We do not yet have all the instruments needed to judge
the fantastic collection of doxastic values and disvalues
spawned by moralists and ethical pluralists.
Moreover, to develop a new normative doctrine (albeit a
denominational one in our case),
starting from this collection and removing what one does not like is not
the right procedure, because traditional ethics may not only have some
disvalues in store, it may be that there are one or more
perfective, ultimate values it even does
not have in store at all. We could never ascertain the existence of
such values by removing a number of traditional values,
by subsuming them under more general ones, or by
reinterpreting them.
Nonetheless, it is worthwhile as an exercise of the mind to sift the
traditional values in the ethical profile so as to find out which ones
cannot go
thru in any case, either
because they are not values at all or because they are not perfective and
ultimate ones.
After having considered a few attempts at finding some unity in
motivational values, we will now take up
our sieve again to remove the coarsest values of the
A-horizon.
Besides love and justice, which we have discussed already, it is
particularly naturalness which cannot be taken seriously as a nondoxastic
value, and knowledge and intelligence which cannot be taken seriously as
perfective values, let alone ultimate ones.
Naturalness very much behaves like love and has
always been an equally useful notion, especially in orthodox
ideology.
The directions for usage are simple: (1) is something natural
and you like it, call it "natural" and profit
from its traditional, positive connotation; (2) is something natural but
you don't like it, don't mention its naturalness; (3) is
something not natural and you like it, call it "cultural" (or
"civilized") and profit from this term's traditional, positive
connotation; and (4) is something not natural and you do not
like it, call it "unnatural" and exploit that term's
negative connotation to the utmost. But what is 'natural'? Or, what is
this mysterious 'nature' of human beings, of girls and women, of
boys and men? There are many definitions of natural; as
always this multiplicity of meaning is precisely what furnishes it with
its ideological utility. With one of these definitions it may be
more or less clear how to act naturally, but then there is no
reason why one should do so.
It is natural, say, to walk about stark naked on a warm day and
--cynical or not-- to
casually make love like a dog; it is unnatural or cultural to wear clothes
on such a day and to go to temple in order to share in the communal love
of a god. But is this a reason why it is wrong
to love a god in public, to erect temples, or to wear a habit on
warm days?
Of course, such a suggestion would be unadulterated hot air.
An alternative way to go about naturalness as a perfective
value is to give a serious, appealing account of nature so that
people are all convinced that they ought to be natural.
However --as has been thoroughly demonstrated by
a feminist philosopher-- the problem is then not
'why one should act in accordance with nature', but how to do what
is according to nature, and therefore good.
The philosopher concerned treats this predicament of the use of
natural as
tho it were a problem
typical of natural, but the question applies in principle almost
to any term.
One can either anchor a term in
the factual sphere by means of its
descriptive or conceptual meaning or anchor it in
the normative sphere by means of its
evaluative meaning, for to do both at once would be begging the question.
Anchoring it in the factual sphere requires a special normative
justification, something that has never been given for naturalness as a
value.
This would not yet in itself be a matter for severe blame if it
were not for the fact that most, or all, of those who appeal to
naturalness as a value never decide to quit smoking, drinking
alcohol and using any medical or nonmedical drug, to stop driving a
car, to take off all their clothes (if necessary after having
remigrated to a warm climate), to have sex only on those
occasions that it is needed for procreation (or for showing male
dominance), and --this is the virtual
climax-- to wholly abstain
from all forms of supernaturalism.
