Naturalistic fallacy

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The naturalistic fallacy is an alleged logical fallacy concerning the semantics and metaphysics of ethical value. It was first explicitly discussed in the book Principia Ethica by British philosopher G.E. Moore.

Moore claims that the naturalistic fallacy is committed by those who mistakenly think that the term 'good' and the property goodness can be analyzed in terms of some other property. To take the typical example, hedonists in ethics sometimes hold that 'good' and goodness can be analyzed in terms of the natural property being pleasant. Such hedonists have gone beyond the core hedonist thesis that whatever is pleasant is good, and into the analysis of value concepts and properties. Moore insists that this is a deep mistake, and that value cannot be understood in terms of some other property, but must instead be accepted as indefinable, simple, and non-natural. Moore's book opens with the dictum of Bishop Butler that "Everything is what it is, and not another thing"; Moore's basic contention is that value is what it is, and not another thing. He called his view "ethical non-naturalism".

Despite his use of the name "naturalistic fallacy", Moore claimed that the very same fallacy was committed by theorists who take supernatural or metaphysical properties (rather than natural properties) to serve as the basis for ethics. Given that Moore's real targets are semantic reductionism (the position that the term 'good' may be defined with non-moral terms and concepts), and metaphysical reductionism (the position that the property goodness is identical to, or constituted by, non-moral properties), a better label for the alleged error might be "the reductionist fallacy". It is also worth noting that Moore's explanation of what he means by "natural" and "non-natural" properties is rather unclear, and that Moore later characterized his discussion of this issue as "utterly silly and preposterous". The important lesson, for Moore, is just that the term 'good' and the property goodness are semantically and metaphysically sui generis.

Moore argues against analyses of value with the so-called "Open Question Argument" strategy. The idea is that, since questions like (for example) "Granted that x is pleasant, is x good?" are open and since statements like "Anything that is pleasant is also good" are significant, any analysis of value is bound to fail. In other words, if value could be analyzed, then such questions and statements would be trivial and obvious. Since they are anything but trivial and obvious, value must be indefinable. Critics of Moore's arguments sometimes claim that he is appealing to general puzzles concerning analysis (cf. the paradox of analysis), rather than revealing anything special about value. Other responses appeal to the Fregean distinction between sense and reference, allowing that value concepts are special and sui generis, but denying that value properties are anything but natural properties (this strategy is similar to that taken by non-reductive materialists in philosophy of mind).

N.B. Many people use the phrase "naturalistic fallacy" to characterize inferences of the form "This behavior is natural; therefore, this behavior is morally acceptable" or "This behavior is unnatural; therefore, this behavior is morally unacceptable". Such inferences are common in discussions of homosexuality and cloning, to take two examples. (See this article (http://www.newhumanist.org.uk/rationallyspeaking_more.php?id=279_0_7_0_M) on homosexuality by Massimo Pigliucci, and Wikipedia's entry on Social Darwinism.) While such inferences may indeed be fallacious, it is important to realize that Moore is not concerned with them. He is instead concerned with the semantic and metaphysical underpinnings of ethics.

Additionally, many alternative health advocates fall in to the naturalistic fallacy because they claim that because something is natural, it is safe and effective as a health treatment. Unfortunately, this is wrong both on principle (nature has made poison ivy, snake venom and the bubonic plague which are neither safe nor effective as medicine) and in practice (St. John's Wort is a natural herb sometimes used by herbalists as a treatment for depression and can be very dangerous when misused). Similarly with genetic modification, many opponents claim that it is unnatural and, by definition, undefendable.

This use of the term "naturalistic fallacy" to describe the deduction of an ought from an is (the Is-ought problem), has inspired the use of mutually reinforcing terminology which describes the converse (deducing an is from an ought) either as the "reverse naturalistic fallacy" or the "moralistic fallacy".

External links

Moral Non-Naturalism (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-non-naturalism/) (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
G.E. Moore (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moore/) (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

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