%0 Journal Article %A de Lange, F. %T Leert de natuur ons mores? %D 1992 %J NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion, %V 46 %N 1 %P 34-50 %@ 2590-3268 %R https://doi.org/10.5117/NTT1992.1.004.LANG %I Amsterdam University Press, %X Abstract The classical question whether nature can serve as a normative argument in ethics or not, is gaining more and more actuality in face of current evolutions in bio-technology and ecology. Analysing the concept of nature, the author concludes however, that it represents a rich, but very polyvalent metaphysical notion. For that reason nature cannot play the role that normative ethics sometimes assigns to it, in presenting it as a source of evil or a criterion of the good. This, in order to supply a clear opposite vis-à-vis human moral ambiguity. Nature deserves a normative function somehow: it teaches us the formal necessity, but also the limits of ethics. However, especially when nature is confronting us with its most powerful features, morality appears to be a specific human phenomenon. %U https://www.aup-online.com/content/journals/10.5117/NTT1992.1.004.LANG