# Appeal to nature

*Also called: Natural is better*

- **Cluster:** Values and premises — Hidden value claims doing the arguing
- **Page:** https://fallacy.wiki/fallacy/appeal-nature/
- **In Arabic:** https://fallacy.wiki/ar/fallacy/appeal-nature.md
- **Licence:** CC BY 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

## What it is

Treating natural as a synonym for good, safe, or right.

## In the wild

> It is natural, so it is safe.

## How to answer it

Name a natural thing that is harmful. The category does not track safety.

## Origin and naming

The habit is ancient — Greek writers treated the 'laws of nature' as norms for conduct, not just descriptions of it. As a named fallacy it belongs to the twentieth century, when philosophers disentangled it from G. E. Moore's related 'naturalistic fallacy' in Principia Ethica (1903).

## More places it shows up

- The supplement ad lingers on rainforest leaves and calls the capsule 'completely natural' — as if the source of an ingredient settles the question of what it does to you.
- In the school-board debate a parent argues against the new canteen menu because the vegetables are 'grown in a lab', not because of anything on the nutrition sheet.
- A colleague insists the three-day hike with no phone signal must be 'healthier' than the gym because it's 'how humans evolved to move'.
- In a parenting forum, someone dismisses formula milk out of hand because breastfeeding is 'what nature intended', with no glance at the family's actual situation.

## How to spot it

- Listen for 'natural' doing the whole job of 'good' with no property named in between.
- The argument never says what the natural thing actually does — only where it comes from.
- Ask whether the speaker would accept the same logic applied to arsenic or lightning, both rich in nature.

## Nearby

- [Is-ought fallacy](https://fallacy.wiki/fallacy/is-ought.md)
- [Appeal to tradition](https://fallacy.wiki/fallacy/tradition.md)

## Read more

- [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature)
- [Fallacy Files](https://fallacyfiles.org/adnature.html)

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From fallacy.wiki — a bilingual field guide to 91 logical fallacies, published by phi holdings. Licensed CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/): reuse freely with attribution to fallacy.wiki.