NATURALISTIC ARGUMENTATION IN ETHICS

The principles of the metaethical position of critical naturalism on the basis of understanding the schemes of naturalistic argumentation in ethics are developed. Naturalism in its naive form proceeds either from the identification of the natural with the goodness (with the uncertainty of the criterion of «naturalness»), or reduces this criterion to describe some objective conditions of existence as a model to motivate the agent of rational decision in the face of choice and conflict. In addition, the opposition between nature and culture, which is often the basis of critiques of naturalism, is contrived as a way to justify a valid model of behavior as appropriate, based on some objective law that is known a priori. However, it is impossible to derive a universal principle from such empirical data. Thus, moral norms are fundamentally relative, but their social construction can be understood as part of natural reality. At the same time, substantiation of norms of socially acceptable behavior of an individual in his attitude to other members of the community by addressing nature is possible only as a study of the circumstances under which a certain model of behavior arises and is established as a precedent for conflict resolution. «Nature» in this sense does not outline universal principles to which, as individual cases, life circumstances must necessarily be subject. Moral norms do not follow from natural law or any other law. The position of critical naturalism removes from naturalistic argumentation the naive identification of the goodness with the natural, as well as attempts to bring the moral law to some natural fact, the knowledge of which motivates to behave in a certain way as following moral duty. Empirical research and modeling in thought experiment as the basis of ethics as a science at the intersection of evolutionary biology and anthropology, focused on making precedent decisions and justifying the acceptability of the norm is to analyze the hypothetical consequences of this acceptance by the community. In this case, the objective condition that limits the range of possible solutions is that the norm, which reduces the viability of the bearer of the norm, thus eliminates itself. This determines the metaethical principle of love of life.