Natural goodness and the political form of human life

In: Filozofija i društvo, Band 26, Heft 3, S. 565-592

Abstract

Ethical Naturalism attempts to explain the objective normativity effective in
human practices by reference to the relation between a living individual and
the life-form it exhibits. This explanation falls short in the case of human
beings (1) - not merely because of their essential rationality, but because
the idea of normativity implicit in practice is dependent on the form of
normativity?s being made explicit (2). I argue that this explicit form of
normativity?s force and claim - the law in general - implies a tension
between an explicit norm?s claim to absoluteness and the particularity of the
situational case it is applied to. This tension may seem to produce an
inherent violence corrupting the very idea of objective normativity inherent
in the human form of life (3); in fact, it shows that the human form of life
is essentially political. That the human form of life is essentially
political does not contradict the idea of objective normativity - provided
that this objectivity is not derived from a conception of ?natural goodness?,
but rather from the actuality of human practice and its principle, justice
(4).