The Ideal of Nature: Debates about Biotechnology and the Environment

7 The Appeal to Nature

The appeal to nature as a reason for moral commendation and even moral obligation has existed throughout the ages, beginning with the Stoics and the Epicureans . It appears in Roman law, canon law, and in modern times in international law. In “On Nature,” John Stuart Mill observes, “That any mode of thinking, feeling , or acting, is ‘according to nature’ is usually accepted as a strong argument for its goodness . . . and the word unnatural has not ceased to be one of the most vituperative epithets in the language” (1904, p. 47). But is there any justification for an appeal to nature or what is natural? Mill’s analysis is startlingly contemporary. His view that “conformity to nature, has no connection whatever with right and wrong” (p. 68) has been adopted and reformulated by contemporary philosophers, including Allen Buchanan (2009), David DeGrazia (2005), Ronald Green (2007), and John Harris (1998). On the other side of the issue are several other contemporary philosophers, including Leon Kass, who until recently chaired the President’s Council for Bioethics (2002), Francis Fukuyama (2002), Jürgen Habermas (2003), Erik Parens (1995), and Michael Sandel (2007). In this chapter, I examine the arguments put forth by opponents and supporters of the appeal to nature or the natural. I conclude that such appeals can have a role in moral reasoning, but not the robust role often claimed for it. While nature does and should have value for us, nature is not the source of substantive moral rules. It is, rather, subject to moral assessment. chapter Seven The Appeal to Nature Bonnie Steinbock, Ph.D. The Appeal to Nature 99 Let us begin with Mill’s arguments for the absolute rejection of nature as normative . He distinguishes between two main senses of nature: 1. “Nature means the sum of all phenomena, together with the causes which produce them; including not only all that happens, but all that is capable of happening” (1904, p. 44). When we talk about the laws of nature, we are using nature in this first sense. 2. Nature as opposed to Art, and natural to artificial—whatever takes place without the voluntary agency of man is nature. Which sense of nature is intended in the assertion that nature should be our guide? Clearly, it cannot be the first sense of the term, because, as Mill writes, “in this signification, there is no need of a recommendation to act according to nature, since it is what nobody can possibly help doing, and equally whether he acts well or ill” (p. 49). Because it is not possible to avoid conforming one’s action to the laws of nature, it makes no sense to recommend that one ought to act in accordance with nature. Of course, we should study the laws of nature (what is likely to occur if we act in certain ways) and use that knowledge as a guide to action. To do otherwise would be foolish indeed. Mill writes, “a person who goes into a powder magazine either not knowing, or carelessly omitting to think of, the explosive force of gunpowder , is likely to do some act which will cause him to be blown to atoms in obedience to the very law which he has disregarded” (p. 51). However, to study nature is not to follow nature or to find in nature behavioral norms. What about the second sense of Nature, in which the natural is opposed to the artificial? Mill argues that this too provides no guide to action. All of human history is an intervention with the natural order in an attempt to improve our lives. Civilization itself is a triumph of the artificial over the natural. Mill writes, “If the artificial is not better than the natural, to what end are all the arts of life? To dig, to plough, to build, to wear clothes, are direct infringements of the injunction to follow nature” (p. 51). Every human intervention into the course of nature, from the draining of marshes to prevent outbreaks of malaria to the vaccination of children to prevent measles and polio, is unnatural in the sense of being the product of human invention. Moreover, if we were to imitate what occurs in Nature in our own actions, we would be committing the greatest crimes. As Mill explains, “In sober truth, nearly all of the things which men are hanged or imprisoned for doing to one another, are nature’s every day performances . . . Nature impales men, breaks them as if on...