Nature - autonomous learning

138 de-naturalisationBox 3.3 MORAL AND AESTHETIC NATURALISMIn Cronon’s analysis (1996b) the idea of wilderness typifies whatphilosophers call moral and aesthetic naturalism. Such naturalisminvolves claiming that moral values and aesthetic beauty (orugliness) can be ‘read off’ from those things societies categorise asnatural things. In effect, this amounts to a ‘nature knows best’argument where people are urged to learn their morality and theiraesthetic values from the ‘facts of nature’. Examples of moral andaesthetic naturalism abound in modern societies. For instance,homophobic people can often be heard to say that homosexuality is‘unnatural’. This claim implies that (i) heterosexuality is naturaland therefore normal, and (ii) that any departure from heterosexualityis abnormal and therefore to be opposed, resisted and, ifpossible, eradicated. Here a judgement about homosexuality isdirectly derived from a supposed statement of fact about it, as ifclaims about the ‘ought’ (normative claims) can be mechanicallydetermined by claims about the ‘is’ (cognitive claims) – see Saraga(2001). Moral and aesthetic naturalism denies that values aresocially and culturally created. It is potentially authoritarianbecause it implies that our values are dictated to us by the naturalworld. By claiming that morality and aesthetics are scripted for usby the environment or our biology, such naturalism arguablyconceals the specific values of the people who advocate it. Thissaid, moral and aesthetic naturalism are not always rejected by leftwingthinkers and activists. If we take the case of gays and lesbiansonce more, we can see that it is potentially useful to insist thatsame-sex attraction is just as ‘natural’ as heterosexuality: that is,just as much a part of the ‘way things are’ and thus something to beaccepted not stigmatised.‘Popular concern about [wilderness] . . . implicitly appeals to a kind ofnaïve realism . . ., more or less assuming that we can pretty easily recognisenature when we see it and thereby make uncomplicated choices betweennatural things, which are seen as good, and unnatural things, which are