This term loosely describes arguments that claim to draw ethical conclusions from natural facts; for instance penguins are monogamous and therefore humans should be. G E Moore formally identified the naturalistic fallacy as any attempt by ethical philosophers to prove or back up a claim by defining good in terms of one or more natural properties (such as 'pleasant', 'more complex', 'desired', and so on).
The naturalistic fallacy assumes that because the words 'good' and, say, 'pleasant' can be used to describe the same object, they must be describing the same attribute. A good cheese will clearly taste pleasant, but a good bomb is one that kills most people.
The naturalistic fallacy is related to, but should not be confused with, the is-ought problem. .
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