Within the context of shame and vulnerability, humanity is awareness of your own limitations as a human being, in addition to awareness of your human needs, wants and desires.
In a broader context, it includes all things human nature, the human condition, and the virtue of humanity.
In a broader context, it includes all things human nature, the human condition, and the virtue of humanity.
Human nature refers to the distinguishing characteristics, including ways of thinking, feeling and acting, that humans tend to have naturally, independently of the influence of culture. The questions of what these characteristics are, what causes them, and how fixed human nature is, are amongst the oldest and most important questions in western philosophy. These questions have particularly important implications in ethics, politics, and theology. This is partly because human nature can be regarded as both a source of norms of conduct or ways of life, as well as presenting obstacles or constraints on living a good life.
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_nature
The human condition encompasses the unique features of being human.
It can be described as the unalterable part of humanity that is inherent and innate to human beings and not dependent on factors such as gender, race, culture, or class. It includes concerns such as the meaning of life, the search for gratification, the sense of curiosity, the inevitability of isolation, and the awareness of the inescapability of death.
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_condition
The virtue, humanity, is a set of strengths focused on “tending and befriending others.” The three strengths associated with humanity are love, kindness, and social intelligence. Humanity differs from justice in that there is a level of altruism towards individuals included in humanity more so than the fairness found in justice. That is, humanity, and the acts of love, altruism, and social intelligence are typically person to person strengths while fairness is generally expanded to all. Humanity is one of six virtues, as defined by the Character Strengths and Virtues Handbook, that are consistent across all cultures.
--- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanity_(virtue)