Bayertz, Human Nature: How Normative Might It Be?, I. The Technological Contingency of Human Nature. II Difficulties with "Human Nature". II B

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Kurt Bayertz

Human Nature: How Normative Might It Be?

II Difficulties with "Human Nature"

II. B. "Natura Naturata" or "Natura Naturans"

We previously defined human nature as our given biology. There are complications with this definition. For example, it requires sexual intercourse to create human beings. Hence it requires this act of human intervention. Also, over time, such cultural practices as marriages, segregation, and migration have altered the development of our species by influencing the gene pool.

It would be hard to imagine any kind of social behaviour or legal verdict that had no genetic consequences (135c)

Let's see then how a change of perspective dissolves the natural/artificial distinction for defining human nature:

a) The human body is taken as a fact. It is nature as natura naturata. What is found is natural. What is changed is artificial.

b) But let's take the perspective of a distant observer. Nature then seems to be an evolving system. And humans are an active part of that evolution. By means of our behavior, humans change the elements of the system, including our own bodies. From this perspective, humanity's self-changes seem as natural as the birds nest-building activities. This point of view regards nature as natura naturans. No longer then does the natural/artificial distinction hold.

Some might object by using this example. We build a house. We have full control over the development of the process. Or, we conceive a child. We merely initiate a process that is out of our control. So when our social behavior changes the gene pool, we are not intentionally making alterations to humanity itself.

Bayertz replies. We seem to be distinguishing manufacture from the initiation of a process that continues spontaneously. But this is just a difference of degree. In both cases we blend human intention with nature's spontaneity. Hence natural and artificial are still united by a spectrum.

[Other entries in this series.]

Bayertz, Kurt. "Human Nature: How Normative Might It Be?" Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 2003 28(2):131-150.

Available online at:

http://jmp.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/28/2/131