Monday, September 1, 2008

Naturalistic

On a broad interpretation of the fallacy, it is said to apply to any attempt to argue from an "is" to an "ought," that is, to argue directly from a list of facts to a claim about what ought to be done.

Example:

Owners of financially successful companies are more successful than poor people in the competition for wealth, power and social status. Therefore, these owners are morally better than poor people, and the poor deserve to be poor.
The fallacy would also occur if one argued from the natural to the moral as follows: since women are naturally capable of bearing and nursing children, they ought to be the primary caregivers of children. There is considerable disagreement among philosophers regarding what sorts of arguments the term "Naturalistic Fallacy" applies to, and even whether it is a fallacy at all.

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