Moralistic fallacy
The moralistic fallacy is a fallacy in which, on the basis of the moral undesirability of a condition or behavior, it is asserted that it is against nature. The term was coined as moralistic fallacy 1978 by the biologist Bernard Davis (1916-1994). In the German-speaking world, the concept was used by Norbert Bischof (1996) under the name moralistic fallacy .
The moralistic fallacy is often used to reject scientific research, theses or findings that conflict with existing ethical norms.
This fallacy is an ignoratio elenchi : whether a condition is natural, i.e. corresponds to certain psychological or biological tendencies (such as evolutionary psychology or behavioral biology ), is simply not influenced by the ethical value that is attached to it. It resembles the naturalistic fallacy in that it asserts a strong connection between being and ought. While in the naturalistic fallacy one inferred from being to what is ought, in the moralistic fallacy one inferred from ought to be. The conclusion does not lead to a formal contradiction, but is formally incomplete and requires strong additional assumptions about the connection between morality and nature .
In everyday psychology , the form of argument was known before Davis and Bischof. So she has z. B. in Christian Morgenstern's poem Die Impossible Fact (1910) as “that what cannot be, what must not be” found an expression.
Individual evidence
- ^ BD Davis: The moralistic fallacy. In: Nature. Volume 272, Number 5652, March 1978, p. 390, PMID 11643452 .
- ↑ Doris Bischof-Köhler : Naturally different: The psychology of gender differences . 3rd edition, 2006 ISBN 3170192876 .
- ↑ Jochen Oehler: The human evolution, nature and culture . Spectrum Academic Publishing House, 2011. ISBN 3642103499 , 85.
- ^ Gerhard Medicus on the evolution of morality. (PDF; 262 kB)
- ↑ Lexicon of Psychology: moralistic fallacy spectrum Akademischer Verlag.