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Some popular examples of the appeal to nature can be found on labels and advertisements for food, clothing, and [[alternative medicine|alternative]] [[herbalism|herbal remedies]].<ref name="baggini2004"/> Labels may use the phrase "all-natural", to imply that products are [[environmentally friendly]] and/or safe. However, whether or not a product is "natural" is irrelevant, in itself, in determining its safety or effectiveness.<ref name="baggini2004"/><ref name="flew1998">{{cite book|last=Flew|first=Antony|year=1998|publisher=Prometheus Books|title=How to Think Straight: An Introduction to Critical Reasoning|isbn=978-1-57392-239-5}}</ref>
Some popular examples of the appeal to nature can be found on labels and advertisements for food, clothing, and [[alternative medicine|alternative]] [[herbalism|herbal remedies]].<ref name="baggini2004"/> Labels may use the phrase "all-natural", to imply that products are [[environmentally friendly]] and/or safe. However, whether or not a product is "natural" is irrelevant, in itself, in determining its safety or effectiveness.<ref name="baggini2004"/><ref name="flew1998">{{cite book|last=Flew|first=Antony|year=1998|publisher=Prometheus Books|title=How to Think Straight: An Introduction to Critical Reasoning|isbn=978-1-57392-239-5}}</ref>
Another popular example is with homosexuality. Those in favor of it, claim that "it's natural" or that homosexuals are "born that way," therefore it must be good. Such an inference, however, is misguided, because as the gay moralist John Corvino says, there are things we can be born with that are not good.

== Fake Forms ==
Not all appeals to nature, however, are obviously bad ethical claims. The natural law tradition, for example, has a long history of appeal to nature in making ethical claims. Famous thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, <ref>NE I.7 [http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.1.i.html]</ref> Cicero, <ref>Classical Natural Law: Cicero and the Stoics http://www.faculty.umb.edu/gary_zabel/Courses/Morals%20and%20Law/M+L/Stoic%20Natural%20Law.htm</ref>, Augustine, <ref>On Free Choice of the Will, Book III, n.13-4</ref> Aquinas, <ref>ST I-II, Q71, A2[http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2071.htm#article2]</ref> and John Locke <ref>Second Treatise of Government, Chapter 2 [http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtreat.htm]</ref> held to it. "Nature" in the sense used by them is more nuanced and does not commit the fallacy. Aquinas, for instance, describes a virtue as the perfection of a power. Man's powers such as intellect and will have natural ends such as living in community and knowing the truth about God. Man is not born naturally adapted to attaining such ends and so needs good habits, the virtues, to be properly ordered to them. These natural ends are foundational for his ethics insofar as what makes man good is that he fulfills his natural ends, just as what makes a cobbler a good cobbler is that he perform his function of making shoes well.
As [http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/10/whose-nature-which-law.html Edward Feser] says,
<blockquote>The basic idea is really not all that complicated, and can be understood at least to a first approximation by reference to everyday examples. Everyone knows that it is in the nature of grass to require water and sunlight but not too much heat, and that for that reason it is good for grass to be watered and well lit and bad for it to lack water and sunlight or to be exposed to great heat. Everyone knows that is in the nature of a tree to require soil into which it can sink its roots and from which it can draw water and nutrients, and thus that it is good for a tree so to sink them and bad for it if it is somehow prevented from doing so....The natures of these things entail certain ends the realization of which constitutes their flourishing as the kinds of things they are.
Now, none of these examples involves moral goodness or badness, because morality involves intellect and will, which grass, trees, and squirrels all lack. Rational creatures like ourselves are capable of moral goodness or badness precisely because we do have intellects and wills. The will itself has as its natural end the pursuit of the good, and determining what is in fact good is part of the natural end of the intellect. Morally good action thus involves the will to do what is good for us given our nature, while morally bad action involves willing contrary to what is good for us given our nature.</blockquote>


==See also==
==See also==

Revision as of 18:15, 12 March 2017

Not to be confused with naturalistic fallacy.

An appeal to nature is an argument or rhetorical tactic in which it is proposed that "a thing is good because it is 'natural', or bad because it is 'unnatural'".[1] It can be a bad argument, because the implicit (unstated) primary premise "What is natural is good" typically is irrelevant, having no cogent meaning in practice, or is an opinion instead of a fact. In some philosophical frameworks where natural and good are clearly defined in a specific context, the appeal to nature might be valid and cogent.

Forms

General form of this type of argument:

That which is natural, is good.
N is natural.
Therefore, N is good or right.

That which is unnatural, is bad or wrong.
U is unnatural.
Therefore, U is bad or wrong.[2]

In some contexts, the use of the terms of "nature" and "natural" can be vague, leading to unintended associations with other concepts. The word "natural" can also be a loaded term – much like the word "normal", in some contexts, it can carry an implicit value judgement. An appeal to nature would thus beg the question, because the conclusion is entailed by the premise.[2]

Opinions differ regarding appeal to nature in rational argument. Sometimes, it can be taken as a rule of thumb that admits some exceptions, but nonetheless proves to be of use in one or more specific topics, (or in general). As a rule of thumb, natural or unnatural facts provide presumptively reliable good or bad values, barring evidence to the contrary. Failure to consider such evidence commits a fallacy of accident under this view.[2][3]

Julian Baggini explains that "[E]ven if we can agree that some things are natural and some are not, what follows from this? The answer is: nothing. There is no factual reason to suppose that what is natural is good (or at least better) and what is unnatural is bad (or at least worse)."[4]

History

The meaning and importance of various understandings and concepts of "nature" has been a persistent topic of discussion historically in both science and philosophy. In Ancient Greece, "the laws of nature were regarded not [simply] as generalized descriptions of what actually happens in the natural world… but rather as norms that people ought to follow… Thus the appeal to nature tended to mean an appeal to the nature of man treated as a source for norms of conduct. To Greeks this… represented a conscious probing and exploration into an area wherein, according to their whole tradition of thought, lay the true source for norms of conduct."[5]

In modern times, philosophers have challenged the notion that human beings' status as natural beings should determine or dictate their normative being. For example, Rousseau famously suggested that "We do not know what our nature permits us to be."[6] More recently, Nikolas Kompridis has applied Rousseau's axiom to debates about genetic intervention (or other kinds of intervention) into the biological basis of human life, writing:

[T]here is a domain of human freedom not dictated by our biological nature, but [this] is somewhat unnerving because it leaves uncomfortably open what kind of beings human beings could become… Put another way: What are we prepared to permit our nature to be? And on what basis should we give our permission?

Kompridis writes that the naturalistic view of living things, articulated by one scientist as that of "machines whose components are biochemicals"[7] (Rodney Brooks), threatens to make a single normative understanding of human being the only possible understanding. He writes, "When we regard ourselves as 'machines whose components are biochemicals,' we not only presume to know what our nature permits us to be, but also that this knowledge permits us to answer the question of what is to become of us… This is not a question we were meant to answer, but, rather, a question to which we must remain answerable."[8]

Examples

Some popular examples of the appeal to nature can be found on labels and advertisements for food, clothing, and alternative herbal remedies.[4] Labels may use the phrase "all-natural", to imply that products are environmentally friendly and/or safe. However, whether or not a product is "natural" is irrelevant, in itself, in determining its safety or effectiveness.[4][9] Another popular example is with homosexuality. Those in favor of it, claim that "it's natural" or that homosexuals are "born that way," therefore it must be good. Such an inference, however, is misguided, because as the gay moralist John Corvino says, there are things we can be born with that are not good.

Fake Forms

Not all appeals to nature, however, are obviously bad ethical claims. The natural law tradition, for example, has a long history of appeal to nature in making ethical claims. Famous thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, [10] Cicero, [11], Augustine, [12] Aquinas, [13] and John Locke [14] held to it. "Nature" in the sense used by them is more nuanced and does not commit the fallacy. Aquinas, for instance, describes a virtue as the perfection of a power. Man's powers such as intellect and will have natural ends such as living in community and knowing the truth about God. Man is not born naturally adapted to attaining such ends and so needs good habits, the virtues, to be properly ordered to them. These natural ends are foundational for his ethics insofar as what makes man good is that he fulfills his natural ends, just as what makes a cobbler a good cobbler is that he perform his function of making shoes well. As Edward Feser says,

The basic idea is really not all that complicated, and can be understood at least to a first approximation by reference to everyday examples. Everyone knows that it is in the nature of grass to require water and sunlight but not too much heat, and that for that reason it is good for grass to be watered and well lit and bad for it to lack water and sunlight or to be exposed to great heat. Everyone knows that is in the nature of a tree to require soil into which it can sink its roots and from which it can draw water and nutrients, and thus that it is good for a tree so to sink them and bad for it if it is somehow prevented from doing so....The natures of these things entail certain ends the realization of which constitutes their flourishing as the kinds of things they are. Now, none of these examples involves moral goodness or badness, because morality involves intellect and will, which grass, trees, and squirrels all lack. Rational creatures like ourselves are capable of moral goodness or badness precisely because we do have intellects and wills. The will itself has as its natural end the pursuit of the good, and determining what is in fact good is part of the natural end of the intellect. Morally good action thus involves the will to do what is good for us given our nature, while morally bad action involves willing contrary to what is good for us given our nature.

See also

References

  1. ^ Moore, George E.: Principia Ethica, Barnes and Noble Publishing, Inc (1903, 2005) p. 47
  2. ^ a b c Curtis, Gary N. (15 November 2010). "Fallacy Files – Appeal to Nature". fallacyfiles.org. Retrieved 13 February 2011.
  3. ^ Groarke, Leo (2008). "Fallacy Theory". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Informal Logic. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 ed.). Informal logic is sometimes presented as a theoretical alternative to formal logic. This kind of characterization may reflect early battles in philosophy departments which debated, sometimes with acrimony, whether informal logic should be considered "real" logic. Today, informal logic enjoys a more conciliatory relationship with formal logic. Its attempt to understand informal reasoning is usually (but not always) couched in natural language, but research in informal logic sometimes employs formal methods and it remains an open question whether the accounts of argument in which informal logic specializes can in principle be formalized.
  4. ^ a b c Baggini, Julian (2004). Making sense: philosophy behind the headlines. Oxford University Press. pp. 181–182. ISBN 978-0-19-280506-5.
  5. ^ Saunders, Jason Lewis (26 October 2008). "Western Philosophical Schools and Doctrines: Ancient and Medieval Schools: Sophists: Particular Doctrines: Theoretical issues.". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 7 February 2011. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Check date values in: |year= / |date= mismatch (help)
  6. ^ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile: or, On education, USA: Basic Books, 1979, p. 62.
  7. ^ "The current scientific view of living things is that they are machines whose components are biochemicals." Rodney Brooks, "The relationship between matter and life", Nature 409 (2010), p. 410.
  8. ^ Nikolas Kompridis, "Technology's Challenge to Democracy: What of the Human?", Parrhesia Number 8 (2009), pp. 23–31.
  9. ^ Flew, Antony (1998). How to Think Straight: An Introduction to Critical Reasoning. Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-1-57392-239-5.
  10. ^ NE I.7 [1]
  11. ^ Classical Natural Law: Cicero and the Stoics http://www.faculty.umb.edu/gary_zabel/Courses/Morals%20and%20Law/M+L/Stoic%20Natural%20Law.htm
  12. ^ On Free Choice of the Will, Book III, n.13-4
  13. ^ ST I-II, Q71, A2[2]
  14. ^ Second Treatise of Government, Chapter 2 [3]

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