Some of my recent reading material has caused me to return to the question (upon which I’ve pondered off and on for decades) of what it means to be human. Along those lines, I have to confess to being a little perplexed by a post at Powerline today, in which Scott Johnson writes:

One of the great projects of the Progressive movement is the abolition of nature as supplying the standard of human conduct — the kind of standard to which the Founders appealed in adverting to “the Laws of Nature” in the Declaration of Independence.

Now, certainly progressives are opposed to the very notion of human nature–no dispute about that–but whence comes the notion that nature per se should “supply the standard of human conduct”? I assume that Mr. Johnson considers himself a conservative, and so I wonder if he’s actually thought through the import of this statement.

If he really believes this, he’s indulging in the naturalistic fallacy. I’m not sure what he has in mind here, but if we were to use nature, even human nature, as a guide to conduct, then rape would be perfectly acceptable, since this is a natural human behavior. As would homosexuality, since there’s nothing particularly unnatural about that, either. It may not be useful in reproduction, but there’s little doubt that there are people born to be attracted exclusively to members of the same sex, and like it or not, such behavior has been observed in other species as well (some very closely related to us).

I wouldn’t claim to be a conservative, but I had thought that conservativism was about operating from higher principles (e.g., divine, or otherwise), and rising above our animal tendencies. I’d like to see a little expansion on this topic from him, because as barely stated, it doesn’t make much sense to me.