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Old 07-05-2010, 08:21 AM   #631
TimMason
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There is another sense of "natural", and that sense is concerned with what this brain/body system we refer to as human is like and how it interacts with its environment.
I don't see how this overcomes the objection. Indeed, I do not see that your use of the term 'natural' differs in any crucial way from my own. If our ethical determinations spring from our being in the world, then they have no more than local extent.

Take one example of how our brain/body system interacts with its environment: the blood feud. We know that for millennia human beings have acted upon the principle that injury done to one member of a group is injury done to all, and that there is no distinction to be made between the aggressor and other members of his group. If a member of your family is injured by the member of another family, then all members of the other family are legitimate targets of your wrath.

Now, there are excellent biological reasons why this should be so (you may look at Daly and Wilson's book 'Homicide' for a rehearsal of these). But I have to doubt that anyone on this list would accept a moral principle that says you have a right to harm your neighbour's son if your neighbour has harmed you.

Similarly, female infanticide is a practice which can be shown to contribute to lineage fitness under certain circumstances (for a discussion of this, see Sarah Blaffer Hrdy's 'Mother Nature'). Indeed, it seems likely that any lineage which did *not* pursue this practice in the mountain areas of Northern India and of Pakistan would very quickly have lost its status, its lands, its means of subsistence. Once again, it seems unlikely that anyone here will uphold a principle that makes such behaviours morally desirable.

One could continue with similar examples. It is very easy indeed to demonstrate that our species being cannot be, in and of itself, a guide to present moral practice.

Last edited by TimMason; 07-05-2010 at 08:43 AM.
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