Appeal to Nature is if it's 'natural,' it's good. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0048, within the Relevance Fallacy family. The core principle: if it's 'natural,' it's good. In incentive terms, it matters because it changes the payoff people perceive before they choose — which means it can be designed for, or exploited.
Scientific Definition
If it's 'natural,' it's good.
Plain-English Definition
If it's 'natural,' it's good.
Feynman Explanation
Arsenic is natural. So is tetanus.
Core Principle
If it's 'natural,' it's good.
Mechanisms
If it's 'natural,' it's good.
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Inputs (Triggers)
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Outputs (Behaviors)
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Behavioral Signature
Arsenic is natural. So is tetanus.
Examples
- 'It feels more human' offered as a strategic argument.
- Decisions rationalized with metaphysics, not metrics.
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Original analysis from The Incentives Lab — how this element behaves inside real payoff structures.
Why this element matters to incentive design
When this element shows up in a diagnostic, the instinct is to train people out of it. Training rarely moves it. The mechanism underneath it is straightforward: if it's 'natural,' it's good. You can recognize it in the field by its signature: arsenic is natural. So is tetanus. Every element in the Cognition dimension changes the perceived payoff of an action before the action happens, which is exactly where incentive design has leverage.
How it gets exploited
Left undesigned, decisions rationalized with metaphysics, not metrics. It is amplified whenever decisions rationalized with metaphysics, not metrics. Inside organizations that shows up as decisions rationalized with metaphysics, not metrics. The pattern is the same one Goodhart's Law describes: the measurable proxy attracts the effort, and the purpose behind it quietly loses funding.
How the Lab designs around it
The redesign move is to make the desired behavior observable, remove whatever currently pays for its opposite, and attach the reward to the behavior rather than to the noisy outcome downstream of it. The test of any redesign here is simple: after the change, can you name what the organization is now doing less of? If not, the payoff structure did not actually move.
Famous Experiments
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Design Principles
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Measurement Approaches
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Evidence
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The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
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Interactive Mini Network
Click any neighbor to re-center the graph and follow the threads of connection.
Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
It's true because authority says so.
Common sense says so, therefore it's true.
Believing something is true because of the consequences of its truth.
Claiming something is true because it hasn't been proven false (or vice versa).
It's better because it's newer.
It's right because it's how we've always done it.
Attacking the person rather than the argument.
I can't believe it; therefore it isn't true.
Saying it enough times until it sounds true.
It's true because many believe it.
Asking the other side to disprove an unsupported claim.
Concluding that because an argument contained a fallacy, its conclusion must be false.
Where Appeal to Nature is cited in the corpus
Essays, field guides, and diagnostics from The Incentives Lab that apply this element.
- EssayGoodhart's Law in the Real World
How measurable proxies capture judgment.
- EssayThe Perverse Incentives Hiding in Your KPIs
Cognitive shortcuts turned into scorecards.
- ReferenceThe incentive glossary
Definitions for every mental model, bias, and fallacy in the corpus.
- CourseIncentives 101
The free ten-part primer on reading a payoff structure.
- ReferenceThe Periodic Table of Human Behavior
The full 1,267-element map this page belongs to.
Questions about Appeal to Nature
- What is Appeal to Nature?
- Appeal to Nature is if it's 'natural,' it's good. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0048, within the Relevance Fallacy family. The core principle: if it's 'natural,' it's good. In incentive terms, it matters because it changes the payoff people perceive before they choose — which means it can be designed for, or exploited.
- What is an example of Appeal to Nature?
- Decisions rationalized with metaphysics, not metrics. The Incentives Lab catalogs everyday, organizational, and historical instances of this element on its Human Behavior Taxonomy™ page (HBT-COG-0048).
- How is Appeal to Nature exploited?
- Decisions rationalized with metaphysics, not metrics.
- How do you design around Appeal to Nature?
- Name the behavior you want in observable terms, remove what currently pays for the opposite, attach the reward to the behavior rather than a lagging proxy, and publish how you will detect gaming.
- Which behavioral dimension does Appeal to Nature belong to?
- Appeal to Nature is classified in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™, family "Relevance Fallacy", class "Logical Fallacy". Its permanent identifier is HBT-COG-0048 and its evidence grade is B.