Thegosis

Press, 28 December 1987, Page 12

Thegosis

Sir, —Since biology has no ideals (only people have those), Vernon Wilkinson’s deduction that “marriage is a biological ideal and, therefore, a moral one” (i.e., a prescription of what “ought” to be) is undoubtedly incoherent, (December 21). Presumably, the grounds for his conjugal ideal were not thought likely to have such widespread appeal as seductive bio-twaddle, built on and around the "naturalistic fallacy.” The fallacy can be more clearly seen in the Hitlerian prescription that, since the survival of the fittest “is” a “biological ideal,” or a “biological law of nature” or some such, "therefore,” only the fittest “ought” to survive. One cannot logically deduce a prescriptive “ought” from a descriptive “is” (or vice versa), as anyone indebted to David Hume might say, but since Mr Wilkinson seeks to exercise his "powers of critical

thinking,” could he comment on whether or not his logic is superior to Hume’s?—Yours, etc. DAVID SHANKS. December 22, 1987