Nature as The Basis of Morality

    There is one distinction we must consider before delving into the implications and specifications of a moral system arising from nature. The consideration is this: we must not confuse a natural morality with a morality given to us by nature. One may say, “But certainly a morality given to us by nature is natural morality!” However, as I hope to show you, one of these moral systems necessarily posits the existence of nature while the other does no such thing. A morality given to us by nature presupposes the existence of nature. In order for nature to give us a morality, there of course must exist the nature that is doing the giving. This, I think, is plain enough to see. In contrast, a natural morality is a system of morality that is based upon our nature – that is, human nature. You may discover (as I hope you do) that human nature is sparsely connected with nature itself.

    For clarification’s sake, when discussing a morality given to us by nature, by “nature” I mean nature in the common sense. That is, the culmination of all chemistry, biology, physics, metaphysics, and all other systems that constitute the entirety of existence (as here distinguished from any notion of a deity or phenomenological realm – although phenomenology [or the idea of a deity] may actually obtain, I am not concerned with it in particular, as it would still be included in the entirety of existence). A system of morality that is determined by nature is therefore contingent on it. Such a system would have us act upon only those moral judgments that are deemed fit to act on by nature. What, then, are those actions, and what are the conditions for such actions? Furthermore, from the deduction that nature is presupposed by such a system we are in a position to make an important inference. We may here trust our supposition that nature would not give us a faculty without there being some use of it to us or nature itself. It seems easily verifiable that all the faculties and powers we possess are necessary for some purpose or another. If we assume we were given morality by nature, we may infer that we received out other faculties from nature as well. For, morality is essentially a system of rules (for one purpose or another), and if nature gave us this set of rules, it would not have done so unless we already possessed those abilities to carry out said rules. In order that the rules of morality be carried out as nature would set them, our abilities must be precisely tinkered to a moral system given to us by nature. The best way to ensure this precision is for nature itself to empower us with these abilities. (It is a seemingly absurd idea that nature collaborated with some other transcendental force in assigning powers and rules to us) So, if morality is given to us by nature, and everything given to us by nature has a purpose [for us or nature], an obvious inferential question arises: For what purpose did nature give us morality? To answer this, we must first determine whether this moral system has purpose in relation to mankind or nature.