This came up at
D29's place a couple of weeks ago, and I was reminded this morning when briefly noticing an article about Democrats making fun of Republicans for being
gay. Both of the issues that raised this matter are small by comparison to the matter itself, which is a titanic thread of philosophical history that is in grave danger of being washed away by opposition to some of its conclusions.
In a country as divided as our own has become, even to describe the position as 'the right's position' is to immediately set much of the world against it before they've heard it, so they will spend their time looking for things to object to about it rather than first understanding it. But it is also being described as 'the left's position' -- the concern about mRNA being raised at D29's place is that it aims to perfect nature rather than accepting the consequences of living in a fallen world, and that this is a sort of Gnosticism. Both sides end up primed to reject a really important idea without thinking it through.
The idea is at least as old as Aristotle and Plato, was argued for by St. Thomas Aquinas, and in the Enlightenment by Immanuel Kant. It could still be wrong, but the best minds of human history have found it persuasive. In its basic form I can see nothing wrong with it. You may object to some of the outlying conclusions without rejecting the foundational idea; it is more likely, I think, that someone went wrong along the way to one of those outlying conclusions than that the heart of the idea is wrong.
So, the idea is that human beings have a nature; that nature includes access to reason, as well as parts that are not rational; and that the correct approach is to apply the rational part to trying to understand the irrational parts and correct them where they aren't quite right.
You can state this idea in ancient terms, Medieval terms, Enlightenment terms, and contemporary terms. There are important differences in how you frame it: for example, Aristotle would say that the parts of our nature each aim at some good, for example eyes aim at sight and the goods that come of seeing. A contemporary would want to say that nature doesn't properly "aim" at anything; yet even here, there is some good that explains why the random mutation that supposedly gives rise to sighted beings is a quality that persists and becomes a normal part of that kind of beings' nature via natural selection. The contemporary position is differently stated, but it is mostly so in terms of applying a technical layer of clarification to eliminate anthropomorphism.
It's not really harmful to understanding the point to say it just like Aristotle did, so long as you have the mental capacity to apply the various filters as necessary. Indeed, the best thing of all is to be able to phrase it in all four of these ways, appreciate why they are preserving the same idea, and entertain that each of them makes sense of the facts in ways that are compatible even though they differ on metaphysical conceptions of reality. It's just as likely as not that the contemporary way will be rephrased in the future, but I think this core idea will survive.
Crucial to this core idea is that the rational part of our nature can identify and correct the irrational parts. Our eyes are not, themselves, rational. It is reason that helps us grasp what the good is at which they 'aim' (or at which they were accidentally aimed by mutation and yet which has survived because the good they ended up 'aiming' at was a real good). Once we do that, we can use reason, and therefore technology, to improve the acquisition of the good.
Eyes as we all know see well or badly, some of them better than others; and typically they worsen as we get older. We are able to correct for many of these things with technology, restoring or improving the sight of our eyes to a high degree. This is a positive good. You can say that the Medieval way: because it is a natural good, recognized by natural reason and brought into alignment with the purpose of nature. You can say it the contemporary way: because sight is useful and why should anyone suffer who could be made to see better?
This gives us then a standard by which to judge the whole process of applying technology to people. This is where people come apart currently, especially on sexuality: the older view holds that you can recognize the good of the natural process by reason, and with sex there are multiple goods (Aquinas names three). Some people think that reproduction is the obvious choice, and object to technological meddling that interferes with or outright destroys the natural capacity to reproduce -- especially in the young, who may not be fully in possession of their reason yet and might not therefore be clear on what their own good really entails.
Other people think that reproduction is not, at least not currently, a good: the climate scare especially has many people thinking that virtue lies in not reproducing, but pursuing the pleasures that are another good of sex as if those were the primary good, and then passing peacefully into extinction with their whole family line. Even if it is not climate that motivates, a young person might decide they prefer pleasure to the long labors of parenthood; and not just in matters of sex. 'I want my life to be about me, not someone else,' means taking the pleasures and personal accomplishments of life as the primary good, and applying your reason to the question of how to obtain those.
In the long term the right will end up winning that debate because they will disproportionately survive into future generations. This process has been underway in Israel, for example, for generations now. It was founded by secular Jews, many of them socialists or Communists; it has trended ever rightward as they died off and were not replaced at the same rates as the Orthodox. Ironically this process proves which good is the 'real' good aimed at by nature on natural selection grounds especially; it is those who prefer the contemporary account who ought to be most inclined to recognize that the matter is settled on their own terms.
In any case, one should not walk away from the idea of reasoning from nature, in order to improve our lives through rational activity and thus technology. It is reasonable to be skeptical of new technology; it is reasonable to take time with it, to see how its long term effects play out before making a final decision about whether it is really rational to incorporate it into your life. It is not merely Gnosticism to do so, however; and it is not irrational to prefer the version of this account on which reproduction and future life are primary goods to guard.
