A Rhetorical Analysis Of Nonmoral Nature By Stephen Gould

In Stephen Gould’s essay Nonmoral Nature, he examines humanity’s view of nature through the ichneumon wasp, a parasitic insect that lays its eggs inside other invertebrates. Humans, Gould claims, naturally take one of two views with regard to the ichneumon— one either pities the innocent organism being devoured from the inside out or admires the effectiveness of the ichneumon’s method. Gould states that this dichotomy stands as part of a larger conflict between a religious, or moral, view of nature and a scientific, or objective, view. In his essay, Gould uses ideas pioneered by Darwin to support the latter point of view while using irony to attack the idea that morals can be ascribed to non-sentient beings, making it clear that he believes

Describing natural theology, the practice of relating nature to a divine being, as “antiquated,” Gould exaggerates a moral view of nature to deride it. Referencing the experiments of naturalist J.H. Fabre, whose writings often anthropomorphized insects, Gould compares the ichneumon’s victim to Jesus, an absurd juxtaposition. He then describes various intellectuals’ attempts to reconcile the “evils” of nature with the view that all of nature is the creation of a benevolent God, including Charles Lyell’s certainty that caterpillars, if left unchecked by a predatory species, would destroy human agriculture entirely, and Reverend William Kirby’s fervent praise of the ichneumon wasp as a loving mother. Through these examples, in which very little rational thought is visible, Gould mocks a worldview which ascribes morals to

Although unusual for his time, Darwin’s idea that nature obeys no moral laws gradually grew more and more prominent as further discoveries were made supporting an evolutionary history of the earth. This objective view of nature, Gould notes, resolves any cognitive dissonance created by a religious perspective— if nature is not constrained by human or even divine morals, it is unsurprising that humans are able to find evil in its ways. No longer blinded by faith that everything in nature exists for a godly purpose, Gould claims that an individual who looks at nature objectively can learn from its successes and