Conservative Circles

"In any animal I see nothing but an ingenious machine to which nature has given senses in order for it to renew its strength and to protect itself, to a certain point, from all that tends to destrou or disturb it. I am aware of precisely the same things in the human machine, with the difference that nature alone does everything in the operations of an animal, whereas man contributes, as a free agent, to his own operations. The former chooses or rejects by instinct and the latter by an act of freedom. Hence an animal cannot deviate from the rule that is prescribed to it, even when it would be advantageous to do so, while man deviates from it, often to his own detriment. Thus a pigeon would die of hunger near a bowl filled with choice meats, and so would a cat perched atop a pile of fruit or grain, even though both could nourish themselves quite well with the food they disdain, if they were of a mind to try some. And thus dissolute men abandon themselves to excesses which cause them fever and death, because the mind perverts the senses and because the will still speaks when nature is silent." (Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality)

I thought this passage was extremely interesting. I see it as a common practice to extract examples from nature to prove a political/ideological point. Rousseau here is railing against the tendency of man to abandon his natural boundaries and thus become degenerate. Others might point to natural patterns of reproduction, assembly, government etc. to prove their point. To me, it is not always clear if one can use such comparisons as the basis of truth. I guess the question is to what extent are the patterns we find in nature supposed to serve as a model for what is right. There are surely many examples of things that happen in nature that we would reject as being moral.