whose nature? which morality? a response

Erazim Kohák

pp. 35-37

in: Robert S. Cohen, Alfred Tauber (eds), Philosophies of nature: the human dimension, Berlin, Springer, 1998

Abstract

Professor Cahoone has paid me the highest compliment one philosopher can pay another: he has taken the trouble to understand my position and to stand within it, trying it on for size. It is a rare and precious gift, for only so can philosophy grow. Philosophy, as I understand it, is not an ennobling pastime or a mystic voice from the depth of Beyng but rather the attempt of the species h. sapiens s. to make up for a defect in its instinctual endowment. Other species, including those who deliberate, decide and act, as the canidae or the other primates, can rely on instinct to provide them with an overall orientation to the world and their calling within it. Humans need to formulate a conscious conception of how the world and their life within it fit together. Philosophy needs to be tested as such.