Against Nature
Why is it that some conservatives get hung up on the idea that certain forms of behavior are “unnatural” and thus to be stamped out with extreme prejudice, but will, in the same breath, praise to the heavens our peculiar form of extended market-based social organization, which is as artificial and “unnatural” as one could like? If you want to put your anti-buggery together with cave-living, then, well, that’s OK by me. But if “unnatural” is an objection, then it applies to almost all the benefits of modern life.
August 27th, 2004 15:08
Eugene Volokh had a pretty good post on “Crimes Against Nature” last year.
August 27th, 2004 22:12
I agree that anyone who says the word “natural” means the same thing when he says “art is unnatural” and “buggery is unnatural” is lead into an inescapable problem. But natural law teaching does not confound these two meanings of the term “natural”.
“nature” and all its cognates (natural, naturally, etc.) have many proper meanings, just as words like “hot”, “sharp”, “set”, “cool”,”equal” and most of the basic words in any language have many meanings. Objecting that buggery is unnatural, and yet not wrong because art is unnatural, and yet not wrong, is perfectly like saying “cheddar cheese is sharp, and can cut a turkey, because this knife is sharp, and can cut a turkey” The word “sharp” has many proper meanings, just as the word “natural” has many proper meanings.
I have had an extended argument with John Rowe about the meaning of nature here:
http://www.claremont.org/weblog/000776.html#comments
My first post is about halfway down, made on nov. 20. I take up and respond to Volokh’s beliefs (articulated in an earlier article), which I take as reasonable and reasonably articulate, but deeply flawed. I will not vouch for any of the other commenters on the post beyond Mr. Rowe and myself. As one who holds that a natural law exists, I often find myself disagreeing most with those who seem to be agreeing with me (the straussians, for example, with whom I have almost nothing in common).
August 27th, 2004 23:28
I remember that; it was fun.
August 28th, 2004 00:18
I couldn’t bear to read much of that thread.
We could debate fruitlessly about what “natural” means for days, but let’s not. (I’d be right!)
But Shulamite let me bait you and ask what I’m missing if I fail to live according to nature? A certain special feeling? Six years off my lifespan? A mystical connection to ultimate reality? What? Why care? What if, suppose, I’m just living the way I live, enjoying my work and my family and my friends, and life seems special and precious to me, and I’m happy and I genuinely look forward to each new day? Is it possible that life can be like this while systematically violating natural law?
August 28th, 2004 04:20
Will writes:
Well, maybe — just maybe — it’s that many conservatives happen NOT to think that certain “unnatural” activities ought be “stamped out with extreme prejudice,” but rather that some such things ought not be deserving of official or government approbation?? There is a difference, after all.
Your language to the effect of “stamped out with extreme prejudice” I gather simply bespeaks your (politicized) feelings of hatred for “conservatives” — among which one would have to include that not simply irrelevant paucity which happens to be both gay AND opposed to, say, same-sex marriage. Mind you, I don’t have in mind Foucault-inspired idiots (who, in any event, could by definition never qualify as “conservatives”) who are notoriously opposed to same-sex marriage. Rather, I’ve in mind those heroic few homosexuals who oppose same-sex marriage because moral wisdom has taught them a reverence for the family as it exists by nature; that a child is deserving of a mother and a father; that a mother and father bring something intrinsically unique and necessary to the happiness of a child and his fulfillment as an adult. And such homosexuals then, in your mind, bigots too, Will? Or are they just suffering from “false-consciousness”? Are they “inauthentically gay” — this, along the lines of “inauthentically black,” “inauthentically woman”, etc? Do such heterodox gays fail to come within hailing distance of your status (i.e. bereft of “prejudice”) from which you look back at those foolish dummies stuck in the cave gazing at the shifting images and shadows on the wall??
My suggestion is that you would like to blot and stamp out (with or without extreme prejudice, I don’t know) all “conservatives.” In any event, given your Rawlsian take on the moral/political distinction, you would not countenance such conservatives having any legitimate claim to moral right — moral right, such as their holding public office and, from positions of which, to vote/adjudicate in ways resonant of their moral (”religious”) conviction.
August 28th, 2004 04:24
Correction:
And [are] such homosexuals then, in your mind, bigots too, Will?
August 28th, 2004 14:07
My own opinion is that such homosexuals as you name are mostly figments of your imagination.
The few that do exist are merely mistaken–though very useful politically for the religious right. We needn’t go into the labyrinth of false consciousness at all.
As to the two definitions of the word “nature,” they are not nearly so distinct as Shulamite would claim. At various times in human history, many innocuous things have been called unnatural and therefore immoral. These include lightning rods, anaesthesia, vaccination, women’s suffrage, women’s property ownership, in vitro fertilization, birth control, and even democracy itself. All of these go to show that our historical track record has been quite poor indeed when it comes to differentiating the two alledged senses of the word “natural.”
And if certain acts really are unnatural–just as interracial marriage was said to be unnatural–then perhaps the government ought not to sanction those, either?
August 28th, 2004 15:12
The few that do exist are merely mistaken–though very useful politically for the religious right.
Uh, no not true. You’d have to take my word for it that they exist and I’ve met such people. So there, la-dee-da.
August 28th, 2004 15:16
The two senses of the word “nature” that nobody has yet spoken to in this thread are designated by the terms by nature and according to nature. The first being descriptive, the second “normative.”
August 28th, 2004 15:32
Uh.. Rob? I said that a “few” of them exist.
Proving that you’ve met a few of them does not contradict any of my claims, whether about their number, their fundamental mistakennes, or their usefulness to those who would sooner re-criminalize homosexuality altogether.
To reiterate: Yes, some gay people are against gay marriage on the conservative grounds you mention. As I recall, it’s a percentage in the low single digits.
Beyond that, their commonness–and their importance–is mostly a figment of your imagination.
August 28th, 2004 15:58
Well then tell me what you mean by your statement that the few that do exist are “merely mistaken.” I take that to mean that they are mistaken for being something that they are in fact not (i.e. such as, possibly, being not really gay and just political actors mistaken for being gay, etc.)
So by not allowing same-sex marriage and homosexuals to adopt children we are thereby RE-CRIMINALIZING homosexuality? This is precisely why I find most libertarians so incredibly morally disingenuous and/or obtuse.
August 28th, 2004 16:04
And again — I claimed that that these numbers ARE in the low percentage. Pay attention. I happened to use the word “paucity” in such context. My pointing to their existence demands of Will and others to declare of such heterodox homosexuals whether they are “bigots” — along with conservatives whom Will reviles — and traitors to their “sex.”
August 28th, 2004 17:15
Rob, Some of my best friends are conservatives!
August 28th, 2004 18:04
Will — I’m tempted to believe you’re being facetious or that your best friends who happen to be conservative simply don’t have an opinion on, say, same-sex marriage or on gays adopting children; either that, or they don’t see anything wrong with these practices and that they ought be legal. In which case, I don’t see how these “friends” are in any sense conservative. (This assumes “conservative” has any real meaning — which I think it certainly lacks). They’re then operationally indistinguishable from libertarians.
August 28th, 2004 19:49
People should read Eugene Volokh’s thoughtful remarks wherein he modifies his previous arguments (which Gil posted above) re. nature as a normative basis (re. same-sex marriage etc.).
Read it here:
http://volokh.com/2004_02_29_volokh_archive.html#107825038066155066
August 28th, 2004 22:40
The interesting thing about volokh’s post is that, what it boils down to is, that the ban on gay marriage is a “race” v. “gender” issue, not a “race” v. “sexual orientation.”
That is, some folks might see the gay issue as a subsidiary gender issue in the way that pregnancy is a subsidiary gender issue (and a protected anti-discrimination category).
Relating to the ban on gay marriage, this could clearly be analyzed, instead of under the rubric of “sexual orientation” discrimination, rather under, “gender discrimination,” i.e., the “wrong” gender of the partner instead of the “wrong” race.
Gender is an established “civil rights” category. But as Volokh’s post indicates, it has more exceptions than “race.” We subject laws that use racial classifications to Constitutional “strict scrutiny,” with gender, to “intermediate.” And then there is the BFOQ exception for gender under our anti-discrimination laws that is not recognized for race.
(For a classic example of such an exception, Volokh notes how sex-segregated bathrooms are okay, but racial one’s aren’t).
The point is, when laws make distinctions on the basis of gender, they do and ought to raise suspicion. Perhaps hetero marriage can overcome the suspicion, like a BFOQ or a policy that passes intermediate scrutiny. But there is also a reasonable basis for subjecting gender discriminatory marriages to a heightened level of scrutinty that we would not do for discrimination based on any other of those categories like “number” where is it argued that we will next fall down the slippery slope.
August 29th, 2004 02:12
Nothing that occurs in nature is contrary to nature.
August 29th, 2004 08:00
Some excerpts from Leo Strauss’s letter to Karl Loewith, March 15, 1962. Published in Meier, Heinrich, Leo Strauss: Gesammelten Schriften, Band 3, Stuttgart, Metzler Verlag. 2001.
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* Strauss prefaces this paragraph with the following qualifier:
August 29th, 2004 08:21
Leo Strauss, p. 79 of NRH:
Emphasis in bold mine.
August 29th, 2004 09:13
“Well then tell me what you mean by your statement that the few that do exist are “merely mistaken.”"
Okay, I will. I argue that the tiny percentage of homosexuals who argue against gay marriage because they think that gay marriage will destroy the traditional family are wrong. Gay marriage will not destroy the traditional family. I commend to you Johnathan Rauch’s book on the subject and would suggest to you that his arguments about why gay marriage is actually a good thing are stronger than the arguments on the opposing side–no matter who happens to be articulating them.
The idea that the very few gay people who oppose gay marriage somehow should carry the argument is absurd. Some blacks opposed integration, and a considerable number of women opposed women’s suffrage. The question should not be “who believes what?” but rather, “what is the right thing to believe?”
September 27th, 2004 20:57
Let me answer the previous question Mr. Wilkinson placed before me “what do I lose if I choose to live a life against nature”. I say you lose any happiness that is worth having. I will concede, for the sake of argument, that someone who lives contrary to nature might live in such a way that they may be able to say:
“I’m just living the way I live, enjoying my work and my family and my friends, and life seems special and precious to me, and I’m happy and I genuinely look forward to each new day.”
The question is, is this sort of happiness, alone and by itself, even worth having? Assume that it perfectly characterizes the psychological state of say, Pol Pot. Who cares? Isn’t such an opinion of oneself an undesireable thing if they have it in spite of the good? Wouldn’t we try to correct someone who had all the characteristics you describe if they had them in virtue of their deep love of child molestation or spousal abuse?
I claim that living according to one’s own nature is the standard of a happiness that is worth having. This happiness cannot be limited to a mere psychological state, or the opinion of someone about themself, even though I would insist that it this psychological state must be included in any definition of happiness.
March 11th, 2007 19:50
Homosexuality occurs among countless animal species; most significantly for our purposes in gorillas, bonobos and chimpanzees. Without being an exclusive object-choice, more often a phase-specific sexual bahviour, as in adolescents of our species. Check out “Biological Exhuberance” by Bagemihl. Konrad Lorenz wrote in “On Aggression” about male swan couples who bonded for prolonged periods; how certain greeting rituals were not ‘expressions’ of the bond among swans but the bond itself–more important even than procreation in the case of male-pairings. So who sets the parameters of what is ‘natural’ descriptively or normatively? And can there be a normative ‘human nature’ without a functional concept of what it means to be a human being? that is, a concept of the end for which man is good? of man’s fulfillment of his telos, or, as Hegel would say, his ‘correspondence to’ the concept of himself–to his ideal-of-self?
If man is homo faber, the tool-user, the inventor and transformer of what is given (nature), then the orderings and hierarchies we create/inherit/cultivate are a part of human nature. We cannot refer to a non-human nature to settle the question of what is ‘against’ or contrary to [our human] nature. History is human nature. Would someone explain how an appeal to Nature aids us in deciding what is acceptable morally–say in terms of human sexual expression? How that is possible in a non-normative way?
March 11th, 2007 20:22
What if our examination of other mamalian species revealed a complete absence of same-sex activities? what woud that allow us to conclude about human nature? It does not allow us to conclude that nature is a fiction. But it does prompt the question, ‘Which nature?’ Is our point of reference natural selection or a kingdom of ends? Isn’t teleology the great divide between the cultural relativists and the natural right theorists?
It seems Nature can only have a normative significance for our project of finding legitimacy. (Our interest is not describing human behavior in its ferral state, as such a state does not exist.) ‘Natural’ signifies what is intrinsic to the best and most fulfilling life for human beings–that is, for political beings.
The reference to ‘nature’ takes us back inescapably to nurture/culture. It is, to speak with Kant, a regulative (limit-) not a constitutive concept.
So the question might be posed: what is the ideal family structure for the raising of the next generation? In other words, what is ‘natural’ for human beings, given the end in view, namely to raise the best children possible? intelligent, resourceful, empathic, etc. To what nature are we to refer here? What significance is to be ascribed to the findings of researchers (the reality testers who, presumably, investigate that which is/nature)? Specifically, the findings that children raised by homosexuals show no deficits in psycho-sexuality, gender-identities or the human excellences/virtues? Do the indications of reality at any point enter into the informed opinionating of traditionalist, conservative family-protectors? (I’m struggling here to come up with a just description of those who oppose gay families in the name of what is natural for children.)
I remember Rumsfeld saying that you don’t fight a war with the army you want to have, but with the army such as it is. The same could be said about families and the rights of children to heterosexual parents. No one chooses them! but we make do.