From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Fri May 10 2002 - 11:35:31 MDT
Damien writes
> At the centre of Fukuyama's OUR POSTHUMAN FUTURE is his argued case that
> the naturalistic fallacy is *not* a fallacy, even in Hume's own argument.
> For example, in Lee's words:
>
>> Laws can and should only arise from experience:
>> a culture gradually evolves laws that work for it.
>
> Uh-huh. I see, Lee, that you here assert that from what *is* (iterated and
> recorded experiences of living in the world according to varied forms of
> habitual conduct) systematic *oughts* emerge and gain their justification
> from that experience and are then retained and reinforced by culture. But
> didn't you think you were making the contrary case?
This is by no means engaging in the naturalistic fallacy, which
is committed by claiming either that what *is* is thereby
justified, or by claiming that we have the ability to deduce
from science or nature what it is we should approve of.
Learning by experience is hardly engaging in any fallacy ;-)
I'm a guilty of overstating the case a little in the above
quote, because I was arguing with people who seem to think
that we can formulate law by consulting our hearts. I
retract the strong form of my statement above (thank you,
good point!), and instead will say that good laws almost
always arise from experience.
That seems to be a valid description of what actually happens!
Still, let's consult a number of examples. A Roman might claim
that slavery has existed in every productive society (Egypt,
Athens, Rome), and that therefore we should just get used to
the idea that slavery works. Now we reject that reasoning as
naturalistic: describing some existing state of affairs, and
then claiming that because it's so it should be so, is not
satisfactory. However, as *evidence* to be adduced, we
certainly should and must pay attention!
Continuing with the slavery example, we would try to explain to
a Roman that there are sound economic reasons why a society without
slavery will be more prosperous. He might retort that it's easy
enough for us in the 21st century to say so, with our advanced
technology; and for all I know, he may be correct. But the point
is that we must have explanations.
As another example, I might say that we have laws against murder
because they work. I might also give as examples every cohesive
society that we know about. But that would not be enough. I must
provide an explanation for why murder is disruptive to a productive
society (which is so obvious that I've not really bothered). So
this, too, is not making use of the naturalistic fallacy.
Lee
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