Is Nature Cruel?

Is Nature Cruel?

I want to talk about Nature and the question about, whether it's cruel. Some people seem to think so because of all the obvious pain you can find, looking around in the world, such as tsunamis, drought, famine and other natural disasters. Also, animals hunt, kill and eat each other, which, to some, seems to be an expression of cruelty.

In order to understand what we are dealing with, I want to first focus on some other questions, and eventually I hopefully will be able to, more clearly, to answer the question posed in the outset.

Firstly: What is nature?

When I look up in a dictionary, I get theses definitions: a) “the material world, especially as surrounding humankind and existing independently of human activities.” b) “the natural world as it exists without human beings or civilization.” c) “the elements of the natural world, as mountains, trees, animals, or rivers.” d) “the universe, with all its phenomena.”

Secondly: “What does it mean to be cruel?”

Again, looking in the dictionary, I get this: a) “willfully or knowingly causing pain or distress to others.” b) “enjoying the pain or distress of others: the cruel spectators of the gladiatorial contests.”

The material world just follows its intrinsic patterns. There are natural laws, all the way from the dynamics of nuclear processes to the movement of the entire universe. Our solar system moves according to its own dynamics. The same is true with the earth, which develops and rearranges itself according to its own structures. The developments of the species have run by their own intrinsic patterns without any seeming intention. As such it seems it would be true to say that the ethical predicate “cruel” doesn't really fit into the equation.

However, part of the equation is also, that nature gave us us – the human beings, who seems to be the peak of evolution, so far. Thus a part of nature has ethics built into it – namely in the humans, and as such a product of the natural development is an ethical agent who knows the difference between good and bad.

In conclusion I must say, that I'm not sure I have come much closer to a definite answer. The question that remains is, whether Nature, outside of the human being, has intentions? If yes, then might be cruel.

Also, the it is virtually impossible to ask nature, outside of the human being about intentions. We have no common ethical language, like one human can have with another.

It might be that the human's ethical nature is a reflection of a larger universal Ethical reality – meaning that it has been there from the beginning of the Universe, and that it has been unfolded as evolution added humans to the Universe. If that is the case then the possibility of the Universe, and thus nature, being cruel exists.

However, I think that, if Nature is ethical, then it focuses less on imposing pain on others than on the gain of itself. For instance the lion, or any other animal, doesn't kill to inflict pain but to satisfy its own hunger.

Evolution is the result, not of things that went wrong, but of things that went well. Because of this, I think Nature is an expression of beauty, confirmed by the seemingly cruel exceptions you find, when you look around.