Approaches to Natural Ethics

This is the fifteenth Chapter from the online book: Living Ethics: The Way of Wholeness. See: 1) How Should We Live? 2) Ethics and Civilization 3) Worldview and Ethics 4) Self View and Ethics 5) World as System 6) The Material Cosmos 7) Biological Systems 8) Human Systems 9) Psyche as System 10) The Collective Unconscious 11) The Collective Conscious 12) Emerging From Chaos 13) The Emerging Worldview 14) The Psychological Problem


 Donivan Bessinger, MD

In the approach to a natural ethic, we have quite properly first established a worldview which accords with the current evidence for reality. It would have been quite backwards to attempt to use some ethical rule as the basis for constructing the worldview. The point was well made by Dr. Bernard Towers, a professor of pediatrics and anatomy, in addressing a conference whose theme was “Foundations of Ethics and its Relationship to Science: Values and the Biomedical Sciences.”

The very title of the present meeting … appears to suggest that the appropriate mode is, first to establish the metaphysical bases of ethical theory, and then to see how that theory, or those theories, should be applied to the theory and practice of science and medicine. I shall argue that this is to put the cart before the horse. Just as Aristotle’s physics necessarily antedated and was logically prior to his metaphysics, so must modern science (and in particular the science of biological evolution) lay the groundwork for, and establish the mode of, modern ethics. (1)

Having thus laid the groundwork, we turn to a consideration of natural ethic. Though a natural ethic is grounded in all reality, most of the major lessons are derived from a study of life systems. Let us review those lessons:

(1) The universe with all of its subsystems is highly interactive. These interactions are manifest in many levels, and no subsystem can be understood without reference to at least the level below and the level above the reference level.

(2) Life is ordered toward the survival of the individual and the species. Meeting the survival needs of individuals and species is the primary ethical consideration. Life has needs which must be met. Natural ethics must affirm that there are not merely oughts; there are also ethical musts.

(3) Life-forms interact in a niche, that is, they must assume a functional position in the environment, contributing to and depending on, other life. No life can exist apart from other life. In the chain of life, all forms of life have value. No life is less important than an individual link in a chain.

(4) Life systems, and all other systems in the universe, function toward balance, not towards “perfection” (as that word is commonly used). This homeostatic principle is the major ordering force in all self-sustaining systems. Survival requires that excesses must be negated or moderated.

(5) All systems are evolutionary, tending toward the emergence of new form and function. That is not to say that life systems affirm a philosophy of social progress. Rather, it says that existence is a state not of being, but of becoming.

(6) Life is limited in its individual aspect. Death is a normal part of individual life. This lesson is especially pertinent to medical practice. Medicine does not give life; life is the given in which medical (and all other) practice functions. Ethical actions may only help restore life’s own balance, but are ultimately limited in the ability to do so.

(7) Life requires the conjoining of both generative (male) and nurturing (female) creative functions. The conjoining must occur organically as the reproducing function within all sexual species. However, human survival also requires creativity in the maintaining and the fulfilling functions, such as the care of young, the ordering and promulgation of knowledge and its products, and the maintenance of the human spirit of awareness and inquiry. In that creativity too, all aspects of masculine and feminine expression must be balanced. Neither male nor female function can be deemed dominant or preferred.

(8) Where consciousness is sufficiently developed to permit willful action, consciousness carries the potential to negate unconscious homeostatic regulation. Survival requires the orderly functioning of consciousness. Homeostasis of the conscious domain must be imposed by conscious will.


It is also pertinent to the development of a natural ethic to consider whether it is by nature that many humans act brutally, aggressively, and destructively. If that be so, we need pursue our case no further. If nature is anti-ethical, philosophy must let each tribe find its authority in force itself, and adapt as best it can. Indeed, there are elements in conventional philosophy which already have led us well along that road. Yet further examination yields considerable evidence that humans and other life by nature operate to affirm life values.

Many traditional rules of behavior (rules of ethics), handed down in ancient written and oral traditions, have their origins in primitive understandings of life needs. For example, the origins of the proscription against eating pork in Judaism and Islam are complex, and may well have resulted from both mythic and practical influences. Nevertheless, historically it protected against trichinosis or other parasitic infestations common in improperly cooked pork. Later, even after advances in food preparation made the rules no longer necessary to serve biological survival, the rules continue symbolically to provide cultural identification and foster cohesiveness for social survival. It is likely that many other ritual practices have had similar origins.

Historically, social development has required an ethical order oriented toward the survival of individuals as well as society. In modern Western culture, the major influence for such an ethical order is traceable to the Ten Commandments recorded by Moses. German ethologist Wolfgang Wickler has pointed to the high degree of correspondence between these Mosaic commandments and earlier ones in the Egyptian New Kingdom (sixteenth to twelfth centuries BCE). It is interesting that the Masai people of East Africa had a quite similar formulation of ten laws, and a tradition that they were given on a mountain. (2)

Are there life-lessons to be derived from even more ancient stages of mankind’s development? The evidence from prehominids is fossil evidence, and bones tell little of behavior, ethical or otherwise. Any anthropological lessons about early ethics must be gleaned from studies of primitive communities of homo sapiens, not from prehominids.

Even though an occasional skull bone may show evidence of injuries, fossil evidence cannot reliably tell the full story of the incidents which led to the injury. Nevertheless, Konrad Lorenz (3) uses such evidence to advance the argument of natural human aggressiveness. Richard E. Leakey and Roger Lewin reply:

We emphatically reject this conventional wisdom for three reasons: first, on the very general premise that no theory of human nature can be so firmly proved as its proponents imply; second, that much of the evidence used to erect this aggression theory is simply not relevant to human behavior; and last, the clues that do impinge on the basic elements of human nature argue much more persuasively that we are a cooperative rather than an aggressive animal. (4)

As Leakey and Lewin argue, if such aggressiveness were indeed instinctual in humans, aggressiveness would be demonstrable universally. Yet each example of tribal aggressiveness can be matched by examples of many other tribes which demonstrate the contrary point. In many cultures, aggressiveness is diffused through ritual behavior. (That is stronger evidence for an ethical imperative to diffuse destructiveness, than for innate aggressiveness.) They also argue that such an aggressive instinct would have been non-adaptive, working against human evolution to its present state. They also feel that human behavior is conditioned more by culture than by inheritance.

Humans are not innately disposed powerfully either to aggression or to peace. It is culture that largely weaves the patterns in human societies. (5)

That statement does not take into full account the dynamics of the human psyche or more recent research affirming the importance of the genetic component in human behavior. Jung’s theory of archetypes also affirms the substantial role of inherited elements in the operation of the unconscious, and gives us a more powerful argument against an inherent aggressiveness of mankind. The human psyche is ordered toward a healthy balance of its internal forces.

In his landmark study of human destructiveness, (6)  Erich Fromm provides a detailed rebuttal of Lorenz’ ideas, as well as of the Watson-Skinner theories of culturally engineered behavior. Fromm acknowledges the benign aggression which normally and naturally provides the organism, human and otherwise, with the necessary assertiveness to meet its needs for survival.

Wanton and brutal malignant aggression however, which is distinctively human, is presented as a disease state: a characterilogical defect associated with narcissism, sadism, and necrophilia, exemplified in the psyches of Himmler, Stalin, and Hitler. In Jungian terms, such malignant aggression derives its power from the ego-shadow axis which is energized when the ego fails in its ethical imperative to make peace within the self and in relationship to others.

That failure may well occur within a diseased social environment, and society bears a responsibility to work toward balanced social systems and to insure an ethical education for its members. However, the existence of a diseased environment does not inevitably result in malignant aggression, and brutal behavior may occur in persons whose material circumstances are to all outward appearances favorable. Malignant aggression is a “spritual” disease, and not a normal human condition at all.


Arguments in support of a natural ethic have also been sought in comparative studies of animal behavior. In his ethological approach to ethics, Wickler (7) has looked for evidence of the operation of the principles of the Ten Commandments within animal societies. As he emphasizes, tracing such principles back to animal communities does not mean that such principles descended from animals. However, finding such principles in operation would help answer our question: Does a natural ethic operate unconsciously in nature.

Thou shalt not kill is subject to some interpretation, for we must define what we must not kill. All life is dependant on other life, and most animals must prey in some way on other life, whether they eat meat or plants. However, in non-humans, such predation is generally limited to that necessary for the predator’s survival. That is true even for the animals we (erroneously) consider to be “aggressive beasts”: wolf and lion. Natural instincts are ordered toward efficiency for survival, not aggressiveness.

Thou shalt not bear false witness. Integrity of information is critical to the survival process at many levels. Reproduction (indeed, the entire process of evolution) requires a high degree of accuracy in the replication of genes. Further, animal societies require warning systems which must also operate accurately and reliably, lest warnings come to be ignored.

Wickler gives various examples of “unethical behavior” of animals. For example, foxes have been observed both “lying” and “stealing” by giving a false alarm to frighten away other foxes (cubs of their own group) who were eating, then taking the prey for themselves. (8)

Thou shalt not steal. While animals do not own property in the ordinary human sense, there are many situations which indicate that property is claimed as one’s own. Chimpanzees behave as if they acknowledge that the hunter’s catch is his own, yet the hunter may nevertheless share the catch. Australian zebra finches regularly take abandoned nests, but avoid those with eggs of other birds. (9)

Honor thy father and thy mother is ordinarily presented as the commandment directed to children. Certainly in animal society too, obedience to parents while maturing and learning supports survival. Wickler reports an interesting observation of honoring the elders of the hierarchical baboon society. The “retired” elders (who hold the highest rank) will lead the way when the titular leader seems baffled in unfamiliar situations. (10)

The elders are the repository of accumulated wisdom of the tribe. In modern society, that repository of wisdom has been called the noosphere. (11) Perhaps this commandment includes the meaning, honor wisdom.

These various examples indicate that ethics-like behavior occurs in at least some animal societies. In animal society, we may consider “unethical behavior” as actions which are detrimental to other individuals and to the structure of the society. Such actions must somehow be regulated if they are not to become dominant and destroy the life of the society. Wickler’s evidence, and the fact that animal societies flourish, show that “ethical” regulation occurs. It is that principle of regulation which we call the natural ethic.

Copyright 2000 by Donivan Bessinger. All rights reserved.


Next Chapter: Good, Ethics, and Evil

More by Donivan Bessinger, MD


References:

(1) “THE VERY TITLE OF THIS PRESENT MEETING”—Bernard Towers. “Toward an Evolutionary Ethic.” Teilhard Review, October 1977. p 80.

(2 ) MASAI FORMULATION OF TEN LAWS—Wolfgang Wickler. The Biology of the Ten Commandments (Munich, 1971). New York: McGraw-Hill, 1972. p 43 f.

(3) ARGUMENT OF NATURAL HUMAN AGGRESSIVENESS—Konrad Lorenz. On Aggression. New York: Harcourt Brace and World, 1966.

(4) “WE EMPHATICALLY REJECT THIS”—Richard E. Leakey and Roger Lewin. Origins. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1977. p 208.

(5) “HUMANS ARE NOT INNATELY DISPOSED”—ibid. p 213.

(6) STUDY OF HUMAN DESTRUCTIVENESS—Erich Fromm. The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness. New York: Holt Rhinehart Winston, 1973.

(7) COMPARATIVE STUDIES OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOR—Wickler. op. cit. p 114

(8) ‘UNETHICAL BEHAVIOR’ OF ANIMALS—[Observing apparently intentionally deceitful behavior in animals raises the very interesting question of the extent to which they have a differentiated (even though primitive) ego-consciousness.]

(9) AUSTRALIAN ZEBRA FINCHES—ibid. pp 122-123.

(10) HIERARCHICAL BABOON SOCIETY—ibid. p 160.

(11) NOOSPHERE—Teilhard de Chardin. See Wholeness and Ethic, The Collective Conscious