1. Naturalist Starting Points

In one of the closing chapters of Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle comments on how ridiculous it would be to imagine the gods being generous, just, courageous, or moderate.Footnote ¹ Immortal and invulnerable, these beings have none of the vulnerabilities and needs that make activities like returning deposits, facing death, etc., meaningful. This observation, which Aristotle takes to be obvious, is based on the assumption that human nature is the background of moral life. However, judging from the plethora of views that appeal to more abstract concepts such as ‘persons’ or ‘rational agents’, this assumption does not seem to hold in the landscape of contemporary moral theory. Neo-Aristotelian scholars have responded by developing a distinctive form of ethical naturalism that seeks to recapture the Aristotelian point.Footnote ² According to their perspective, it is necessary to appeal to ‘essential features of specifically human life’ to understand moral life and the virtues.Footnote ³ At the core this view is a concern to acknowledge the basic idea that human beings are a species of rational, social animal – though what, exactly, a viable naturalism looks like is still up for debate.Footnote ⁴

This paper will consider the naturalism of second nature (hereafter NSN), which represents one of the seemingly less promising naturalist theories to have emerged.Footnote ⁵ Advanced by thinkers such as John McDowell and Julia Annas, this view seeks to ‘recapture the Aristotelian idea that a normal mature human being is a rational animal, but without losing the Kantian idea that rationality operates freely in its own sphere’.Footnote ⁶ Its proponents claim that the virtues are part of a rational second nature instilled through moral education. They emphasize how rationality, fully developed, results in autonomy from nature and claim that ethical thought is its own standard. NSN is considered a form of naturalism because the development of rational second nature unfolds, alongside growth, nutrition, etc., through entirely natural processes. However, critics have pointed out that, on this view, the fact that we are rational, social animals plays no role in understanding the standard of ethical thought and conduct. Put another way, NSN does not seem to be a form of naturalism. Hence, a basic problem for this view is to explain how specifically human nature has normative significance.

The goal of this paper is to defend a form of NSN that successfully meets this charge. To accomplish this task, I will introduce a novel way to understand the normative significance of human nature. I argue that NSN supports an analysis of human nature as the raw material of the virtues and, as such, the basis of a kind of aesthetic evaluation. Specifically, human nature is the basis of what I call humaneness, a sort of beauty that belongs to what elevates or refines human nature. The virtues are humane in that they beautify human nature. Thus, the ethical significance of human nature is explained by recognizing the way in which the virtues and virtuous individuals exemplify a kind of beauty that only humans can have. Reinforced with the concept of humaneness, the fortified naturalism of second nature can explain how human nature is both the inescapable background of moral life as well as the ground of an ethical ideal of humanity.

2. Naturalism of First Nature

NSN is, in a sense, a reactive position. It is posited primarily as a response to what has been called the naturalism of first nature (hereafter NFN), which seeks to derive a conception of human excellence directly from an account of human nature. A central plank of this view is the Aristotelian claim that ‘what human beings are is a species of rational, social animals and thereby a species of living things – which, unlike ‘persons’ or ‘rational beings’, have a particular biological make-up and a natural life cycle’.Footnote ⁷ Based on this claim, proponents of NFN seek to ground virtues such as loyalty, courage, and moderation in human nature. It is worth considering this view before turning to NSN. NFN happens to be the received view among neo-Aristotelian virtue ethicists, and a consideration of its strengths will give us a sense of the options, as well as the challenges, that face the naturalist.Footnote ⁸

Central to NFN is the concept of species nature.Footnote ⁹ Species nature is that which makes an organism the kind of organism it is, e.g., wolf, bee, etc. Following Michael Thompson, Philippa Foot explains that species nature may be articulated into ‘natural-historical judgments’ that articulate what it means for a kind of organism to be alive, e.g., reproductive habits, locomotive capabilities, etc. So, for instance, the natural-historical judgments that apply to wolves may include ‘wolves mate in spring’ and ‘wolves hunt in packs’, whereas those that apply to plants describe a different life, e.g., ‘plants reproduce asexually’, ‘plants metabolize through photosynthesis’. These judgments have a special logical form insofar as their truth is not dependent on individual organisms; they do not express statistical facts, and they are not about the particular organisms that happen to exist. Rather, these judgments express the ideal of what a normally functioning member of that species is like.

An organism's species nature is a kind of standard and, as such, the basis for what Foot calls natural goodness. Natural goodness, which applies to all living things, represents an ‘autonomous’ or ‘intrinsic’ goodness that belongs to an organism in virtue of the kind of being that it is.Footnote ¹⁰ A plant may be good for us as decoration or food source, but there is also a distinct sense of good that pertains to the plant alone. Good roots and good growth, say, are examples of natural goodness because they are good for the plant simply for itself; they make a plant good qua plant. Natural goodness is a kind of goodness that exists in the world as a result of the existence of living things, and it is based on objective facts of organisms’ species natures as expressed in the natural-historical judgments appropriate to their species.

Thus, individual members of a species may be judged as intrinsically good or bad according to how well they instantiate the parts, behaviors, and traits of their species nature. Because species nature is an objective matter, such evaluations are not arbitrary. Natural goodness in plants and animals may be determined by consulting the findings of biologists, botanists, and zoologists. For example, a wolf that performs all vital activities in characteristically lupine ways – e.g., eating no more often than every four hours, mating between January and April – is identified as objectively good qua wolf. By the same logic, a wolf that is blind or lame is objectively defective or bad qua wolf. Such assessments appear to extend to ‘ “other-regarding” goodnesses and defects’ as well.Footnote ¹¹ As Foot says:

Insofar as all living beings belong to some species or other, all living beings may be evaluated according to natural goodness. According to the proponent of NFN, the evaluation of natural goodness in human beings is no different: good human beings are those that conform to the standard of human species nature – or, more simply, human nature.

This claim is most plausible when we conceive of natural goodness in terms of health. Infertility and blindness, say, are real defects in humans; a human being afflicted with such conditions would be unable to participate in the full range of normal activities. But while human nature clearly has normative significance in the case of health, the success of NFN depends on whether it has anything to tell us about the moral assessment of human actions and dispositions. The analogy between human and non-human animals has limits. Human lives contain many complex goods, and human purposes and ends extend far beyond anything we see in the rest of nature. Only humans write poetry, engage in athletic contests, teach table manners, etc. Further, whereas wolf and plant species are more or less uniform everywhere, there is a great diversity of practices and values across human societies. It is unclear how culturally specific goods and ends could fall under the purview of natural goodness.

Yet this naturalist will insist that, differences notwithstanding, it is still possible to specify what is generally needed for human good. There is an important similarity between human and non-human animals insofar as human excellences and defects are ‘related to what human beings are and what they do’.Footnote ¹³ Human infants are completely vulnerable and remain fully dependent on adults for the first several years of their lives; thus, like lionesses, we must protect, nurture, and teach our young. Humans are naturally social and not completely self-sufficient for resources; thus, like wolves, we need to cooperate, and we must sometimes sacrifice our own interests to protect the group. According to the proponent of NFN, these activities, which are constitutive parts of human nature, are not possible without basic virtues such as loyalty, courage, and honesty. On this view, the virtues are seen as akin to stingers on bees or roots on a plant. As parts of natural goodness, they represent the fullest actualization of human nature, and they make us good qua human being.

From the naturalist perspective, the primary appeal of this view is that it elucidates the virtues as specifically human excellences. Theories that depend on more abstract or formal concepts like ‘persons’ and ‘rational agents’ miss an important dimension of moral life. These theories go wrong in ‘thinking that an abstract idea of practical reason applicable to rational beings as such could take us all the way to anything like our own moral code’.Footnote ¹⁴ Moral life for humans is not the business of bloodless, rational agents, but rather a nexus of practical challenges defined by vulnerabilities, needs, desires, etc., that originate in our biological endowment. This is why it is ridiculous to imagine virtuous gods. NFN shows very clearly how the virtues relate to human nature. As a form of natural goodness, virtue is the fullest actualization of human nature. For the proponent of NFN, the ethical ideal expressed by the virtues is directly derived from facts about human nature.

However, the view also encounters a major difficulty in what Micah Lott has called the ‘authority-of-nature challenge’. He describes the problem, which has been noted by many, as follows:

Normal, mature human beings are rational agents, and this represents a decisive break between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom. Lacking rational capacities, non-human animals are compelled to do what is natural, and their species natures determine what is good for them. However, rationality enables human beings to step back and question nature. As rational beings, we necessarily have an imagination for alternatives, and we are able to act in ways that go against what is natural. We aim at ends that are supported by values and beliefs, and the fact that something conduces to natural goodness presents no conclusive reason to think that we ought to do it. It is always possible to ask why we ought to pursue this good; it is even conceivable that we might find reasons to flout it. Thus, the normative force of the virtues cannot be explained by natural goodness. In that case, NFN, which is based on the concept of natural goodness, is not an adequate foundation for ethics.

NFN is a promising theory because it provides a strong account of the normative significance of human nature. On this view, the virtues are directly derived from human nature as parts of natural goodness. The view thus corrects for an oversight among theorists who believe that morality can be derived from abstract, formal notions of reason alone. But the correction goes too far. As McDowell puts it, the naturalist's goal is to ‘recapture the Aristotelian idea that a normal mature human being is a rational animal, but without losing the Kantian idea that rationality operates freely in its own sphere’.Footnote ¹⁶ While it indeed captures the former, NFN loses the latter. This view gives an unwarranted authority to nature and denies the rightful role of reason in establishing ethical norms. Thus, NFN is not successful.Footnote ¹⁷

3. Naturalism of Second Nature

Recognition of the failure of NFN motivates NSN. According to NSN, the virtues are forms of second nature, which are learned dispositions for action, feeling, and thought that are acquired through the process of moral education. Critically, human second nature is responsive to reason. As forms of second nature, the virtues are importantly different from the sorts of behavioral dispositions found in non-human animals. The lion's protective instincts and the wolf's cooperative hunting, say, might resemble courage and collegiality, but they are not rational dispositions. Courage, collegiality, and the virtues more generally require the capacity to knowingly perceive and respond to events in the world as constituting reasons for action, feeling, or thought; they assume a rational framework of concepts and values that exists independently of the order of nature. In this way, the virtues embody a sense in which we are autonomous from the natural world. Thus, according to NSN, the normative force of the virtues is not explained by natural goodness, but rather by the standard of reason.

At the same time, proponents of NSN note that the acquisition of second nature is a process that works on and through human nature. These thinkers see moral education, which is how children are initiated into adulthood, as a transformative process, and they acknowledge that human nature represents the starting point of moral development. We begin life as human animals and undergo a process whereby ‘all of our social animal nature is transformed by its being activated, as we live, in a rational way’.Footnote ¹⁸ This process works through an extensive ‘moulding of motivational and evaluative propensities’ that belong to human beings by nature.Footnote ¹⁹ The end result is an autonomous, rational agent that hopefully has the virtues. Since the view's claim to be a form of naturalism depends on its recognition of this process, it is worth fleshing out the details. We can break moral education down into two components that work together in complementary ways – one mechanical and the other cognitive.Footnote ²⁰

The mechanical component involves habituation, which is a process that utilizes repetition.Footnote ²¹ One practices certain actions with a view towards establishing dispositions for similar actions. Initially administered by parents and educators, this method begins at the earliest stages of human development. Newborns and infants are born with natural instincts, needs, etc., as well as untutored responses of pleasure and pain. By strategically using associations with pleasure and pain to encourage desirable behaviors and discourage their opposites, parents and educators shape these natural responses into particular ways of acting and being that do not exist by nature.Footnote ²² Sometimes this training might encourage and expand on natural desires and needs, e.g., parents inculcate congeniality by fostering natural attachments to others. Other times, it might require suppressing or restraining natural responses, e.g., parents inculcate moderation by regulating and limiting natural desires for food, drink, etc. The child will mostly experience the regulation of his life as unnatural and artificial, but as long as it does not positively contravene nature, he will eventually come to possess habits for certain ways of acting and being. The repeated regulation of eating and drinking, say, will result in a habit of moderate consumption, and constant exposure to and encouragement of new social interactions will yield one of friendly behaviors and attitudes. Once the new habits take root, they will be experienced as natural.

The cognitive component of moral education piggybacks on the natural development of rational powers, which happens spontaneously in young humans living under suitable conditions. In the course of instilling desirable habits, educators train the child to perceive and respond to particular situations and events as constituting reasons to act. The child's attention is drawn to salient features of his environment, and his perceptual and emotional sensitivities are sharpened as cognitive development proceeds. The child gradually grows capable of seeing the world in light of learned concepts, and a particular perspective on the world, imbued with values and ends, emerges as a result. This process is not an addition to the development of otherwise neutral rational capacities. Rather, it is the development of reason itself, and the values and ends with which the child is raised are baked into the very framework of rationality. When the child's rational powers grow strong enough, it becomes possible to complete or perfect the work of habituation through explicit instruction. Self-awareness and critical reflection also become possibilities: ‘[i]n imparting logos, moral education enables one to step back from any motivational impulse one finds oneself subject to, and question its rational credentials’.Footnote ²³

These processes, mechanical and cognitive, work together in moral education. The final result is a radical transition of the child from a mere animal to a rational agent capable of regulating himself. Reason comes to saturate all his natural responses, and every aspect of human life is transformed. For example, needs and desires for food, which come naturally to all human beings, will have become habituated and possible subjects for evaluation and modification. The child will have absorbed the norms and values of his society and developed fluency in its institutions, practices, and traditions.Footnote ²⁴ All of his ‘natural motivational impulses’ will have been regulated and made open to modification by reason, and it will be possible for him to question the rational credentials of any of his desires, needs, etc. Even his most animal functions, e.g., sleeping, eating, etc., become domains of reason and, as such, areas of refinement, correction, or improvement. When the final result accords with ethical ideals, the second nature is virtuous. A virtuous adult is not simply one with good mechanical habits, but one who knowingly acts and responds for the right reasons. This person will have his desires, needs, inclinations, etc., in line with what virtue demands; virtuousness will have saturated his ways of acting, feeling, and thinking. For this reason, virtue is a form of autonomy. The person who has gone through this process of education is no longer necessarily bound by the dictates of nature.

The second nature that emerges in the course of human development is not something entirely new, but rather a configuration of the needs, desires, inclinations, etc., with which infants are born. The virtues arise from a mechanical process of habituation that regulates and imposes structure on the motivational impulses of human nature, and these responses do not simply disappear with the full development of virtues and rationality. Rather, they persist insofar as they are the subject of rational reconfiguration, redirection, and manipulation. To describe this development, Annas uses the analogy of a craftsperson working on raw materials:

Here an individual is described shaping his own life, but the same point applies to the entire process of moral education, which is initiated and guided by others. Moral education, whether practiced on oneself or on others, produces virtues, and its raw material is human nature. Moderation, say, comprises natural needs and desires for bodily replenishments that have become regulated and ordered with respect to their degrees and contexts in which they occur. Courage comprises simultaneously natural instincts for self-defense and fear of mortal death and pain, which are controlled and directed towards appropriate ends. Embodied in our desires, needs, instincts, etc., dispositions such as courage and moderation are transformations of untutored nature that result from the work of moral education.

NSN thus improves upon NFN insofar as it avoids the authority-of-nature challenge. Unlike cooperative hunting in wolves or dancing in honeybees, the virtues are rational dispositions through which humans exercise autonomy from nature. It is reason rather than nature that grounds the virtues and undergirds their normative force. At the same time, the foregoing account of moral education shows how reason gains authority over the mature human being through processes that are, in important senses, no more mysterious and no less natural than growth and metabolism. The development of rationality is itself a process that happens to humans as organisms living within the natural world: ‘our rationality indeed makes us different from other living things, but is just as much a natural fact about us and the world we live in as are facts about other species’.Footnote ²⁶ In this way, NSN can be said to integrate the Aristotelian idea that human beings are rational, social animals with the Kantian claim of the autonomy of rationality.

4. Is NSN a sort of naturalism?

It is not hard to see why scholars view NSN with suspicion. The fundamental premise of naturalism is the Aristotelian idea that humans are rational, social animals, and the point of the view is to elucidate how moral life and, more specifically, the virtues are rooted in concrete facts of human nature. Naturalist views are supposed to show how human nature grounds a normative standard for ethical action, feeling, and thought and, in this way, improve upon theories that are based on abstract concepts such as ‘persons’ or ‘rational agents’. However, NSN tells us that the virtues embody ways in which humans are autonomous from nature, and the view makes no attempt to use facts about human nature to explain why certain dispositions rather than others are virtues. Instead, the normative standard for ethical action, feeling, and thought is none other than reason itself. Thus, NSN indeed seems to get the Kantian idea that rationality operates freely in its own sphere, but at the expense of the Aristotelian idea that human beings are rational, social animals.

Of course, McDowell and Annas do acknowledge the existence of human nature. They provide an analysis of how moral education builds on natural processes and works with the raw material of human nature. But critics will say that this acknowledgment means little. At most, NSN recognizes that human nature works as a constraint on the application of reason:

Natural desires and needs for sociality or sustenance, say, will impose limits on possible configurations of rational dispositions. However, critics will point out that the ultimate criterion of success is nevertheless reason. On this view, human nature is merely is a ‘normatively inert material that reason must confront’.Footnote ²⁸ Thus, the view seems to be no better than theories based on more abstract concepts such as ‘persons’ or ‘rational agents’, and therefore, it could be denied that NSN is a form of naturalism at all.

To get around this problem, the proponents of NSN need to provide a way to understand the normative significance of human nature. Human nature must function as a kind of standard for ethical action, feeling, and thought, rather than a mere constraint on or occasion for the development of virtue, and this standard must be used to explain the goodness of the virtues. In this way, the virtues must be shown to derive their normative force from concrete facts of human nature. For comparison, it is worth recalling that the strength of NFN consists in its ability to explain the normative significance of human nature. Specifically, this view explains the normative significance of human nature by appealing to the concept of natural goodness. Without some similar appeal, it is difficult to see how NSN could count as a form of naturalism.

At the same time, proponents of NSN cannot simply resort to the model of natural goodness. We can also recall that natural goodness is susceptible to the authority-of-nature challenge. To be ethically significant, an ideal must appeal to what we have reason to do, and natural goodness fails in this regard. Proponents of NSN avoid this problem by presenting the virtues as forms of second nature that are supported by the standard of reason. But it is precisely this innovation that endangers the naturalist credentials of their view. To preserve their innovation and maintain their claim to naturalism, proponents of NSN need to account for the normative significance of human nature in a way that does not assume the authority of nature.

The remainder of this paper will be devoted to demonstrating how NSN can maintain itself as a form of naturalism without running afoul of the authority-of-nature challenge. To this end, I will introduce a model of intrinsic goodness that is implicit within or, at least, made possible by NSN. This model, which represents an alternative to natural goodness, is based on the logic of artifacts. Building on Annas's claim that the virtues are fashioned out of the raw material of human nature, I propose thinking of moral education on the model of art. Critics of her view see the claim about raw material as evidence that human nature is merely an occasion for the application of reason, but this criticism overlooks the fact that raw material is normatively significant in aesthetic evaluation. Among artists, matter is widely recognized as placing demands on art, and it is not uncommon for material properties to be invoked in the evaluation of artifacts. This means that matter is not just a source of material necessity; it is also a ground for creativity, innovation, and excellence. Following Annas's suggestion, I will argue that proponents of NSN can explain the goodness of the virtues by appealing to this sort of evaluation, but first we must be clear about what the evaluation entails.

5. Truth to Materials

An artifact's relationship to raw material is the basis of a kind of beauty that I will refer to as truth to materials.Footnote ²⁹ While especially prized by art forms that emphasize craftsmanship and quality materials, truth to materials applies to all products of art. This quality contributes to making an artifact good qua artifact, and it applies to evaluating human dispositions no less than wood chairs or stone houses. I will eventually argue that considerations of truth to materials can provide an account of the virtues that enables NSN to maintain itself as a genuine form of naturalism. In this section, I lay the foundation for this argument by elucidating the concept of truth to materials and how it applies to human nature.

Generally speaking, truth to materials applies to all artifacts insofar as they inhere in matter. Through the imposition of form, an art transforms some bit of matter into something new, e.g., carpentry transforms wood into furniture. To achieve this transformation, the art must contend with the concrete realities and distinctive qualities of its given material. For example, oak wood has the properties of tan color, prominent annual rings, and clear medullary rays, whereas mahogany is reddish-brown with poorly defined annual rings and grains that look like stripes, ripples, or ribbons. These qualities are the objective properties that constitute the material's nature, and they represent both constraints and opportunities for the art. There are specific requirements for viability and limits beyond which a given type of matter will not persist, e.g., wood has some pliability, but only yields to so much pressure before it breaks. However, the very same properties also represent the horizon of possibilities for innovation. Consciously or not, the skill of the artist is exercised in how he manipulates these properties in crafting his product.

According to the influential art critic John Ruskin, this relationship with material establishes a special duty for the ‘workman’ or artist:

The artist is tasked with honoring his material by revealing its distinctive beauty, and he cannot be considered wholly successful without achieving this end. Achieving truth to materials is, of course, not his only task. But it may be considered a duty insofar as transforming materials is part of what it means to engage in an art. All art seeks to bring about something new by working with some kind of material. As such, it is always possible to evaluate the product of art based on how well it inheres in the material from which it is made; truth to materials registers success in this regard. In this way, truth to materials is different from, say, monetary value. An artist might try to make money from his art. But making money is external to the practice of art, and he is not essentially bound to recognize this standard. Monetary value only applies insofar as his work might be considered a financial investment. In contrast, truth to materials is a standard that applies to evaluating the artifact qua artifact. It is a standard that is internal to the practice of art, one that bounds the artist to a certain ‘duty’.

Truth to materials is achieved when the artist uses techniques to bring out the specific beauty of the raw materials with which he is working. This beauty represents a kind of truth insofar as it displays or highlights the properties that make the material the kind of material that it is. Such properties are not always obvious on their own, and it often takes expertise to be able to discern exactly which traits are distinctive of a certain type of material. But even when these traits are obvious, it is always possible to enhance and elevate them. Material in its raw, unaltered state is subject to contingencies that obscure or insufficiently emphasize its distinctiveness, e.g., wood from a birch tree may lack the lenticels that make birch distinctive. Various techniques can be used to amplify some attributes and minimize others, or to introduce greater precision or refinement into what already exists. For example, quarter-sawing oak, which has distinctive medullary rays, produces a beautiful flake pattern. In each case, art is required to reveal what these materials ‘really’ are; this is a form of beauty.

The beauty embodied by truth to materials has a special relationship to nature. The artist must take into account a material's natural qualities to reveal its truth. However, this beauty must be distinguished from what might be called ‘natural beauty’. Materials can possess natural beauty insofar as they conform to an ideal type, e.g., a piece of oak with a typical grain and color may have natural beauty. Such considerations play a significant role in the selection of raw material since it is generally easier to work with naturally beautiful matter. However, to achieve truth to materials, the artist does not simply present what is beautiful by nature. Instead, he improves or refines what exists by nature to create a kind of beauty that could not be anticipated without human ingenuity. Consider, say, Thonet chairs, which reveal beech wood's strength and pliability in a way never found in nature. At the same time, it is also the case that the best craftsmen are typically those who are able to make their products appear natural.Footnote ³¹ This point is usually only noticed when there is a deficiency of skill, e.g., the chair fails if it looks contrived. The appearance of naturalness is not achieved by being natural, but rather by using skill and ingenuity to improve what exists by nature. One might describe artifacts that succeed in this way as ‘more natural than nature itself’.Footnote ³²

Insofar as there are arts that work through the raw material of human beings, human nature can be the basis of truth to materials. Ballet, for example, is an art that works with the raw material of the human body and its movements to produce a particular sort of human movement. The logic of truth to materials applies equally here. Ballet dancers meticulously train their bodies to achieve figures and movements that display distinctive features of the human body in exceedingly precise and concentrated forms. The beauty of their achievement is different from natural beauty. In terms of form and quality of movement, the body of an expert dancer is simply more refined than that of an untrained person, no matter how well-proportioned and strong. Finally, we can imagine saying that the movements of a poor dancer appear forced and unnatural, while the expert dancer reveals how the body is meant to move. Given how contrived the conventions of ballet are, this achievement is remarkable.

Truth to materials, so understood, shows an important and novel way to think about how species nature can have normative significance for the evaluation of human dispositions. If, as Annas suggests, moral education is an art that works through the ‘raw material’ of human nature, it can be reasonably maintained that dispositions to act, feel, and think produced by moral education can exemplify truth to materials. The natural needs, desires, inclinations, etc., that belong to human nature impose constraints on the sorts of human beings that can be produced by moral education. But more importantly, they are subjects for innovation and sources for a kind of beauty that is shared with other arts. That is not to suggest that every disposition produced by moral education achieves truth to materials. The very same natural tendencies can be shaped in any number of ways, yielding both good and bad results. Our need for others, say, can provide fodder for unthinking conformism, as well as solidarity and friendship. Natural instincts for defense of self and offspring can be harnessed to protect the weak and vulnerable, but also to perpetuate violence against others. Our desires for food and drink can be the basis of both social communion and destructive excess. Whether the results are good or bad, the underlying tendencies that are thus shaped belong equally to human species nature.

That said, human beings who display truth to materials in their dispositions for action, feeling, and thought have something in common. Dispositions achieve truth to materials when they work with the peculiar qualities of human nature to bring out the best in us. They are beautiful insofar as the needs, desires, inclinations, etc., that belong to human nature have been refined or elevated. I propose that this refinement or elevation is what distinguishes the virtues.

As an example of this approach, take the virtue of courage. The beauty of courage consists in how it elevates natural instincts to avoid death and pain. These natural instincts, which are common to non-human animals, are oriented towards the preservation of biological life. However, humans are distinctive in their capacity to value certain ends or purposes more than life itself. Natural instincts for the preservation of life are not adequate to support these ends. Indeed, they can positively undermine them. As an acquired disposition of feeling and acting, courage shapes and directs natural instincts and fears, and promotes those ends that make life worth living. The acquired disposition is what makes the difference between, say, simply growing defensive, which is something that happens naturally, and acting in a way that embodies ideals of sacrifice and commitment.

Another example is loyalty. The beauty of loyalty consists in how it articulates and enhances natural sociality. Natural sociality means that we need others to live: we desire the company of others, and our lives are necessarily inter-dependent. In this respect, we are like social animals such as wolves and bees. But while they might be quite strong, natural attachments are susceptible to the contingencies of time, place, and circumstance. Loyalty is an acquired disposition of special consideration for certain relationships, usually those that are older or more formative. The feelings of loyalty are more disciplined and less susceptible to vagaries than those of natural attachment, and actions commanded by loyalty make distinctions in our treatment of others. The acquired disposition makes the difference between simply feeling strongly about another, which is something that happens naturally, and connecting with others in a way that embodies ideals of solidarity and friendship.

My aim with these examples is not to establish which dispositions should or should not count as virtues, but rather to explain how certain virtuous dispositions might exemplify truth to materials. For contrast, it is useful to consider how this analysis differs from that of natural goodness. Proponents of NFN appeal to natural goodness to explain that the value of courage consists in its contribution to individual and species survival, loyalty in its contribution to the good functioning of the social group and our characteristic enjoyments.Footnote ³³ Modeled on the role of stingers in the life of bees and cooperative hunting in that of wolves, this sort of analysis seeks to capture Aristotle's claim that humans are ‘fitted by nature to receive [the virtues]’.Footnote ³⁴ In contrast, the analysis of truth to materials recognizes that, just as there is no particular form of dance that is most natural, humans are not naturally fitted to receive any particular dispositions. However, the fact that the virtues appear natural is evidence of their truth to materials. By elevating or refining tendencies that are part of human nature, the virtues embody an ideal of humanity that is not merely an actualization of nature. Rather, solidarity, friendship, commitment, sacrifice, etc., belong to an ideal of humanity that goes far beyond what nature itself can provide.

For ease of reference, I will call this form of beauty humaneness. Humane dispositions are those that instantiate truth to materials in human beings. They bring out the beauty of human nature by taking into account the material realities of being human, e.g., needs, desires, etc., and elevating them to forms that reflect an ideal of humanity. The humaneness of the virtues is not to be conflated with their naturalness. The natural foundations of loyalty and courage are natural needs, desires, and instincts, which are no more admirable in humans than in wolves or lions. It is only when these natural responses are shaped, directed, and regulated through the difficult work of moral education that they can achieve humaneness.

6. Fortified Naturalism of Second Nature

Now it remains to show how the concept of humaneness can enable NSN to maintain itself as a form of naturalism. Recall that the worry was that NSN cannot explain how human nature is a normative standard for ethical action, feeling, and thought. On this view, the virtues are acquired dispositions, or forms of second nature, that represent autonomy from nature, and their authority derives from rationality. As it stands, the view offers no way to bring concrete facts about human nature to bear on understanding the goodness of moral life or the virtues. In this way, the view appears no better than theories that depend on abstract concepts like ‘persons’ or ‘rational agents’ and, thus, raises the question of whether it is a form of naturalism at all. I propose that it is possible to meet this charge by appealing to the concept of humaneness.

The fortified naturalism of second nature (FNSN) shares the same core views with NSN as defended by McDowell and Annas. The virtues are forms of rational, second nature that represent ways in which humans achieve autonomy from their species nature. Humans are not born autonomous, rational, or virtuous agents. Rather, they are led into rational maturity through an involved process of moral education. FNSN goes one step further in calling attention to how this process literally gives form to the needs, vulnerabilities, etc., that belong to humans as part of their species nature. There is, on this view, a kind of aesthetic evaluation that applies to the products of moral education. To borrow Ruskin's language, if dispositions ‘exalt’ the ‘peculiar qualities’ of human nature, they and the individuals that possess them are beautiful or humane. This view serves to explain a way in which human nature has normative significance for evaluating the virtues.

The concept of humaneness plays the same role within the theoretical framework of FNSN as natural goodness does in NFN. Natural goodness is a form of intrinsic goodness that is directly derived from human nature, and by subsuming the virtues under this concept, NFN is able to explain the goodness of the virtues in terms of human nature. Analogously, FNSN can explain the goodness of the virtues in terms of human nature by appealing to humaneness, which is also form of intrinsic goodness that is based on human nature. Humaneness is a form of beauty that depends on ‘essential features of specifically human life’.Footnote ³⁵ With this analysis, the virtues are shown to be specifically human excellences insofar as they elevate and refine the needs, desires, limitations, etc., that belong to human beings. There is no way to arrive at humaneness through considerations of personhood or rational agency alone. To appreciate the way in which the virtues elevate or refine human nature, one must consider facts about the species nature possessed by human beings. Thus, fortified with the concept of humaneness, FNSN is able to ‘recapture’ the Aristotelian idea that ‘a normal mature human being is a rational animal’.Footnote ³⁶ In other words, it is clearly a form of naturalism.

At the same time, the addition of humaneness preserves NSN's solution to the authority-of-nature challenge. Recall that NSN is designed to recapture Aristotelian idea without losing the Kantian idea that ‘rationality operates freely in its own sphere’.Footnote ³⁷ NFN fails in this regard because natural goodness wrongly assumes that species nature provides a standard for ethical life. In contrast, the concept of humaneness does not requiring recognizing nature as the authority. The normative force of this good does not derive from species nature alone, but rather from norms that belong to any art insofar as it works with raw materials. In this case, the art is moral education, which is thoroughly open to the scrutiny of reason. As a variety of truth to materials, the humaneness of a disposition or individual is part of what makes this art successful. The form of goodness that is humaneness is internal to moral education, and insofar as we participate in it, we are, like Ruskin's workman, duty bound to recognize humaneness as a kind of good worth pursuing.Footnote ³⁸ Thus, FNSN maintains NSN's advantage over NFN. The concept of humaneness enables the proponent of NSN to appeal to nature without requiring deference to nature's ends.

I do not mean to suggest that thinkers such as McDowell or Annas actually endorse FNSN. Nevertheless, as stated, their view is deficient as a form of naturalism because it fails to identify a normatively significant relationship between human nature and the virtues. Humaneness provides a way to explain the goodness of the virtues in terms of human nature and, thus, enables proponents of NSN to meaningfully accommodate the Aristotelian idea that we are rational, social animals. At the same time, this concept does not interfere with the autonomy of reason because it is an end that is internal to moral education, an activity of paramount importance to rational agents. Thus, humaneness solves a problem that is otherwise insuperable for proponents of NSN. Without this link, NSN is not meaningfully different from theories that appeal to abstract concepts such as ‘persons’ or ‘rational agents’. With it, NSN has a genuinely naturalist way to explain the goodness of the virtues.

7. Objections and Replies

In this section, I consider objections to FNSN. The worries may come from proponents of either NFN or NSN. By addressing these concerns, I hope to underscore what is naturalist about FNSN, as well as how it is distinctive among extant sorts of naturalism.

First, one might say that FNSN cannot count as a form of naturalism because it neglects the fundamental naturalist premise. As noted earlier, this premise is the Aristotelian idea that the normal, mature human is a rational, social animal. In advancing FNSN, I have highlighted the way in which normal, mature human beings are products of art, and this proposal depends on the claim that rational, social animals are the raw material of normal, mature human beings. However, there is a difference between being a rational, social animal and being made of a rational, social animal. What something is is distinct from what it is made of, e.g., the Washington Monument is a commemoration of the first president of the United States, but it is made of marble, granite, and bluestone gneiss. If the fundamental naturalist premise is that we are rational, social animals, my strategy fails in its very conception.

This objection overlooks a critical ambiguity in the naturalist premise. It is true that naturalists have taken the fundamental naturalist premise as a formal claim about what humans essentially are. Proponents of NFN, in particular, read it in this way.Footnote ³⁹ On their view, human beings are a species in the same way that wolves and plants are species of living things. But although this is the most straightforward reading of the naturalist premise, it is importantly not the only one. It is also possible to read the premise as a claim about matter. On this reading, the verb in ‘human beings are rational, social animals’ is understood in the same way as it is in the claim that ‘the chair is wood’ or, even more pointedly, that ‘bonsai trees are trees’. There is no reason to think that the naturalist premise cannot be conceived in this way. Thus, it is possible to say that FNSN is indeed built on the naturalist premise – in its material, rather than its formal, sense.

I contend, moreover, that the material reading of the naturalist premise is more fitting than its formal counterpart. Human beings are, in the formal sense, more like bonsai trees than plants, and one could argue that it is precisely for its failure to recognize this difference that NFN fails.Footnote ⁴⁰ To know whether a plant is good qua plant, one need only consider its species nature. However, it is simply not possible to say whether a bonsai is good qua bonsai by consulting species nature alone. This is because bonsai trees are essentially defined in terms of rationally grounded human ends – spiritual, artistic, or other – that exceed anything found in nature. The same and more can be said for human beings. Living as a human being involves having a diversity of rationally grounded ends that go far beyond the ends of species nature, and one must consult the former to make ethically meaningful evaluations of goodness in a human being. Similarities notwithstanding, to assimilate humans to plants is to deny the difference that rationality makes. Thus, the material reading of the naturalist premise more adequately captures the sense in which mature humans are rational. Insofar as FNSN is based on this reading of the naturalist premise, it is a stronger form of naturalism than NFN.

A second worry concerns FNSN's appeal to beauty. The naturalist seeks to elucidate the ethical significance of human nature. However, humaneness is an aesthetic concept. So, one might agree that the virtues are humane, while also denying that this claim is relevant to the naturalist project. The charge would be that FNSN conflates ethical and aesthetic value or, perhaps worse, reduces goodness to beauty. The beauty of a disposition has nothing to do with its moral properties.

In response, I contend that beauty is ethically significant. The ethical significance of beauty is evident when we consider the affective dimension of virtue. Parents strategically create associations of pleasure and pain to instill the virtues. The technique of association is a means to encourage desirable behavior, but more importantly, it is also a way to introduce virtue as an object of love. This point is key because it is love that distinguishes the virtuous person from those who merely do the right things. This love is shown in the genuine enjoyment he takes in virtuous ways of doing and being, and his admiration for virtues and virtuous actions in others: the virtuous person ‘delights in actions in accordance with excellence, and is disgusted by those flowing from badness, just as a musical expert takes pleasure in fine melodies and is distressed at worthless ones’.Footnote ⁴¹ Love of virtue is an essential feature of the virtuous person. And that is why beauty is ethically significant: if we are to believe Plato, the proper object of love is beauty.Footnote ⁴² It is not possible to love something that is utterly ugly.Footnote ⁴³ Insofar as being virtuous requires loving virtue, the virtuous person must be open to the beauty of the virtues.Footnote ⁴⁴ This happens, like any aesthetic sensitivity, through training and practice.

Importantly, the virtuous person need not consciously represent the virtues as beautiful to be moved by their beauty. I am not claiming that beauty necessarily forms part of the reasoning of the virtuous person. We can be drawn to beautiful things without understanding or identifying their appeal, and this lack of direct awareness does not weaken our attraction. While aesthetic evaluation is a form of judgment that requires the articulation of reasons, aesthetic experience is not. Sometimes, maybe even most times for most of us, beautiful things simply move us on a visceral level. So, it does not matter whether the virtuous person consciously represents the virtues as beautiful. He nevertheless can, and must, still be moved by their beauty.

Thus, the discovery that the virtues are humane can be genuinely informative and illuminating. While lack of understanding does not weaken the attraction to beauty, clarity can enhance it. In elucidating the humaneness of the virtues, we illuminate their lovability and confirm their significance for human life. This quality is essential for the way moral life is for creatures, like us, who are moved by love. The virtues could not have the place they do in human lives otherwise. These dispositions are not merely expressions of considered views about the best way to live, but also objects of admiration and striving. In elucidating the virtues as humane, we come to understand why they deserve this love.

Finally, one might object that FNSN is predicated on a problematic conception of human nature. The claim that the virtues are dispositions that elevate or refine human nature might be taken to suggest that there is something about human nature that is worth getting over, a suggestion that calls to mind religious or otherworldly assumptions that are antithetical to naturalism. Here one might be reminded of thinkers such as Plato, Augustine, and Iris Murdoch, who believe that human nature is necessarily corrupted and that true goodness is located in a transcendent realm.Footnote ⁴⁵ However, naturalism represents a staunchly secular approach to ethics, and the effort to ground the virtues in human nature is, at least in part, an attempt to provide an alternative to divine command theories.Footnote ⁴⁶ Thus, if FNSN is predicated on Platonic or Christian conceptions of human nature, its claim to be a form of naturalism becomes dubious.

In response, I concede that there is a sense in which FNSN assumes the badness of human nature. If virtue requires undergoing moral education that gives form to human nature, then untutored human nature cannot be virtuous.Footnote ⁴⁷ To become good, one must do the arduous work of improving upon what simply exists by nature. And it is unfortunately the case that the vast majority of people fall short in this regard. Although naturalists do not necessarily deny these points, most do not make enough of them.Footnote ⁴⁸ At the same time, I deny that this conception of human nature requires an otherworldly perspective. Humaneness is a form of transcendence that does not depend on the divine. To locate the value of the virtues in their humaneness is to acknowledge that human goodness contains some degree of transcendence. But since it is a beauty of our own making, it depends on nothing more perfect. Rather, humaneness has to do with the capacity of humans to transform themselves in utterly novel, surprising, and uplifting ways, a capacity that has nothing to do with any other world but our own.

8. Towards a New Sort of Naturalism

McDowell describes the naturalist's goal as one of ‘recapturing’ the Aristotelian idea that humans are rational, social animals without losing the Kantian idea that rationality is autonomous. The copious amount of work done by recent naturalists has gone a long way towards recapturing the Aristotelian idea. Though they fall short of fulfilling the promise of naturalism, the theories advanced by McDowell and Annas stand out as sophisticated and subtle options. I have offered FNSN to address what I take to be their primary shortcoming. I hope the view succeeds in the way that McDowell envisions.

To conclude, I propose adding to the naturalist's goal. Through their emphasis on moral education, proponents of NSN suggest the idea that culture has an important role in establishing the virtues. Some may wish to resist this idea because it raises the threat of cultural relativism. However, I suggest that naturalists would do well to embrace this point. Moral education, like any other practice, is embedded in ways of life, and the actual diversity of virtues cannot be understood without acknowledging the critical influence of culture. Thus, moving forward, the naturalist's aim should be to incorporate the idea that virtues are forms of culture, without losing either the Aristotelian idea that humans are rational, social animals or the Kantian idea that rationality is autonomous.Footnote ⁴⁹ Insofar as it takes seriously the idea that virtues are products of art, FNSN is well equipped to advance this particular discussion.Footnote ⁵⁰