Hey what’s up Thinkers! Kathy Gibbens here…
Let’s start off today with a quick review of a fallacy we covered earlier this season, the Blind Loyalty Fallacy. The Blind Loyalty Fallacy happens when someone claims that the reason they did something (usually something wrong) is b/c they were just following or obeying what they were told to do, typically by an authority figure - a boss, a parent, a teacher, a commanding officer, etc.
The question to ask yourself if you think you’re facing or even committing the Blind Loyalty Fallacy is tsi: “Just because someone told me to do it, does that make it right?”
If you want to review or hear more about this fallacy, go back & check out Episode 96.
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Alright, let’s dive into today’s new fallacy, the Moralistic Fallacy. The Moralistic Fallacy happens when someone assumes that something must be true or false based on whether it is morally desirable or undesirable. This fallacy is actually the opposite of the Naturalistic Fallacy that we talked about in the last episode.
A simple example would be if I said that it’s wrong to be mean to other people, so there’s no way it could be part of our human nature. Ok, well is that really true? Or can we easily see that it’s in our human nature to be mean sometimes? Just because it OUGHT NOT doesn’t mean it ISN’T. Here are a few other simple examples:
“Eating meat harms animals, so clearly it’s unnatural for us to do so.”
“Cheating on tests is wrong, so I know none of my students do it.”
“Drivers should follow all traffic signs, so I don’t need to look both ways before crossing the street.”
The problem behind the thinking in the Moralistic Fallacy is that it’s little more than wishful thinking. It conflates moral judgments with factual claims or reality. The fallacy occurs when someone assumes that what they think ought to be is what is. And, yes, this is a real fallacy, even if it’s a little hard to believe, lol, which it is for me. It has some similarities to Personal Incredulity, which I talk about in episode 39, where someone concludes something to be untrue just b/c they can’t imagine it being true. But the reality is that just because someone can’t imagine something to be true doesn’t mean it isn’t true. And just because something is morally wrong or right, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. And this leads to the other problem behind this fallacy is that, based on worldview, what people deem to be moral, or to be right or wrong, can vary widely.
Let me give you another example of this fallacy that’s happening today. There are a lot of people saying that because they think something is wrong, that it’s therefore not real, but rather it’s just a social construct, it’s not really a part of our human nature. For instance, take the argument that men and women are equal and should be treated equally. Well, I’d agree with that, but someone committing the Moralistic Fallacy says that since they’re equal, there are no natural differences between men and women, and since there are no natural differences between men and women, they should be able to do all the same things in the same ways. Well, is that really true? No. There are very specific natural differences between men and women and those differences are not just ‘social constructs’ and trying to tear down & deny the natural differences between them doesn’t make those natural differences go away!
So the question to ask yourself if you think you’re facing a Moralistic Fallacy is this: “You might think it’s wrong or think it’s right, but does that mean it’s not real?” *repeat*
Remember: When you learn HOW to think, you will no longer fall prey to those who are trying to tell you what THEY want you to think and it all starts with asking one simple question: “Is that really true?”
