In Hartmann's coming general interest reading, "The New Science of Mind and Body," she contrasts alternative or complementary medicines with what has become conventional, science based medicine (2007, pp. 235 - 238). For some people, one of the attractions of alternative forms of medicine such as massage, acupuncture, aroma therapy, yoga and so on is that they are natural or comparatively more natural, in contrast to the surgery, drugs and other methods of conventional modern medical treatment by doctors and in hospitals.
Similarly, in Animal Farm, we see that both Major, who uses the word nature three times on page 2, and the humans drugging at the Red Lion (p. 15) think that there is something special, even morally good, about Nature or being natural and following "the order of nature" (p. 2) or "the laws of Nature" (p. 15). Is this right? Are natural things better in some moral or other way than things that are unnatural?
_______________________________________
My Yes/No question is:
Is it natural to value natural things over non-natural or unnatural things?
Is it reasonable to have such preferences, or are they merely prejudices?
Is what is natural or in accord with nature morally better than what is not?
My answer is:
Yes/No. Coming in a comment.
___________
Reference
Orwell, G. (2016). Animal Farm [MS Word version]. Peter for use in the AEP program at AUA. Retrieved from https://onedrive.live.com/redir?page=view&resid=5B4B50DD6DBCD1F2!15309&authkey=!ALrp9sMITsyRnvQ (Original work published 1947)
I've answered this in my essay, so I'll leave the discussion here to you.
ReplyDeleteInteresting, I thought, were the results for my Google image searches this morning on the terms "alternative medicine" and "conventional medicine".
ReplyDeleteThere seemed to be a lot of overlap in the images, and a marked prejudice in favour of one type of medicine. What you do think?
As the nature has created the best inventions for us, we should value natural things over non-natural things. Even sometimes natural things can't satisfy the want of humans, they're still more valuable because they gave us many resources to produce what we want. For me, It doesn't matter how people prefer things. It's based on the person's opinion.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, it's morally better than what is human made as it has already been invented balanced. Things that are not natural usually cause unbalance in the nature because of their production procedure or what they require.
Is it reasonable to have such preferences, or are they merely prejudices?
ReplyDeleteYes, it is either reasonable to have such preferences or prejudices because it depends on people's decision. People have own reason to do the things even though some their reasons don't logical but some of people do something without knowledge and no beliefs.
It is natural to value natural things over non-natural things. It is our belief that natural things are better than artificial stuffs. Even in a supermarket, we should organic product rather than inorganic product but in fact, who knows which products is safer? We probably judge that things from nature are better but in reality, it might be more dangerous. No one knows whether GMs food is better than unmodified food or not. Our very current technology is still improving and I believe one day it will be able to judge correctly which products are better.
ReplyDeleteIt is unreasonable to have preference by judging from the source of products. It is just merely prejudiced, as I mentioned before, there is still no tools or measure which products are better.
Natural things may be acquired more immorally compared to artificial products. Take for example, the needs of ivory tusk have increased over the years and people still want them even they know how many elephants are killed yearly just for decoration in people's house. On the other hand, artificial stuff can be made without harming any organism if factories are environmental concern. Using plastic chairs instead of wooden chairs also prove to the reduction of trees being cut daily. Therefore, sometimes it is just merely a stereotype which sometimes people, including me, believe. This prejudice should be eliminated from our society if possible even though this can hardly be accomplished.
No, it is not natural to prefer more "natural" things. I think it's kind of conservative ideology to judge the new things from the modern knowledge as a "demon" based on the vice rather than virtue which they related to the mother of Nature or the virgin state of the world as creations from the God. It blames the new technology on the prejudices rather than the vicious consequences from the objective data.
ReplyDeleteMost of them is a big fan of "Pseudo-science" which is growing larger in the age of "social media" booming without the checking reliability of the data. That quite worries me a lot. I think we should have a campaign for the digital literacy for netizen especially for the baby boomers who are very naive to the chaotic world of the internet since the media in their age was the monopolized business.
If we think everything natural on the earth or in the space because everything is derived from an atom, this question does not make sense. However, nature exists apart from non-nature in our actual life which sometimes harms humans. It is hard to meager the value in it.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that we typically think and believe by our instinct or even by no reason that natural things are more valuable than non-natural ones, especially in the ancient time.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it is fine to have such preferences, it sounds like prejudices as well if we do not have plausible, strong reasons to support it. The very instinct is not a good support.
Moreover, it is hard to answer the third question exactly due to sophisticated conditions and a number of factors. The changes of anything in our world and the universe happen all the time. What morally based on nature might be not good thing in the future and then be good again in the long term. We are always facing uncertainty.
Not only is time the main factor in response to this question, but also the benefits outweighing the drawbacks of anything is also what we need to concern.
No, not always. It's up to their effects and side-affects. Mostly unnatural things were made by human so it's better because those unnatural things are calculated that it is safe enough for us. Natural things are also good but its naturally effect is uncontrollable since we didn't make it. But we can change or do something as an improving to make it better. Therefore nature things is good if we know how to use it to benefit us. I'm not sure if we change something (even a little bit) will it still called natural things.
ReplyDeleteit's controversial question.Even tough we know that all the unnatural things have a bad influence on our health ,however unnatural and chemical drugs play a huge role in medicine. But it's absolutely true that all natural things ,food or any kind of natural treatments make people healthier.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's natural to value natural things over non-natural, reasonable to have this preference. However, it's not always right to value natural things over non-natural.
ReplyDeleteDrugs is an example, they are considered to be non-natural things which aren't good for health. However, ever people still need to take a drug to get better from fever.
Yoga is another example, every people know that it is natural thing and don't harmful your body. However, when you have a big injurn only yuga can't make you get better. You need to use non-natural things like drugs instead of yoga independent.
That's why, I think that some things was considered to be non-natural doesn't mean that it less importance than natural things.
it is not always that natural is over non-natural for the present. it depends on the value we need from them, the way we use or the way we choose for the best result that give us to a positive effect.
ReplyDeleteit seems reasonable to have a preferences in this. A word 'Nature' in the Animal Farm is probably that refer to a basic thing(way) that is good to do with the moral way for develop in the next step.