The “is vs. ought” fallacy occupies a special position in moral philosophy since it concerns one of the most important problems of human existence, namely the problem of moral choice. This fallacy consists in the gap between “what is the case” and “what ought to be the case” (“The Is/Ought Gap”) – in other words, in the gap between a fact and a moral judgment. It was discussed by D. Hume in his “Treatise of Human Nature” (“The Is/Ought Gap”): according to the author, to derive what a person ought to do from what a person does is an invalid way of reasoning as there is no logical connection between objective facts and moral evaluations.
First of all, it is worth mentioning that the “is vs. ought” controversy deals exclusively with the cases that involve a moral choice. There are things which people consider necessary to do like maintaining health or achieving their goals; however, the desire to do these things is not motivated by pure morality: it is rather the sense of duty that forces people to do them. Therefore, such things should rather be referred to as obligations and not as “oughts”. Although it is almost impossible to draw a clear line between obligations and “oughts”, it is important to note that “some of the things we ought to do are obligations, but not everything we ought to do is an obligation” (“The Is/Ought Gap”).
The “is vs. ought” controversy is referred to as the naturalistic fallacy for a particular reason. The term “naturalistic fallacy” was introduced by G. E. Moore to indicate the “fallacy of treating the term “good” (or any equivalent term) as if it were the name of a natural property” (“Encyclopedia Britannica”); to put it differently, naturalistic fallacy is an idea that everything that is natural is good and everything that is unnatural is bad. In G. E. Moore’s opinion, the concept of “the good” is not analogous with the concept of “natural”; moreover, he “claimed that the mere act of defining moral concepts with natural concepts was a fallacy” (“New World Encyclopedia”). Taken this into account, the “is vs. ought” problem is referred to as naturalistic fallacy due to the fact that it involves the reasoning from is-statements (natural facts) to ought-statements (moral values) which means that what is natural is considered as moral.
Works Cited
“Naturalistic Fallacy.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Web. 7 April 2016.
“Naturalistic Fallacy.” New World Encyclopedia. Web. 7 April 2016.
“The Is/Ought Gap: How Do We Get “Ought” from “Is”?” Ethical Realism, 19 July 2011. Web. 7 April 2016.
