You’re right that biological functions are multiple and overlapping. I’m not sure what I said that leads you to think I was asserting otherwise, but both statements can be true: that the heart is only one part of the circulatory system, and that it is a part of the circulatory system with the function of circulating blood. The load-bearing claim is not that biology is made up of things with only one function, but rather that there is normativity in nature that is not a matter of human preference or dictate. In fact, your examples insofar as they are true, underscore this. If biology is genuinely made up of things with multiple and overlapping roles which constitute the health of (read: what is good for) the organism and which are about things (such as social bonds), then the claim that normativity is imposed on nature by agents needs further justification, and an explanation needs to be offered for why these facts of biology do not establish the kind normativity in nature that my thesis implies.
On neurodiversity specifically, I think the point cuts the other way from how you’ve used it. Natural law accommodates variation within natures. Human beings vary in temperament, cognitive style, physical capability, social orientation, and many other respects, but the various expressions of human nature are not violations of human nature. A central component of my underlying metaphysics (although the thesis has been intentionally expressed in a way which permits recognition without commitment to my metaphysics) is the idea of potentialities: that alongside the way things are, there are truths about how they could be. Reality is not exhausted by being and non-being, there is also a middleground of potential that allows for unrealized capacities and variations within a nature.
Thanks for engaging.
You’re right that biological functions are multiple and overlapping. I’m not sure what I said that leads you to think I was asserting otherwise, but both statements can be true: that the heart is only one part of the circulatory system, and that it is a part of the circulatory system with the function of circulating blood. The load-bearing claim is not that biology is made up of things with only one function, but rather that there is normativity in nature that is not a matter of human preference or dictate. In fact, your examples insofar as they are true, underscore this. If biology is genuinely made up of things with multiple and overlapping roles which constitute the health of (read: what is good for) the organism and which are about things (such as social bonds), then the claim that normativity is imposed on nature by agents needs further justification, and an explanation needs to be offered for why these facts of biology do not establish the kind normativity in nature that my thesis implies.
On neurodiversity specifically, I think the point cuts the other way from how you’ve used it. Natural law accommodates variation within natures. Human beings vary in temperament, cognitive style, physical capability, social orientation, and many other respects, but the various expressions of human nature are not violations of human nature. A central component of my underlying metaphysics (although the thesis has been intentionally expressed in a way which permits recognition without commitment to my metaphysics) is the idea of potentialities: that alongside the way things are, there are truths about how they could be. Reality is not exhausted by being and non-being, there is also a middleground of potential that allows for unrealized capacities and variations within a nature.