Natural Functions, Natural Goals, and the Misuse of Purpose
by Adam Reed
It is fashionable, in certain quarters, to justify common sexual preferences in terms of the "natural purpose" of living organisms and of their sexual organs and faculties. The following example, taken from a recent posting on the Yahoo ObjectivistParents group forum, is typical:
From a purely objective viewpoint using human life as a standard for right and wrong, homosexual relationships are a dead end. The purpose of biological life on this planet is to evolve and progress and the natural mechanics for that progress are the creation of off-spring.
Arguments of this type have an apparent plausibility: living organisms evolved to have built-in goals, and the common dictionary definitions of "purpose" and "goal" have a great deal of overlap. So how can it be wrong to assert that biological life on this planet has a purpose?
The answer hinges on an issue of semiotics, a branch of applied epistemology. Since objective epistemology differs considerably from the naive epistemology of popular media, one ought to be cautious in using dictionary definitions. In particular, popular and dictionary "definitions" notoriously disregard context. To illustrate the relevant contextualities, consider the following example:
The goal of a chess playing computer program is to win the current game. The purpose of a chess playing computer program is to demonstrate the capabilities of its algorithms, or to provide a human chess player with an indefatigable sparring partner. In other words, the purpose of a created thing is not its own goal, but rather a goal of the creator who created it. While a purpose is also a goal - and therefore the dictionary definitions of the two will overlap - a purpose is not a goal of the created thing of which it is the purpose, but rather a goal of that thing's creator, if that thing has one. The two concepts are referentially distinct.
While entities resulting from evolution can also have goals in the above sense - see Binswanger's monograph on the Biological Origin of Teleological Concepts - such entities cannot have purposes, for the reason given in the previous paragraph. The ascription of "purpose" to a result of natural evolutionary processes serves as an implicit assertion of creationism - and thus of moral judgement based not on what is good for the moral agent, but on the "purpose" of the moral agent's alleged creator.
The fallacy of mistaking a naturally evolved goal of an organism for a purpose is usually followed by the assertion that each human faculty has a natural function relative to a natural purpose of the organism, which makes its use for this function "naturally preferable" to its use for other purposes - specifically, to its use for purposes chosen by the individual to whom that faculty belongs. Let us examine steps of this line of argument.
First, the evolved organs and faculties of an organism have natural functions relative to mechanically evolved goals of that organism, or of its evolutionary ancestors. In the course of normal biological evolution those functions may change. For example, the elephant's trunk probably evolved as a snorkel for breathing in shallow water - one function - and was only then adopted to its current function of lifting and manipulating food and other objects. The first elephant who used her trunk in a new way, used it against what was then its "natural function." Was this in some sense condemnable, as being "against nature?"
Humans, as moral agents, do actually have purposes. Having volitionally chosen purposes, rather than mere unchosen goals, is natural for humans - it is our species specific, essential biological nature. Putting an organ to a use different from its previously evolved function was, for pre-human species, something of an accident, albeit not "unnatural" even then. But us, using our organs and faculties for the achievement of our chosen values, rather than for their previous, mechanically evolved functions, is literally our most natural use of those organs and faculties - the use most in accordance with our actual nature as human beings.
This fact, except for the case of our sexual organs and sexual faculties, is entirely uncontroversial. The human faculty of auditory pattern recognition, for example, evolved for the function of hunting, and of surviving being hunted, by recognizing the sound patterns of the hidden presence of predators and prey. Is hunting, then, a more virtuous and commendable use of this faculty than is making and listening to music? Is every man who chooses to exercise this faculty by listening to a symphony, rather than for stalking small animals in the brush, an "unnatural" pervert?
Our sexual faculties and organs did evolve, to this day, for reproduction. But we surely exercise our Nature, as Humans, when we use those faculties and organs for pleasure and love. I have hunted, and I have reproduced, and I have nothing against either. But listening purely for music, and sex purely for pleasure and love, is certainly, for a Human animal, the most natural thing in the world.
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