The Naturalistic and Moralistic Fallacies

I have been thinking a lot about the moralistic and naturalistic fallacies recently. Some fallacies are easy to understand, like the appeal to authority, but I found the naturalistic and moralistic fallacies to be more difficult. I have since done a lot of reading and I feel that I understand them now, and this is why I am writing here. I want to ask if this all sounds right.

I found that the examples of homosexuality and heterosexuality are a good way to explain the nuances of these fallacies.

One difficulty in understanding these fallacies is first to recognize that what is natural/unnatural or moral/immoral is always open to debate, so everytime I say that “X is natural” what I am really saying is, “let’s assume for the sake of argument that X is natural”. I believe that it is an objective fact that gay people are just as human as straight people, and should be afforded the same rights, but I also realize that other people do not see it that way.


I have seen liberals make this argument…

Liberal: Scientists have observed many examples of homosexuality in the animal kingdom, therefore homosexuality is natural, therefore it is ethical. Phrased as an is/ought...homosexuality is natural, therefore it ought to be ethical. This is a naturalistic fallacy, but the conclusion is not wrong just because the reasoning is fallacious. That would be an example of the logicians fallacy.

Studying logic has put me at odds with my liberal friends because I now see that liberals and conservatives alike are susceptible to making logical errors. When I point out that a liberal argument is fallacious I look like a conservative. Then I wonder where I fit in the whole Left/Right continuum. I use wikipedia and rationalwiki as a compass. It’s a pretty good compass. But I digress.

Now, here is an argument which conservatives use.

Conservative: Heterosexuality is natural, therefore ethical.

This is a naturalistic fallacy. I would agree that heterosexuality is natural (one of the most natural things there is) and it is ethical (if you do it right), but, and this is where the fallacy happens, heterosexuality is not ethical because it is natural. There are better reasons upon which to base your assertion that heterosexuality is ethical, such as that it is ethical if there is consent between partners.

Here is the corollary of the above argument, again made by a conservative

Conservative: Homosexuality is unnatural therefore immoral

This is the same fallacious naturalistic argument just with an “un” and an “im” added. Conservatives often cite the rarity of homosexuality in nature as evidence for its unnaturalness therefore immoralness, but rarity is not enough to lead to a conclusion of unnatural/immoral. For instance, sky diving is rare in nature and even so among humans, but this does not make it unnatural or immoral.

You can use homosexuality/heterosexuality to illustrate the problems with the moralistic fallacy as well.

Conservative: Homosexuality is immoral and therefore unnatural

The bible says that homosexuality is immoral without explaining why which leads conservatives to invent reasons why homosexuality is wrong. One way they do this is by way of the moralistic fallacy. Conservatives “know” that homosexuality is wrong because the bible tells them so, then they reason that it must be immoral because it is unnatural, and one way they argue that it is unnatural is to say that it is dangerous, or leads to health problems. For example they argue that gay sex, or more specifically sodomy, is more dangerous than male/female penis in vagina sex, which is true, but irrelevant, because just because X is slightly more dangerous than Y this does not mean that Y is ethical and X is unethical. For instance, driving motorcycles is more dangerous than driving a car, but this does not mean that driving a car is ethical than driving a motorcycle is not.

One last one.

Liberals might make this argument.

Liberal: Homosexuality is ethical, therefore it is natural

I believe homosexuality is ethical (if you do it right) but is it natural? Homosexual behavior is more rare than heterosexuality in the animal kingdom but this does not mean that homosexual behavior is unnatural? I don't think so. Homosexual behavior is pretty common. There is a long article on wikipedia about this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_displaying_homosexual_behavior

But the above argument is still fallacious. Things are not necessarily natural because they are ethical. This is a situation where I would get into trouble with my liberal friends who are unacquainted with logic. They would argue that any argument which furthers the cause of gay rights, even fallacious ones, are good, but this is an appeal to consequences. Sometimes illogical arguments are effective in promoting good causes. I try not to do this myself. Rhetoric promotes the use of fallacious arguments as long as the audience is fooled by the argument. But again I digress.

Okay I am done. Sorry I wrote a book. This is a subject in which I became very fascinated and I want to thank Dr. Bo for creating a forum in which people can discuss these topics.

Studying logic has put me at odds with my liberal friends

Welcome to the club! When one realizes that bad arguments and reasoning are on both sides of the political and religious spectrum, one "evolves" from allegiance to an ideology to an allegiance to critical thought and reason.

I didn't see any questions in there... or perhaps your post was so long I missed it :) Anyway, I agree with what you wrote. Morality is a very complex issue and some people, in their attempt to pretend to understand it, assign simplistic and fallacious rules such as "that which is natural is morally right and that which is unnatural is morally wrong."

This is truly one of those topics where the more you understand the more you realize all that which you don't know.

Liberal: Scientists have observed many examples of homosexuality in the animal kingdom, therefore homosexuality is natural, therefore it is ethical. Phrased as an is/ought...homosexuality is natural, therefore it ought to be ethical. This is a naturalistic fallacy, but the conclusion is not wrong just because the reasoning is fallacious. That would be an example of the logicians fallacy.

I recently pointed out homosexuality in nature in a discussion with a theist who was claiming it was a sin, a choice, dysfunctional, etc. However, whilst morality (I refer to morals as ethics relates to external rules like a code of conduct, so under christianity, being gay is technically "unethical") may have been part of the discussion, I didn't conclude that homosexuality is moral; unless it has an observable benefit to the group I'd say in evolutionary terms it's simply amoral.

With regards to the conservative version of the argument, it's also:

False Attribution
Description: Appealing to an irrelevant, unqualified, unidentified, biased, or fabricated source in support of an argument.

'Liberal: Homosexuality is ethical, therefore it is natural
......
Things are not necessarily natural because they are ethical."

As I mentioned before ethics is constructed so nothing to do with natural, but if you substitute moral, it's just irrelevant; there's nothing good or bad about it.