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When we use evolutionary psychology to understand human behavior there are above all two common logical fallacies that have to be avoided.

One common pitfall is known as the moralistic fallacy : we assume that undesirable qualities of nature simply cannot be true.
Political liberals may be more prone to the moralistic fallacy, for example when they argue that gender equality is desirable, therefore any psychological differences observed between men and women must be a priori false; or that war is morally wrong— therefore it cannot be rooted in human nature.

The second trap is the naturalistic fallacy , (which is the inverse of the moralistic fallacy), which assumes that what is natural must be moral or desired. The naturalistic fallacy is the idea that what is found in nature is good. It was the basis for social Darwinism, the belief that helping the poor and sick would get in the way of evolution,..

The take-away message of these two fallacies is that there is no logical link of "is" and "ought", the latter can never be deduced from the way things are

Matias 8 June 9
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Of course we can get "oughts" from "ises." we do this constantly. It is how we stay alive daily. It is how we have built our societies. It is the basis for our moral and ethical systems.

JacarC Level 8 June 11, 2019
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That sounds right to me. I think men and women are not equal and nature is not necessarily good. I wonder what evolutionary psychology proposes as the right way of thinking about morality and nature. That's probably still in the development stage.

I would suggest that evolutionary psychology would have no interest in morality as it could become a roadblock for some processes. I don’t see evolution struggling but adapting as a river forges its course through the least line of resistance. If morality enters an evolutionary mix the implication is that there is a motivated driving force and many things have intended consequences. Similar but not the same as free flow. The subtle difference between pre-destination and causation

I think morality comes into it through culture. Culture and survival are connected and morality is one of the features of the relationship. Survival seems to be the driving force and sentient creatures conceive and employ new tactics all the time to perfect the art of survival.

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This sounds reasonable. Nature is what it is, neither good nor bad. Things happen for reasons, often reasons we don’t understand. Stamping natural events as good or bad is our human attempt to survive through data compression by creating mental icons so that our reactions can be efficient and timely. Dualistic thinking is itself a natural phenomenon, neither good nor bad, just part of our animal nature.

Through conscious awareness we can rise above dualism for part of our interactions with reality. By taking a broader view it is possible to escape from the fear and unhappiness caused by judgmental thinking. By constantly seeing the world as evil, dangerous, unfair, in-just, etc., we generate a lot of stress and discomfort within ourselves, and we set the stage for constant conflict with others.

Dualistic thinking is what got Adam and Eve kicked out of the Garden of Eden. 🙂 Remember that they ate fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good vs. evil, rendering them incapable of living a blissful life on a spiritual level. Through conscious analysis of their thoughts anyone can easily return to the Garden of Eden.

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