Description

The word ‘genetic’ comes from the Greek ‘genetikos’ and from the Latin ‘genesis’. To refer to something’s genesis is to refer to its ‘origin’. Accordingly, the English word ‘genetic’ was initially used to mean ‘pertaining to origins’ in the 19th century. The term ‘genetic fallacy’ is believed to be first coined by Morris Cohen and Ernest Nagel. The genetic fallacy happens when someone confuses the account of something’s origin or source with its justification. In other words, when someone commits the genetic fallacy, they often appeal to T’s origin or source to justify holding T. Here, T could represent a belief, an opinion, or any sort of conclusion one is committed to hold. Alternatively, they could appeal to T’s origin or source to justify denying T as well. The key part of the genetic fallacy is appealing to the origin and/or source, regardless of trying to deny or prove T. For instance, if you claim that the Volkswagen Beetle is a terrible car because Hitler designed it, you would be committing the genetic fallacy. This reasoning is flawed because there is no necessary link between origin and justification. Whether the Volkswagen Beetle was designed by Hitler or not, has nothing to do with the quality of the car model. Although the genetic fallacy is a type of informal fallacy that belongs to the category of “fallacies of relevance”, the lack of connection between justification and origin has led to some people referring to it as the fallacy of “ir-relevance”.

By merely looking at T’s origin, we cannot determine whether T is true or false. That is, we cannot deduce anything about T’s justification from merely its origin. This lack of justificatory power of T’s origin does not mean we must completely do away with it. For instance, if one were to apply a Foucauldian discourse analysis to T, where archaeology, genealogy, and history overall carry importance, T’s genesis might be valuable. That is, it can help us understand why T has assumed its current form. However, the main point in committing the genetic fallacy is linking the source of T to its correctness. For example, consider the following sentence: God exists, because my mum told me so, and she never lies. The fact that my mum never lies or that she told me that God exists, has no bearing on whether God truly exists or not. In this example, the genetic fallacy is being committed alongside another fallacy, which is appeal to authority (ad verecundiam). It is commonly thought that appeal to authority and genetic fallacy are intertwined. Now, imagine my mum does lie. Does this piece of information about my mother have any bearing on God’s (non)existence? If your answer is no, then you agree that whether the source or origin of T is correct or not is irrelevant to whether T is correct or not.

Along with the source, the origin of T has nothing to do with its merit as well. To determine whether T comes from a sound or valid argument, one must analyze the argument in which one arrives at the conclusion T. If the premises of the argument support the conclusion T, then T has internal merit. If the premises do not support T, no matter how righteous its premises might be, the conclusion T has no merit. To demonstrate this point, I devised a hypothetical argument. Consider the following argument:

1) Luna told me that eating meat is unethical.

2) Luna has a pet cow.

3) Because of (2), Luna is biased when it comes to the philosophy of eating meat.

4) Luna’s judgment is clouded.

5) Therefore, her judgment is wrong, and eating meat is not- unethical.

In this argument, premises (1) and (2) are definitely correct. Luna did in fact tell me this. She in fact owns a pet cow. Even premises (3) and (4) might be correct. Maybe Luna really is biased on this topic; one can even say her judgment is clouded by this. However, the fact that premises (1) to (4) are true does not prima facie mean that she is wrong or that eating meat is ethical. The conclusion (5) does not carry any internal merit. There is a possibility that the conclusion is false, despite the fact that the premises are correct. In this case, the argument does not prove to be sound because there is a possibility that it might be invalid. S. Morris Engel sardonically says, that not even the greatest logician can make arguments like this, where the premises do not support the conclusion in a definite way, sound. This is the case in the Luna argument as well. That is because the only way to determine T’s truth-value is to research the topic independently from the origin it came from. In this case, the source is Luna, and the origin is the Luna argument.

Ultimately, the genetic fallacy comes from the confusion of the causal origin or source of something with its justification. This fallacy is sometimes referred to as the fallacy of origins, as some sort of origin is often used to justify holding a certain proposition. For instance, when describing this fallacy, The Philosopher’s Toolkit gives the example of some evolutionary arguments that attempt to justify certain differences between the sexes, such as sexual behaviour (p.91). In evolutionary psychology, it is accepted that if a man is promiscuous, risk-taking, and high-status-oriented, it increases the chances his and his genes’ survival. By contrast, if a woman is faithful, cautious, and attractive, it increases her and her genes’ chances of survival. Some people believe that this explanation justifies the sexual double standard in adultery: When a man cheats, it is considered ‘normal’, but when a woman cheats, she becomes an outcast. This belief demonstrates an example of an argument in which explaining the origin of something (in this case, sexual behaviour) is used to justify it. Baggini and Fosl additionally conclude that the argument is, at best, an incomplete one. As we know by now, this type of argument commits the genetic fallacy by using the (evolutionary) origin of a behaviour as a reason why the behaviour (male adultery) is correct or at least, accepted. It must be noted here that the arguments that rely on evolutionary origins do not only commit the genetic fallacy but the naturalistic fallacy as well. This fallacy happens when someone derives an ought from an is. Appeals to nature often commit this fallacy because they take what is natural to be the way it ought to be, or at least, as ‘good’. Appealing to evolutionary origins commits the naturalistic fallacy, because it takes ‘what is’ from evolutionary psychology, and accepts it as correct or acceptable. Because of this, it takes a man’s adultery as justified over a woman’s adultery. Appealing to evolutionary origins also commits the genetic fallacy, because it takes the facts about something’s evolutionary origin to justify facts about its present nature. In the adultery example, it would be that the genesis of men’s adulterous behaviour is why their behaviour is considered justified, and thus, accepted.

Application

Forming fallacious beliefs and acting on them could harm ourselves, but it can harm others as well. In this section, I underline the presence of the genetic fallacy in anti-immigration arguments to demonstrate this point.

Xenophobia, or the fear of the other, is at the core of why people hold anti-immigrant beliefs. In preparation for this chapter, I interviewed immigrants from the Global South who currently live in the Global North (specifically, the United States and Canada). I asked them to document their experiences with xenophobia. In these interviews, fear of experiencing xenophobia was a common theme for immigrants. For instance, one of the respondents claimed that she always felt the need to change her culture to be accepted, leading her to partially forget her mother tongue. Similarly, another interviewee shared that she had the need to adopt an Anglophone-sounding nickname out of fear of xenophobia. Since xenophobia seems to be a ubiquitous experience among immigrants, let us inspect one of the popular anti-immigrant arguments.

Similar evolutionary arguments that are made to justify adultery amongst men are made also to justify anti-immigration sentiment and xenophobia. In this type of argument, the anti-immigrant people see xenophobia as a natural behaviour that is rooted in evolutionary origins, specifically in Social Darwinism. Thus, they do not think their fear of the ‘other’ should be penalized for being wrong. In fact, they argue that they are right in their anti-immigrant sentiment by appealing to our evolutionary past. This type of argument was brought up in my interviews as well. For instance, I asked the interviewees their thoughts on how people justified their xenophobia towards them. Some of the respondents did not identify any specific justification. However, others shared that when people with xenophobia were challenged, they witnessed some people justify their fear of others as being a natural occurrence that has its basis in evolution. It must be noted here that there might be other types of arguments for people’s anti-immigrant stance. However, this type of appeal to evolutionary origins is commonly adopted by self-proclaimed far-right intellectuals. I will provide examples from specific blog posts as I continue with the chapter, but first, let us review the argument.

To put it in a logical form, I think the argument implicitly proceeds like this:

(1) Evolutionary research shows that an organism (whether humans or non-human animals) might favour their own group and their well-being over other groups.

(2) This focus on inclusive fitness is the root of xenophobic tendencies.

(3) Xenophobic tendencies have likely been adopted from our evolutionary past.

(4) Accordingly, xenophobia is normal and there is nothing wrong with it.

(5) My anti-immigrant stance is based on xenophobia, which is a normal instinct.

(6) Therefore, this stance is normal as well.

What makes this argument so convincing to many people is the appeal to the evolutionary origins. This appeal automatically makes people assume that the argument must be correct because of the involvement of biology and science as well as ‘natural’ instinct. As a side note, it must be mentioned here that along with the genetic fallacy (appeal to origins), there is the naturalistic fallacy (is/ought) and extreme scientism (hard science is the only way to know reality) at play here. As previously mentioned, the naturalistic fallacy and the genetic fallacy are intertwined in arguments where the evolutionary past is being used to justify a behaviour, a belief, or a claim.

Now let us dissect this argument. There is a lot of research that backs up premises (1) and (2). As Raise A. Rahim mentions in their paper, xenophobia is an adaptive behavioural response to the external environment: it in fact promotes behaviour in organisms where they place their personal or inclusive fitness above those of other organisms (p.10). Therefore, in an evolutionary sense, placing one’s group above another makes sense. The focus on this type of inclusive fitness relies on Social Darwinist ideas. These Social Darwinist evolutionary arguments rely on the idea that certain cultures or certain ethnicities are superior, and they should be preserved. The belief in this superiority is one of the main reasons behind the fear of ‘others.’ The Social Darwinist thinking embedded in this argument commits both the naturalistic fallacy and the genetic fallacy. It is commonly known that it commits the naturalistic fallacy, because it takes what ‘is’ in nature or evolutionary past as its justification. Additionally, it commits the genetic fallacy, because it relies on the origin of the behaviour of xenophobia (that is, the evolutionary past) as a justification for holding it. In fact, the sentiment of others’ ‘inferiority’ was a common theme found in an anti-immigrant and anti-egalitarian forum from the United States. After making comments regarding the importance of the preservation of the ‘superior’ group, this forum promoted fear of the ‘other’. For them, the inclusion of other cultures within the American culture would create a subpar culture that would lead America to become a ‘third-world country.’ In this instance, being committed to Social Darwinist ideas results in committing both naturalistic and genetic fallacies.

Returning to our argument, premises (1) and (2) might be correct. However, it is the jump from premise (3) to (4) that is concerning. Recall the definition of the genetic fallacy; it happens when someone confuses the account of something’s origin or source with its justification. Xenophobia itself, or even Social Darwinism itself, might have evolutionary origins. However, this evolutionary origin is irrelevant to whether having active xenophobia now is justified. Perhaps in the past, it made sense to protect the clan from outside influence, disease, threat, and assimilation. This protection was in fact crucial for survival. Consider the Homo sapiens sapiens versus the Neanderthals. By contrast, there are more factors to consider now than there were in our evolutionary past. To name a few, consider globalization, stability of the species, advancement of medical technology, modernization, industrialization, ease of travel, non-nomadic lifestyles, and agriculturalization… Yet, the idea of protecting oneself from others is still there, though the conditions of the past do not currently apply. For instance, xenophobia can be observed within modern euro-sceptic and anti-immigrant stances from the media or even from the states themselves.

In recent years, the Italian government has been implementing restrictive immigration policies with the rise of right-wing populist parties. Studies show that both of these developments result from xenophobic tenets of right-wing populism. Whether the xenophobia within these decisions is seen as justified through evolutionary origin is questionable. However, as we have observed through this section, right-wing populists do support this type of justification, and thus, it is a possibility that this might be the case. Therefore, with the rise of xenophobic sentiments, it is wise to question the argument behind the initial decisions, as they could lie on fallacious grounds. This example aside, there are obvious and more direct examples where the genetic fallacy (and the naturalistic fallacy) is committed among self-proclaimed far-right intellectuals. In the entries of the aforementioned forum, we can observe the use of appeal to nature (animals) and appeal to evolutionary origins to justify the anti-immigrant stance. This is done especially through the use of Social Darwinism, with the goal of keeping their own group as dominant and strong over the ‘others’. They think white Americans should protect themselves from immigrants, whom they see as an “invasive species.” Accordingly, they are following the argument I presented above and committing the genetic and naturalistic fallacy.

Interestingly, even in evolutionary research, xenophobia is seen as a maladaptive trait that was inherited from the phylogenetic ancestors that put inter-group social harmony at risk by leading to destructive behaviour like racial intolerance, infrahumanization,^[1] social exclusion, violence, and war (p.10). For many reasons already mentioned and more, the evolutionary origin of xenophobia renders itself irrelevant currently to whether this belief is justified now. Therefore, the fact that a lot of research does support premises (1) and (2) is also irrelevant. While looking into the origins of xenophobia might be interesting for the sake of biology, research, or understanding of our evolutionary past or animals, the use of it as justification for xenophobia now commits the genetic fallacy.

Philosophical Exercises

1. In this chapter, we mentioned how the genetic fallacy can be present in some sexist or xenophobic arguments. Can you think of any example where this fallacy is embedded in a macro-level organization (e.g., laws, or policies in companies or governments)?

2. Consider your daily life. Can you think of any habitual practices you do where the argument that underpins it commits the genetic fallacy? (e.g., You put onion in your sock before bed when you are sick because your dad is an amazing guy who never lies and told you it will suck the virus out.) If you cannot find one from your own life, you can share an observation.

References & Further Reading