Moralistic Fallacy

🧠 Psych - 115 / 200

Hello,

Hope you are fine week :)

Something really interesting I read about is the Moralistic Fallacy.

What is it?

The fallacy of assuming that an aspect of nature that has socially unpleasant consequences cannot exist.

Examples -

Its typical form is "if X were true, then it would happen that Z!", where Z is a morally, socially, or politically undesirable thing. [1]

Where does it occur?

An example you may run into in your daily life is crossing a one-way street without looking both ways. You probably assume that because the street is one way, a car won’t drive down it the wrong way.

However, mistakes happen, and someone could accidentally turn down the one way in the wrong direction. Just because it shouldn’t happen, doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. [2]

Why do I need to know?

Looking to history for guidance, it can be seen that this is not true. Humans have been fighting for hundreds of years. Just because violence is seen as wrong, does not mean humans don’t have tendencies toward it.

References & Studies: -

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moralistic_fallacy

2. https://philosophyterms.com/moralistic-fallacy/

---

Looking for previous issues? Take a look at the Archives.

The Psych Handbook is your guide to learning biases in Psychology.