Naturalistic Ethic Essay - 900 Words

Naturalistic Ethic Even though there are several schools of Naturalistic ethic, they all have one major quality in common – recognition of Nature as the main guiding force of our lives. Naturalists try to understand Nature and how Nature and humanity are linked together. Adherents of Naturalism try to convince people to shift their attitude toward the need to follow the laws of nature as a principle of moral conduct. There are three major schools of Naturalism. The first school strives for â€Å"returning back to nature† in order to enjoy a simple life and find out the truth by communion with nature, which is considered to be the teacher for all people. The second school recognizes that the Nature has inner soul. For example, stoics†¦show more content†¦In order to measure the ethical rightness of someone’s actions, we should consider that person’s will (hence, the name of the theory – â€Å"intentionalism†) but not the consequences that follow from hi s or her actions. Furthermore, any person should be able to defend his or her action as moral if he or she can affirm that all people at all times should perform the same action (in other words, an individual action is moral if it is moral as a universal law). Kant calls this the categorical imperative. When a rule of conduct is universalized it becomes a moral law and it is everyone’s duty to act according to that law. Another important point Kant makes when he asserts that people should treat others as â€Å"mainly as ends rather than means† which means that we cannot use other people as objects to reach our goals. While the Naturalist position may indeed seem natural, I think it has significant drawbacks. One of my objections is that the Naturalist theory bases its conclusions on laws of nature that we may not fully understand or scientific assumptions that, highly plausible as they may be, are not yet fully scientifically proven. Thus, universal moral laws seem to follow from theories that may not yet have been proven to be universal laws of nature. Kant’s theory is not without serious flaws either. For instance, ignoring the consequences of one’s actions may result in breaking one universal law as a result of following another. InShow MoreRelatedDecision Making As A Deliberate Conscious Essay1799 Words   |  8 Pages(Lizà ¡rraga, 2007; Routio, 2007). The descriptive theory also presents the naturalistic theory of decision making which emerged in the 1980s to assess decision making among people in everyday-life situations in which certain factors indicate how people make effective decisions (Klein, 2008). As with other cognitive processes, age is among the variables that affect decision making. Many decision making researches within the naturalistic approach, have been carried out with adults and young people (Lizà ¡rragaRead MoreThe Moral Value Of Moral Values1001 Words   |  5 Pagesor discovered by individuals. 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