Naturalistic fallacy

Heard in 1 episode across 1 show since Jul 2026

The naturalistic fallacy is an informal fallacy and metaethical concept asserting that it is a mistake to define 'good' in terms of natural properties such as pleasant, desirable, or evolved. Introduced by British philosopher G. E. Moore in his 1903 book Principia Ethica, it is closely related to the is–ought problem, which argues that one cannot derive an ethical 'ought' from a factual 'is'.