On taking a shit

[Banno]

@Hanover

“Nature” then gets reinterpreted to not just being what is, but in being what ought to be, namely that which leads to flourishing.

Cool.

@Hanover

Those instances are argued to be “unnatural” because they interfere with flourushing, which is the real criterion for the good.

Yep. So long as one does not take the relation form “is” to “ought” to be that of entailment, all is well.

@Hanover

Unlike shitting, empathizing is of moral consequence, but looking to amoral examples (shitting and broken wings) is meant just to describe how the inquiry into what is natural is to be conducted.

Yep. Here we agree. In the OP:

@Banno

But Banno, needing to take a shit is not a value; it has nothing to do with ethics! Needing to defecate is hardly normative!

Where it is relevant is in showing how emphatic our biological imperatives can be. Needing to shit is much closer to another example used by Foot, falling. In the article used elsewhere, Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives. She uses it in an extended argument against there being a “special” use of “must” and “have to” in ethical considerations. See the related thread:

@Banno

One doesn’t get a choice about falling. It’s obligatory, in that way. One has to fall. But you can feel that you are falling while stationary. Saying “I felt I was falling” could be true whether one is falling or not.

“I felt I must”, “I felt I ought”, we say such things about our actions, even when they are voluntary. As “I felt I was falling” can be true when one is not falling, “I felt I was obliged” might well be true when one is not obliged. Having the “feeling” is insufficient to having the act or the obligation.

So she writes:

There is no difficulty about the idea that we feel we have to behave morally, and given the psychological conditions of the learning of moral behavior it is natural that we should have such feelings. What we cannot do is quote them in support of the doctrine of the categorical imperative. It seems, then, that in so far as it is backed up by statements to the effect that the moral is inescapable, or that we do have to do what is morally required of us, it is uncertain whether the doctrine of the categorical imperative even makes sense.

So: is the need to act morally biological, in the way of the need to take a shit? The latter seems more emphatic than the need to act charitably, or the need to follow the categorical imperative.

In basing ethics in our biological needs, Foot suggests the comparison. But as you and I have pointed out, this comparison can only go so far.

Hence this thread - to explore the relation between our biological and moral compulsions.

________

I’m going to resist empathy as a source for moral action. Not because it is not relevant, but because it is insufficient. A sadist has empathy for their victim; but empathy is insufficient to make them behave appropriate.