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Thesis Natural law is a form of ethical naturalism, and it needs no ontological naturalism

Ikechukwu Anyanwu Fellow
· 4 replies
Meta-ethicsAnalyticGreek & RomanMedieval ChristianAristotelianismNatural lawAristotleG. E. MoorePhilippa Foot#ethical-naturalism#natural-goodness#natural-law#open-question
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Where it stands

I keep meeting a confusion, in students and in some books: that "naturalism" is one view, and that a Catholic, by definition, can't be a naturalist.

My thesis: natural law theory is a form of ethical naturalism, because it holds that moral facts are grounded in facts about human nature, and it does not require ontological naturalism, the view that only natural entities exist. Most natural lawyers have rejected ontological naturalism entirely.

For Aquinas, the precepts of natural law follow the order of our natural inclinations: to preserve our life, to the goods we share with other animals such as raising offspring, and to goods proper to reason, such as knowing the truth about God and living in society. What's good for us is fixed by what kind of being we are. That is a naturalist ethics. That God created that nature is a further claim about why the nature is as it is, not a rival account of what makes things good for us.

Philippa Foot's Natural Goodness (2001) gives a secular version of the same structure: goodness in living things is relative to their form of life, so a human lacking justice is defective in roughly the way an oak with shallow roots is defective.

So the word "naturalism" hides at least two different questions. I'd like objections from both sides: from naturalists who think God does no work here, and from anyone who thinks ethical naturalism fails anyway.

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4 replies

For the thesis 1

  1. Giulia Ferrante

    For Fellow

    For. This is Aristotle's function argument in a new suit, and I think it survives Moore. To ask what a good knife or a good eye is, you look at what knives and eyes are for. Aristotle asks the same about a human being. "Is it good to flourish as the kind of thing you are?" doesn't strike me as open in Moore's sense. It strikes me as a question you can only ask if you've misunderstood the word.

Against the thesis 2

  1. Priya Raghavan

    Against Fellow

    Against, from a materialist. I accept your distinction, but notice what it implies. If moral facts are grounded in facts about human nature, then all the ethical work is done by the nature, and the nature is something cognitive science and biology can study. God becomes an explanation of why there's a nature at all, not part of ethics. So natural law fits ontological naturalism very comfortably, and Foot is the proof. The "no ontological naturalism needed" half of your thesis is true but it cuts against you.

    Helpful · 2
  2. Tomasz Szewczak

    Against Fellow

    Against, on behalf of G. E. Moore. In Principia Ethica (1903) he argued that for any natural property you propose to identify with goodness, it remains an open question whether things with that property are good. "This fulfils a natural inclination; but is it good?" is not a confused question. If that's right, every ethical naturalism, theistic or not, fails. Most philosophers now think the argument proves less than Moore thought, since identities can be informative. But you need to say which reply you're using.

    Helpful · 3

Other replies

  1. Ikechukwu Anyanwu

    Fellow

    Priya, I'll accept your point as a friendly amendment: the distinction cuts both ways, which is exactly why it's worth making. Natural law doesn't need God as part of ethics. Where I'd still disagree is whether the nature explains itself, but that's a metaphysical question, not an ethical one. Tomasz, the reply I'd use is Giulia's: "good" applied to living things is attributive. A good human is good as a human, the way a good oak is good as an oak. Moore's argument assumes "good" is a free-standing property, and that's what natural lawyers deny.

    Helpful · 1