LogicalMANIPULATIVE

Moralistic Fallacy

What it is

Inferring what is the case from what ought to be the case — concluding that a factual claim must be false because its truth would be morally unwelcome, or true because it would be morally convenient.

How it works

Davis (1978) coined the term in a letter to Nature as the mirror image of the naturalistic fallacy: where that fallacy moves from is to ought, the moralistic fallacy moves from ought to is. The engine is motivated reasoning (Kunda 1990) fused with a confusion of two questions: what is true, and what should be done about it. Because accepting an unwelcome fact feels like endorsing whatever policy it might be used to justify, people defend the value by denying the fact — a pre-emptive move that only makes sense if one already believes that facts dictate values, which is the naturalistic fallacy run backwards. Pinker (2002) traces the pattern through twentieth-century disputes over human nature. The honest version is reflexive discomfort. The knowing version uses moral alarm as an argument: “we cannot allow that to be true,” “if this were true it would justify X, so it is not true.” The tell is a factual claim being answered with the consequences of believing it rather than with evidence against it.

Real-world examples

  • •Lysenkoism in the Soviet Union (1930s-1960s) rejected Mendelian genetics in part because fixed inherited traits sat badly with the doctrine that environment and collective effort shape organisms; the ideological ought overrode the biological is, with disastrous consequences for agriculture.
  • •Davis (1978) wrote his Nature letter against proposals to treat research on genetic influences on behavior as false or forbidden because its findings might be misused; suppressing a fact, he argued, does not protect the value.
  • •Some critics on the left have dismissed evidence of average sex differences on particular traits because accepting it might license discrimination; some critics on the right have dismissed evidence that concentrated poverty depresses school outcomes because accepting it might excuse failure. Both answer a factual claim with a moral consequence.
  • •In early 2020 the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 could have escaped from a laboratory was treated by some commentators as false because entertaining it would fuel prejudice; when U.S. agencies later assessed it as an open question, the earlier fusion of moral worry and factual verdict became visible.
  • •A parent insists a child cannot be lying because “she is a good girl” — the moral status of the person is offered as evidence about the fact.

Ethical guidelines

  • ●Keep the two questions apart: whether something is true, and what should follow if it is. Answer the first with evidence and the second with argument.
  • ●Do not argue that a claim is false because believing it would be dangerous; if the claim is false, show that; if it is true, argue directly about what should be done.
  • ●Notice when you are more skeptical of facts that threaten your values than of facts that flatter them, and apply the same evidentiary standard to both.
  • ●When communicating an unwelcome finding, state clearly what it does not imply, so that listeners are not forced to choose between the fact and their values.

How to defend against it

  • ►Ask the separating question: “Are you saying it is false, or that it would be bad if it were true?” Then insist on evidence for the first and argument for the second.
  • ►Decouple explicitly: “Even if the fact holds, does the policy you fear actually follow?” Usually it does not, which removes the motive for denial.
  • ►Run the ideological Turing test on yourself: can you state the unwelcome evidence as its proponents would? If not, you may be rejecting it for its implications rather than its merits.
  • ►Pre-commit to a standard of evidence before you know which way a finding cuts; write down what would convince you, then look.
  • ►Name the inverse fallacy when the speaker leans on it: a fact does not dictate a policy, so there is no need to deny the fact to protect the policy.

References

  1. Davis, B. D. (1978). The moralistic fallacy. Nature, 272, 390
    The coinage of the term and its definition as the inverse of the naturalistic fallacy.
  2. Pinker, S. (2002). The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. Viking
    The extended treatment of moralistic-fallacy reasoning in debates over human nature, and the pairing with the naturalistic fallacy.
  3. Kunda, Z. (1990). The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin, 108(3), 480-498
    The motivated-reasoning mechanism by which preferred conclusions lower the evidentiary bar.
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