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Comment by strainer | Hacker News Reader

> 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.

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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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