3.1.6: Cognitivist and Realist Theory One (Naturalism)

Naturalists hold that there are moral properties in the world that make true at least some of our ordinary moral beliefs. Unsurprisingly, naturalists also hold that these moral properties are perfectly natural properties rather than being non-natural. To understand this claim, we need a better grip of what the philosophical and ethical naturalist actually means by the term “natural”.

Naturalists in ethics hold that moral properties are as natural as those properties discussed and examined in the sciences, for example. So, the property of being “wet” is a perfectly natural property as is the more complex property of “being magnetic”. These properties can be investigated by scientists and are not supernatural or beyond the study of natural sciences.

Gilbert Harman (1938–) suggests that “…we must concentrate on finding the place of value and obligation [morality] in the world of facts as revealed by science”. If murder has the property of being morally wrong, then this property is natural if it fits into the world of facts as revealed by science.

Simon Blackburn (1944–) (though not a realist himself) outlines the desirability and purpose of this commitment to Naturalism when he says that: “The problem is one of finding room for ethics, or placing ethics within the disenchanted, non-ethical order which we inhabit, and of which we are a part”.

Moral Naturalism thus speaks to those who wish to defend Realism and truth in ethics, without resorting to non-natural justifications based on Gods, Platonic Forms and the like. The naturalist seeks to fit moral properties into the non-mystical world of ordinary science.

Utilitarianism is a normative ethical theory that is underpinned by a metaethical Naturalism. Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, if you recall from Chapter 1.1, defined moral goodness in terms of the act (or set of rules) that promoted the greatest amount of pleasure/happiness for the greatest number of people. Utilitarians thus view good as an entirely natural properties for there is nothing mystical, enchanted or supernatural about pleasure; scientists can perfectly well understand pleasure in terms of neural firings or psychological explanations.

In addition, both Philippa Foot and Rosalind Hursthouse have sought to place Virtue Ethics (as discussed in its Aristotelian form in Chapter 1.3) within a naturalist metaethical framework.

According to Hursthouse, human beings function well if they meet four particular ends — survival, reproduction, enjoyment/freedom from pain, and possession of an appropriate functional role within a group. As rational beings, we can determine the character traits and dispositions that can help us to meet these aims and such character traits and dispositions will then be virtuous. Virtue Ethics, thus defined, would therefore be a normative theory based on Naturalism because what makes something good or virtuous is entirely determined by natural factors to do with our psychology, behaviour, biology and social dynamics. As with Utilitarianism, no mystical or supernatural stuff is required to explain the virtues and associated moral goodness.

Does Naturalism lead to Relativism? Harman claimed that, if correct, Naturalism would naturally lead us to Moral Relativism and away from Moral Absolutism (these theories are more specifically discussed in Chapter 1.1). Harman suggests that if ethical guidelines and rules were absolute in nature then they would need to apply irrespective of contingent situations or contingent lifestyles; murder, for example, would be wrong irrespective of any specific situational factors if the claim that “murder is wrong” were absolutely true. However, if moral properties are natural properties, then Relativism may make more sense in virtue of the fact that natural properties can vary in presence from case to case.

For example, it is not absolutely true that “London is north of Paris” because at some point continental plates will shift and these cities could move in relative location to each other. Nor is it absolutely true that “sections of the Australian coast have coral reefs”, since human activity and climate change might change this natural fact. Equally then, if a natural property is what makes true the claim that “murder is wrong” then this natural property might seem to depend upon the amount of pleasure produced, or else on some other changeable natural factor. If moral properties are natural properties, then actions might not be absolutely wrong but might instead be wrong relative to the changeable presence of those natural properties.

Michael Smith (1954–) rejects Harman’s claim and suggests that Naturalism is, in and of itself, irrelevant to the debate between moral relativists and moral absolutists. Smith argues that absolutists and relativists will differ on questions regarding the rationality or reasonableness of human behaviour and that these questions cannot be settled by taking a stance on Naturalism or Non-Naturalism in ethics.

For Smith, important questions relevant to the absolutist and relativist debate are a priori rather than a posteriori — meaning that these debates must be analysed and investigated by methods that do not involve testing the world. Thus, testing the world in order to determine the natural or non-natural status of moral properties cannot settle the a priori differences between relativists and absolutists.