Goodness and Nature:A Defence of Ethical Naturalism

by Peter L. Phillips Simpson

This book is an attempt to recover and restate, in a fresh and relevant way, an ancient vision of the nature of moral theory and of the good life. It defends and elaborates a cognitivist or naturalist account of ethical terms, and a perfectionist account of the good as the noble. It does so in full awareness of the problems raised for such accounts by the still dominant twentieth century philosophical debate. Through a sustained critique of protagonists on both sides of this debate, a careful unraveling of the issues, and a tracing of origins in writers from Hobbes to Kant, the author shows how fertile ancient ideas can be in providing new insights. Facts and values, 'is' and 'ought', supervenience, teleology and science, freedom of choice, justice, friendship, and the good are some of the themes treated in this attempt at comprehensive ethical theorizing. A supplement at the end about historical origins gives a more detailed account of the modern writers from Machiavelli to Kant whose thought still marks and mars contemporary philosophical discussion.

280 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1987

Reviews

[Dominic · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the greatest work on moral naturalism I have ever read. It’s a bit surprising to me that Simpson isn’t a household name in the sphere of moral realism. He certainly has the accolades, and has published numerous articles and books concerning ethics and legal philosophy. At the outset, I would recommend this to anyone who is interested not only in metaethics, but any branch of ethics, no matter which side of the spectrum you fall on.

Simpson starts off by laying the groundwork for the ancient roots of ethical naturalism. He says that his book is “unashamedly ancient.” He draws on the key ethical principles of Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas. This may be surprising to many, considering Plato and Aristotle are usually mentioned together only in opposition. While Simpson acknowledges this, he states that their similarities are often overlooked. Aquinas was obviously deep in Aristotelian thought, so his contributions to ethical naturalism are self-explanatory.

The fact that this book is “unashamedly ancient” is quite refreshing. The field of modern ethics, at least metaethics and normative ethics, is riddled with semantic dispute and often overcomplicates very trivial and mundane matters. That’s not to say that there is no importance to semantics, and that triviality doesn’t have its place when dissecting opposing viewpoints, but a realization that the field of ethics tracing back to Socrates has just as much in common now as it did then, in addition to the modern insertions of various applied ethical debates, allows us to take a look at the holistic picture of ethics and its practical consequences on all societies throughout history.

The book is divided into two main sections: Part One: The Naturalistic Fallacy and Part Two: The Defence of Ethical Naturalism. Part One, of course, covers various objections to ethical naturalism, including but not limited to the Naturalistic Fallacy. The objections in this section come from both moral anti-realists and moral non-naturalists, the likes of which include household names like G.E. Moore, John Locke, and David Hume (among others). Section two is when the arguments for ethical naturalism are finally put forth. Emphasis on “being-ness” and actuality are the framework for the ethical naturalism put forth. In short, any thing in its optimal form is ideal and therefore good, and its natural inclination towards this ideal state is what guides our moral principles. This is of course the general premise, and is elaborated on in great detail in part two.

Something I found particularly interesting is the distinction between naturalism and modern science. Many people conflate naturalism with empiricism, but this is a mistake. Simpson points out that modern science is dominated by empiricism, which does not allow us to view beings in their totality, e.g., their being over the course of their life. This goes a bit into various closure principles, but in essence, does not allow us to see, for example, a human being as the same human over the course of his life, and therefore we cannot see what is ‘good’ for this person in respect to his one being of the course of his life. It essentially rejects dynamism because it only views this being in “snapshots” of sense data that cannot be put together in totality. This is important because, as mentioned, people mistakenly conflate naturalism with science (particularly empirical science) and also may dismiss any philosophical analysis that isn’t ‘scientific’ as nonsense; but this is just pure ignorance, as Simpson illustrates.

The arguments put forth are very convincing. It's difficult to disagree with the thesis put forth after reading this book. A deep analysis of the various objections to ethical naturalism are dealt with, various counter arguments are addressed, and most importantly, a well-defended thesis brilliantly demonstrates the truth of moral realism in the context of naturalism. While I also am sympathetic to moral non-naturalism, this work greatly draws me in the direction of moral naturalism.