The fact that something is natural doesn't make it good. To say that something's natural is simply to say that it accords with the way we happen to be as a result of evolution.It depends what you mean by natural. I'm not sure that anyone has ever really explained what 'natural' means, but it certainly does not always mean what Buchanan says it means. Anscombe, as I recall, says that in Catholic thinking (or perhaps in Aquinas) 'natural' sometimes just means good or not wrong. But I think some people use it to mean a sort of cross between the positive (or Humean) conception Buchanan has in mind and the purely normative sense that Anscombe describes. There is a sense I find in people such as Leon Kass and Michael Sandel that the source of life, call it God-or-nature, is good. Jonathan Haidt describes people trying to justify moral reactions by imagining the harm that could come from this or that odd situation (incest where pregnancy is impossible, a man having sex with a frozen chicken, etc.). Basically, when we disapprove of something we will (often) claim that we do so because we foresee bad consequences. Pointing out that such consequences are highly unlikely shows not so much that we are wrong to disapprove but that we disapprove for some other reason.
In these cases we need to dig a bit, or just think more. Ronald Dworkin does this kind of reconstructive moral psychology in Life's Dominion (I think he does a good job, others disagree), as does Jonathan Haidt in his most recent work (not well in my opinion, but others no doubt differ). In Better Than Human Buchanan unhelpfully politicizes the issue of biological enhancement, mentioning George W. Bush as often as possible (so that conservative moral positions are associated with conservative political positions) and even bringing in Patrick Devlin (think nature is a seamless web? well you know who else talked about seamless webs...). The issue is already controversial enough without bringing in guilt by association. Other than this Buchanan's arguments are good (so far--I'm only halfway through the book), but he seems blind to the possibility that respect for nature and/or life might be a value. He points out that nature isn't always nice, even quoting the old "red in tooth and claw" line and committing what I think of as the Black Corridor fallacy, namely treating the amorality of something impersonal as if it were a kind of cruelty. Jonathan Balcombe combats this attitude with a chapter in Second Nature about the warm and fuzzy side of nature. But I think this is not enough.
How can one possibly live as if nature were an enemy to be struggled against? That seems so wrongheaded to me that even neutrality seems close to impossible. Something like Chesterton's primal loyalty, along with his hating the world enough to change it and loving it enough to want to change it, seems not only good but practically necessary to me. How can we live sanely without thinking of the natural world, or just the universe, as our home? And how can we (again: sanely) avoid warm feelings about home? Buchanan shows no loyalty to nature, happily suggesting that we re-engineer mice, for instance:
the post-mouse future will arrive considerably ahead of the post-human future, and that's a good thing. Let them be the risk-pioneers. (p. 94)The post-mouse future referred to is one in which mice have been so changed as to no longer be what we know as mice. How is this good? Buchanan writes in this passage as if it's good for us, because the risks involved will fall on the mice. To be fair to him, though, we should consider that he might also mean that it's good for the mice, because they will become post-mouse by being enhanced, not just changed but improved. This raises the question what constitutes improvement. A better mouse-trap does its job better, but mice don't have a job (unless they were built for a purpose by the Creator, in which case Buchanan is wrong). Better mice might be happier mice, but we ought not simply to assume that happiness is the only relevant value. Or we might think of mice in more or less Aristotelian terms, as having not so much a job but a function, or multiple functions. There are things mice do: see, hear, run, avoid cats, etc. If we make them better at some or all of these things then they will be better mice. Perhaps. But there's also the idea that mice are something like works of art. And then improving them no longer makes much sense as an idea, except in cases where sick or handicapped mice are made more like standard mice.
The cosmic patriot or jingo of the universe, as Chesterton puts it, would love mice just as they are, and would want no part in trying to enhance them. The very idea of improving mice would be like the idea of improving Hamlet (perhaps by adding a sex scene). The same, only more so, would go for human beings. You can't really think (can you?) both what a piece of work is man and we can make him better. Not without a dismissive "yeah, yeah, I get it" after the 'what a piece of work' part anyway. And it's resistance to the "yeah, yeah" attitude that I think Buchanan doesn't get. Otherwise, as I say, I think I agree with him. But I haven't finished the book yet, and I worry that there might be a kind of no true Scotsman problem lurking for someone who takes my position. For now, though, I must stop blogging and enhance my back garden by weeding it before it gets too hot.
"I'm not sure that anyone has ever really explained what 'natural' means."
ReplyDeleteAristotle has a rich explanation of "natural," beginning with Physics, II, 1: "nature is a principle or cause of being moved and of being at rest in that to which it belongs primarily, in virtue of itself and not accidentally." It is substances that have natures. As he argues in De Anima, the nature of a living thing is its "soul," and man's soul (or the highest part of it) is rational. Hence, for man, reason is the (most important) principle of change.
Aquinas holds much the same view, but he Christianizes it. Perhaps the best discussion of his view of human nature is in the part of the Summa on "natural law" (First Part of the Second Part, Questions 90-94).
"Anscombe, as I recall, says that in Catholic thinking (or perhaps in Aquinas) 'natural' sometimes just means good or not wrong."
Surely, this cannot be all Anscombe says. In Catholic thinking, there are reasons given for equating the natural and the good.
"Jonathan Haidt describes people trying to justify moral reactions by imagining the harm that could come from this or that odd situation (incest where pregnancy is impossible, a man having sex with a frozen chicken, etc.)."
I'm not familiar with Haidt, but this is too consequentialist (to use Anscombe's expression) to be in line with Catholic thinking on the matter.
The Aristotelian and Thomistic traditions may have it wrong, but it is irritating to read contemporary authors who write as if they never existed.
He points out that nature isn't always nice, even quoting the old "red in tooth and claw" line and committing what I think of as the Black Corridor fallacy, namely treating the amorality of something impersonal as if it were a kind of cruelty.
ReplyDeleteTreating the amorality of something impersonal, when it has unpleasant consequences, as if it were a kind of cruelty, is often nothing more than a reaction to others treating the amorality of something impersonal, when it has pleasant consequences, as if it were a kind of benevolence. There is the wonderful Wittgenstein passage, which you have quoted several times in your writings:
"Rules of life are dressed up in pictures. And these pictures can only serve to describe what we are supposed to do, but not to justify it. Because to be a justification they would have to hold good in other respects too. I can say: 'Thank these bees for their honey as though they were good people who have prepared it for you'; that is intelligible & describes how I wish you to behave. But not: 'Thank them, for look how good they are!' - since the next moment they may sting you."
As you have glossed this: "Anything might happen. That does not mean that it is a mistake to think of the world as a miracle, to treat life as a miracle or as a gift from God, but it does mean that you cannot prove that this is the correct attitude to take" (Ethics After Anscombe, pp. 25–26). What alienates many people from Chesterton-type attitudes is not the attitude itself but the fact that it tends to occur together with a belief in the possibility of proving it the correct one to take.
Here in your blog post you wrote: "Something like Chesterton's primal loyalty [...] seems not only good but practically necessary to me. How can we live sanely without thinking of the natural world, or just the universe, as our home?" I might err on the side of the view opposed to your own, but I think you're already coming uncomfortably close here to such a belief, which you have criticised elsewhere in your own work. Only your argument here, unlike Chesterton's, seems to expand to a kind of Kantian transcendental argument about the "conditions of possibility" of living sanely in the world.
You can't really think (can you?) both what a piece of work is man and we can make him better.
Well, since you asked, yes I can. It's quite effortless for that matter (thinking this, that is – not making man better). There are good Western philosophers who have taken the same view (Spinoza comes to mind, as does Marx) and also good novelists (in my ever-forthcoming paper critiquing Swansea Wittgensteinians, I hope to discuss some examples). Its wisdom can and probably should always be debated, but it strikes me as a view with a quite long and prestigious pedigree.
Regarding the definition of "natural", it's probably best thought of as a family resemblance concept. I looked it up in the OED, and it gives 18 different meanings divided into more than 50 sub-meanings. One of the former is exclusively reserved for "natural" as used in natural-law theory, suggesting that the meaning there is not one of the others.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Brad and Tommi. Let me try to reply to each of you in separate comments.
ReplyDeleteAristotle has a rich explanation of "natural,"
Yes, but I don't think it is widely accepted these days. Perhaps I'm wrong about that, but what I meant was that no one I know of has explained what 'natural' means in a wholly satisfactory way. I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone had explained the concept. It's just that I'm not familiar with any such explanation. Not that I'm ready to take on Aristotle or Aquinas and explain where I disagree.
Surely, this cannot be all Anscombe says. In Catholic thinking, there are reasons given for equating the natural and the good.
You're right, but if memory serves then there is at least one essay in which she says that one meaning of 'natural' is simply 'right' or 'OK.' I can look this up if you like.
I'm not familiar with Haidt, but this is too consequentialist (to use Anscombe's expression) to be in line with Catholic thinking on the matter.
Right again. Haidt is neither Catholic nor describing Catholic views. His claim, or finding, or report of someone else's finding, is that when ordinary people regard something as immoral but cannot readily think of anything about it that makes it wrong they will invent consequentialist reasons, even wildly implausible ones, for opposing the thing in question. His conclusion, with which I agree, is that these consequentialist hypotheses cannot be the real reasons why people oppose the acts in question. I think Anscombe would agree with this too.
"Anything might happen. That does not mean that it is a mistake to think of the world as a miracle, to treat life as a miracle or as a gift from God, but it does mean that you cannot prove that this is the correct attitude to take" (Ethics After Anscombe, pp. 25–26). What alienates many people from Chesterton-type attitudes is not the attitude itself but the fact that it tends to occur together with a belief in the possibility of proving it the correct one to take.
ReplyDeleteYes, this is where I disagree with both Buchanan and Balcombe. Buchanan seemingly wants to argue that nature is at best neutral, nothing worthy of respect, and at worst something like evil, worthy of contempt. Balcombe tries to argue that nature is nice and lovable. I prefer Balcombe's view, but both seem wrong to me.
I think you're already coming uncomfortably close here to such a belief, which you have criticised elsewhere in your own work. Only your argument here, unlike Chesterton's, seems to expand to a kind of Kantian transcendental argument about the "conditions of possibility" of living sanely in the world.
Yes, there is something Kantian about my argument, if we can call it an argument. There is also something Nietzschean about it: we cannot judge the world objectively and reach an impartial verdict on whether it is good or bad, but we can judge attitudes towards the world or life as either positive or negative, healthy or unhealthy. Chesterton and Nietzsche seem quite close to me on this. One way that I differ from them is that they prefer extreme positive attitudes (the universe right or wrong in Chesterton's case, embracing even the terrible in Nietzsche's), whereas I prefer something milder. This might amount to little more than a question of taste in the presentation of attitudes though. Another difference is that Chesterton and Nietzsche apparently think that very unhealthy (as they see it) attitudes are quite possible. I'm not sure about that. Perhaps this is simplistic, but isn't getting out of bed in the morning a sign that one believes life is worth living, that it is more good than bad? In fact, isn't almost every act (suicide is the obvious exception) the expression of some kind of hope or faith or happiness? (I don't mean that these are the same thing.) There is something paradoxical or surreal, it seems to me, about declaring oneself against life or against the world. And I don't know what it would mean (in practice, say) to be exactly neutral. So as long as we live it seems that we have to be more or less pro-world. But the "more or less" part is important. Some people are much more pro-world than others.
"You can't really think (can you?) both what a piece of work is man and we can make him better."
Well, since you asked, yes I can. It's quite effortless for that matter
Really? I agree that it's possible to think "Wow!" and "How can I make this thing even better?" But not at the very same time, surely? The mindsets or attitudes involved seem too different to co-exist.
I understand. By "really explained" you meant "adequately explained" (i.e., recognized as adequate). Is there anything in philosophy that has been adequately explained in this sense? :)
ReplyDeleteThis goes off in a direction that is well outside the scope of your post, but there is interesting work being done on the revitalization of Aristotle's concept of nature. The principal cause of its downfall was the reductionism in physics initiated by Descartes and (in many ways) completed by Newton. The idea is that "matter" is univocal, it's all just so many states of the basic stuff (whatever that turns out to be). However, it turns out that that can't be right, at least with respect to the proximate stuff an atom is made out of, namely, electrons, protons and neutrons. In brief, electrons in atoms behave differently than they do by themselves. This suggests that physical wholes are not merely the sum of their parts, i.e., it gives a foothold for an Aristotelian idea of form, and hence of nature. Richard Hassing, a philosopher with a doctorate in physics, makes this argument in a recent lecture (and paper) that (in my humble opinion) deserves a wider audience. (Note, the lecture is dense, and sometimes hard to follow, but the conclusions which begin to be presented in the second-half, and especially in the Q&A, are really interesting.) So, if you have a couple of hours to spare this summer . . . here's a link to it:
http://video.cua.edu/ACADEMICS/PHIL/lecturesFALL10.cfm
I would be interested in the Anscombe.
Regarding the definition of "natural", it's probably best thought of as a family resemblance concept.
ReplyDeleteThat could be. This brings me back to my concern about the no true Scotsman problem, which I think I left pretty obscure. We might say that it's natural for human beings to have two legs, and that we can find this out empirically. Most people do have two legs. But, as Anscombe points out, most people do not have the number of teeth that it is "natural" for them to have. So the natural is not what usually happens but perhaps something closer to what tends (in some non-statistical sense) to happen. There is a kind of movement in that direction, but various things happen to prevent the movement being completed in some or even most cases. Pregnancy is like this: sperm move egg-wards, etc., but most eggs do not get fertilized, most sperm do not fertilize, and most sexual acts do not result in pregnancy. Still, some would say, sex is a naturally generative act.
This conception (ho ho) of the natural is partly empirical, but also depends on a particular way of looking at or interpreting the empirical facts. So it can be regarded as biased. And the bias is perhaps most clear when someone with this kind of view denies that common events are really natural. Then it can look as though what is 'truly' natural is being decided in an ad hoc way.
Thinking of Chesterton made me think of patriotism in connection with pro-nature attitudes. And you don't have to get into the metaphysics of tendencies to see potential problems there. If we hate nature (or Scotland) enough to change it but love it enough to want to change it, what may we change and what must we love? If I love mice just as they are but accept helping deaf mice to hear, why would I oppose improving the hearing of all mice? Wouldn't that be irrational?
Well, I'm not sure what I would or would not oppose here. What seems to be missing from Buchanan is a sense of how great it is that there are mice. He just seems too quick to like the idea of a post-mouse future, too quick to stop saying "Wow!" (or "what a piece of work is a mouse!") and to start thinking about how we can improve on what we've got. That's what I oppose, and think that others are against too.
But this is far from your point about the natural being a family resemblance concept.
Thanks, Brad. I'll try to look into Hassing's work. Michael Thompson and Philippa Foot are probably relevant too.
ReplyDeleteThe passage from Anscombe that I had in mind is this, from "Contraception and Chastity," especially the bit in bold:
In fact there's no greater connexion of "natural law" with the prohibition on contraception than with any other part of morality. Any type of wrong action is "against the natural law": stealing is, framing someone is, oppressing people is. "Natural law" is simply a way of speaking about the whole of morality, used by Catholic thinkers because they believe the general precepts of morality are laws promulgated by God our Creator in the enlightened human understanding when it is thinking in general terms about what are good and what are bad actions. That is to say, the discoveries of reflection and reasoning when we think straight about these things are God's legislation to us (whether we realize this or not).
You're right, though, that there is more to her view than I made clear in what I wrote.
And when I say that "there is more to her view than I made clear in what I wrote," I mean that what I said was misleading. I apologize for that.
ReplyDeleteI've been meaning to read Foot for a long time.
ReplyDeleteI've read "Contraception and Chastity," but I had forgotten that passage. It is a succinct summary of Aquinas's view (Anscombe always has such good summaries). Here is the a relevant bit from Aquinas (Summa, First Part of the Second Part, Question 91, Article 2):
"Wherefore, since all things subject to Divine providence are ruled and measured by the eternal law . . . ; it is evident that all things partake somewhat of the eternal law, in so far as, namely, from its being imprinted on them, they derive their respective inclinations to their proper acts and ends. Now among all others, the rational creature is subject to Divine providence in the most excellent way, in so far as it partakes of a share of providence, by being provident both for itself and for others. Wherefore it has a share of the Eternal Reason, whereby it has a natural inclination to its proper act and end: and this participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is called the natural law. . . . [T]he light of natural reason, whereby we discern what is good and what is evil, which is the function of the natural law, is nothing else than an imprint on us of the Divine light. It is therefore evident that the natural law is nothing else than the rational creature's participation of the eternal law."
Neither here nor there, but another (beautiful) passage out of Anscombe's article on the promise of Christianity (here, again, presented through Thomistic eyes):
"What people are for is, we believe, like guided missiles, to home in on God, God who is the one truth it is infinitely worth knowing, the possession of which you could never get tired of, like the water which if you have you can never thirst again, because your thirst is slaked forever and always. It's this potentiality, this incredible possibility, of the knowledge of God of such a kind as even to be sharing in his nature, which Christianity holds out to people; and because of this potentiality every life, right up to the last, must be treated as precious. Its potentialities in all things the world cares about may be slight; but there is always the possibility of what it's for. We can't ever know that the time of possibility of gaining eternal life is over, however old, wretched, 'useless' someone has become."
If you do take a look at the Hassing, I would love to know what you think. And if you do, be sure and endure through the Q&A. In response to a well-placed question, Hassing replies that he is a materialist, but a "fancy materialist." He is an "erotic, theocentric, materialist."
No need to apologize. I have trouble remembering what I read yesterday!
Thanks, Brad. I remember, and like, the guided missile passage.
ReplyDeleteYes, this is where I disagree with both Buchanan and Balcombe.
ReplyDeleteI was unclear about this. I'm glad to hear it, as it narrows down the distance between us considerably.
Perhaps this is simplistic, but isn't getting out of bed in the morning a sign that one believes life is worth living, that it is more good than bad? In fact, isn't almost every act (suicide is the obvious exception) the expression of some kind of hope or faith or happiness?
Well, not necessarily. It's also possible to think that both going on living and committing suicide are expressions of an attitude to life, and therefore uncalled for from someone who thinks that life is absurd and therefore equally beyond both positive and negative attitudes. Going on living wins, not as an expression of an attitude to life, but merely by default. Todd Andrews, the protagonist in John Barth's The Floating Opera, comes up with this argument.
Really? I agree that it's possible to think "Wow!" and "How can I make this thing even better?" But not at the very same time, surely? The mindsets or attitudes involved seem too different to co-exist.
I still don't see how, and am quite (exceptionally) surprised by the extent to which the contrary appears to be obvious to you. What else, for instance, is Marx and Engels's Communist Manifesto but breathless, ceaseless "Wow!"ing at all the marvellous things mankind has hitherto achieved, coupled with a relentless insistence that it's not nearly enough, that it's only the merest beginning?
Remember that a nasty piece of work is also a piece of work.
I forgot about absurdity. Thanks for the reminder. You're probably right about that, although I wonder how far it's possible to live with an absurdist attitude. I mean, whether it's really possible to live all the time as if life is absurd. Maybe it is. And if it isn't, maybe this proves nothing. I'll have to think more about this.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to read the Communist Manifesto again, too. Perhaps there are two (or more) kinds of wow: 1. Wow! This (ongoing thing: relationship, film, novel, child, etc.) is great! I can't wait for the rest of it (or: to see how it develops)!, 2. Wow! This (apparently finished object, work, or project) is great!
I almost added "It couldn't be better!" or "I wouldn't change it for the world!" to the second one, but that would be cheating, I suppose. At least it would look like cheating. Still, something like that seems to be contained in the kind of thing I have in mind. But maybe I'm wrong. Again, I'll have to think about it some more. Thanks.