GLOSSARY - Making Sense of Nature - page 292

in a range of arenas. For instance, we might think bankers who pay them-
selves huge annual bonuses are morally flawed and we might say so, even if
existing law regards their behaviour as morally acceptable. In everyday life,
statements about im/moral behaviour often 'read off ' from what are said to
be 'facts'. For instance, if one thinks heterosexual acts are natural and homo-
sexual ones aberrant, it's easy to classify the latter as 'immoral' because they
'go against nature'.
Morality Values, their justification and the actions they serve to engen-
der. Sometimes known as ethics, morality pertains to what is considered
'right' and 'wrong', 'just' and 'unjust', 'fair' and 'unfair' and so on. In every-
day life, we rarely bother to justify our moral decisions and actions. This
is because 'lay morality' usually rests on a real but unarticulated consen-
sus about 'proper behaviour'; however, professional ethicists in fields like
philosophy and law devote their lives to debating alternative moral princi-
ples and practices. Often, this is because new technologies challenge existing
moral norms (e.g. cloning humans). Nature and its collateral referents have
long been both subjects of moral concern and a basis for the justification of
moral actions.
Naturalisation The process whereby a person, a group or a whole soci-
ety come to regard some phenomenon as a part of nature or possessed of
natural attributes. Naturalisation thus involves the assignment of meaning:
one or more of the four principal meanings of nature identified in Chapter
1 o f this topic are attached to the phenomenon in question.
Nature effect A class of metonymic reference in which a particular nat-
ural phenomena (like a glacier) is used to signify a much wider or larger set
of natural phenomena - or indeed 'universal nature'. See also metonymy.
Normative Any argument or assertion that is critical of current arrange-
ments or practices and which, implicitly or explicitly, posits a future
alternative that the speaker prefers. Some forms of normative reasoning
take an 'is-ought' form, that is, they state (or imply) that current reality's
perceived flaws dictate that a change is necessary, not optional.
Ontological gerrymandering An attempt made to relocate the
boundaries between real world processes or phenomena so as to advan-
tage those making these attempts. These attempts may then be dis-
avowed, as if the boundaries in question are 'real' ones that inhere in
the world. Re-naturalisation is arguably a form of ontological gerryman-
dering. Things once thought to be social or cultural are said, 'in fact', to be
natural.
Ontology A set of statements or unstated beliefs about the fundamentals
of existence. For instance, if I believe that there is no God and that humans
are an accident of natural history, then my ontology departs in at least one
significant respect from that of those who think that a deity created all life.