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The Naturalistic Fallacy is an alleged Logical Fallacy , identified by British philosopher G.E. Moore in ''Principia Ethica'' (1903). Moore stated that a naturalistic fallacy was committed whenever a philosopher attempts to prove a claim about ethics by appealing to a ''definition'' of the term "good" in terms of one or more ''natural'' properties (such as "pleasant", "more evolved", "desired", etc.). The naturalistic fallacy is related to, and often confused with, the Is-ought Problem (as formulated by, for example, David Hume ). As a result, the term is sometimes used loosely to describe arguments which claim to draw ethical conclusions from natural facts. Even more distantly, the term is used to describe arguments which claim to draw ethical conclusions from the fact that something is "natural" or "unnatural." MOORE'S DISCUSSION Moore's argument in ''Principia Ethica'' is (among other things) a defense of of the ''meaning'' of the term "good"; they held, that is, that "good" can be defined in terms of one or more ''natural'' properties which we already understand (such as "pleasure", in the case of Hedonists , or "survival", in the case of Evolutionary Ethics ). Moore coined the term "naturalistic fallacy" to describe arguments of this form; he explains (in § 12 ) that the fallacy involved is an instance of a more general type of fallacy, which he leaves unnamed, but which we might call the "definitional fallacy". The fallacy is committed whenever a statement to the effect that some object has a simple indefinable property is misunderstood as a definition that gives the meaning of the simple indefinable property: The point here is connected with Moore's understanding of properties and the terms that stand for them. Moore holds ( §7 ) that properties are either complexes of simple properties, or else irreducibly simple. The meaning of terms that stand for complex properties can be given by using terms for their constituent properties in a ''definition''; simple properties cannot be defined, because they are made up only of themselves and there are no simpler constituents to refer to. Besides "good" and "pleasure", Moore also offers colour terms as an example of indefinable terms; thus if one wants to understand the meaning of "yellow", one has to be ''shown'' examples of it; it will do no good to read the dictionary and learn that "yellow" names the colour of egg yolks and ripe lemons, or that "yellow" names the primary colour between green and orange on the spectrum, or that the perception of yellow is stimulated by electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength of between 570 and 590 nanometers. It is true that yellow is all these things, that "egg yolks are yellow" and "the colour perceived when the retina is stimulated by electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength of between 570 and 590 nanometers is yellow" are true statements. But the statements do not give the meaning of the term "yellow", and (Moore argues) to confuse them with a definition of "yellow" would be to commit the same fallacy that is committed when "Pleasure is good" is confused with a definition of "good". Moore goes on to explain that he pays special attention to the fallacy as it occurs in ethics, and identifies that specific form of the fallacy as ‘naturalistic’, because (1) it is so commonly committed in ethics, and (2) because committing the fallacy in ethics involves confusing a ''natural'' object (such as survival or pleasure) with ''goodness'', something that is (he argues) ''not'' a natural object. However, it's important to note that in spite of his rhetorical focus on the ‘naturalistic’ nature of the fallacy, Moore was not any more satisfied with theories that attempted to define ''goodness'' in terms of ''non-natural'' properties than he was with naturalistic theories; indeed, the basis of his criticism of “Metaphysical Ethics” in Chapter IV of ''Principia Ethica'' is that theories which define 'good' in terms of ''. The Open Question Argument Moore's argument for the indefinability of “good” (and thus for the fallaciousness of the “naturalistic fallacy”) is often called the Open Question Argument; it is presented in §13 of ''Principia Ethica'' . The argument hinges on the nature of statements such as "Anything that is pleasant is also good" and the possibility of asking questions such as "Is it ''good'' that x is pleasant?" According to Moore, these questions are ''open'' and these statements are ''significant''; and they will remain so no matter what is substituted for "pleasure". Moore concludes from this that 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 insisting that value properties are nothing but natural properties (this strategy is similar to that taken by Non-reductive Materialists in Philosophy Of Mind ). UNRELATED USES Some people use the phrase "naturalistic fallacy" or " Appeal_to_nature " to characterise inferences of the form "This behaviour is natural; therefore, this behaviour is morally acceptable" or "This behaviour is unnatural; therefore, this behaviour is morally unacceptable". Such inferences are common in discussions of Homosexuality and Cloning , to take two examples. While such inferences may indeed be fallacious, it is important to realise that Moore is not concerned with them. He is instead concerned with the Semantic and metaphysical underpinnings of ethics. The term "naturalistic fallacy" is sometimes also used to describe the deduction of an "ought" from an "is" (the Is-ought Problem ), and 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". An example of a naturalistic fallacy in this sense would be to conclude Social Darwinism from the theory of Evolution by Natural Selection , and of the reverse naturalistic fallacy to argue that the immorality of Survival Of The Fittest imples the theory of evolution is false. REFERENCES Moore, George Edward (1903). ''Principia Ethica'' . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. SEE ALSO
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