Comment by strainer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by strainer | Hacker News Reader

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I've never found it well argued that appeals to nature are inherently fallacious to any good philosophical or logical standard. The common advice that they are fallacious has always struck me as ideological with explanations relying on tainted examples and suggestion that a common persons idea of nature is just too unique and incomprehensible to be useful.

In our time of increasing environmental tragedy, yet with some hope springing that we shall be able to make changes en mass to redeem the future, some appeals to nature seem very valid and perhaps essential to culturally appreciating our technologically precarious situation. For instance that which is more natural is more sustainable to nature. Microplastics are less natural than sand. A possible caveat - electric cars are somewhat more sustainable than combustion. But the presence of caveats does not make the appeal a fallacy - if by fallacy we mean something with no merit for consideration.

Natural processes are studied - and need to be studied to be of use and be used sustainably. They are numerous, interconnected, complex, mature, essential to human life and all the life which humans value. The concept of biophilia itself appeals to nature.

Appeals to nature should simply not be listed as an inherently wrong pattern of thought, fair to rule out of bounds. That message is a bad, hopefully retreating ideological position.

The appeal to nature fallacy means: A is natural, and B is not, therefore A is better.

You example is somewhat orthogonal, I think. You argue for sustainability as an axiomatic value (and I agree) - but sustainability is not an automatic consequence of something being natural!

Asbestos is natural, but using asbestos is not sustainable (for humans). Arsene is naturally occuring in ground water, yet we don't want to have it there and meticulous measure its presence. Mercury is natural, yet unsustainable when in contact with living beings. Predators overhunting prey in year 1, then starving to death in year 2 is natural. Disabled humans dying as children is natural and so on.

> You argue for sustainability as an axiomatic value (and I agree) - but sustainability is not an automatic consequence of something being natural

Yes but that simply means it is not a deductive argument [1]. This is very far from being fallacious. It would be quite disastrous to regard all deductive arguments as false at least in everyday life. "the weather report is for snow - wrap up well"

[1] https://www.iep.utm.edu/ded-ind/

> A is natural, and B is not, therefore A is better

I'll just add since my reply was a bit short - that if not for the danger of losing sight of the point here, I could continue your deductive argument with a list of examples which seem to support the rule and could criticize your chosen examples, but the important point is that statements of these kinds are not philosophically known to be false in most given contexts. The naturalistic fallacy is actually a strong case that they are false in philosophy of ethics, and this has been ideologically amplified to teach that they are false in all contexts. Its terrible education, not fallacious at all to say: "my cats natural diet is small mammals, so its probably better if I dont feed it too much bread and mayo." etc.

I think we mostly agree - the deduction is not the problem of the naturalistic argument, the axiom that natural equals good is. We can neither infer deontological conclusions ("it is natural that some offspring dies before sexural maturity, therefore we don't have to change the system"), nor consequentialist ones ("this material is natural, therefore not harmful to me").

Because of this I think the naturalistic fallacy is indeed a fallacy. Instead of the appeal to nature, I propose sustainability as an ethical core value. One can infer arguments for both human and environmental wellbeing from sustainability, achieving what I think your (and my) goal is. (Sorry if I misunderstood - philosophy is a topic where me not being a native speaker can severly hamper mutual understanding..)

> the deduction is not the problem of the naturalistic argument, the axiom that natural equals good is

In philosophy deduction is a problem, but there are innumerable well reasoned positions which people take that are totally reliant on deduction so it cannot be claimed to identify generally false reasoning (fallacy).

It is incorrect to interchange the concepts of "appeal to nature", "naturalistic argument" and "naturalistic fallacy" and presuppose the strength of an axiom of "natural equals good" in different contexts (except perhaps theories of ethics).

Notice that you have accepted yourself a universal axiom of "natural has no valid appeal in any context". That is an incredible position to have accepted. If it is argued "natural building materials are better for ecological concerns",or "natural foods are better for health concerns" regard what is intelligibly meant by the statement. Regard what "better" and "natural" and "concerns" mean in each statements context.

An appeal to nature in a discussion is an invitation to examine in good faith what is natural to articles under discussion. A reply "arsenic is natural and bad food" is surely not in good faith, surely it can be understood that arsenic is not natural to mammals diet? (except in accidental and rare amounts). Such pontifications should go without saying in good faith discussion, or at least not be offered to claim a perspective is fallacious (invalid).

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