PHIL-386 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Categorical Imperative, Observational Error, Cultural Relativism
5 May 2020
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But the problem with trying to deduce morality from reason alone has always been that it becomes an empty formalism that cannot tell us what to do. What is good, they say, is what is natural to human beings. The word natural can be used both descriptively and evaluatively, and the two senses are often mixed together so that value judgments may be smuggled in under the guise of a description. The picture of human nature presented by proponents of natural law ethics usually selects only those characteristics of our nature that the proponent considers desirable. The end of a knife is to cut; the assumption is that human beings also have an end, and we will flourish when we live in accordance with the end for which we are suited. But this is a pre darwinian view of nature.
