or not they had been viewed askew, or misrepresented, or mislocated, or twisted into odd shapes, to become instrumentalities, or tools, for certain parties. The way people were might also be worth considering, thought Brenner, heretical though the thought was, and the way they really were, he had in mind, as opposed to how it was insisted that they be, to answer to one political purpose or another, purposes externally imposed, purposes subserving the ends of one idiosyncratic, aggressive, organized, power-grasping group or another. Perhaps there was no logical connection between, say, nature, and morality, but there were at least two interesting empirical possibilities. For example, what of a real connection, in virtue of law, such as that between a nature and what would satisfy it, just as there might be a real connection, in virtue of law, between the nature of an organism and a sort of nourishment, given which it would thrive? If there were no moral facts, thought Brenner, short of stipulating them, or creating them, there seemed as much reason to stipulate the facts conducive to health and fulfillment as those inducing to sickness and frustration. And if there are moral facts, as Brenner rather hoped, rationally or irrationally, why should this mysterious moral realm not be, one, empirically or, two, rationally correlated with nature, if not logically? Such things did not seem actually impossible. Consider, first, the interesting possibility of an empirical correlation between nature and a generated morality. Analogously, consider the mystery of the emergence of consciousness, whether in birds, frogs, or men, which seemed an order of being quite unlike that of organic circuitry. There are thoughts. Where are they in the brain? Is a thought four centimeters long? Does it weigh seven grams? If the brain could generate thought, why could nature not generate a morality? Is that any more mysterious? To be sure, the fact would not logically entail the value, any more than matter logically entails the thought. The connection would not be one of logic, one of meanings, unless one rigged the meanings, unless one, so to speak, begged the question. Rather the relationship would be one of reality. This possibility, of course, would at best generate a natural morality in the sense of a natural conception of morality. In short, strictly, nature would have it such, in virtue of law, that a given organism would conceive of right and wrong in a certain way, at least under certain conditions, such as the possession of suitable information, and such. The naturally generated morality, or conception of morality, might or might not be in the creature’s best interest. For example, if nature generated, say, a conception of morality which required the organism to commit suicide, this would not be in the creature’s best interest, at least if the creature were moral, according to its own lights. Given natural selections, of course, it is unlikely such an unusual morality would be perpetuated. There are, of course, millions of extinct species. Some of these may, in effect, throughout the galaxy, have committed moral suicide, sacrificing themselves to others, starving themselves, denying themselves, and such. Perhaps this could be the consequence of a sort of degenerative momentum, rather analogous to the incurving of a predator’s canines, which development, past a certain point, becomes not only useless but destructive, leading to extinction. The other possibility, connected with nature, is more interesting and plausible. On this approach, one devises a morality in the light of reflective consciousness, a morality which is natural in the sense of being compatible with nature and designed to fulfill it, but which is not an uncritical consequence of nature. On this approach there is a rational correlation between nature and morality, rather than a simple empirical one. This approach would possess at least four desiderata: it would preserve the requirement of commitment, the act whereby one accepts a morality; it would produce a morality subject to rational review, treating it neither as merely another myth, as another obsolescent absolutism, nor as a mere reflexive product of organic interactions; it would preserve a distinction between the realms of “is” and “ought,” i.e., between the descriptive and the normative; and it would be not only congenial to nature, but designed with its fulfillment in mind, which, to be sure, in itself, represents a value commitment, but one not obviously inferior to others. In such a morality there would be a place for values commonly neglected by other moralities, such as pride, honor,