Standard interpretations of the relevance of natural facts through natural law theory tend to fail once one considers the full implications of evolutionary theory. This chapter argues that natural facts about human beings can still have moral meaning in this context. After a brief discussion of natural law, it is shown that the moral acquaintanceships between human beings (and possibly other beings as well) can give moral meaning to many of the facts about human existence. The importance of these facts may appear similar to the importance granted by natural law theories—and the relevant facts themselves may be quite similar—but the systems differ both in their justification for the importance of natural facts and in the relevance of contingently true facts.
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Hanson, S.S. (2009). Moral Acquaintances and Natural Facts in the Darwinian Age. In: Cherry, M.J. (eds) The Normativity of the Natural. Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture, vol 16. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2301-8_13
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