On (Un)naturalness

Jan Deckers

Environmental Values, 2021, vol. 30, issue 3, 297-318

Abstract: Many scholars have argued that the distinction between the natural and the unnatural does not have any moral relevance, either because the distinction does not make sense or because, even if it does make sense, it does not make any moral sense. Before we can decide on the latter, we must therefore determine first whether a semantic distinction can be made. In this article, I argue that the distinction can be maintained. In spite of the fact that the categories of the natural and the unnatural are blurred as no unnatural things are completely unnatural, I argue that we can meaningfully distinguish between different types of unnaturalness along the natural-unnatural spectrum. To my knowledge, this article is the first publication to distinguish between three types of unnaturalness.

Keywords: Artefact; ethics; natural; nature; unnatural (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envval:v:30:y:2021:i:3:p:297-318

DOI: 10.3197/096327120X16033868459494

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