Appeal to Nature

Assuming natural means good.

Nature produces wildflowers and poison oak.

Related to G.E. Moore’s naturalistic fallacy and Hume’s is–ought gap: deriving value solely from what is natural or factual.

1. P1X is natural.
2. P2Whatever is natural is good.✕ Off trail here
3. CTherefore X is good.

Diagnosis: P2 is false as stated: hemlock, earthquakes, and disease are natural. Care is needed — natural-law ethics means something different by “nature” (a thing’s proper end), which is not this fallacy.

• Ethics

  Thomistic natural law argues from a being’s telos (its proper purpose), not from “whatever occurs in nature.” Critics who equate the two commit a strawman; defenders who slip into the simple version commit this fallacy.

• Philosophical Theology

  “Death is natural, so it’s good.” Christian theology calls death “the last enemy” (1 Cor 15:26) — natural in one sense, but not as it ought to be.

• Apologetics

  “Aggression is natural to humans, so morality is an illusion.” Describing behavior doesn’t settle what we ought to do.