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Elevating Human Being: Towards a New Sort of Naturalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2017

Irene Liu
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Abstract

Defended by scholars such as John McDowell and Julia Annas, the naturalism of second nature (NSN) claims that the virtues are part of a rational second nature instilled through moral education. While NSN emphasizes that rationality, fully developed, results in autonomy from nature, it is considered a sort of naturalism because the development of rational second nature unfolds through entirely natural processes. Critics object that NSN does not utilize human nature as a standard of evaluation, which is a problem for a view that claims to be a sort of naturalism. This paper attempts to meet this charge by introducing a novel way to understand the normative significance of human nature. It argues that NSN supports an analysis of human nature as the raw material of the virtues and, as such, the basis of a kind of aesthetic evaluation. Specifically, human nature is the basis of humaneness, a kind of beauty that belongs to what elevates or refines human nature. Thus, according to the fortified naturalism of second nature the ethical significance of human nature is explained by recognizing how the virtues exemplify a kind of beauty that only humans can have.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 92 , Issue 4 , October 2017 , pp. 597 - 622
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Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2017 

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References

1 1178b8–18.

2 See Hursthouse, Rosalind, On Virtue Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 206Google Scholar. Hereafter, I will use the term ‘naturalism’ to refer to the general category of neo-Aristotelian ethical naturalism. This form of naturalism is distinctive in that it features the concept of human nature. Other forms of ethical naturalism will not be considered in this paper.

3 Foot, Philippa, Natural Goodness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 14CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Several scholars describe this point as the main idea behind Aristotelian naturalism. E.g., McDowell, John calls it the ‘Aristotelian idea’ (Mind and World (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994), 85)Google Scholar. Lott, Micah calls it the ‘core Aristotelian conviction’ (‘Why be a good human being? Natural goodness, reason, and the authority of human nature’, Philosophia 42 (2014), 761–777; 776)Google Scholar. Hursthouse identifies it as the central plank of naturalism (op. cit. note 2, 206).

5 Neo-Aristotelians have been more focused on developing a satisfactory naturalism of first nature. At the same time, it also appears that many of McDowell's insights have been absorbed in strengthening this view. See Lott for a review of these developments (op. cit. note 4).

6 McDowell, op. cit. note 5, 85. Reserving the term ‘Aristotelian’ for views advanced by the likes of Foot and Hursthouse, Annas, Julia describes her own view as non-Aristotelian (‘Virtue ethics: What kind of naturalism?’ in Gardiner (ed.) Virtue Ethics, Old and New (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005), 11–29)Google Scholar. For this paper, what matters is that her view incorporates what McDowell calls the ‘Aristotelian idea’.

7 Hursthouse, op. cit. note 2, 206.

8 My account of NFN draws heavily from Foot's Natural Goodness, whose version of naturalism has been particularly influential on contemporary naturalists. Thinkers who have taken up defending her view include Michael Thompson, Rosalind Hursthouse, John Hacker-Wright, and Micah Lott, and I have drawn on their views where appropriate. MacIntyre, Alasdair (Dependent, Rational Animals (Chicago: Open Court, 1999))Google Scholar also advances NFN, which is in broad contours like Foot's.

9 This is also called ‘life form’. The ‘locus classicus’ for recent discussions of this topic is Michael Thompson's ‘Representation of Life’ in Hursthouse et al. (eds) Virtues and Reasons (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). We make the Aristotelian heritage explicit by noting that life form is another way of referring to ‘psyche’, or the principle of life. In turn, we note that ‘psyche’ is ‘physis’, or nature, in the context of living things.

10 Op. cit. note 3, 26–7.

11 Foot, op. cit. note 3, 26–7.

12 Op. cit. note 3, 16.

13 Foot, op. cit. note 3, 15.

14 Ibid., 14.

15 Op. cit. note 4, 762. McDowell, John is perhaps most famous for bringing this objection against Foot's naturalism in ‘Two Sorts of Naturalism’ in Mind, Value, and Reality (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998)Google Scholar. See also Copp, David and Sobel, David, ‘Morality and virtue: an assessment of some recent work in virtue ethics’, Ethics 114 (2004), 514–554 Google Scholar.

16 Op. cit. note 4, 85.

17 Those eager to preserve NFN will say that human nature ‘enter[s] into an account of practical rationality’ itself (Lott, op. cit. note 4, 776–7). See also Hacker-Wright, John, who claims that ‘nature is normative over reasoning, but not directly over our action’ (‘Human Nature, Virtue, and Rationality’, in J. Peters (ed.) Aristotelian ethics in contemporary perspective (New York: Routledge, 2013), 83–96; 85)Google Scholar. He argues that it is not possible for beings like us to be rational agents without acknowledging, implicitly or explicitly, the demands of natural goodness.

18 Annas, op. cit. note 6, 22.

19 McDowell, op. cit. note 15, 185.

20 As will become apparent, this description is heavily influenced by Aristotle, as are the proponents of NSN.

21 See Aristotle, NE 1103a14–19. Habituation is contrasted with teaching (didaskalia), which is a method that appeals directly to rational principles and works by offering explanations to learners.

22 That does not mean that it is possible to cultivate any habits whatsoever. Habituation cannot produce something completely ‘contrary to nature’: no matter how many times one throws it, a stone cannot be habituated to move up because its nature is, exactly, to move down (NE 1103a20–6).

23 McDowell, op. cit. note 15, 188.

24 See Aristotle NE 10.9; McDowell, op. cit. note 15, 194.

25 Op. cit. note 6, 22.

26 Annas, op. cit. note 6, 28.

27 Lott, op. cit. note 4, 776.

28 Ibid., 775.

29 This phrase comes from the Arts and Crafts movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I have adopted the phrase because it coincides aptly with my view. Since my view was developed independently, there is not perfect overlap, and my claims should not be understood as promoting an interpretation of the Arts and Crafts movement.

30 Ruskin, The Stones of Venice, Vol. 2 (1853). This passage is cited by Whitely, Nigel, ‘Utility, Design Principles, and the Ethical Tradition’, in J. Attfield (ed.) Utility Reassessed: The Role of Ethics in the Practice of Design (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999), 192Google Scholar. I came to this passage through Saito, Yuriko's discussion of truth to materials in Everyday Aesthetics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 117Google Scholar.

31 This point is conceptually related to the formula Kant uses to describe pure beauty – ‘purposiveness without purpose’ (See CJ, 10–17). Beautiful objects cannot be subsumed under an ideal concept, and their beauty cannot be described according to a function. However, their organization conveys the sense that they were meant to be.

32 Here Kimberly Elman describes Frank Lloyd Wright's ‘organic architecture’: ‘organic architecture is a reinterpretation of nature's principles as they had been filtered through the intelligent minds of men and women who could then build forms which are more natural than nature itself’ (‘Frank Lloyd Wright and the Principles of Organic Architecture’; https:// www.pbs.org/flw/legacy/essay1.html). The description is not coincidental; Wright was a proponent of truth to materials.

33 Hursthouse, op. cit. note 2, 209, 233–4; Hacker-Wright, op. cit. note 17, 94–4.

34 NE 1103a24-6. This sentiment is echoed in Foot's observation that the virtues simply seem to ‘suit us’ (Hursthouse, op. cit. note 2, 251). Proponents of NFN tend to be impressed by the naturalness of the virtues, and natural goodness is an attempt to bring the virtues under the umbrella of the natural. I would suggest instead that the perceived naturalness of the virtues is a function of truth to materials.

35 Foot, op. cit. note 3, 14.

36 McDowell, op. cit. note 4, 85.

37 Ibid.

38 That is not to say that all will necessarily care about this duty. As with any art, it is always possible for an individual to not care about truth to materials. In the specific case of the art of moral education, it is clear that most do not. However, the artist who is indifferent in this way is, by that fact alone, deficient as an artist.

39 See, for example, Hursthouse, op. cit. note 2, 206.

40 Based on passing remarks about ‘human bonsais’, it seems that Thompson, Michael would reject this analogy out of hand. Presumably he finds the art of bonsai atrocious, and he associates this art with foot binding (‘Apprehending Human Form’ in O'Hear (ed.) Modern Moral Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 73)Google Scholar.

41 Aristotle, NE 1170a8–11.

42 Symposium, 203b1–c4.

43 Symposium, 206c–e.

44 The view presented here has resonances with Murdoch, Iris's view that the ‘enjoyment of art is a training in the love of virtue’ (The Sovereignty of Good (New York: Routledge, 2001), 84)Google Scholar. She thinks it is ethically significant that beauty is the ‘only spiritual thing which we love by instinct’ (83). Whereas she sees an analogy between goodness and beauty, I am arguing that goodness is a kind of beauty.

45 Plato, Phaedo, 66b–69d; Augustine, On Free Choice of the Will, Bk. III, 19; Murdoch, op. cit. note 44, 90–1.

46 See Anscombe, Elizabeth, ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’, Philosophy 33 (1958), 1–19 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47 That is not to deny the existence of what Aristotle calls ‘natural virtues’, which are untutored tendencies to virtuous behavior, e.g., the naturally moderate naturally does not desire excess food or drink. However, natural virtues are decidedly not virtues (NE 6.13).

48 However, see Hursthouse, op. cit. note 2, 223.

49 In developing FNSN, I have taken inspiration from the tradition of Confucian ethics. While Confucianism is highly attentive to the reality of human nature, its fundamental idea is that morality and the virtues are essentially cultural. In this, Confucian ethics is distinguished from both Aristotelian and Kantian perspectives. It would thus be fruitful to bring Confucianism into the discussion.

50 My deepest gratitude goes to John K. Monteleone for his invaluable feedback on this paper.