Steven Nemes has responded to a post of mine. Before I delve into the specifics, I’d like to make a general observation:
I actually don’t object to natural law arguments, per se. Aside from the potential for common ground arguments in the public square, a more principled argument for natural law ethics is to ground certain divine injunctions. To go beyond the bare injunction itself to discuss the underlying rationale.
The problem, though, is that Catholics aren’t beginning with natural law ethics, then taking that wherever it logically leads them. Rather, they begin with Vatican policy, then try to use natural law to retroactively justify Vatican policy.
And this, in turn, generates a dilemma. Pop Catholic epologists use very crude natural law arguments to justify Vatican policy. However, such crude arguments invite easy, obvious counterexamples. At that point the Catholic has to introduce qualifications to his natural law appeal. But that creates two additional problems: (i) the qualifications are often ad hoc; (ii) Protestants can help themselves to the same qualifications. For the qualifications simply invite a new set of easy, obvious counterexamples.
Put another way, Catholic natural law arguments either prove too much or too little. On the one hand, if they draw the principles too broadly, then that either allows both the Catholic and Protestant positions alike, or else it disallows both.
On the other hand, if they draw the principles too narrowly, then (i) this leads to ad hoc restrictions which compromise the underlying principle as well as (ii) inviting a new set of counterexamples.
They need an argument that’s general enough to let their own position slip through the net, but specific enough to screen out the Protestant position. But natural law ethics doesn’t strike that balance since their position isn’t really based on natural law in the first place. That’s just an afterthought to rubberstamp a preexisting policy–a policy that’s a historical accident. A preexisting policy that, to some extent, has to develop internally along traditional lines.
Back to Nemes
The first problem with Steve's argument here is that there is a confusion here in the use of the word "nature" and "natural." Ed Feser is helpful on this count:
"Natural" for Aquinas does not mean merely "statistically common," "in accordance with the laws of physics," "having a genetic basis," or any other of the readings that a mechanistic view of nature might suggest. It has instead to do with the final causes inherent in a thing by virtue of its essence, and which it possesses whether or not it ever realizes them or consciously wants to realize them (Aquinas [Oneworld, 2009], pp. 179-180, my emphasis).
In other words, "natural law" means that what is good/bad for a thing is a matter of the nature or kind of thing we are speaking about. What is good or bad for humans depends upon the nature of humans and the final cause of humanity as such. The irrelevance, therefore, of Steve's comment that there is an abundance of precedent in nature of infanticide is clear: natural law ethics is not the view that nature, as in the world out there in the jungles, seas, etc., determines what is good for us and bad for us, but rather that our natures (in a technical metaphysical sense) determine what is good for us and bad for us.
So it is clear that there is no argument from the practices of other species of animals to the goodness of those practices for us.
1) It’s a relief to have an intelligent critic for a change.
2) Paul Manata already anticipated some of my responses, and no doubt put it better than I could.
3) I wouldn’t expect Aquinas to define “natural” as “having a genetic basis,” since Aquinas was writing before the advent of modern genetics. But I don’t see how that precludes a modern natural law theorist from defining what’s “natural” in genetic terms.
4) I’m also puzzled by Feser’s apparently derogatory characterization regarding a “mechanistic” view of nature, in relation to genetics. Presumably Feser believes in genetics.
5) There is also his false dichotomy between a “genetic” or “mechanical” definition of “natural,” on the one hand, and “final causes” grounded in the “essence” of a thing, on the other.
On the face of it, why couldn’t the essence of an organism be genetic? Likewise, why couldn’t the entelechy of an organism be genetic? Take a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, or an acorn turning into an oak? Why couldn’t that outcome or goal be genetically programmed? Indeed, isn’t that actually the case? It was genetically programmed to mature?
I’m not stating my own position at the moment. Simply bouncing off of Feser’s disjunctions.
6) Nemes then extrapolates from Feser’s statement to the claim that we can’t analogize from animal behavior to human behavior.
i) Offhand, I don’t see how that’s an implication of Feser’s statement. Did Nemes infer that from Feser’s statement?
ii) Or does Nemes simply use Feser’s statement to establish one point, then adds another point of his own?
7) It isn’t quite clear to me what he means by contrasting natural law with the law of the jungle. After all, the jungle is the native state for many human beings.
8) Apropos (7), isn’t it arbitrary to drive a wedge between the “essence” or entelechy of an organism and its natural habitant? Isn’t an organism adapted to its environment? Doesn’t that, to some extent, figure in the essence of an organism? Can we treat the essence as an airtight compartment, sealed away from the natural habitant of the organism?
9) In addition, Aquinas was pre-Darwinian. But many Catholics, like Michael Behe, Karl Rahner, and Alexander Pruss, subscribe to theistic evolution. They generally accept universal common descent. So that posits extensive continuity between man and the animal kingdom. Consider the following:
While there is little consensus among scientists about how the origin of this first microscopic life is to be explained, there is general agreement among them that the first organism dwelt on this planet about 3.5-4 billion years ago. Since it has been demonstrated that all living organisms on earth are genetically related, it is virtually certain that all living organisms have descended from this first organism. Converging evidence from many studies in the physical and biological sciences furnishes mounting support for some theory of evolution to account for the development and diversification of life on earth, while controversy continues over the pace and mechanisms of evolution. While the story of human origins is complex and subject to revision, physical anthropology and molecular biology combine to make a convincing case for the origin of the human species in Africa about 150,000 years ago in a humanoid population of common genetic lineage. However it is to be explained, the decisive factor in human origins was a continually increasing brain size, culminating in that of homo sapiens. With the development of the human brain, the nature and rate of evolution were permanently altered: with the introduction of the uniquely human factors of consciousness, intentionality, freedom and creativity, biological evolution was recast as social and cultural evolution [paragraph #63].
The present text was approved in forma specifica, by the written ballots of the International Theological Commission. It was then submitted to Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the President of the Commission, who has give his permission for its publication.
10) This is reinforced by the fact that Aquinas was a hylomorphic dualist rather than a Cartesian dualist or substance dualist (in the usual sense of the term). Hylomorphism is basically a type of physicalism.
And, indeed, you have Catholic physicalists like Peter van Inwagen.
Body and soul are distinguished the way we can distinguish between the form and substance of a wax figure.
11) As a Christian theologian, Aquinas must make room for the intermediate state, but there are two problems with that:
i) This seems to be a makeshift modification of hylomorphism.
ii) Even if it were tenable, that goes beyond natural revelation. That requires input from special revelation, it which case it’s no longer a natural law argument.
12) But in that event, a Catholic natural law theorist can’t drive a wedge between an organism’s essence or telos and it’s natural environment, for its habitant exerts adaptive pressures on the organism which modify the organism.
And, of course, that also accentuates various commonalities between man and best. To be sure, man has more in common with some animals than others. But on Catholic natural law assumptions, man is not a class apart from the animal kingdom.
Catholic dogma may reserve some unique distinctives for man, but that, once against, goes outside the bounds of natural law. That’s an argument from religious authority rather than an appeal to reason.
13) Likewise, if a Catholic accepts theistic macroevolution, then that includes encephalization, body-plans, etc. Surely that goes to the essence and/or entelechy of the organism.
14) Those are metaphysical considerations. Then we have the epistemic considerations. How do we ascertain the essence or entelechy of an organism? Why are genetic predeterminants or statistical commonalities irrelevant to that identification? What else do you have to go by within the confines of natural law reasoning? You can’t invoke dogma without moving outside the natural law framework.
15) Furthermore, there’s no reason to confine natural law theory to Thomism. For that matter, there are secular natural law theories.
Steve - Furthermore, there’s no reason to confine natural law theory to Thomism. For that matter, there are secular natural law theories.
ReplyDeleteVytautas - So are Darwin and his heirs better interpreters of natural law than the Thomists?
Steve:
ReplyDelete4) I’m also puzzled by Feser’s apparently derogatory characterization regarding a “mechanistic” view of nature, in relation to genetics. Presumably Feser believes in genetics.
I believe Feser is criticizing those who do not believe in final causes, but only in material and efficient causes. For example, he would believe the final cause of an acorn is an oak tree.
Offhand, I don’t see how that’s an implication of Feser’s statement. Did Nemes infer that from Feser’s statement?
The essence of, say, a cat is different from the essence of a human. A difference in the final cause of the cat and the final cause of a human entails that different actions are good for each species. This is not to say that there cannot be some similarities as well.
This seems to be a makeshift modification of hylomorphism.
Check the Just Thomism blog and Edward Feser's blog. They both recently responded to a similar point made by the Maverick Philosopher, Bill Vallicella.
How do we ascertain the essence or entelechy of an organism? Why are genetic predeterminants or statistical commonalities irrelevant to that identification?
I'm not sure that they're completely irrelevant so much as they are not decisive by themselves. But determining the full essence of an animal is difficult as far as I can tell.
VYTAUTAS SAID:
ReplyDelete"Vytautas - So are Darwin and his heirs better interpreters of natural law than the Thomists?"
Depends on the reference frame. I think Christians are better interpreters of natural law than atheists, but that's because Christians view natural law with the benefit of special revelation. But that's smuggling something over and above natural law into the interpretation of natural law.
JAYMAN SAID:
ReplyDelete"I believe Feser is criticizing those who do not believe in final causes, but only in material and efficient causes. For example, he would believe the final cause of an acorn is an oak tree."
That could be. I'm just commenting on the brief excerpt supplied by Nemes.
Jayman said...
ReplyDelete“The essence of, say, a cat is different from the essence of a human. A difference in the final cause of the cat and the final cause of a human entails that different actions are good for each species. This is not to say that there cannot be some similarities as well.”
Here we need to differentiate between essentialism and teleology. Unlike naturalistic evolution, theistic evolution can be a goal-oriented process.
However, I don’t think essentialism is compatible with universal common descent.
Essentialism and teleology could go hand-in-hand in Aquinas. On the traditional reading of Gen 1, God created the natural kinds. They had sharp boundaries.
Aquinas could also try to undergird this with an Aristotelian theory of substantial forms. And something like that held sway for Linnaean taxonomy.
But in macroevolution, species lack sharp boundaries. You have a dynamic continuum rather than a persisting essence.
With essentialism you could, at most, have diachronic variations within each kind. Parallel lines. But you wouldn’t have a cone of diversity, from simple to complex.
“Check the Just Thomism blog and Edward Feser's blog. They both recently responded to a similar point made by the Maverick Philosopher, Bill Vallicella.”
Perhaps I’ll do that sometime. The prima facie problem is that if you melt a wax figure, the wax can still exist apart from the statuesque structure–but it’s less than evident how, on hylomorphic assumptions, the soul can survive once you “melt” the body at death. As I recall, Peter Geach felt the same acute difficulty.
steve:
ReplyDeleteBut in macroevolution, species lack sharp boundaries. You have a dynamic continuum rather than a persisting essence.
I think we need to differentiate between whether an animal has an essence and whether we can determine what that essence is. Chapter 9 of Real Essentialism by David Oderberg goes into more detail but I can't summarize it quickly.
The prima facie problem is that if you melt a wax figure, the wax can still exist apart from the statuesque structure–but it’s less than evident how, on hylomorphic assumptions, the soul can survive once you “melt” the body at death.
The short answer is that there are aspects of the human mind that are not material. But the references I gave will explain it better than I can.
Hi Steve,
ReplyDeleteAs I said to Paul on my original post, I had not written down everything that I was thinking when I wrote that post, and so my reasoning is not entirely clear.
I suppose the quality of this discussion would be greatly improved if I offered some kind of explanation of how I understand "natural law theory" ethics, since there are lots of variations on that theme.
On my view, what is good/bad for a thing is according to that thing's nature, the kind of thing it is. This is obvious, since the same thing (water) can be good for some things (humans, plants) and not good for other things (rocks, insects).
Everything has an end or a final cause for which it acts and towards which it tends, it being a part of its very nature to tend toward this end, and its various faculties and powers are for the sake of attaining that end (e.g., trees have leaves for gathering sunlight and CO2, roots for gathering nutrients and water in the soil, etc., all for the purpose of attaining that end that all trees tend to, which has no official word in our language but we might call "being-a-good-tree").
Something can be said to be good for a thing in two ways: in the first, because it helps the thing to attain its final cause; in the second, because it is the thing's final cause. So, water is good for a tree because with water, the tree is able to attain its final cause, namely being a good tree.
Something is bad for a thing if it makes it incapable of realizing its final cause. So, fire is bad for a tree because it burns bark, leaves, etc., and makes it incapable of doing what it naturally tends to do.
Now, clearly the question, "Is X good for As?", on my view, requires knowledge of the final cause of As . And I think, along with Aquinas and Aristotle, that the final cause of anything is known by repeated observation of the behavior of the thing in question.
Since the good and the bad differ from kind to kind, there is only one way we can reason from the good of one thing of one kind to the good of another thing of another kind, namely by reference to a nature they share. If you and I share animality with gorillas, for instance, then it is proper to reason that x be good for us qua animals since it is good for gorillas qua animals. But we cannot likewise reason from what is good for gorillas qua gorillas to what is good for humans qua humans, since gorilla-nature is not shared by humans.
Now, since humans are of a different kind than those animals which kill their young, and it is not a part of animality as such (which is shared among those animals and humans, or at least we'll suppose) to tend to kill your young, we cannot infer the goodness of killing young from the behavior of those respective animals.
Apparently Steven hasn't watched any of the Planet of the Apes films yet.
ReplyDeleteLess humorously, and as a bit of digression: Steven, on your theory, how do you understand your inclinationist epistemology (i.e., we know what is good for man and what his ends are, etc) to get avoid either circularity objections or arbitrary objections?
As to the first, the objection is that since you can't derive the normative conclusion directly from the non-normative premise(s), for that wouldn't follow, you need a bridge premise that employs a norm, i.e., "If X is inclined to preserve A, then A is intrinsically good for X." So if we substitute 'life' for A, and if we say that X is a human, then we conclude that human life is intrinsically good.
This brings up the second objection, which is, there appear to be other things X's can be inclined towards. Again, if X is a human, we can substitute in inclinations such as, 'selfishness' and 'aggressive' and 'etc.' But we wouldn't want to use these inclinations as a basis to draw conclusions about the human good. So the question is, on what basis does one non-arbitrarily select some inclinations over other ones for the purpose of inferring what is the good?
Weren't we supposed to gain knowledge via these repeated observations of human inclinations without assuming a prior what was and wasn't good? For if not, why bother with the empirical approach instead of, say, following someone like Finnis and claim that the good is self-evident? But if so, the project begins to look circular because some bridge premises will be accepted and others not, but the bridge premise is what was to be established, hence, etc.
So, on your theory of NL, how do you address these kinds of criticisms? I'm not entirely sure how relevant this is to the current discussion, but it seems at least somewhat relevant since inclinationist assumptions about knowing the good were invoked to undermine Steve's argument. So there's probably something helpful that can be drawn from your answers to the above.
BTW, I should add that I'm not anti-NL. But that's not too helpful considering the quote you posted on your blog the other day stating that NL is almost a catchall for any realist view of ethics!
ReplyDeleteHi Paul,
ReplyDeleteThings become complicated in assessing what tendencies in terms of behavior are natural or not for human beings because of their will and intellect. Many of their tendencies are informed by items of knowledge and volition which are strongly ingrained in them, although not, strictly speaking, natural to humans as such; thus, we may be misled into thinking some tendencies to certain behaviors are natural, whereas they are really not, since they are only on the basis of non-natural items of knowledge and volition.
I should say that tendencies or inclinations a person might have which are due to items of knowledge/volition to which he does not have a natural inclination towards qua human cannot be considered natural (in the relevant sense) inclinations, and thus the object of those respective tendencies/inclinations cannot, on the basis of their being tendencies, at least, be considered good for the respective person.
To apply this method to the two apparent counterexamples you provided, I would say that both selfishness and aggressiveness (taking just a rough, intuitive understanding of the meaning of the terms, since a more precise explanation hasn't been offered yet) are products of certain systems of value judgments, to which human beings as such have no natural tendency to form, since they are a product of upbringing and what evidence was available to the relevant agent at the time of their formation. The unreflective person S's value system is, for the most part, a product of his upbringing; but since it is not natural to humans as such to have the upbringing S did, then the product of his upbringing (his system of values) cannot be considered natural to him as a human, either.
(In fact, I would venture to say that no particular items of knowledge or volition are natural to humans as such, but I don't want to stress the point here since I haven't thought it over very much.)
What do you think of the response I've offered? Has it any promise?
Hi Steven,
ReplyDeleteConsidering the state of NL, almost any defense has promise!
I'm not sure how your position presented a principled way to be able to demarcate the natural or non-natural. How do I know what is said to be natural, and thus good for me to develop or move toward, isn't something that has been informed by upbringing etc? Why think, say, quest for knowledge is natural to humans as such, rather than some normative meme caught from intellectualist societies. Don't some societies teach the loss of all knowledge and categories is good? This may not have been a good example, but it's the first one I came up with :-)
As far as the unreflective person's selfish and aggressive tendencies being taught and caught from society, I'm assuming you haven't spent much time in the company of infants and toddlers? :-) Indeed, one might argue that we are taught to suppress these selfish and aggressive traits so as to make certain conceptions of society run more smoothly.
STEVEN SAID:
ReplyDelete“Everything has an end or a final cause for which it acts and towards which it tends, it being a part of its very nature to tend toward this end, and its various faculties and powers are for the sake of attaining that end…”
But even if we accept that claim, it’s purely programmatic. How do we isolate and identify its final cause?
“(e.g., trees have leaves for gathering sunlight and CO2, roots for gathering nutrients and water in the soil, etc., all for the purpose of attaining that end that all trees tend to, which has no official word in our language but we might call "being-a-good-tree"). ”
Isn’t that simplistic? Is the goodness of a tree what is good for the tree, or what the tree is good for?
Perhaps the entelechy of a tree is to oxygenate the atmosphere for the benefit of animals, or supply food for herbivores, which–in turn–supply food for carnivores.
So is being a good tree good for the sake of the tree, for good for the sake of the biosphere, even if that’s bad for the tree?
“Something is bad for a thing if it makes it incapable of realizing its final cause. So, fire is bad for a tree because it burns bark, leaves, etc., and makes it incapable of doing what it naturally tends to do.”
Once again, isn’t that simplistic? Forest fires are bad for individual trees, but they are good for the overall heath of the ecosystem. When trees grow too tall and too close together, they hog the sunlight and choke out other vegetation. A forest fire frees up ground previously allocated to the trees.
So what’s the fundamental unit of teleological goodness? A tree? The forest?
What about chopping down a tree for firewood? What about a sawmill?
Seems to me that NL suffers from the same competing goods as utilitarianism.
“Since humans are of a different kind than those animals which kill their young…”
I agree. But how does NL actually demarcate that difference? Aren’t you begging the question?
For those reading without much familiarity with issues pertaining to NL, Hays is bringing up the problems usually classified as problems of how one interprets the basic values from which various conclusions about what actions are or right good are drawn.
ReplyDeleteOther examples might be, "human life has value and so is to be protected and preserved, thus actions like suicide are wrong," but what about sky diving, or smoking? Does NL make these things immoral? Depends on how you interpret the basic goods. Is civil disobedience allowed, or does it challenge the basic good of sociability? What about divorce, procreation, etc? The problem here is that NL basics are usually so basic as to allow a wide range of different viewpoints about which particular actions are right or wrong, and this, in turn, affects one aspect all good moral theories need to live up to: providing an action guide for right and wrong action. Moral theories need more than authority, they need relevance for our daily lives (e.g., "Always do good!" is pretty authoritative, but it's hardly relevant, since I don't know what counts as the good and how to decide between all the various courses of action I could take).
Hi Paul,
ReplyDelete>> How do I know what is said to be natural, and thus good for me to develop or move toward, isn't something that has been informed by upbringing etc? Why think, say, quest for knowledge is natural to humans as such, rather than some normative meme caught from intellectualist societies. Don't some societies teach the loss of all knowledge and categories is good? <<
Well, in addition to observation of widespread tendencies in instances of a certain kind, we can also judge what is good for a thing on the basis of the faculties and powers that thing is naturally endowed with. If the loss of all knowledge and categories was good for us, it makes no sense that we are endowed with the capacity to know.
>> As far as the unreflective person's selfish and aggressive tendencies being taught and caught from society, I'm assuming you haven't spent much time in the company of infants and toddlers? :-) Indeed, one might argue that we are taught to suppress these selfish and aggressive traits so as to make certain conceptions of society run more smoothly. <<
No, I haven't spent time with toddlers and infants at all! My only brother is but a few years younger than me, so I never had little kids in the house at a time when I would have been able to appreciate the experience. :-)
I would still say that such behavior presupposes a certain system of values which motivate toddler behavior, however primitive and undeveloped it may be, to which a human being, as such, need not naturally tend. How convincing this is, however, I am not sure; I may have to think over it some more.
Hi Steve,
>> But even if we accept that claim, it’s purely programmatic. How do we isolate and identify its final cause? <<
The final cause of a thing can be known by observation of what all or most instances of its kind tend towards. Not every final cause of every thing will be easily discernible, but nothing about natural law ethics and the metaphysics behind it that I subscribe to requires this.
>> Isn’t that simplistic? Is the goodness of a tree what is good for the tree, or what the tree is good for?
Perhaps the entelechy of a tree is to oxygenate the atmosphere for the benefit of animals, or supply food for herbivores, which–in turn–supply food for carnivores.
So is being a good tree good for the sake of the tree, for good for the sake of the biosphere, even if that’s bad for the tree? <<
No doubt there is a complex system of overlapping goods in the natural world; good trees produce oxygen which allows certain animals to prosper, and in their prospering they produce CO2 which allows trees to prosper, etc.
But these are all accidental, not essential, features of the good for a tree. A tree can prosper just fine in an atmosphere in which its oxygen is left unconsumed and CO2 from without is fed it through a ventilation system, or whatever. There's nothing about the essence of a tree as such that requires it to play a part in the ecosystem that it actually plays a part in.
Furthermore, it can't be a part of the essence of a tree to provide a source of food for certain animals, because this is tantamount to saying that a final cause of a tree is to be annihilated (in being eaten by other animals).
>> Once again, isn’t that simplistic? Forest fires are bad for individual trees, but they are good for the overall heath of the ecosystem. When trees grow too tall and too close together, they hog the sunlight and choke out other vegetation. A forest fire frees up ground previously allocated to the trees.
So what’s the fundamental unit of teleological goodness? A tree? The forest?
What about chopping down a tree for firewood? What about a sawmill? <<
Forests, ecosystems, sawmills, etc., are not real things, so nothing is "really" good for them.
A small disclaimer: I have not thought over these issues in very great detail, so I appreciate the opportunity to do that now. However, because of this fact, I cannot promise that every response I give will be fully satisfactory, or that I will even agree with what I've said after giving the issue more thought!
ReplyDeleteSTEVEN SAID:
ReplyDelete“The final cause of a thing can be known by observation of what all or most instances of its kind tend towards.”
All biological organisms tend to death.
“No doubt there is a complex system of overlapping goods in the natural world; good trees produce oxygen which allows certain animals to prosper, and in their prospering they produce CO2 which allows trees to prosper, etc.”
Not just overlapping goods, but competing goods. What’s good for the herbivore isn’t good for the edible plant.
“But these are all accidental, not essential, features of the good for a tree. A tree can prosper just fine in an atmosphere in which its oxygen is left unconsumed and CO2 from without is fed it through a ventilation system, or whatever. There's nothing about the essence of a tree as such that requires it to play a part in the ecosystem that it actually plays a part in.”
i) One problem is that you’re stipulating distinctions to salvage your theory. But why should we accept your theory in the first place?
ii) You’re also opposing teleology to entelechy. You’re driving a wedge between what a tree is (i.e. the “essence”) and what a tree is for (i.e. contributing to the balance of nature). But why should we accept that artificial bifurcation?
“Furthermore, it can't be a part of the essence of a tree to provide a source of food for certain animals, because this is tantamount to saying that a final cause of a tree is to be annihilated (in being eaten by other animals).”
Why can’t the tree be a means to an end rather than an end in itself?
“Forests, ecosystems, sawmills, etc., are not real things, so nothing is ‘really’ good for them.”
You’re kidding, right?
Hi Steven,
ReplyDeleteWell, in addition to observation of widespread tendencies in instances of a certain kind, we can also judge what is good for a thing on the basis of the faculties and powers that thing is naturally endowed with. If the loss of all knowledge and categories was good for us, it makes no sense that we are endowed with the capacity to know.
I may agree, but will they? This seems to presuppose a certain conception of the world and the origin and purpose of those faculties. So how do we know that you're not just elevating some set of caught and taught social desiderata? This seems to beg the question, assuming that we're 'naturally' endowed with these things. Also, it seems loss of things like 'hate' is good for us, but then why were we "endowed with the capacities" to hate?
"I would still say that such behavior presupposes a certain system of values which motivate toddler behavior, however primitive and undeveloped it may be, to which a human being, as such, need not naturally tend. How convincing this is, however, I am not sure; I may have to think over it some more."
Yeah, I'm not sure about this. Seems pretty universal. Take an American kid's toy, hell rage on you and bite your stomach, same result with the Hindu kid's toy.
Hi Steve,
ReplyDelete>> All biological organisms tend to death. <<
I imagine I could invoke the form/matter distinction and respond to this in the following way: biological organisms tend toward death by virtue of their form (e.g., not qua bird or shark) but by virtue of the corruptibility of their matter, that which took the form. Thus it is not a natural tendency of birds qua birds to tend towards death, but their matter does not allow for their immortality.
>> One problem is that you’re stipulating distinctions to salvage your theory. But why should we accept your theory in the first place? <<
What reasons there may be for accepting my quasi-Aristotelian view is a distinct issue from how I would respond to your pro-infanticide reductio argument from within my system.
>> You’re also opposing teleology to entelechy. You’re driving a wedge between what a tree is (i.e. the “essence”) and what a tree is for (i.e. contributing to the balance of nature). But why should we accept that artificial bifurcation? <<
I'm not inclined to think that any natural substance, of its nature, is for any other natural substance. It may be that trees, deer, squirrels, bugs, etc., when they are all put together, fit nicely into an ecosystem that is relatively self-sustaining, but it's not as if a deer couldn't be a good deer unless it was eventually food for a wolf.
>> Why can’t the tree be a means to an end rather than an end in itself? <<
I think every substance is an end in itself; if a tree were naturally a means to an end, then that means the tree, qua tree, could not flourish without being a means to that end. But that doesn't seem right. Couldn't a tree flourish even if nothing was breathing its oxygen, eating its leaves, etc.?
>> You’re kidding, right? <<
No. Nothing is a true thing with a nature if it has components that could exist and perform their functions independently of the existence of the whole. Sawmills, for example, are artifacts, and only have a good relative to our use of them, not in themselves.
Hi Paul,
>> I may agree, but will they? This seems to presuppose a certain conception of the world and the origin and purpose of those faculties. So how do we know that you're not just elevating some set of caught and taught social desiderata? This seems to beg the question, assuming that we're 'naturally' endowed with these things. Also, it seems loss of things like 'hate' is good for us, but then why were we "endowed with the capacities" to hate? <<
I am presupposing a certain amount of rationality and reasonableness in the universe, you're right. If our supposed interlocutors would disagree with that, then we must take the discussion to a more basic level than that at which it currently is among us two.
And I think it is obvious we are naturally endowed with reason and intellect. Who would deny this? Is every human on the planet a faulty or flawed instance of humanity, then? We can't know anything about any substance or kind unless we assume that the vast majority of instances we find in nature are generally good instances of that kind.
Our capacity to hate is a result of a more general capacity for emotion. The misuse of that capacity is made possible because we have will; but it doesn't follow from this fact that we would be better without that capacity, for it may be that hate of the sort that is reprehensible and improper is a misuse of that natural capacity, just as someone's cutting off his legs is a misuse of the natural capacity of his arms. It doesn't mean we would be better off without arms.
>> Yeah, I'm not sure about this. Seems pretty universal. Take an American kid's toy, hell rage on you and bite your stomach, same result with the Hindu kid's toy. <<
This is a sticky issue, I will have to give it more thought.
STEVEN SAID:
ReplyDelete“I imagine I could invoke the form/matter distinction and respond to this in the following way: biological organisms tend toward death by virtue of their form (e.g., not qua bird or shark) but by virtue of the corruptibility of their matter, that which took the form. Thus it is not a natural tendency of birds qua birds to tend towards death, but their matter does not allow for their immortality.”
i) If they tend toward death both by virtue of their form and their matter, then how isn’t that their natural entelechy?
ii) How is the qua relevant? At best, that would be germane if you were bifurcating form and matter such that “qua bird” distinguishes the organism from non-qua bird. From matter apart from form.
But you just said they tend toward death on both counts.
iii)What evidence do you have that organisms are hylomorphically constituted? Did you arrive at your theory by examining the empirical properties of biological organisms? If not, what makes you think your theory accurately describes or successfully refers to biological organisms, rather than a paper theory which is extrinsic to its putative object?
“What reasons there may be for accepting my quasi-Aristotelian view is a distinct issue from how I would respond to your pro-infanticide reductio argument from within my system.”
Sounds like you’re stalling for time because you don’t have a good answer.
However, I’m not interested in your exposition of hylomorphism. Why should we care unless we have reason to believe it’s true?
“I'm not inclined to think that any natural substance, of its nature, is for any other natural substance. It may be that trees, deer, squirrels, bugs, etc., when they are all put together, fit nicely into an ecosystem that is relatively self-sustaining, but it's not as if a deer couldn't be a good deer unless it was eventually food for a wolf.”
And where’s your argument? Why should we accept your atomistic restriction of teleology to discrete particulars rather than organic relations?
Does a deer exist for its own sake?
“I think every substance is an end in itself; if a tree were naturally a means to an end, then that means the tree, qua tree, could not flourish without being a means to that end.”
What’s your justification for restricting teleology to individual flourishing? Did you arrive at that conclusion from the study of nature?
Take the caste-system in an ant colony, where soldier ants sacrifice themselves in defense of the queen or the colony.
“Nothing is a true thing with a nature if it has components that could exist and perform their functions independently of the existence of the whole.”
Once again, the question at issue is not how you expound your position, but how you justify your position. Truth by stipulation is not an argument.
Hi Steven,
ReplyDeleteI admit, I do not know what to say to the "it's just obvious" defeater. :-)
Anyway, good points, I don't want to wast my time defending Zen Buddhism!
Hi Steve,
ReplyDelete>> i) If they tend toward death both by virtue of their form and their matter, then how isn’t that their natural entelechy? <<
That was an unfortunate typo, I apologize. I meant to say: I imagine I could invoke the form/matter distinction and respond to this in the following way: biological organisms tend toward death _not_ by virtue of their form (e.g., not qua bird or shark) but by virtue of the corruptibility of their matter, that which took the form.
>> How is the qua relevant? At best, that would be germane if you were bifurcating form and matter such that “qua bird” distinguishes the organism from non-qua bird. From matter apart from form. <<
When I say that a bird qua bird does not tend towards death, I mean that it is not a part of the form of a bird, the essence of a bird, that it tend towards death. It is because of its matter that it dies, not because of its birdhood.
The next two are related:
>> What evidence do you have that organisms are hylomorphically constituted? Did you arrive at your theory by examining the empirical properties of biological organisms? If not, what makes you think your theory accurately describes or successfully refers to biological organisms, rather than a paper theory which is extrinsic to its putative object? ...
Sounds like you’re stalling for time because you don’t have a good answer.
However, I’m not interested in your exposition of hylomorphism. Why should we care unless we have reason to believe it’s true? <<
I'm not stalling for time because I don't have an answer, but because reasons for believing hylemorphism and this general metaphysic are distinct from how someone would deal with your infanticide reductio. The hylemorphism is not to the point; to the point is whether a natural law theorist can resist the attempted reductios.
>> And where’s your argument? Why should we accept your atomistic restriction of teleology to discrete particulars rather than organic relations?
Does a deer exist for its own sake? <<
I think of teleology of the sort relevant to ethical considerations as being inherent in substances, i.e., discrete particulars, as a part of their nature, what makes them an instance of what they are.
Suppose we have two deer who both live to a nice old age, and both their lives, up to the point of death, are of exactly the same quality, but one dies of old age and the other is eaten by a wolf. Is the latter a better as a deer for that fact? I can't see that it is. And it makes no sense to say that the final cause of a thing could be anything other than the well being of that thing. If something is the final cause of a thing, then attaining it is good for that thing; but nothing that involves a thing's annihilation is good for it, since the good is what improves the quality of a thing's existence, not ends it.
>> What’s your justification for restricting teleology to individual flourishing? Did you arrive at that conclusion from the study of nature? <<
I'll use the argument I just gave above. The good for no thing can involve its annihilation (e.g., its being food for another being), since it can't benefit from its being annihilated since it no longer exists, and the good is what it benefits from, what improves the quality of its existence. So the good for a thing can only be something that it can have while being, which would be individual flourishing.
>> Once again, the question at issue is not how you expound your position, but how you justify your position. Truth by stipulation is not an argument. <<
I don't understand. In the present discussion, I am being offered objections to natural law ethics and I am attempting to respond from within a broadly hylemorphic metaphysic; then, when I offer a response, I am asked to offer reasons for believing the metaphysic in the first place! Doesn't this seem dialectically improper to you?
Hi Paul,
ReplyDelete>> I admit, I do not know what to say to the "it's just obvious" defeater. :-)
Anyway, good points, I don't want to wast my time defending Zen Buddhism! <<
:-) Well, I didn't just say it's obvious. I argued that we don't have any other way of knowing what is natural for a thing unless we assume that the vast majority of instances we find of it in nature are typically good instances. If we can't decide that it's natural for humans to have intellect, for instance, on the basis of every human's having intellect, then what other grounds could we possibly have?
"If we can't decide that it's natural for humans to have intellect, for instance, on the basis of every human's having intellect, then what other grounds could we possibly have?"
ReplyDeletea) Even that couldn't be a basis for decision, since you'd never complete the data collection necessary.
b) There would be other hurdles besides the vast quantity of data necessary, such as whether you count anencephalic children as humans, and how you measure the intellect of such children.
c) But here is an obvious alternative to this approach of trying to build up a conclusion based on inferences from is to what ought.
-TurretinFan
Hi Turretinfan,
ReplyDelete>> a) Even that couldn't be a basis for decision, since you'd never complete the data collection necessary. <<
I don't see why this is true. It need not be that every human ever has intellect in order for it to be natural for humans to have intellect, just that the normal human will have intellect. See Ed Feser on Aristotelian categoricals.
>> b) There would be other hurdles besides the vast quantity of data necessary, such as whether you count anencephalic children as humans, and how you measure the intellect of such children. <<
The response to this is obvious from the above. Not everything need to have intellect in order to be human, despite the fact that humans naturally have intellect, since there can be instances of a kind that are defective in one way or the other. Furthermore, it is clear that the reproductive product of two things of one kind is going to generally be of the same kind.
>> c) But here is an obvious alternative to this approach of trying to build up a conclusion based on inferences from is to what ought. <<
I deny the alleged invalidity of the is-ought problem. See Ed Feser:
"From the traditional Thomistic point of view, however, there simply is no "fact/value distinction" in the first place. More precisely, there is no such thing as a purely "factual" description of reality utterly divorced from "value," for "value" is built into the structure of the "facts" from the get-go... No such gap, and thus no "fallacy" of inferring normative conclusions from "purely factual" premises, can exist given an Aristotelian-Thomistic essentialist and teleological conception of the world." (Aquinas, p. 175)
Small typo:
ReplyDeleteI deny the alleged invalidity of the is-ought problem.
should be
I deny the alleged invalidity of the is-ought inference.
"I don't see why this is true. It need not be that every human ever has intellect in order for it to be natural for humans to have intellect, just that the normal human will have intellect. "
ReplyDeleteYou had proposed "on the basis of every human's having intellect" ... I was responding to what you proposed.
The alternative of "most humans" or "most humans I know" has different problems than the "every human" approach.
-TurretinFan
Hi Turretinfan,
ReplyDelete>> You had proposed "on the basis of every human's having intellect" ... I was responding to what you proposed.
The alternative of "most humans" or "most humans I know" has different problems than the "every human" approach. <<
You're right, I told Paul that the fact that every human has intellect is good reason to think intellect comes naturally to humans.
My response to you, however, was that it's not necessary that every instance of a human have an intellect in order for that inference to be a good one. To express the thought another way: we could have plenty of evidence to think Mr Smith is guilty of murder, but even without some of the evidence we might have, we could still be reasonably certain of it.
The presupposition is just that the majority of instances of a kind you observe in nature are going to be generally good instances of that kind, and so you can make inferences as to what is natural and normal for that kind from what you observe in those instances. This is a presupposition of any kind of study of nature whatsoever; if you did not presuppose this, then there could not be any knowledge at all of what is natural to a certain kind.
"My response to you, however, was that it's not necessary that every instance of a human have an intellect in order for that inference to be a good one."
ReplyDeleteI only broadly hinted at the problems associated with this alternative. Let me be more specific.
The biggest problem is that the process of inference from examples requires a set of tools a priori. That's not problematic in a court-room setting - there are strict rules there established by law.
It is more problematic in situations like natural law theory, unless that natural law theory is directly informed by special revelation.
I hope that's helpful.
-TurretinFan
Hi Turretinfan,
ReplyDelete>> I only broadly hinted at the problems associated with this alternative. Let me be more specific.
The biggest problem is that the process of inference from examples requires a set of tools a priori. That's not problematic in a court-room setting - there are strict rules there established by law.
It is more problematic in situations like natural law theory, unless that natural law theory is directly informed by special revelation.
I hope that's helpful. <<
What you're saying is not specific enough to me to be very helpful, unfortunately.
What exactly is the problem you're hinting at?
I'm surprised you haven't spotted it all ready, but I'm happy to oblige with a more particular explanation.
ReplyDeleteLet's take your comment: "The presupposition is just that the majority of instances of a kind you observe in nature are going to be generally good instances of that kind, and so you can make inferences as to what is natural and normal for that kind from what you observe in those instances. This is a presupposition of any kind of study of nature whatsoever; if you did not presuppose this, then there could not be any knowledge at all of what is natural to a certain kind."
This idea that "the majority of instances of a kind you observe in nature are going to be generally good instances of that kind" is a framework that you are supplying. It can't be supported by or derived from the evidence. Where does it come from then? Therein lies the problem.
It's not an answer to the problem to simply assert that one has to or must necessarily assume such a thing. Even if it were true that the only way it could be done is that way, that in itself would not inform us that the approach is reliable. In other words, just because a technique is operable doesn't mean it is reliable. One can operate a magic 8-ball ...
Does that adequately spell it out for you?
-TurretinFan
Hi Turretinfan,
ReplyDelete>> This idea that "the majority of instances of a kind you observe in nature are going to be generally good instances of that kind" is a framework that you are supplying. It can't be supported by or derived from the evidence. Where does it come from then? Therein lies the problem.
It's not an answer to the problem to simply assert that one has to or must necessarily assume such a thing. Even if it were true that the only way it could be done is that way, that in itself would not inform us that the approach is reliable. In other words, just because a technique is operable doesn't mean it is reliable. One can operate a magic 8-ball ... <<
It seems to me that this is a consequence of the presupposition of the intelligibility of the universe, which is a presupposition of our having any knowledge whatsoever. If we are to have knowledge of the universe, the universe must be intelligible; and since knowledge of the universe is simply knowledge of its components, then its components must be intelligible also. The only knowledge we can have of the components of the universe (e.g., deer, dogs, humans, etc.) is through our interaction with these things as we experience them in the natural order. If we are to have any knowledge of these components, then, we have to assume that the vast majority of their instances in nature are good instances of their respective kinds.
"The only knowledge we can have of the components of the universe (e.g., deer, dogs, humans, etc.) is through our interaction with these things as we experience them in the natural order."
ReplyDeleteThat isn't true. I get lots of my knowledge other ways than by experience of the objects.
STEVEN SAID:
ReplyDelete“I imagine I could invoke the form/matter distinction and respond to this in the following way: biological organisms tend toward death _not_ by virtue of their form (e.g., not qua bird or shark) but by virtue of the corruptibility of their matter, that which took the form”
But since on hylomorphism, there is no formless matter or immaterial forms, how is that distinction meaningful?
Likewise, why should we define the essence of a birth by its form in contrast to its matter?
You also seem to be saying form and matter are at odds. In that case, matter can’t express form.
“When I say that a bird qua bird does not tend towards death, I mean that it is not a part of the form of a bird, the essence of a bird, that it tend towards death. It is because of its matter that it dies, not because of its birdhood.”
i) Immortal birdhood might make some sense on a theory of platonic forms, where the form is something over and above matter, where the form is a temporal and temporary instance of a timeless form, but I don’t see how that follows on hylomorphism.
ii) Moreover, are you suggesting the lifecycle of a bird is not a part of “birdhood”? A bird’s lifecycle doesn’t figure in its essence? If so, why should we accept that contention?
“The hylemorphism is not to the point; to the point is whether a natural law theorist can resist the attempted reductios.”
Isn’t natural law theory grounded in hylomorphism? After all, you quoted Feser on Thomism.
“And it makes no sense to say that the final cause of a thing could be anything other than the well being of that thing. If something is the final cause of a thing, then attaining it is good for that thing; but nothing that involves a thing's annihilation is good for it, since the good is what improves the quality of a thing's existence, not ends it.”
With all due respect, it’s these vacuous abstractions, divorced from the real world, that give philosophy a bad name. Do lice exist for their own sake? Lice must be an end in themselves, and not a means to an end?
You need to pull your head out of the clouds and propose a theory of reality that has some recognizable connection with reality. Philosophy isn’t like writing a novel, where you are free to posit how you wish the world to be.
Cont. “The good for no thing can involve its annihilation (e.g., its being food for another being), since it can't benefit from its being annihilated since it no longer exists, and the good is what it benefits from, what improves the quality of its existence. So the good for a thing can only be something that it can have while being, which would be individual flourishing.”
ReplyDeleteOn the face of it, we inhabit a world where many things don’t exist for their own benefit, but for the benefit of other things. A world full of dispensable, disposable organisms.
“I don't understand. In the present discussion, I am being offered objections to natural law ethics and I am attempting to respond from within a broadly hylemorphic metaphysic; then, when I offer a response, I am asked to offer reasons for believing the metaphysic in the first place! Doesn't this seem dialectically improper to you?”
I think an elementary condition of good philosophy is that it be true. Not just toying with ideas for the sake of ideas. Not investing many painstaking man-hours decorating the interior of air castles.
Our God-given intelligence is not to be squandered on the philosophical equivalent of game shows, viz. Hollywood Squares.
STEVEN SAID:
ReplyDelete“The only knowledge we can have of the components of the universe (e.g., deer, dogs, humans, etc.) is through our interaction with these things as we experience them in the natural order.”
But when you make Olympian pronouncements like:
“Forests, ecosystems, sawmills, etc., are not real things, so nothing is ‘really’ good for them.”
And:
“Nothing is a true thing with a nature if it has components that could exist and perform their functions independently of the existence of the whole.”
And:
“When I say that a bird qua bird does not tend towards death, I mean that it is not a part of the form of a bird, the essence of a bird, that it tend towards death.”
And:
“And it makes no sense to say that the final cause of a thing could be anything other than the well being of that thing. If something is the final cause of a thing, then attaining it is good for that thing; but nothing that involves a thing's annihilation is good for it, since the good is what improves the quality of a thing's existence, not ends it.”
You didn’t arrive at these Olympian pronouncements through your interaction with biological organisms as you experience them in the natural order. You’re beginning with a top-down a priori theory rather than a bottom-up a posteriori theory.
“It seems to me that this is a consequence of the presupposition of the intelligibility of the universe, which is a presupposition of our having any knowledge whatsoever. If we are to have knowledge of the universe, the universe must be intelligible; and since knowledge of the universe is simply knowledge of its components, then its components must be intelligible also.”
How far to you take that? For instance, is quantum mechanics intelligible? What about philosophical paradoxes?
Hi Steven,
ReplyDeleteI just poped back in and saw this:
I deny the alleged invalidity of the is-ought [inference]. See Ed Feser:
"From the traditional Thomistic point of view, however, there simply is no "fact/value distinction" in the first place. More precisely, there is no such thing as a purely "factual" description of reality utterly divorced from "value," for "value" is built into the structure of the "facts" from the get-go... No such gap, and thus no "fallacy" of inferring normative conclusions from "purely factual" premises, can exist given an Aristotelian-Thomistic essentialist and teleological conception of the world." (Aquinas, p. 175)
I think:
(a) It's not wise to deny the problematic inference
and
(b) That you've misunderstood Feser if you think he's denying the inference *per se*.
Here's why:
On (a), it just *is* fallacious to move *directly* from a *purely factual* premise to a *normative* conclusion. What rule of inference would allow this?
On (b), I think Feser's right. This is because on Thomism there is no *purely* descriptive, for all things have *ends* or *purposes* or *proper* functions, thus, there is some inherent normativity to all of creation.
So, I wouldn't put things the way you have. I'd say: "I don't deny the invalidity of the inference, but I don't think the problem arises for the Thomist since we're not moving *directly* from the *purely factual* to the *normative*, which would be fallacious if we did!"
"The only knowledge we can have of the components of the universe (e.g., deer, dogs, humans, etc.) is through our interaction with these things as we experience them in the natural order."
ReplyDeleteSo was the god-man (Jesus) not a component of the universe when he walked among us? Since he is still embodied forever as the god-man, is he not a "component" of the universe, being fully divine and fully human? I thought Aquinas would regulate knowledge here to faith, or revelation? Or would you just not say he's a component? Or that he's fully component, fully non-component? Or . . .