Natural is Bad

This Slate story about the repulsive behaviors of “cute” animals is fascinating and disgusting. Animals are… animals.

This gets to one of my beliefs about morality that I feel most people don’t think about: what is natural has nothing to do with what is good. People increasingly believe that if behaviour has a scientifically explained, genetically induced cause, then it must be OK. The thought being, if you’re made that way, if you “can’t help it”, it can’t be wrong.

I don’t believe that to be true. If we took our cues of morality from what’s natural, we’d have a terrible world. So when we talk about what’s behaviourally right and wrong, whether it’s natural has little to do with it.