In Natural Goodness, Philippa Foot (2001) aims to provide an account of moral evaluation that is both naturalistic and cognitivist. She argues that moral evaluation is a variety of natural evaluation in the sense that moral judgments of human action and character have the same “grammar” or “conceptual structure” as natural judgments of the goodness (e.g., health) of plants and animals. We argue that Foot’s naturalist project can succeed, but not in the way she envisions, because her central thesis that moral evaluation is a variety of natural evaluation is not entirely correct. We show that both moral and natural evaluation are species of kind evaluation, which encompasses moral, natural, and artifact evaluation. Kind evaluation is a form of evaluation, according to which things are evaluated qua members of a kind, in such a way that the kind into which something is classified informs the standards of evaluation (or norms) for things of that kind. Because the source of the normative standards for moral evaluation is different from the source of the normative standards for natural evaluation, moral evaluation is not a species of natural evaluation. However, both are varieties of kind evaluation. This account of moral evaluation as a variety of kind evaluation is still an effective response to non-naturalism and to non-cognitivism.
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There is a more general use of the term “artifact” on which an artifact is anything that is the outcome of human activities, intended or not. On this meaning of the term, a floating patch of garbage in the ocean is an “artifact.” We employ the more restricted use of the term here, since it refers to types of entities that are subject to kind evaluation.
Foot (2001: 33) hesitates to attribute “ends” to things (like nonhuman organisms) that are not literally trying to do something. But that is not the way we mean it here, nor below where we discuss attributing ends to plants and animals. All we mean by an end or a good is a way something is supposed to be or something that it is supposed to do.
There are similarities as well with Aristotle’s view that doing “well, for a flautist, a sculptor, and every craftsman, and, in general, for whatever has a function and [characteristic] action, seems to depend on its function.” (Aristotle 1985: 1097b, 25–30) On Aristotle’s view, something can be good or bad qua kind—whether it is an artisan, plant, body part, or human being—only if it has an associated function (characteristic action), since the standard of evaluation, qua kind, is determined by that function: “Now we say that the function of a [kind of thing]—of a harpist, for instance—is the same in kind as the function of an excellent individual of the kind—of an excellent harpist, for instance. And the same is true without qualification in every case, if we add to the function the superior achievement in accord with virtue.” (Aristotle 1985: 1098a, 7–12) Aristotle does not use artifacts as examples in his discussion, although commentators often apply his general view to them—e.g., the function of a knife is to cut, and an excellent knife cuts well. However, in the case of artifacts, rather than appeal to functions understood as characteristic actions, they must be connected to the expectations and intentions of users and designers (since artifacts do not perform actions). The basic idea that things are evaluated relative to a standard associated with their kind is one that our view shares with Aristotle’s; also shared is the idea that the source of the standard of evaluation qua kind differs depending on the variety of kind.
Foot takes the notion of a “life form” characterized by a set of Aristotelian Categoricals from Michael Thompson (Thompson 1995; 2008), though she develops the idea differently for her own purposes.
See also: “the Aristotelian categoricals give the ‘how’ of what happens in the life cycle of that species. And all the truths about what this or that characteristic does, what its purpose or point is, and in suitable cases its function, must be related to this life cycle. The way an individual should be is determined by what is needed for development, self-maintenance, and reproduction.” (Foot 2001: 32–33)
“Thus, evaluation of an individual living thing in its own right, with no reference to our interests or desires, is possible where there is intersection of two types of propositions: on the one hand, Aristotelian categoricals (life-form descriptions relating to the species), and on the other, propositions about particular individuals that are the subject of evaluation.” (Foot 2001: 33)
For a defense of such kinds as legitimate classifications of organisms, see Crane and Sandler (2011).
Species pluralism, the view that there are multiple legitimate species concepts, and so multiple ways to classify organisms, has been defended in a number of places, including Crane and Sandler (2011), Dupré (1993), Ereshefsky (2001), and Kitcher (1984; 1987). Our version allows considerable flexibility in classification, due to the varied classificatory interests and the different explanatory projects involving living things in which people are engaged.
Thomson’s (2008) example seeing eye dog seems to be in this category. That is, our evaluations of seeing eye dogs are much like our evaluations of artifacts (like toasters) in that the evaluative standards are largely determined by our intentions and expectations with respect to the kind.
This is not to say that the biological kinds that supply the standards for natural evaluation must be generated by a conception of species typically employed by biologists. (Crane and Sandler 2011)
Non-human moral agents, including artificially intelligent moral agents are also possible. This is another reason why morally evaluable kinds are not biological categories.
Well-used practical rationality may involve recognizing that the grounds for concern about one’s own flourishing apply as well to the flourishing of others, such that rational consistency requires that the ends that human beings are supposed to aim for include both their own flourishing and that of others. (Sandler 2007; Swanton 2003)
On this view, the virtues are character traits that are most conducive to our realizing human goods and other worthwhile ends (e.g., justice, the flourishing of others, protection of natural value) in rationally endorsable ways. Which character traits are, in fact, most conducive depends in part on the sort of creatures we are, as well as on the environment in which we live. Thus, deriving the substantive standards for moral evaluation has an empirical, or naturalistic component. (Hursthouse 1999; Sandler 2007)
For helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper, we owe thanks to John Basl, Matthew Cashen, Kathryn Lindeman, Bryan Lueck, and an anonymous referee for The Journal of Ethics.
