Rowe on Naturalism:

Over at Freespace, Sandefur posted an excellent response to my post on polygamy and the naturalistic fallacy. I haven’t responded till now because I wanted take the time to give his post the good response that it deserves. I think that there really isn’t a whole lot of disagreement between us, but rather this stems from my use of terminology (from words & phrases that have more than one meaning).

First, Sandefur takes issue with my use of the term, “state of nature”: “[T]he term ‘state of nature’ in political philosophy doesn’t mean ‘close to the place in which human behavior most closely tracks the biological imperatives,’ but rather, ‘that state of affairs which would have prevailed had no outside authority asserted control over the behavior of the parties involved.’” I used the term referring to our “evolutionary state,” that is, when we human beings, as pretty much fully evolved Cro-Magnons, lived before any type of civilization (like that of the Old Testament) emerged. Although I realize that the “state of nature,” as the Enlightenment philosophers coined it, was a “hypothetical” scenario, I always figured its closest analog was to that of the “evolutionary period.” What I was referring to is better defined, in political philosophical terms, as the “state of war.” Hobbes, Locke, & Rousseau all found that in the absence of a formal governmental authority, nature led men to war—to this “state of war,”—this was in fact the defect in the state of nature, that caused men to leave it and form civil society (in which they brought their natural rights with them). Because of this defect, life under the state of nature (according to Hobbes) was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Anyway, when I stated that Old Testament times were “closer to the state of nature,” I simply meant closer in time to our evolutionary period that closely resembled the Hobbesian state of war.

But the Ancient Jews—their culture—probably also bore a closer resemblance to what it was like to live in this “state of war,” than ours does today. That is, life was far more “nasty, brutish, & short,” for a Jew living during those times than for an American citizen today (one only need read from the many brutal provisions of the Old Testament, such as stoning a child to death for cursing his parents, in order to see this). But the Old Testament’s brutality must be seen in an historical context that takes into account what they were coming out of—this state of war. And in fact, the Old Testament was a marked improvement—that is life there was more civilized and desirable—over what preceded it (obviously, I’d rather live in Ancient Greece—but only as a “citizen”—life for the non-citizens [and women] was pretty bad there as well).

Our next quibble is over the concept of “what is ‘natural’ for human beings.” Sandefur writes, “When we speak of what is ‘natural’ for human beings, in the sense used in moral or political philosophy, we are using the term ‘nature’ in a different way than when we speak of what is ‘natural’ for the human body.” Exactly. I was using “nature” in the latter, not the former, sense. I was simply observing how human (or animal) biology that “exists” in nature, had, in my opinion, served as the natural source of the institution of polygamy. I was using nature in the pure “is,” sense.

And there is a whole other school of thought, that turns to nature in order to tell us not only what is, but also how things “ought to be.” And, “what is ‘natural’ for human beings, in the sense used in moral or political philosophy” relates more to this “nature as an ought,” philosophy. This school began with the ancient Greeks—notably Aristotle, was adopted and “Christianized” (some would say “bastardized”) by Aquinas, and then the Enlightenment philosophers used similar grounds to construct a political order upon which governmental institutions would rest (the concept of the “state of nature” referenced above). But the Enlightenment concept of “natural rights,” is not to be conflated with “natural law” (although they are, in *some* respect, related). As Randy Barnett writes, “Natural law ethics…is a method of assessing the propriety of individual conduct. This method is used to stipulate, for example, that persons should live their lives in certain ways and not in others. The concept of natural rights, in contrast…addresses a quite different problem. Natural rights do not specify what the good life is for each person nor how each person should act, but what the moral ‘space’ or ‘jurisdiction’ each person requires in order to pursue the good life in society with others.” Restoring the Lost Constitution, pp.82-83. What these two concepts have in common is “a common intellectual ancestry [Aristotle-Aquinas-the Enlightenment, etc.] and methodology….” Id. And the common methodology is man using his Reason alone, (unaided by Biblical Revelation) looking to Nature, in order to give a “rational account of the whole” (as Allan Bloom puts it). And in this “account” we should be able to determine not only what “is,” but also what “ought to be” (what our social norms should be).

But there is a relationship between our “is’s” and our “oughts” (the oughts are derived from observing nature for what is). And it’s during this process of deriving the “ought” from the “is” that the naturalistic fallacy often occurs. Now I don’t know if Sandefur believes in the naturalistic fallacy—he writes, “the term ‘naturalistic fallacy,’…has become a catch phrase for people who don’t like the way a particular argument goes, and wish to assert that it is fallacious without really explaining why it’s fallacious…and there’s nothing fallacious about seriously arguing that morality must be derived from human nature.”

Let me go out on a limb and state that I think it’s possible to believe in both the naturalistic fallacy AND that we can derive morality (or social norms) from observing human nature (perhaps so too do Sandefur & Dennett). The problem is that human nature has its good side, its neutral or tolerable side, as well as its defects. (As Sandefur writes, “polygamy… was based on the wrong 'nature.'”) And through the use of reason we must decide in what box we put each “is.” Perhaps this is what Dennett meant when he wrote, “We may just disagree about where to look for the most telling facts about human nature—in novels, in religious texts, in psychological experiments, in biological or anthropological innovations. The fallacy is not naturalism, but, rather, any simple-minded attempt to rush from facts to values.” In other words, simply looking to nature for what “is” and then immediately (that is without further, more appropriate deliberation) drawing an “ought” from it, is too quick a “rush from facts to values.” There must be something more. As Dennett writes, “the fallacy is greedy reductionism of values to facts, rather than reductionism considered more circumspectly, as the attempt to unify our world-view so that our ethical principles don’t clash irrationally with the way the world is.”

In other words, the “is” of nature is a start, and just a start, but we need more in order to determine the “telling facts about human nature.” Some who posit the naturalistic fallacy concept in its purest form believe that we cannot derive any set of “norms” or “oughts” from looking to nature—I certainly don’t endorse this version of the concept. Alan Dershowitz in his very thoughtful book about the Declaration of Independence, America Declares Independence, posits an understanding of the naturalistic fallacy that is pretty close to the one that I endorse:

This is not to deny that there may be a relationship between nature and morality. Any attempt to build a system of morality that completely ignores nature will fail. Nature has a vote but not a veto on questions of morality (my italics). In deciding on a sexual morality appropriate for a given society, it is important to understand the nature of the sex drive. For example, efforts to deter adolescent masturbation as “unnatural” and therefore “wrong” are doomed to failure because the nature of adolescent sexuality is more powerful than the threats of punishment for this entirely harmless—and I would add “natural”—outlet. Many Catholics are now questioning whether priestly celibacy is incompatible with the natural sex drive. But even if sociobiologists were to prove that men are naturally inclined to force women into sexual submission, it would be morally wrong for society not to make every reasonable effort to hold this “natural impulse” in check, because even if it is natural it is wrong. p. 108.

“Nature has vote, but not a veto”—I think that line best sums it up. Dershowitz also rightfully notes that our knowledge about human nature increases with experience. We can build a better society than the Old Testament Jews had because we have more knowledge and experience upon which to base our rules.

But ultimately, the process of deriving an “ought” from nature, is a whole hell of a lot harder than simply observing nature for what “is” (which is not so hard). In other words, perhaps our “is’s” do inform our “oughts”; in fact, perhaps most of them do, but certainly not all. When we inappropriately derive an “ought” from an “is,” we commit the naturalistic fallacy.

Before I finish this very long post, let me throw out some examples of rightfully or wrongfully constructing our social norms from things that exist in human nature.

First, another example where I think the Old Testament Jews engaged in the naturalistic fallacy was age of adulthood; Judaic law holds that people become “adults” at the age of 13. Now what age does this coincide with? Puberty or biological fertility. Around and after this age, we human beings are fully biologically fertile adults, ready for mating. The Old Testament Jews needed a “norm,” needed to draw a line regarding when a “child” becomes an “adult” and they turned to nature—that is our biological nature—for the answer. But we know better now. Experience has told us that a 13 or 14 year old is not yet ready for sex, and is otherwise not yet a full adult.

Or take Aquinas and his teleology of sex, for instance. If we want to derive a “purpose” from nature for sex, the most obvious answer is procreation, or begetting. Our private parts were designed or evolved for sexual reproduction. Penis fits Vagina for purposes of procreation. That simply “is.” But this doesn’t mean that this is what sex ought to be about in each and every instance (which is the “ought” that Aquinas derived from this “is.”) As Andrew Sullivan argues, just because this is what sex can be about doesn’t mean that this is what sex must be about. In the same article, Sullivan writes that Aquinas’s list of sex that was off limits included “oral sex, masturbation, mutual masturbation, contracepted sex, coitus interruptus, and anal sex - any sex in which semen does not find its way into a fertile uterus.” I think just about all of us save a few Catholics realize that this is simply an untenable theory, and ridiculously so.

I think it was according this same process— observing male & female biological sexual functions, and deriving a social norm from it—that the Old Testament writers in Leviticus prohibited homosexuality (they of course, did not provide the elaborate rational that Aquinas did).

However, in observing our biological nature, we can just as easily go the other way than Aquinas did. Homosexuality certainly is “natural” in the sense that it exists in consistent percentages everywhere and at all times in human nature and the best evidence points to a biological origin (or at the very least a biological predisposition) for the “condition.” (This is the source of the gay claim, “we don’t choose this.”) But this “is” alone is not sufficient to justify homosexuality. There are plenty of other similarly “unchosen” biologically based or predisposed orientations or conditions—Alcoholism, depression, diseases—that society clearly shouldn’t vet. And there also are plenty of other unchosen biologically grounded facets of human nature that are rightly judged as neutral or even good, like left-handedness or the inclination that parents’ have to nurture their children, or the the way our brains are predisposed to learn language. All of these things are just part of the way human nature "is."

But ultimately we need to jump from the “is” to the “ought” and, while doing so, appropriately deliberate each determination. When we distinguish between homosexuality & alcoholism, we see why homosexuality can be justified while an “alcoholic lifestyle” ought not to be. Both may be similarly unchosen and unchangeable “natural orientations,” but homosexuals FLOURISH while satisfying their natural needs, in the same way that straights do (and in a way that they never could while being celibate or pursing a relationship with the opposite sex). Being in love and entering into meaningful relationships is a good part of the human experience. Alcoholics must give up drinking because acting upon their orientation prevents them from flourishing (for instance, it prevents realizing one’s full potential with his family, significant other or spouse, friends, co-workers, etc.). And alcohol—while it may be fun for those of us that don’t have the “alcoholic orientation” to have an occasional drink, or even occasionally get drunk—in the grand scheme of things, is not an important part of life. Finding one’s significant other, or even engaging in a search for one that ultimately fails (and having sexual fun along the way), IS an important part of the human experience that ought to be engaged in.