it. The degree to which such a person is prepared to debase others corresponds to the degree to which they are themselves blocked from experiencing their full human potential.
Being unable to experience the constellation of pleasures and benefits derived from feeling connection to and concern for others is a tragic loss, albeit a loss probably not comprehensible to persons so effected. Their own insensitivity to their condition notwithstanding, it is very likely that the more effective a person is at harming others, the more deeply they themselves are damaged.
The traditional view which assumes that when people act harmfully toward others they are just giving in to their human nature is directly contradicted by the Naturalistic Model which maintains that to a healthy, fully developed human, behaving in ways that are socially desirable is intrinsic. When healthy people have received the requisite developmental support they will naturally be cooperative, caring, kind, and they will deeply desire to contribute. People who harm others are impaired.
The significance of these opposing views cannot be overstated. If the misanthropic perspective is correct then a system which threatens substantial hardship, or dangles the prospect of excessive rewards makes sense. While the threat of hardship or punishment isn’t always as effective as some would prefer – if people are naturally inclined towards selfish and even antisocial behavior then it’s an appropriate tool — perhaps the best tool society could hope for.
To a Naturalistic Humanist the challenge of assuring socially desirable behavior is all about nurturing everyone’s human potential. Instead of preferential access to resources being concentrated among an elite few – and instead of directing a large share of resources to our criminal justice system of punishment with its high economic costs, an approach informed by Naturalistic Humanism would invest in nurturing children and young adults to support the satisfaction of as many of their developmental needs as possible. All adults would also be entitled to at least the basics of a decent life, including housing, nutrition, physical and mental health care, and educational opportunities.
In the traditional misanthropic view there is no underlying healthy cooperative human that the right combination of developmental support could deliver. The only way to encourage socially productive behavior, and to discourage people from giving into their natural desire to plunder, rape, be violent and cause and other harm is through extrinsic coercion — the lure of limitless upward socioeconomic mobility and the threat of poverty and punishment.