You Are Reading the First 6 FREE Chapters (470 pages)
THE NATURALISTIC FALLACY
The naturalistic fallacy goes like this: whatever happens in the natural world, well, that’s the way it ought to be.
The problem is, it doesn’t follow logically that, just because something happens in nature, it’s a Good Thing—that its moral value is somehow asserted. Belief that “natural = good” is called the naturalistic fallacy. This fallacy led to social Darwinism, discussed earlier.
Nature is utterly mindless and blindly indifferent. Heart defects are natural. So is cancer. So is malaria. Nature is by far the world’s greatest bioterrorist.
We humans have “natural” inclinations to lash out violently against those we perceive as doing us harm. Fortunately, humans also have natural propensities for resolving conflict, helping each other, and overriding impulses that could hurt us in the long run. Our evolved moral sense enables us to get along with each other (more or less).