It's only natural

On a related theme to intellectual inconsistency in politics....

The use of the words natural and unnatural by conservatives is particularly interesting. For example, differences between the sexes are something that you can't (and shouldn't) fight because women are naturally caring but fuzzy headed and men are naturally strong and logical. Homosexuality is unnatural for reasons I've never entirely figured out (the Bible? our God-given duty to all have 8-10 children? Higher taxes?)

When people throw around the words "natural" and "unnatural", it shuts down the discussion and it paints those who disagree with you as misguided, wrong-headed, and possibly unnatural themselves. I.e. The free market is our natural state, any tinkering with the free market is an attempt to monkey with nature--doomed to failure and totally wrong headed.

It tends to be that discussions of natural and unnatural practices are discussions about personal feelings masquerading as discussions of societal as opposed to personal morality. For example, if you are not gay, it would just feel wrong to have a relationship with someone of the same sex. If you love making money, it feels wrong to have pay taxes. Feelings are powerful things and they should certainly be acknowledged--but, they should also be analyzed.

Some things that feel wrong--paying taxes, overcoming racist feelings, learning to get along with managers--are things that need to be done for the good of society. Other things, (who your friends are, who you sleep with) are matters of personal choice. I think you should absolutely follow your feelings in those areas.

The problem with the use of terms like natural and unnatural in political discussion is that it encourages people to vote on their feelings without analyzing them first. Suddenly, being a narrow-minded straight racist who hates paying taxes has a moral flavor. If you're a male who doesn't think women should have abortions, you even get bonus morality points. You simply vote your feelings without considering what is properly personal morality and what is properly societal morality.

One reason why ostensibly pro-life people are often in favor of wars and state sponsored executions is that they aren't following a true ethical tenet--Christian or otherwise. Instead, they are really expressing their feelings. (i.e. I like babies. I don't like death row inmates. It seems really sad and unnatural that babies should die. It feels right that the state should execute murderers.)

Liberals often have more well-developed ethical systems than conservatives, but they can fail to account for the role of feelings. It is logically consistent to say that some things (abortion) are matters of personal choice and other things (wars, executions) are matters of societal choice. But logically consistent and appealing are two different things.