244 Catherine Wilson
parties could be set aside in favour of more productive debate about particular
social norms.
E.O. Wilson has written affectingly of what he terms biophilia, “the innate ten-
dency to focus on life and lifelike processes” [Wilson, 1986]. Our species evolved
amongst plants and animals, not in concrete apartment blocks and towers with
windowless offices, illuminated by light of an unusual spectral composition, and
there can be nothing objectionable in the suggestion that a restoration of original
environmental conditions insofar as this is possible might promote a sense of well-
being. Clearly, humans have chosen to live in ways that do not fully correspond to
their evolutionarily-determined preferences, either because they have other, over-
riding preferences, or because their evolutionarily-determined ones are inconsistent
with one another. As ergonomic design results in products more comfortable and
convenient for human grips, gaits, and postures at the expense of decorative val-
ues, normative moral theory seeks out designs for living that are more comfortable
and convenient for the specialized creatures we are, though we know, or ought at
any rate to realize, that conformity with human nature can only be achieved at
the expense of other desiderata.
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