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Morality is what nature does.

839 views · Published 16 February 2008 · 8:43 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: Footnotes2Plato · 2008 · News & Politics

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Morality is what nature does. 

I know, I know... we're used to talking about morality like it is only man-made, purely cultural. But I'm saying the normal way of talking about morality is wrong. The reason we have gotten so used to thinking of morality as man-made is because we have gotten used to thinking of nature as something humans can control. I am saying that nature cannot be controlled (because nature is not two, not divided into man and the rest of itself: man and nature are one) and morality is not man-made. Morality is what nature does. No organism within nature can control the rest of nature, nor can it stand outside the world and pronounce judgement upon it, calling this good and that evil. But I am not saying morality is impossible. I am only saying man is incapable of it. Only nature can be moral. That is, only nature knows what to do. Man is the one who is afraid to act, who doubts his inherent goodness (his naturalness) in fear of his own conspiring mind's trickery. Nature is not divided in this way. Nature does what it has to, it always knows what is called for. Man could not possibly invent the Good, or even evil. Rather, it is the Good that has invented man, and the Good that has invented evil.

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