ABSTRACT

A biologist's account of the conditions for survival of an organism cannot, however, determine a 'value', unless we postulate that it is valuable for the organism to survive. In any case, human life is never simply a matter of just surviving, but of surviving in a certain manner. And included in 'the manner' are standards and conventions laying down what is valuable. Mere survival is not the only moral principle, or necessarily the most important one. Biological, psychological, and social sciences may have important contributions to make to the study of morals and law-but they cannot answer moral questions, because their propositions are descriptive or predictive, whereas answers to moral questions must be prescriptive. If they appear to provide such answers, it is because at some stage a moral prescription has crept in unnoticed.