Humans have a unique capacity for self-insight. Yet we frequently fail to make use of it. My dog can't introspect, observe her own behavior, or understand complex feedback such as "when you pee on the bed, it makes me very sad" so it's not surprising she isn't aware of her unique qualities and flaws. But what's our excuse?
This week, I posted an essay on our species' unique capacity for self-knowledge in the forum at On The Human. In this essay, I try to walk a fine line, arguing that humans have both surprising ability and surprising limitations when it comes to self-knowledge. In academics it's often popular to take an extreme view, so this view is a difficult position to maintain. People often want to put me in one camp or the other - people are stupid and lack self-insight, or people clearly know themselves. But I try to resist these extremes and admit that sometimes we really are our own best expert, and other times we are the last ones to know about ourselves.
This essay got me thinking about how our capacity for self-insight sets us apart from other animals. There's an old question in
philosophy - would it be better to be Socrates and be dissatisfied, or be a pig and be satisfied? I'm not sure. Like
Mark Leary, I agree that self-awareness can sometimes be a curse. There are definitely days when I
envy my dog's obliviousness. But at the same time, I recognize that lack of self-awareness poses a serious restriction on non-human animals' ability to grow and improve. Those rare times when people learn a deep and important truth about themselves, and make appropriate changes in their lives as a result, may just make all the pains of self-awareness worth it. Then again, my dog seems pretty happy...
