Unnatural!

One argument I hear all the time is that something is wrong, or that we should avoid something, or that we should regard something with scorn or scepticism, because it is "unnatural." The most common examples that come to mind are those of homosexuality, contraception, and genetic modification.

This sort of argument faces a whole host of problems.

First, it is unclear what constitutes "natural"ness. Is a thing natural simply because it occurs in the world without human intervention? Are only those things that occur in the world without human interverntion natural?

But let's suppose that we've been provided with a satisfactory definition of "natural." Even so, it is a stretch to claim that "X is wrong because it is unnatural" because regardless of how we define naturalness, there are many, many things that are unnatural, but which we don't want to write off as being wrong. If our definition of "natural" is very strict, then such unnatural things include tools of any kind. If our definition is very loose, then such unnatural things might include science, government, culture, airplanes, hygiene, music, medicine and so on.

But let's suppose further that we've managed to find a definition of "natural" that admits of all of the nice things that we'd like to hang on to, like forks and schools and doctors and movies and string theory and flush toilets. Even still, the fact remains that our category of all things natural contains things that we do want to write off as being wrong. It's not much of a stretch to suggest that the all 7 of the "deadly sins," which most of us tend to agree are things to be avoided, are pretty natural behaviors -- if they weren't, we wouldn't need to be prohibited against them. As such, the category of "good" or "right" cannot be coextensive with the category of "natural."

Another related problem: the things about us as humans that we tend to think of as making us human -- things like mercy and forgiveness and law and order -- are arguably unnatural and are essentially understood as such. Mercy is the act of refraining from the natural impulse of wrath. Forgiveness is the act of refraining from the natural impulse of anger. Law and order are the result of willingly and unnaturally submitting to an outside authority, and of refraining from the natural impulses of selfishness and violence. 

This particular counterargument only works, of course, when you and the person/people with whom you're arguing share a comparable set of assumptions about things like mercy vs. wrath and humaneness vs. beastliness.

Now, historically, lots and lots of things have been bludgeoned with the "It's unnatural, so it's wrong" argument. As a rule of thumb, when people say that "X is wrong because it's unnatural," what they really mean to say is that "X is wrong because I'm unaccustomed to it." Which is a very weak reason for making a very strong claim. Everything from women's education/suffrage to interracial marriage to airplanes to James Joyce to rock music has weathered this particular storm.

So maybe the best rebuttal is just to say, "Check back in 20 years."