Arrested Development and Philosophy_ They've Made a Huge Mistake - Kristopher G. Phillips [12]
But what of Buster’s love for “Mother?” Most people—most normal people—don’t live with their mothers into adulthood, don’t have a fanatic devotion to them, and don’t sublimate their desires by dating their mother’s “best friend and chief social rival”—women with the same age, address, social status, and name as their own mothers. Buster’s love for his mother is unnatural. Similarly, it might be argued that incest is unnatural. Perhaps, like the Segway, there is something that just looks odd about incestuous relationships. Perhaps there are few incestuous relationships in nature, and genetic disorders are more likely to be passed on if close relatives have biological children. (Of course, this is also true for folks over forty who decide to have children). These facts support the premise that incest is unnatural. (They might also show that having children over forty is unnatural.)
The second premise states that if something is unnatural, it’s morally wrong. Why should we believe this? Defenders of the argument might point to the value of nature—its beauty, its harmony, its perfection. While humans have done a lot to mess up this planet (George Sr., we’re talking to you!), those things that are “natural” are somehow unblemished. As such, the claim goes, if it’s natural, then it’s morally acceptable, and if it’s “unnatural,” then it’s morally wrong.
If you want to object to this argument, you’ll have a pretty easy go of things. Both the first and second premises have considerable flaws. Luckily, there is a lot to learn from examining the flaws in the argument. When considering the first premise, we need to ask what is meant by the term “unnatural.” To understand what is unnatural, let’s try to define what is natural (the opposite of natural will be our definition of unnatural). Among possible definitions of the term, we could list:
Definition 1: Something is natural if it is found in nature.
Definition 2: Something is natural if it is not altered by human beings.
Definition 3: Something is natural if it is typical, usual, or most common.
Incest is found in nature, so Definition 1 won’t help the incest-hater claim that George Michael’s hooking up with Maeby, in what seems to be an incestuous relationship, is unnatural. This is one of the greatest challenges confronting the defenders of the Argument from Naturalism who adhere to Definition 1: All it takes is one incestuous relationship found in nature to derail the argument. Edgar Allen Poe married his cousin, as did Jerry Lee Lewis (Goodness gracious, great balls of fire!). And of course, thousands of cousins have married in earlier centuries. Unless we deny that humans are a part of nature, it looks like our own history shows that incest is found in nature, and in lots of cases.
Those who adhere to Definition 1 might respond by saying, “It is true that there are examples of incest in nature, but those aren’t really natural.” If this is the response, though, the incest opponent is either equivocating (using two different senses of the term natural), or he is simply denying the evidence.
Those who adhere to Definition 1 must defend not only premise 1, but also premise 2. The claim “that which is found in nature is beautiful, harmonious, or perfect, and thus is moral” is not uniformly true—and not by a long shot. Birth defects, tsunamis, and seals with a taste for mammal blood are all found in nature. But we’re hard-pressed to say that these things are beautiful, harmonious, or perfect, let alone moral.
Definition 2 says something is natural if it isn’t altered by humans. Does that help defenders of the argument? George Michael’s hooking up with Maeby is an action that involves human beings, so it doesn’t make any sense to say that only actions unaltered by human