On some comments to a recent post by Mark on Sam Harris and the ought/is distinction, I noted that Harris assumes that "happiness" (or "flourishing") is an un-problematic concept -- a well-established ruler against which one can easily measure the success or failure of behaviors. Hence when he claims that science can tell us what is right and wrong -- by telling us what makes us happy -- he has merely tabled the harder, philosophical problem of what happiness is (not to mention whether it ought to be our measure of right and wrong).
In yesterday's Philosopher's Stone, Gary Gutting mines a similar vein: the nature of happiness is a) not uncontroversial and b) a philosophical rather than scientific question. Empirical studies that try to establish the nature of happiness by simply asking people what makes them happy are problematic because the meaning of "happy" is unclear and may vary between respondents significantly:
But the most powerful challenge concerns the meaning and value of happiness. Researchers emphasize that when we ask people if they are happy the answers tell us nothing if we don’t know what our respondents mean by “happy.” One person might mean, “I’m not currently feeling any serious pain”; another, “My life is pretty horrible but I’m reconciled to it”; another, “I’m feeling a lot better than I did yesterday.” Happiness research requires a clear understanding of the possible meanings of the term. For example, most researchers distinguish between happiness as a psychological state (for example, feeling overall more pleasure than pain) and happiness as a positive evaluation of your life, even if it has involved more pain than pleasure.
Hence if we wished to make rigorous empirical use of the concept "happiness," we would need to clarify it significantly with a non-empirical, philosophical analysis. But then this philosophical inquiry largely obviates the empirical one: saying what happiness really is requires philosophical reflection, not surveys.
I'd like to add here that respondents don't simply have different conceptions of happiness: they're likely to be uncertain as to what they think it is. That's why many of us have trouble formulating goals and figuring out whether we're satisfied when we've achieved them. If happiness were a well-defined, hash-marked ruler with which we could run about making uncontroversial empirical measurements, life would be a lot less hard than it is. The underlying explanatory model here is inner conflict: as in, one part of us wants one thing and one part wants another, not-entirely-consistent thing; and really there are very many working parts pulling in a vast number of directions ("everyone wants everything," to quote a psychoanalyst I know). And so to say what happiness means we might talk, for instance, about establishing harmony between conflicting parts of the psyche (see Plato, Aristotle, Freud, and Nietzsche).
I'd like to take this example -- barebones as it is-- and say a little more about what it means to give a philosophical as opposed to a scientific explanation. We can compare this case of a model of the psyche that employs the concepts of conflict and harmony with (because I happen to know a little about it) Bohr's atomic model. What phenomena are being explained in each case?
In the case of the scientific model the phenomena are clear: Bohr's atomic model, for instance, explains the frequencies of light produced by hydrogen gas after it has been heated and subsequently loses energy during cooling. The phenomena being explained are not themselves conceptually unclear: if we were unclear as working scientists about what "emissions spectrums" meant or looked like, we'd have to clear that up in order to do our work successfully. (We need other theories to do this by the way -- at minimum some theory of electromagnetic radiation, which might in turn be subject to revision as we try to work out a coherent picture; but this does not decrease the relative clarity of our working conceptions).
Further: when we develop an atomic theory, we do not have to query atoms about what spectra they're giving off and wait for them to report back to us; nor do we have to know what it's like to be an atom or give off spectra. The situation is radically different for psychology and philosophy. My concept "light" does not implicate me in it to the same degree as my concept "sadness." If I had to get another human being to understand the former, our joint attention to a few cases would be sufficient. But in the case of sadness, pointing to someone crying, or crying myself, would not in itself be a demonstration unless the person to whom I were demonstrating it a) had already experienced sadness and b) knew how to interpret the outward behaviors of others in terms of that experience (i.e., to empathize).
And so while I do not need to know what it is like be an atom, or spectra (or any other observable phenomenon that the atomic model serves) in order to do physics, I certainly need to know what it's like to be sad in order to employ the concept in a psychological study in which I survey people and ask people to rate their sadness on a scale of 1-10. To further complicate things, in a such a psychological study I am a) relying on second hand reports (people not only frequently deceive us about their emotions, but deceive themselves); b) asking for rankings for something that arguably cannot be ranked in this way, or not easily; and c) dealing with a complex and -- for these purposes -- unclear concept. The concept of spectra is clear and easily quantifiable, but there are many nuances and varied applications when it comes to the concept of sadness. Arguably, a good novel will use the concept of sadness much more rigorously than a psychological study with a numerical rating scale. (Incidentally, FMRI observations of the brain do not turn psychology into a hard science any more than do survey responses with sadness-numbers on them; such observations still have to be correlated with self-reports and an empathetic understanding of reports in a way that spectra simply do not; and I still need subjective mechanisms -- such as "hunger" -- at one level of explanation, even if I can explain behaviors entirely in terms of the brain at another).
So armchair psychologists and philosophers actually have some distinct advantages over the researchers who employ such surveys. Their data is various, but it critically involves -- shocking as it is to say in this brave new world in which such things are frowned upon -- reflection upon their own inner states. It's not the kind of data to which other researchers have public access, like the sadness rating forms, but it should be clear by now that those sadness forms supply us with the illusion of objectivity, not the real thing. The advantage I'm talking about here is the immediacy of the data (which is Descartes' fundamental point); yes, we're subject to the sort of self-deception and error in self-ascription I've already described, but so are our survey respondents. We're not helped by pretending that making someone write down a number about an ill-defined concept makes things more objective. By contrast, the hope is that reflection -- self-examination -- will help us come to terms with our self-deceptions.
So when philosophers develop a theoretical model -- say one involving "harmony" -- to explain happiness, they are doing something similar to science in important ways, and different in others. In the case of the atom, the phenomena to be explained are clear but their cause is not; the model will provide us with a cause, perhaps make seemingly inconsistent phenomena consistent, and can help us develop testable predictions.
In the case of happiness, the phenomenon is relatively opaque. We're not asking the question "where does [the uncontroversial, well-defined state] 'happiness' come from?" as an analog to "why does hydrogen gas emit these spectra when excited?" We're asking the questions "what is happiness?" and "what do we mean by happiness?" To answer these questions, I begin by thinking about my own use of the concept, and subjective states related to that use (impulses to sex and violence are obviously critical here); and I think about its use by others, including popular conceptions of happiness. I need not merely accept a popular conception as definitive here (e.g. happiness consists of wealth), because it might turn out when fully analyzed that this conception isn't even consistent with itself, or with other uses or concepts to which its proponents are committed. So my task is to take an unclear concept, look at its varied and even inconsistent applications in myself and others, and come up with a theory to explain all of this (including the partial truths reflected in even erroneous positions). My theory in turn must describe some model (say a tripartite soul) and mechanism (as in "harmony") that. like the model of the atom, helps clarify what's being explained. It's just where the model of the atom predicts and explains the origins of a collection of well-defined and publicly available phenomena, the model for happiness must explain an obscure (and publicly disputed) phenomenon by describing a subjective mechanism relating clearer (and yet still subjective and to some degree obscure) parts. The scientific model answers the question "why these phenomena?"; the philosophical model tries to answer the question "what are these phenomena really?" (including "what is their structure?" and "of what parts do they consist?"). And this latter, conceptual question is better explored in the armchair than in the laboratory. (This is not to say one's knowledge of other subjects, including for example history, sociology, and even the hard sciences, won't inform this reflection).
Does the idea of such armchair analyses bother you? Is it insufficiently empirical? I've tried to make the case here that this is not merely a lazy extravagance, but stems from the the nature of the beast-being-examined. By contrast, I think the fundamental hope of someone like Harris -- and the impetus of scientism -- is the idea that science will deliver us from a world in which reflection is necessary. That's because such reflection is open-ended, difficult, and never reaches the definitive, totalizing conclusions to which we are naturally drawn for comfort. Whether such comforting fundamentalisms are religious or anti-religious at bottom makes little difference: as Nietzsche pointed out, they come from the same nihilistic desire to step out of life's ongoing struggle and master it from an ultimate perspective that we simply do not have.
-- Wes
Thankyou, Wes. I saw the Gutting piece on NYT and immediately thought of PEL and Mr Harris.
Wes, would you then consider “mental health” (understanding it and how to help others aquire it–or negating it all together) as something that falls mostly within the domain of philosophy?
Howdy Wes, Gents: I’m thinking that terms like “happiness” are important and useful even if we can never say exactly what they mean. It’s not a slippery concept so much as it’s too rich, varied and complex to be pinned down in any verbal formula. We don’t need exact definitions of terms like health, wealth and truth in order to believe that they are preferable to poverty, sickness and falsity. There are medical quantifiers. We can count one’s financial assets and we can act upon truth claims to see how they actually hold up in experience but the terms are always used in a particular context and that is going to change. A typical middle class American, for example, lives much longer and has much more wealth than most of the kings and queens throughout history but the context has changed so that this contemporary American will not see himself as a wealthy person. But what sane person would say, “No, I don’t want health, wealth, wisdom or happiness”?
Maybe it’s because I’ve been watching Mad Men but I’m convinced that way too many Americans have a wildly distorted idea of the good life. I mean, it’s not something one can purchase at the mall, nor can Amazon ship it to you in three days. In our time, I dare say, each of us is responsible for finding out what happiness means and now it should probably be considered a bit childish to expect an authoritative or formulaic answers to be handed to us. I suspect a lot of grown-ups would resent it if we had to comply with such dictates. Living is an art, you know? And real artists don’t want to paint by numbers.
I think it’s a process, not a final resting place. Happiness is a matter of being actively engaged in something that you care about, something that is so absorbing that you lose yourself in the task. But maybe this perspective is a just a result of the fact that I’m sick, broke, stupid and depressed. 😉
part of why I prefer Richard Rorty’s private/public distinction, and relative dismissal of Philosophy, is that this is a matter of an experimental and highly individualized process (Rorty’s very thin Nietzschean psychology needs much filling out and his misplaced faith in books/novels taken with a lump of salt but that’s another matter, some of which John Lysaker had taken up) have you read Ethics without Philosophy: Wittgenstein and the Moral Life Book by James C. Edwards
Nicely stated, Wes… and David too.
Any allegedly scientific endeavor is going to stand on a philosophical edifice, and part of the nature of philosophy is that its conceptions are continually open to revision (to varying degrees). However, much of our intellectual work in life takes some of this groundwork as established and aims to maximize whatever it is we’ve decided is worth maximizing.
I think the comparison to atomic theory as the model of science is misleading, or rather it’s an argument against the legitimacy of the social sciences in general. Let’s say my aim as a social scientist is to reduce suicide rates in campus settings. Yes, the tools at my disposal (e.g. questionnaires about happiness and thoughts of suicide, interviews where people might lie or be self-deceived) are highly imperfect, but you make do with what you’ve got, and (as therapists do, notoriously) make use of whatever theoretical models seem to yield the best results, even if these models themselves are incompatible with each other. So you’re not controlling all your variables, not employing a control group, and certainly relying on first-person knowledge to deal with your subject matter, yet it’s still not merely unconstrained armchair work (“A busy child is a happy child! Put those campus deppressos to work cleaning up the grounds!). If you call it scientific regardless, then you introduce a goal of rigor and experimental verification which seems useful in efficiently disposing of models that don’t work instead of saying it’s all hopeless.
As a marketing term, “science” means “progress is possible” whereas “philosophy” means studying history and navel gazing. Gutting’s article, far from being a screed against scientism, seems to see it as a positive step that folks are trying to systematize and verify these armchair speculations, and that social scientists are acknowledging their philosophical roots and thus, hopefully, doing better work. Want to keep philosophy from becoming irrelevant? Put it at the table where practical problems are worked out instead of blowing the scientism whistle to preserve the hard distinction between the philosophical and the scientific. (Again, my dispute with Wes here seems more a subtle political one re. what is important to argue when than with the substance of what he’s sketched out here.)
You articulate my thoughts exactly Mark.
And it seems like a variation on what Churchland said, as well as some things Harris has written in the past.
Namely, there’s no reason to maintain such a strict seperation between philosophy and science. And in fact, they both seem very reliant upon one another, at least to the degree that science utilizes specific philosophic rules of thumb in accordance with a specific methodology.
For instance, take a basic problem, using philosophy to hypothosize about its nature and possible solutions, then do some “science” to get more information, go back to philosophy to analyze these results and discern any larger concepts that may be coming into focus. Thus the act of doing science itself seems like a pretty philosophic one.
Then there’s Churchland’s analogy to theoretical physics. I love Brian Greene. His background is in mathamatics, a very armchair sort of knowledge seeking. He also does theoretical phyiscs and explores the most insane theories, many of which the means to verfiy have not even been discovered yet (assuming they exist). His books read more like philosophy than science, and yet his work has implications for science and the scientific body of knowledge relating to “the universe.”
I just don’t see thow “science” can be properly divorced from “philosophy,” or what benefit there could be to doing so.
“Empirical studies that try to establish the nature of happiness by simply asking people what makes them happy are problematic because the meaning of “happy” is unclear and may vary between respondents significantly.”
While it may be the case that “happiness” can (and probably will) vary greatly between respondents, that does not preclude us from obtaining empiricial evidence of other people’s hapiness.
In fact, nothing could be simpler. Since hapiness is a subjective description, I don’t see why it’s “problematic” simply to ask someone “are you happy?”. Assuming they are not lying (or suffering some other mental pathology that prevents them from acknowledging and answering the question truthfully) then their answer of “Yes” is sufficient for evidence. Not only is it sufficient, but no other form of empirical evidence is even logically possible.
Where, exactly, is the problem?
Wait, David Buchanan has been watching a lot of Mad Men, and Anthony “Draper” chimes in as well?
(obviously I’ve watched too much Mad Men as well. I’m waiting with bated breath for the upcoming season)
And, Mr. Draper, I don’t think there is a problem with asking people “Are you happy?” I would be surprised if anyone else here thought this was problematic, as far as surveys goes.
Part of the problem of *establishing the nature of happiness* by the process of Q&A is that “the meaning of ‘happy’ is unclear and may vary between respondents significantly.”
But again, we could collect a whole heap of evidence from people all over the globe, and we could say “Wow, people over here feel happy.” And “people over there say they’re sad” and so on. We could make correlations on kinds of political/economic systems and levels of self-reported happiness. I don’t see a problem with this at all. At least not as far as surveys go.
Harris’ narrow focus on well-being from the perspective of neuroscience I think misses the point. On the Aristotelian view, the idea of the good as eudaimonia or flourishing is objectively constrained by the productive nature of moral and intellectual capabilities. Things like pleasure and well-being are merely rank-order goods relative to the autonomy and competence of moral agents. It’s the promotion of these dispositions, as well as the ends (i.e., traditions, institutions, and practices) that contribute to them, that should be centre-stage in this debate.
Certain capabilities and disabilities (e.g., self-control, akrasia, resilience, anxiety, self-respect, hatred, etc.), can, in principle, be treated as the factual correlates of moral claims. As such, they would be amenable to scientific study and practical analysis. It’s interesting to note that schools and universities already foster character-development. While this is not the explicit aim, I can easily imagine moral training as part of the curriculum. Moral abilities could be quantified along the same lines as intellectual abilities. If tight correlations obtain between measurable cognitive skills and valued outcomes, there’s no intrinsic barrier preventing us from evaluating moral capabilities on the same basis. Educational psychology and related disciplines already inform scholastic practices, so it’s not a large step away from including an as yet unformed normative science into the mix, and perhaps disseminating its findings to corporate environments and other cultural sectors.
Harris, it seems to me, is a straw man. I’d be far more inclined to defend an empirically-based capabilities approach, as advocated by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. That, taken in conjunction with the recent turn to virtue jurisprudence in the philosophy of law seems to indicate a real opportunity for creating a normative science that could guide legitimate social policies. As with any scientific endeavour, we’re dealing with provisional truths here. Perfect understanding is a will-o-the-wisp. That normative guidance can be established as true for the most part should be sufficient to move forward. In the end, I think subjective well-being will more or less take care of itself once you afford people with a generous allowance of positive rights and provident moral institutions.
>> But again, we could collect a whole heap of evidence from people all over the globe, and we could say “Wow, people over here feel happy.” And “people over there say they’re sad” and so on. We could make correlations on kinds of political/economic systems and levels of self-reported happiness. I don’t see a problem with this at all. At least not as far as surveys go. <<
Mr. Harris' point, precisely.
And with that starting point, Harris thinks we can then make normative claims on things such as the political/economic systems (using your example).
A noble pusuit.
Again, I must ask, where exactly is the problem? 😉
Anthony,
The idea that we can correlate kinds of data and then figure out which economic and/or political arrangements to make (based on our moral goals) is something a critical mass already believes. Unless Harris takes himself to be talking to people that have a fundamental disagreement with him, he’s saying something boring and dressing it up as bold. To the extent he is talking to people with a fundamental disagreement, he’s saying something unwarranted and dressing it up as obvious. He slides back and forth, rhetorically.
But we’ve whipped this horse to death in the comment section of this blog (i.e. debated Harris’ actual thesis, his tone, his PR campaign, etc).
Suffice it to say for now, the banal point that we can collect data and use that data for policy guidance is not Harris’ point “precisely.”
>> Suffice it to say for now, the banal point that we can collect data and use that data for policy guidance is not Harris’ point “precisely.”
<<
Sure it is.
That's why he keeps getting criticized for attemping to bridge the "is/ought" distinction.
Imagine that some researcher gathered hundreds of first-person reports on happiness and that this researcher has only one basic standard for what counts as happiness, namely that the reporter think of themselves as happy. That was William James’s approach with respect to religious experience. His book is largely a collection of reports and if the reporter took his own experience as a religious experience, then so did James. He did not come to the task with a theory about the structure or causes or a set of standards to meet. He just took them at face value and then drew conclusions based on the wide varieties of religious experience that actual people suffer or enjoy – and then report. This is pretty far away from the classic scientific method, but it is empirically based in a broader sense, in the sense that it’s based on actual experience, as opposed to abstract or theoretical reasoning.
It seems to me that one could take this same basic approach but with the aid of more sophisticated survey questions, and probably should involve some slight of hand trickery so that people don’t quite realize what the researchers are trying to find out. I mean, a little deception for the sake of getting around the self-deceptive tendencies that are likely to emerge when faced with such existential questions. I suspect the survey questions should be very concrete and specific and otherwise avoid asking questions about happiness in the abstract.
Just a thought….
No it’s not. But then you’ll say “sure it is.” And then I’ll say “No it’s not.” yada yada yada.
To try and narrow the focus a bit, in order for a proposition to count as being one’s point “precisely,” gestures toward other points can’t be made, and ambiguous statements that coyly slide between bold and trivial can’t be a part of the message. Admittedly, Harris does make the trivial claim you attribute to him (that doesn’t actually challenge any significant or current philosophical strain in English speaking philosophy).
The reason (well, the main reasons) he keeps getting criticized for attempting to bridge the “is/ought” distinction is because of his subtitle, and because on his PR campaign he talks in very dismissive ways about how philosophers have conceived the gap between what is the case and what should be the case, and because of statements he makes in his book, all without really knowing what he’s talking about (or worse yet, knowing exactly what he’s talking about).
I say this because the idea that we can gather data and then use that data to decide which systems best fit our values is not, nor was it ever, a violation of the is/ought gap.
The main philosophical thought on the is/ought gap is nicely summarized here:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/metaethics/#IsOOpeQueArg
>> Imagine that some researcher gathered hundreds of first-person reports on happiness and … <<
I like this. For example, the survery could consist of questions related to "satisfaction" or whether the subject wished to change major things in their life for the better, etc.
It seems, to me, entirely feasible to create an effective "hapiness survey" without ever even using the word "happy". The results would still be revealing, empirical, and valid.
Good point, David.
Why are you people so convinced of the is/ought problem? And for that matter, why is non-cognitivism, the naturalistic fallacy, or open question argument any more persuasive than moral realism/naturalism? There is no shortage of principled resolutions to these complaints. I’d love to hear the knock-down argument that shows the fact-value distinction is valid.
Tom,
The formulation that is summarized by the SEP (the most authoritative summary you can find without access to a journal or something) that I linked to above, calls it like this:
“…at least part of Hume’s concern seems to have been that no set of claims about plain matters of fact (‘is’ claims) entail any evaluative claims (‘ought’ claims). That is, he seems to have thought, that one can infer the latter from the former only if, in addition to premises concerning plain matters of fact, one has on hand as well at least one evaluative premise. If, for instance, one infers from the fact that someone is feeling pain that something bad is happening, one is at least presupposing that pain is bad. And that presupposition, in turn, is not entailed by any claims concerned solely with plain matters of fact. If Hume is right, every valid argument for an evaluative conclusion either includes or presupposes some evaluative premise. And, as a result, there is no value neutral argument for an evaluative conclusion.”
Instead of me chasing my tail around trying to answer your challenge, why don’t you tell me what it is about the quoted portion above that you disagree with.
Suffice it to say for now that I agree that a value neutral argument cannot be made for a value laden conclusion. We could have just said this was obvious from the start and left it alone, but those impressed by Harris’ thesis won’t let us. I presume that the is/ought distinction and the naturalistic fallacy were historically important which is why they were made and become interesting to many people, but we don’t even have to debate that, since you’ve chosen to tackle the fact/value distinction head on.
Please keep in mind that the reality that facts and values have interplay is not new or revolutionary or contrary to the heart of the is/ought distinction.
(think of it like this: just because there is a separation of church and state, it doesn’t follow that people’s religious beliefs have no impact on their political goals, or that a young man thinking of becoming a police officer can’t seek counsel from a preacher or what not)
For those of you sympathetic to Harris’ thesis and not sympathetic to the “is/ought” distinction, which philosopher or philosophical movement are you answering or do you take Harris to be answering?
If you disagree with the point made in the relatively plain and subtle summary of the is/ought distinction I liked to from the SEP, what exactly is your disagreement? In other words, what is your argument that a value neutral argument can lead to a value laden conclusion?
If that’s not what you take the “is/ought” distinction to be, but instead believe it to be some crude dichotomy between what is the case and what should be the case, such that the two can never have anything to do with one another whatsoever, then who is it that made this argument? Is this a common argument? If so, there must be several famous philosophers, hell even a philosophical movement that advanced this thesis. Who are they? What is their movement called?
Tom,
In case it wasn’t clear what my answer is to your question (I don’t mean to merely turn the tables on you w/o stating my position as well), let me just say,
the idea that a value neutral line of reasoning can’t spawn a value-laden conclusion just seems obviously impossible to me. I know that’s not a knock down argument, but in my defense, I’ve never seen anyone do it. When people think they do it, it’s usually because they are using instrumental reasoning, “You want to do X, then you ought to do Y,” which shows that certain actions are well-fitted to certain goals. Unfortunately, this is not a refutation, since the goal of wanting X provides the instrumental impetus for the instrumental conclusion.
I’ve never seen it done, every effort to bridge the is/ought gap I’ve seen is confused, and the formulation of the is/ought distinction I linked to from the SEP (in other words, the is/ought distinction) seems as obvious as the day is long. I realize this won’t convince anyone else not already convinced, just like someone that doubts that 2+2=4 won’t be, but, if I’m wrong, it seems like someone should be able to demonstrate that the is/ought distinction is bunk. I’m all ears.
Let me clarify, then step away for the night, I meant to say
The ides that a value-neutral line of reasoning **can** spawn a value-laden conclusion just seems obviously impossible to me.
Got too cute for my own good. Again, before I step away, I may not have convinced you, but I think I’ve at least formulated it in a way that is sympathetic. If I’m wrong, it should be demonstrable.
>> I say this because the idea that we can gather data and then use that data to decide which systems best fit our values is not, nor was it ever, a violation of the is/ought gap. <<
Whether or not this is true, it was never a point I made. Nor was it a point I attributed to Harris.
The example given illustrated that we can gather empirical facts and, from them, make NORMATIVE CLAIMS (about things like political or economic systems). It says nothing about deciding whether such normative claims are (or are not) in line with our values. It's telling you what SHOULD value.
Tom, in #15, is correct in being skeptical of the traditional is/ought problem. If you agree that social convetion can carry any weight at all (and, clearly, it does) then it's trivial to derive an "ought" from an "is". To use Searle's example:
P1. I walk into a bar and order a drink that costs $5. ("is")
P2. I drink the drink. ("is")
Q1. I ought to pay for it. ("ought")
Basically, any type of commisive-statement (e.g. promise), implicit or explicit, can only work under the assumption of an "ought from is".
Your only move now, if you deny this, is to also deny the causal power of all social institutions (that includes natural language and everything you can do with it).
You can't have your cake and eat it to: if social interaction is meaningful (in ANY sense of the word) then you can EASILY derive an ought from an is.
p.s. You've mentioned, twice now, that Harris "slides back and forth, rhetorically" but I've seen no examples or evidence of this.
I'm not saying you're right or wrong, but if Harris does this, it wasn't obvious in his Moral Landscape book.
In your opinion, between which two stances does Harris seem to oscillate?
Before I answer the question at the end of your post (I don’t really have time right now, for one thing) we need to keep getting clear on is and ought…
Searle’s line of reasoning is an example of a non-sequitur unless it is an enthymeme. If it is an enthymeme (with the suppressed premise, say, “one has an obligation to pay one’s debts”) then it is not a counterexample of the is/ought distinction.
I haven’t denied the causal power of social institutions. If fact, I insist on the causal power of social norms and ideas. There is, however, a semantic split between mere reports of how things are, and recommendations of how things should be. Nothign about the mere facts of the matter recommends anything, unless one has an antecedent commitment of some sort, in which case all you’ve done is side-stepped the issue (which is fine, just not relevant). So, unless Searle has a suppressed moral premise, he has demonstrated nothing, logically. That people’s antecedent beliefs about meeting one’s obligations or what not causes them to act based on certain states of affairs does not collapse the is/ought distinction.
(seriously, the is/ought distinction doesn’t have to be that big an obstacle. I’m surprised Harris has chosen to pick a rhetorical bone with it, really. It’s like a kid that chooses to rebel against one of the most harmless of rules. I mean, perhaps the interplay between facts and values hasn’t been appreciated enough, historically, but that’s hardly news to anyone in contemporary philosophy. And a proposed dichotomy, such that facts and values have no interplay at all, is a position I can attribute to no one. If you know of a philosopher or movement that holds such a crude position, I would be open to hearing of it)
Now, I do plan on getting to your question. But for now, other than not having much time, we have to get clear on the central issue before moving on, in my humble opinion.
To Jay:
>> If you disagree with the point made in the relatively plain and subtle summary of the is/ought distinction I liked to from the SEP, what exactly is your disagreement? In other words, what is your argument that a value neutral argument can lead to a value laden conclusion? <<
Please see my post (and example) in #20.
Okay, slow down there, cowboy.
First you say the “is/ought” problem doesn’t have to be a big obstacle. (On that, we agree.)
But then, when I provide you with the example you’re looking for, you say that I’ve muddled up the definition of “is/ought” and that “we need to keep getting clear on is and ought”.
I *am* clear on the concept (it’s not a tough one to understand) but you just don’t like the answer. The plain fact is that one CAN (trivially) derive an “ought” from an “is” – I already showed how. It was then a totally arbitrary move on your part to claim “yeah, but that’s not the kind of ‘ought’ I had in mind”.
All “oughts” are value-laden, so I’m not sure what your (new?) argument is.
Searle’s example is NOT a non-sequitor and clearly shows the derivation. Like I said, you can’t have your philosophical cake and eat it, too: You can’t, on the one hand, participate in social constructs (like, oh, I dunno… THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE!) and on the other hand claim that one can’t derive an “ought” from an “is”. It’s inconsistent:
P1. I am a native English speaker. [“is”]
P2. I speak the sentence “My hair is brown” (and I intend it to be true). [“is”]
Q1. I ought to understand and accept (even vaguely) the socially-accepted definition of the word “fire” before I make my utterance. [“ought”]
Notice, it would be WRONG of me to say “My hair is brown” when, in fact, it’s blonde and my intention was never to deceive the listener.
And that’s the whole point: “ought” and “ought not” and synonymous with “right” and “wrong”, respectively.
In both Searle’s and my examples, we make normative claims about the RIGHT thing to do. (Hey, I told you it was trivial. I’m not sure why this is so hard to accept.)
To use your own definition: I just took some value-neutral premises and arrived at a value-laden conclusion. People do this everyday.
So, for the third time, where exactly is the problem?
Oops. In “Q1.”, above, the word in quotes should be “brown” not “fire”.
(I changed examples mid-type, as I did not want anyone to have nightmares of my hair on fire. 😉
I’m with Tom & Mr Draper here. In perfectly normal & uncontroversial English usage, there are all kinds of “is” statements that have “ought” built right into them.
Take a promise. There’s no meaningful way to describe what a promise “is” that doesn’t also include the provision that one “ought” to keep a promise. To go back to the man-walks-into-a-bar example, the same applies to any useful description of debts (which we could say are promises that are evaluated in cash terms).
If you think you can describe what a promise or a debt “is” in terms that are entirely innocent of “ought”, then I content that you haven’t understood those concepts completely.
It’s not to say though, that there could never such a thing as an “is/ought fallacy” of some kind. Many sloppy moral arguments may proceed from “is” to “ought” without sufficient justification. But that doesn’t mean we need to be fundamentalist about the distinction.
–R.
I’ll add, with regard to “happiness” I think part of the Harris’ project, intentional or not, is to try and break apart some of the term’s constituent components.
Over time, the term has gotten bogged down with all kinds of baggage and diverse conotations.
The two clearest are conflations of, I think, “meaning,” and “health.”
As a biological organism, the human being clearly has certain paremeters within which we might consider it to be healthy. Of course, one could imagine a perfectly healthy individual, including mentally healthy, to be “unhappy.”*
We have this with the idea of the person who “has it all,” but still seems unfulfilled. Rather than us happy for this, it might be more helpful to call them healthy in a mental and physical sense, while still lacking substantive “meaning” or purpose.
I mean, things usually seem to break down along these lines no? This might be a large pressumptive leap, but it seems on can either be pleasurably satisfied, and thus healthy or “happy” in the conventional sense, but still feel they lack a deeper kind of fulfillment than someone who is unhealthy or in unhappy circumstances, but finds themselves committed to a belief or “calling” that leaves them feeling spiritually “happy.”
All I really mean to suggest is that I think part, even much, of the disagreement over what “happiness” is comes down to the fact that the word is used to encompasse to many divergent phenomena. Harris’ project might not allow science to point toward an objective state of meaning/purpose/fulfilmment, but science does point toward a state of health.
On the other hand, I think Wes employs a bit too much skepticism/distrust when it comes to self reporting. Yes, we may incorrectly report facts about ourselves because we are not actually that knowledgeable about ourselves. But that kind of error seems unimportant. Because if don’t in any meaningful sense “know” that I’m unhappy, in what meaningful way can I be “unhappy?”
Anthony,
I did not say your ought was not the kind I had in mind. I said nothing of the sort.
Two things right off: A) It’s obvious oughts are value laden, but B) it’s not obvious is’s are. B is what’s important here.
Your formulation from Searle either had a suppressed moral premise, or was a non-sequitur.
Now you can choose to focus on one half the above sentence if you insist, but to be clear, there are two options:
1) Searle’s line of reasoning is an example of an enthymeme. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enthymeme
or
2) Searle’s line of reasoning is an example of a non-sequitur.
Now I’m happy to admit that #2 is false, IF #1 is true. So for you to merely deny that #2 is true is not really tackling the whole thing.
If you want to say that in everyday life, we often don’t make all our premises explicit, then I agree! Nor do we have to. If a philosopher somewhere out there said we have to make all our premises explicit to avoid committing a fallacy, then shame be on that philosopher.
But, just like rinky said, there could be such a thing as proceeding from an “is” to an “ought” with sufficient justification. As for rinky’s admonition against being a fundamentalist about the distinction, I would just like to be informed on which philosophers have been fundamentalists on the interplay of facts and values, and which philosophical positions or movements are the ones that need reeducating on this front.
Now, I agree we can, in everyday language, trivially move from “is” to “ought” but that’s because we share a moral framework (and it would be just too cumbersome to state all our premises). But no derivation has been made in these cases. Rather, the moral premises simply went unstated.
You can find this uninteresting if you wish, but I still haven’t figured out whether you wish to simply admit that we’re often dealing with unstated moral premises when we move from ought to is (in which case we trivially move from ought to is) or that the fact of the matter literally has in it the premise justifying the derivation to a moral conclusion. If it’s the former, it’s the warranted (but trivial) thesis, if it’s the latter, it’s the bold (but unwarranted) thesis.
So, do you believe Searle’s line of reasoning, and those like it, are an example of a suppressed premise, or are you wiling to explicitly assert that the Searle’s “is” premises literally provide the justification for his conclusion, even without a suppressed moral premise?
I’m very interested in your answer Anthony, but in the meantime, I just want to say that rinky warned that there could be examples of moving from “is” to “ought” *without* sufficient justification. I think I botched that word *without* (I need to type slower).
Whether you’re someone that needs to hear that warning or not, I’m not sure yet.
Also, I should clarify that when we have a suppressed moral premise, we do have a derivation (I should have been clearer on that point). But such a derivation is, technically speaking, from ought to ought, not from is to ought.
Also, I should clarify, the question is about moving from is to ought, not ought to is, as I clumsily said near the end of my recent post. The post with the $64,000 question: are we literally deriving oughts from is’s even WITHOUT a suppressed moral premise, or are we actually making derivations from ought to ought?
Jay,
Intereting comments. I find this non-cognitivist line of criticism is fair for values of an emotivist, idealist, or constructivist variety. However, I fail to see the problem with using evaluative or normative claims that are stringently rational/instrumental. Let me sketch out the basic position I’d take, and then I’ll respond to your criticism.
My argument would be that the practical rational ends of human beings overlap with a species of intrinsic value. I’ll explain what I mean by reformualting Aristotle’s orginal argument. All rational activity is an attempt to achieve or avoid an end or state of affairs. Ends are produced by rational activities or the consequences of those activities. Ends are performed for their own sake or for the sake of something else. Ends that result from activities are by nature more final than the actions that produced them. Futhermore, all rational activities are ordered in terms of their finality. The highest or most final of these is that for the sake of which everything else is done. Therefore, all human ends are of relative value to the highest end of human beings. The more final an end, the greater its corresponding value. So, in this case, values are adjacent properties of the implicit ordering of practical rational activity. This implies that values are concordant with, or at least dependent upon, the practical endeavours of human beings. Happily, this position is consistent with moral naturalism and virtue ethics, and appears to side-step the main criticisms from non-cognitivism.
Now for your objection. You claim that the desire to do X smuggles an “ought” into an otherwise pure case of instrumental reasoning. I’ll grant you that people require motivation in order to act. However, this does not invalidate the points above. For one thing, desire is not an evaluative premise, it’s value-neutral. As the outline above makes clear, values are attendant properties of the practical rational activity. Their evaluative status is ranked and tied to a scheme of releative ends. Well, it would be my view that the source of normativity flows out of the summum bonum, which supplies the structure, ground, and direction for all other activity. So, a person that is perceptive of this ordering (e.g., the “virtuous man” or”true judge”) rightly values things in an objective manner. In turn, the apprehension of value would incite the desires and passions required for normative conduct. So, were does that leave us? Both value and normativity are potentially accounted for on this view, the fact-value distinction is dissolved, and the is-ought problem turns out to be a skeptical mess.
To take the Searle example, we can say that the institution of promise-keeping is enfolded into the ends of honesty, cooperation, respect, and so on. Those ends in turn can be more or less productive of the collective ends of human beings. And on that basis their intrinsic worth can be derived rationally, as either being more or less true. The “ought” or normativity is embedded in the fact of inherent value of human ends. And so the fact of a promise entails an ought, whether or not this is recognized, accepted, or desired. If you’re still not satisfied with this formulation, then I would respond that we can supplement these arguments with a bevy of axioms based on natural law such as: 1) human beings are rational creatures, or 2) human beings are moved by desire. Denying this provision would be a reductio ad absurdum.
My apologies for the delay and length.
Happiness is an English word that has a history. It is a fairly diffuse concept, so people can mean different things when they say they are happy. For a given subjective state, one person might label it happiness and another may not. I can’t remember where exactly but some greeks argued that a a certain king could not be said to be “happy” (i.e. the word we translate as “happy”) — because of the disasters that befell his kingdom and posterity *after* he died. I think it’s in Herodotus somewhere.
Taking such a culture bound and diffuse word, and trying to wrestle it into either being a concept worthy of scientific or philosophical study, is a mistake. I see no evidence that there is such a thing to be studied.
“Why do people say they’re “happy”?” That can be studied empirically. But we should not conclude from such a study that “Happiness is X”. The fact that a great many people talk about happiness as if it existed and they knew it when they experience it, doesn’t prove that it exists or that each person is the authority on it.
The Aristotelean statement “Happiness is a being at work of the soul” is to me neither a scientific or philosophical one. It merely hitches together the word “happiness” with a philosophical construct. If you’re looking for a single word to use instead of the longer “being at work of the soul”, why not use the work “oinkaboink”? That doesn’t have the same problems of diffusion and connotation as “happiness”. Then you can study that philosophical construct, its roots, relevance, and consequences, in a much more rigorous way.
Millions of years from now, someone may learn to read our ancient tongue and find every word fraught with error and superstition. “Happiness” might be the one they find the strangest and most misguided.
I can’t tell if you’re responding to my post or what. I never used the word “happiness.” The summum bonum or highest good is eudaimonia. Translating this concept as happiness has always been a profound error in coming to terms with Aristotle’s ethics. A less offensive translation might be an “objective state of human flourishing.” That the virtuous person experiences a measure of subjective well-being or pleasure is a by-product of fulfilling man’s proper function.
As Aristotle’s function argument makes clear, although it is by no means a complete statement, the distinctive function or work of human beings is a rational principle displayed in action. To be a “good” human being is to perform this function well, to perform it well requires the virtues. So the general claim is that a good human being is one whose rational activity is in harmony with virtue. By inculcating the virtues you invariably promote eudaimonia.
What follows from this is not a scientific inquisition into the nature of “happiness.” At most, what it compels us to do is to determine those functions that are either self-sufficiently rational or susceptible to reason, and to provide an account of what can be done to ensure their successful operation. You could easily reconstruct a scientifically-informed virtue ethics by appealing to evolutionary biology, psychology, neuroscience, sociology, and the like. For example, practical reason could be grounded scientifically with a model of executive function. The moral functions could be studied in the context of emotion regulation. Each function/virtue could be grounded by self-determination theory, or some similar psychological construct. There are plenty of opportunities to initiate a scientific account of virtue ethics; In fact, this work has already begun and is accelerating.
In a modern theory of virtue ethics and jurisprudence, the first step would to establish a taxonomy of optimal human functioning. Then to account for the practical conditions or means that are productive of those capacities. And finally, to legitimate, by empirical evidence and philosophical or legal argument, those rights, laws, and policies that contribute to the well-ordered functioning of human beings.
As I stated in an earlier post, subjective well-being or pleasure or what people report as happiness should not be the object of inquiry. For one it will contaminate the evidence-base, and second, it is too multifaceted to be studied empirically. Once you see the connection between eudaimonia and virtue you can dispense with this quixotic crusade for happiness.
Tom,
No problem on the delay. I’m getting ready to head out for the Labor Day Weekend and so am strained on time myself.
Let me just say that I think we’re talking past one another. Moral realism is one thing. We’re still stuck on the fact/value distinction. I could believe in the fact/value distinction and be a realist or a skeptic. I think we shouldn’t try to take on so much that we cross paths on the argument (not that we can’t take on realism and the like, it’s just that we should take on the fact/value distinction first).
You asked why anyone would be impressed with the fact/value distinction. I’ve tried to give my reasons. In response, you and others stress the ways that facts and values interplay. I don’t know how to make it any plainer than to say that I acknowledge that facts and values interplay. I just don’t think this collapses the distinction. Church and state interplay, but there is a distinction. So the fact that there is a push and pull, or give and take, does not collapse a distinction, not necessarily.
And I accept your axioms. But that’s more grist for my mill. The fact that you explicitly acknowledge axioms only underscores the point that such axioms (or premises) must be present in order for the derivation to be valid (in the logical sense of the word valid).
And how about we add an example to your axioms?
Johnny wants to kill Southerners.
Southerners eat a lot of BBQ.
Johnny should poison the BBQ supply of the South.
If we use desire or means-end lines of reasoning, we can prove all sorts of things valid. Some things will be things we call good, other we’ll call bad. Both will be valid because of their connection to an antecedent premise that includes either a desire or value. If it’s merely desire, then all sorts of bad things can validly follow, and so we’ve gotten no where in terms of deriving what we insist are *morally good* conclusions. In terms of whether a value commitment already exists, if a moral premise is present, no derivation from is to ought has been made, but rather from ought to ought.
Either way, a subjective state can supply a premise to a valid ought conclusion. What the is/ought distinction challenges you to do is to take a merely objective state of affairs and derive a moral conclusion from that. Once the nature of the problem is grasped, I don’t know why anyone would even care to try. But that’s what Harris and many sympathetic to his thesis are doing.
Let me just stress real quick (I’m better when I can edit a post, rather than clarify to death in new posts) that maybe Harris isn’t trying to collapse the distinction in the crude way of deriving an ought from an is even without a suppressed premise. But an unsuspecting reader should be forgiven for thinking he is. Also, maybe Anthony Draper isn’t trying to literally derive an ought from and is without a suppressed premise (I await his answer) but at first glance, it’s plausible that he is.
I know Harris attempts to “avoid” the is/ought problem (that in his introduction to TML he glibly dismisses as a “verbal trap”), which is actually a pretty easy thing. It’s just that we shouldn’t pretend that there’s an actually existing philosophical movement that is being dethroned here. I mean, if you can identify a group or doctrine that literally asserts that our desires have no impact on our actions, or that we don’t commonly leave moral premises unarticulated, I would be willing to criticize them myself. As it stands, I think there’s either a whole lot of nothing here (in which case we’re just talking about people’s desires serving as bases for their actions and recommendations) or we’re talking about something pretty unwarranted (where value-laden conclusions are literally derived from the meaning of merely objective states of affairs).
Jay,
On the fact/value distinction, I’m not sure we’re on the same page. You say that facts and values have “interplay.” This doesn’t capture the issue I think since you’re still presupposing that facts and values are separate ontological categories. As far as I can tell, the values that I described are concordant, or in some sense identical to the facts of practical rational activity. So what I’m claiming is that facts and values, in this particular case, belong to one and the same ontology. To be a rational end is to simultaneously be a value, and by extension, an “ought.” If there is any distinction at all in this discussion, it’s taking place at a higher-level of description or is an emergent property akin to the relation between atoms and physical objects.
Moreover, you seem to be saying that values or desires are antecedent to ends, while I’m saying the reverse. It is our understanding and factual beliefs about practical reality that grounds value and desire. In other words, values and desires are truth-dependent. What one person believes and what one person values are both subject to error. Subjective values can be completely at odds with objective values. Therefore, a morally good conclusion on this account requires a true correspondence between people’s relative preferences and the intrinsic worth of human ends.
Concerning the axioms, as I said, these would need to depend on natural law. You can’t simply append an arbitrary assumption to whatever seems to fit a certain case and expect that to have validity. That human beings are rational or desiring creatures is apt because it is a form of soft essentialism. Clearly, there is going to be variation in evolution, and there is always the exception of someone being born with a particular defect. However, we can’t dispense with an axiom simply because it isn’t true absolutely. It would be sufficient, in my view, to qualify our axioms as being true for the most part.
Tom,
Whether natural law justifies some end, or value is a part of the same ontology that contains scientific law, well, that’s what’s in question. You clearly believe that they’re the same. That’s fine. But that doesn’t settle the issue. You may in fact be right. That doesn’t matter so much yet, and though I can’t be sure, I feel like you presuming that the outcome of the debate over the is/ought distinction is more or less tied to the issue of whether facts and values are a part of the same ontology. I don’t see it that way. I mean hell, if values exist, and if facts exist, there’s no reason to assume that there’s some huge ontological gulf between the two.
What I actually believe about moral ends is that they are akin to the desires or values that can make up the premises in a line of reasoning that validly derives a moral conclusion. The conclusion of a line of reasoning can contain human “ends” as a premise.
As for validity, yes, actually, you can include whatever you like. Please note that validity is not the same as soundness, when it comes to logic. If one is saying that an objective state of affairs is what *logically* or even empirically justifies a moral conclusion (without allowing moral axioms or premises in the first place) then they have some explaining to do.
What we know is that things are the way they are. Then we have hopes and wishes about the way we wish they would be. Whether some of those hopes and wishes are good, or whether those hopes or wishes are essential to our nature or what not, is interesting, but even if I allowed that good exists exactly as you imagine it, it will would change the fact that the mere fact of the matter does not contain the reason giving power that we want out of morality.
Now, what was wrong with my line of reasoning? You know the one where I concluded that Johnny ought to poison the BBQ supply of the South? Remember, we’re talking about intellectually/epistemological standards here, not about whether you find my conclusion immoral.
I whole-heatedly believe that this debate rests on an ontological distinction. Facts are truthful states of affairs, values are purported not to be, according to Hume. The implication is obvious: The justification for morality is reduced to subjective consensus or individual caprice. If this is a correct interpretation of the fact/value distinction, I need to reject it. To my mind, the fact/value distinction is morally arbitrary. Human values or norms require an objective anchor one kind or another to supply it with some semblance of moral legitimacy.
Btw, I’m using the term ‘valid’ in the general sense of rational/evaluative cogency. An instrumental argument, then, does not deduce an evaluative conclusion from factual AND evaluative premises. The factual premise is an evalutative premise, and therefore the conclusion has the same character. On that basis, means-ends reasoning of the form already canvassed has as much logical force as we might expect from a moral argument.
I think the BBQ example you gave is defective because it lacks the quality of universality/soft essentialism that would be required in an axiom; not because the argument is formally unsound. However, I think the main problem with the argument is that it’s presented in isolation and so is concealing a number of other relevant premises. I believe a comprehensive practical analysis of his claim would reveal to the extent to which Johnny’s ends are morally justified. If it turns out that Southerners are killing Johnny’s family and loved ones, then we might suspect that his desires have a measure of moral force. On the other hand, if Johnny is out of touch with the nature of his own interests and the interests of others, then his ends are likely unjustified for the same reason I gave earlier.
That all I have for now, I may add more later.
Well, we’re not making any progress. I wonder what I could say to get you to set aside the realist/anti-realist concern?
OK. So moral non-naturalists and intuitionists are moral realists. Error theorists and positivists are skeptics. They all agree on the general force of the semantic split between facts and values.
If you insist on focusing solely on your priors on moral universalism and essentialism rather than entertaining the possibility that there’s something else going on here as well, we’ll get nowhere, unfortunately.
That’s the thing, I’ve entertained this possibility, and still do. However, the arguments presented so far do not seem particularly persuasive. The positions I’ve examined tend to overextend their intuitions and end up confusing themselves with the obscurities of analytic language. It seems to me that the best position is one that is comprehensive and inclusive of other views. I think the position I’m defending does that, and moreover, can account for disagreements between moral non-naturalism, utilitarianism, error theories, and the like. In the end, I think the most comprehensive, inclusive, and coherent view is likely to be the correct one (i.e., reflective equilibrium). Failing that, it has relative epistemic credibility.
Incidentally,
Though I believe in order for the tie from premise to conclusion to hold, moral premises must be present, I’m not saying the naturalistic fallacy is an actual logical fallacy. I’m saying that the meaning of mere facts of the matter aren’t the same as the meaning of moral assertions. Of course that the naturalistic fallacy is not an actual logical fallacy would be of no surprise to anyone wising to write a book touching on the topic, since that person would surely want to catch up with the actual philosophical literature on the topic, and to convey to the layperson the state of philosophical thinking on the matter. Right? :/ Well…
Anyway, that the naturalistic fallacy is still getting at something important, and that the is/ought distinction is alive and well, now that’s another matter.
So if it helps, I’ll admit that technically speaking,
The moon is made of cheese
It is 70 degrees outside
I should murder Catherine the Great
is not literally fallacious, even though it doesn’t provide normative justification of the recommendation in the conclusion.
So I may by more closely concerned with common ways of speaking than it appears at first, I mean, I acknowledge that logical validity is a very low standard.
The important thing is that normative recommendations and/or moral appraisal are not contained, semantically, in reports of mere facts.
I find it a bit ironic that Harris readers need to be convinced of this, considering Dawkins once waxed romantic about returning to the days of positivism.
But Tom, we’re not talking about overall ontological positions yet.
Let’s go back to your original post in this thread:
“Why are you people so convinced of the is/ought problem? And for that matter, why is non-cognitivism, the naturalistic fallacy, or open question argument any more persuasive than moral realism/naturalism? There is no shortage of principled resolutions to these complaints. I’d love to hear the knock-down argument that shows the fact-value distinction is valid.”
So you ask
1) What is it that is compelling of the is/ought problem?
2) Why is non-cognitivism more persuasive than moral realism?
3) Why is non-naturalism more persuasive than moral naturalism?
4) Why is the open question argument more persuasive than moral naturalism?
5) What is the argument that the fact/value distinction is valid?
These questions each deserve their own attention.
Well, 1 and 5 are similar enough to be collapsed into one (call it “1&5”). So on 1&5, you are assuming that the only thing going on is ontological, rather than semantic. And by semantic, I don’t mean the colloquial use of the term “not important.” I’ve tried to tell you that the meaning of mere facts does not contain reason giving power for recommendations or actions, at least not on their own separated from antecedent desires/ends, yet you stomp your foot on the ontology issue. I’ve even acknowledged that if values exist, then I cannot see any reason to assume there’s a fundamental ontological dualism between facts and values. So many of your points are flying past.
On question 2, there may be some people motivated by Hume and Moore to adopt non-cognitivism, but I don’t know why you would assume that one motivated by Hume and Moore (or in other words, impressed with the is/ought distinction and open question argument) is obligated to be non-cognitivist.
On question 3, we would have to get very clear on things first. There is debate over whether non-naturalists are anti-naturalists, or in other words, if they’re necessarily dualists. There is a new strain of thinking in moral realism called “non-reductive naturalism” that is both naturalist and impressed with the is/ought distinction and the open question argument.
On question 4, again we would have to get very clear on things. Non reductive naturalists are careful to not run afoul of the open question argument, and they consider themselves naturalists.
There is a lot going on here with the is/ought distinction and the like.
Jay,
On 1&5, I take you be saying that the semantic content of factual claims is deprived of evaluative/normative entailments. If so, I’d like you to explain what the problem is in the following argument:
Axiom: All human beings aim/desire to achieve the highest good.
Premise 1: Temperance promotes the highest good for human beings.
Premise 2: Mike is an intemperate human being.
Conclusion: Therefore, Mike ought to act more temperately.
As for 2, I think the fact/value distinction (defined as an ontological split) is inherently non-cognitivist (i.e., values are not truth-dependent). You’ll have to explain how you can hold that human values can simultaneously be true/not-true. If you want to define the fact/value issue differently, I’m all ears. So far, I don’t see what you’re getting at. The open question argument is a separate point, and I can provide different reasons for rejecting it.
I have no qualms with 3. Moral naturalism and non-reductive naturalism are both stating similar theses. As I mentioned earlier, I think values are either identical or emergent properties of factual states of affairs. The identity argument falls into the first camp, while the supervenience argument falls into the second. That’s fine, I’ve already acknowledged that the is-ought/fact-value distinction might share an identity relation akin to atoms and physical objects. However, it’s an additional step to guarantee that supervenient properties are irreducible. I suspect a simpler explanation exists. Still, supposing evaluative/normative properties are in fact irreducible it would still be possible to provide an explanation of the phenomena in terms of an ordered system or hierarchy, with lower-level elements serving higher-level irreducible elements. This would still allow us to determine values in a general way by considering their relative position (i.e., higher and lower goods). This sort of imprecision does not pose a significant barrier for deriving our normative judgements. And, moreover, it is still thoroughly naturalistic. So if we’re in agreement on that, wonderful. Stated in this way, the fact/value or is/ought distinction is superfluous.
BTW Tom, I think I ran out of room on the thread, so my most recent post above is in response to your post that said this,
“That’s the thing, I’ve entertained this possibility, and still do. However, the arguments presented so far do not seem particularly persuasive. The positions I’ve examined tend to overextend their intuitions and end up confusing themselves with the obscurities of analytic language. It seems to me that the best position is one that is comprehensive and inclusive of other views. I think the position I’m defending does that, and moreover, can account for disagreements between moral non-naturalism, utilitarianism, error theories, and the like. In the end, I think the most comprehensive, inclusive, and coherent view is likely to be the correct one (i.e., reflective equilibrium). Failing that, it has relative epistemic credibility.”
Tom, the is/ought distinction does not mean true/not true. You’ll have to tell me why you think it does.
What I’m getting at is the fact/value distinction, which is akin to the is/ought problem. I linked to the SEP’s summary of what the is/ought problem is, which is a much more authoritative source than Sam Harris. And I’ve already said I don’t take there to be an ontological gulf between facts and values.
So on second thought, maybe we should separate 1 and 5. On 5, since it could imply a deep ontological gulf between facts and values, so let’s separate it. Now, on 1, which is the is/ought distinction, it does not necessarily ontologically sever facts and values (one might take it that way, another might not).
On whether the is/ought distinction is superfluous, well, if so, that’s no reason to fight against it. I think we we would have to talk about whether it was historically trivial or not. But even if we decided it was, denying it wouldn’t be the way to go. There’s a difference between saying “I deny the truth of X” on the one hand and “I don’t think X is that big a problem” on the other.
I’m gradually running of time; if I don’t get back to a response of yours, it may be cuz the girlfriend told me that the state of affairs of me continuing to date her implied that I ought to help her pack for the weekend (I’ll hold off on explaining the is/ought distinction to her for now).
BTW, there’s nothing wrong with your formulation about Mike and his temperance, but you should admit that there’s nothing wrong with the formulation
*There is a subgroup of people that don’t care about other people’s feelings and instead desire to torture others.
*Mike is one of those people.
*Therefore, Mike ought to torture the woman he just kidnapped.
It’s as tailored to Mike’s desires as your formulation is. Now, if you reject the goodness of Mike desires, well, now we’re talking about something different. To shore things up, I suggest you add the premise that people ought to promote the highest good of humans (and it would help even more if you add that people ought to do this even if they lack the desire to be temperate).
Just be more explicit in your premises about tailoring them to your conclusion. Of course, someone may some along and deny your premise, then you may have a problem. But the problem won’t be in deriving an ought from an is.
Jay,
You said, “the is/ought distinction does not mean true/not true.” The is/ought problem is a consequence of the fact/value distinction. What leads you to believe otherwise? Facts are established by objective reasoning and have propositional content. Values are “non-cognitive” (i.e., non-rational) and so do not pretend to provide truth or falsity; values are thoroughly subjective; expressing attitudes, emotions, tastes, etc. On this view, the statement, “capital punishment is wrong,” has no truth-value; I’d have to add an evaluative premise, as we’ve already covered, to the effect that “death is unaccaptable.” That “death is unacceptable” is not true or false, thus the conclusion concerning capital punishment is not a factual statement; it has no intrinsic moral justification beyond subjective taste and sentimental consensus. The is/ought problem implies the same disjunction between objective truth and moral sensibilities. That sums up Hume’s argument. Someone who is persuaded by this line of reasoning is by default a non-cognitivist. You already know why I object to it, so I’ll move on.
Btw, I’m not a devotee of Sam Harris, although I assume we’re coming from similar quarters.
Now, as for the open question argument, we’re dealing with a separate claim. I’ll quote a part from SEP on moral epistemology:
“Why does Moore think that the identity in question is impossible, apart from our methods of reasoning? Moore’s answer is his “open question argument.” Moore reasons, if the identity illustrated in the last example were to hold, it would be odd to ask, “I know this activity is pleasurable, but is it morally good?” After all, if being pleasurable just is the property of being morally good, then to ask this would be like asking, “I know this activity is pleasurable, but is it pleasurable?” Since the original question is “open,” rather than silly or self-answering, the identity must not obtain. Since exactly the same point can be made regarding any putative identity between a moral property and a natural property, Moore concludes that no such identity is possible.”
So what Moore is saying here is that moral properties are redundant with natural facts and therefore the identity relation must not hold. This is why he thought moral knowledge was non-natural, and entirely unverifiable by experience. The argument falls apart on a number of counts. First, there is no logical error in deriving moral knowledge through experience. Moral knowledge can be obtained by trialing our hypotheses against our moral experience, thereby inferring the most probable explanations: A priori reasoning is non-essential. Moreover, identities between moral properties and factual conditions are not dissimilar to those we observe in nature. The article clarifies this issue. The simplest explanation would indicate that facts and values are either naturalistic, supervenient, or supervenient and irreducible natural properties. So I presume you’re Hume/Moore addicts are in the last camp. I still don’t think that’s right, but I’ll drop the issue for now.
I’m not sure if we’re going in circles or not. This issue is settled from my own perspective. If the fact/value-is/ought distinction doesn’t lead us to any interesting philosophical implications, then I’d say it’s pretty superfluous. However, I do think it’s relevant insofar as it continues to be propped up as a logical fallacy against legitimate normative issues. I’ve had this fallacy/problem thrown at me a number of times already by people who had nil understanding of what they were talking about. I think a lot of people assume that simply because the word “fallacy” and “natural” are tied together in the work of some notable philosophers, then that must mean it’s a serious logical error. The same issue pops up with the ad hominem fallacies, which are not nearly as fallacious as they might appear (e.g., see Walton). At any rate, this is part of the reason I wanted to hear people articulate the problem in their own words. Well, so far so good on that front.
There are definitely some lingering disagreements in the air, re: non-reductionism and its role in our normative judgements. But, I think I’ll leave it at that for now. I have a tendency to write too much. Thanks for your comments/feedback. Be sure to have a virtuous Labor Day 😉
Tom,
First, I appreciate you going to the SEP. But as for what the is/ought distinction is, what the naturalistic fallacy is, etc, it’s not necessarily whatever people conversationally through at you. It’s more likely what the philosophical tradition says it is. So one wishing to know what these things are about would have to read Moore, Hume, and then more contemporary sources on where Moore and Hume overstated their case, what the core of their argument is, and whether the core of their argument survives even if we stop short of accepting everything they said. Sam Harris glibly brushes aside the is/ought problem as a verbal trap early on in TML, and continually provides such a superficial interpretation throughout the book as to count as misleading. I know you’ve said you aren’t a devotee of his and I believe you, I’m just saying, this thread has to do with Harris. And what I’m stressing is that philosophical sources would be the place to go to determine what the is/ought problem is, what the fact/value distinction is, etc. And what I want to stress at least as emphatically is that meta-ethical sources are the place to go. So it’s necessary but not sufficient to include philosophy, because the subfield of meta-ethics is the ultimate source of authority of these matters since they are the ones that devote their professional lives to studying it. Now, I’m definitely not saying that you must agree with the opinions of philosophers specializing in meta-ethics, just that they’re the authoritative historical sources of what these things actually mean. Both sides doing their due diligence on this front is important not only so both parties can be nimble with the terms and the taxonomical positions (what view necessarily implies which position, what positions can share the same root view, etc), but so the parties can get clear on what the core issue is.
So, lemme try this again: the name “naturalistic fallacy” is a misnomer because Moore spent so much time explaining supernatural versions of it. What emerges is something like a “descriptive” fallacy. Also, the term “fallacy” is question begging insofar as it is claimed to be a formal fallacy on par with affirming the consequent.
So insofar as Moore led to ill-considered accusations of fallacious reasoning in casual conversation, namely accusations of a literal “fallacy” of the naturalistic variety, then shame shame shame be on the soul of G.E. Moore!
Now, with that out of the way, the word “fallacy” is often used informally (e.g. ad hominem) or colloquially (see Joseph Heath’s Economics for People who Hate Capitalism for 6 economic “fallacies” of the right and the left).
So even with the shame we heap upon Moore’s soul, there could be something insightful there left. Same with Hume. I believe non-reductive naturalists think so (and I think their example is in the center of this topic, not on the periphery).
Now, those impressed with the is/ought and/or fact/value distinction, might be congnitivists or non-cognitivists. Non-cognitivists we pretty much have covered: they don’t believe moral statements are “false” per se, just not truth apt. As for the cognitivists, they might be realists or skeptics. The cognitivist skeptics are error theorists, the cognitivist realists might be non-naturalists or non-reductive naturalists.
The only reason I tried to make a distinction between is/ought on the one hand and fact/value on the other is that I was trying to grant you your ontological issue while carving out for myself an epistemological/semantic position. But at first glance I really have no reason to spilt them up – not *necessarily* at least. When one sees the is/ought (or fact/value) distinction, it *might* be that an ontological distinction is being asserted, but *just might* be the case that an epistemological position is being asserted.
Some people impressed with the is/ought distinction are motivated to say that the reason for it is because moral values are merely prescriptions or tastes or something (non-cognitivsts) while others are motivated to say that the is/ought distinction is due to the fact that in spite of what people commonly believe, there are in fact no moral values, that such values would have to be “queer” from the perspective of naturalism (these are error theorists, who are cognitivist moral skeptics). Still others see the is/ought distinction and decide that moral values are different than merely descriptive facts. Among this group, some are non-naturalists, and others non-reductive naturalists. Now, in this last group, on one end you have explicit dualists, on the other you have non-reductive naturalists that entertain the idea that moral and descriptive facts are both wholly natural but are different kinds of properties.
It should be stressed, however, that the line between non-naturalism and non-reductive naturalism sometimes gets blurry. Some may believe that non-naturalism ultimately must collapse into dualism, but others say that the main difference between non-naturalism and non-reductive naturalism is a difference in what science can ultimately study (with the possibility of an ironic lumping together or skeptics and non-naturalists against non-reductive naturalists).
Now, if you wish to disagree completely with the is/ought issue, and takes sides against non-reductive naturalism, I’ll eventually just have to ascribe a position to you. In other words, if you say that moral and merely descriptive properties are wholly the same in kind, even such that you won’t even countenance a fundamental difference in semantics/epistemology (and on the ontological front assert against non-reductive naturalists that there is no difference even in properties between moral and descriptive facts)I’m eventually just going to have to assume that you believe a statement like “the man over there is choking” literally means “I must help him.” But I deny that it literally means such a thing, since it could be that it’s a Nazi central to the German WWII effort that the world would be better off without. And the fact that you think “ought” statements literally are the same as mere descriptions of the world (descriptions analogizing our sensory experience in the physical sciences) is something that I find very puzzling. I can’t be sure that you think this, but with the adamant way you deny any split whatsoever between facts and values, between is and ought, I have to entertain the idea that you believe moral statements are literally the same in kind as descriptive statements. As for me, when I hear, “it’s 32 degrees outside” I don’t think anything moral flows from it. Now, if you told me that we needed to freeze something, and that we had certain goals that included such a thing, then I would agree that the semantic meaning of the chain of reasoning (which would include our goals, the temperature at which water freezes, etc) implies an action. But a mere descriptive statement doesn’t mean anything moral. But I see that you disagree with that (please note that *of course* if values exist, then it *is* the case that they exist, hence the term “merely descriptive”).
That’s all I have time for right now. Gotta unpack and get ready for the week. Hope you good a good Labor Day weekend as well.
Tom, real quick,
I meant that it’s not what people conversationally “throw” at you (I always type “through” when I mean “throw,” without thinking). Also, one proposed difference between non-naturalism and non-reductive naturalism in meta-ethics is *a difference of opinion* over what science can properly proclaim as true. Also I should have included that even everyday naturalists can be moral realists, without being non-reductive (it’s just that I was trying to say that among those impressed with the is/ought distinction, non-reductive naturalists are the only naturalist-realists). Those are just a few small things that you probably didn’t need. But I did think of a couple more things to say so I thought I would “throw” it in.
What I was going to say is that it seems to me that you’re gesturing at something like
“the is/ought distinction is about dualism or positivism over facts and values such that one who holds the distinction is either a non-naturalist or non-cognitivist. Or if these aren’t the case, then the fact/value, is/ought distinction is superfluous.”
I just want to say that I don’t agree with this disjunction – that the is/ought distinction is held by only non-natrualists and non-cognitivists. And I also don’t agree with the disjunction that if this fails, then the is/ought distinction is superfluous. Still, that would be a whole other conversation to have. Suffice it say for now, I’m saying that there’s more to the is/ought distinction than you’re allowing. Whether that means the is/ought distinction is superfluous is something else.
And, I haven’t said there’s a *dichotomy* between facts and values, but a distinction. Even Hilary Putnam (who wrote Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy) admits there’s a distinction. This is what you’re denying.
As for the distinction, non-reductive naturalism doesn’t collapse it. And insofar as we’re talking about meta-ethics, non-reductive naturalism should be lumped with non-naturalism since they’re both a non-reductive form of moral realism. Now, it may be that in more purely meta-physical conversations non-reductive naturalism has more in common with naturalism in general, but non-reductive naturalism is in at least one interesting way, more akin to the other positions insofar as we’re talking about the is/ought distinction (non-cognitivists, error theorists, non-naturalists).
Jay,
I had a response prepared for you. But, I think I’ll exercise some tact here and simply leave my e-mail if you’d rather hash out these issues in other medium: thomas.j.anders@gmail.com.
Offhand, I was intent on defending a variant of neo-Aristotelian naturalism. Specifically, (1) that moral intuitions (e.g., altruism, sympathy) express factual norms resulting from evolutionary conditioning, (2) that practical reason reflects autonomous normative standards, and (3) that a class of moral values are reducible to functional predicates.
Tom,
One more thing real quick, then I really have to help pack and clean up (since, as a premise, end, or what have you, I aim to continue dating my girlfriend).
You’ve signaled some tolerance for non-reductive naturalism. That’s fine. And while I’m sure there would be some affinity between those that hold the meta-ethical position “non-reductive naturalism” and some of the positions on emergence you’ve gestured toward, what we can’t miss here is that the most relevant signal (to this discussion, since you’ve asked what’s compelling about the is/ought distinction) being sent from non-reductive naturalists *in meta-ethics* is not ontological non-reduction, but semantic non-reduction (I don’t doubt that they’re also ontological non-reductionists, I’m just insisting that they’re careful about the is/ought distinction, and deriving one from another). So those that adhere to non-reductive naturalism (as a meta-ethical position) can see themselves in the tradition of David Hume and G.E. Moore.
Dualism is not necessary, just non-reductionism. And when it comes to meta-ethics, non-reductionism is not exhausted just by saying “emergence.” In meta-ethics, it’s also important to say that even while working hard to avoid dualism, non-reductive naturalists understand that a mere state of affairs does not imply any ought.
They don’t then say that the gulf between “is” and “ought” is so unbridgeable that we might as well not include facts in our moral evaluations, or that our moral priors won’t cause us to take certain states of affairs as motivations to do this or that. It would be silly if they led with their chin like that. Then again, the point about is and ought is solid. I think deep down you agree. I mean, surely you do, otherwise I could say,
Mike is put in a bad mood by rain.
When Mike is put in a bad mood, Mike kills people.
It is raining outside.
Therefore, Mike ought to kill people.
I mean hell, just because Mike *does* kill people when it rains, doesn’t mean he should. Now, I know my conclusion runs afoul of your moral priors (and, for what it’s worth, with my moral priors as well) but that’s not of primary importance here in this discussion.
Have a good Labor Day Weekend. I’ll check back in early in the week.
>> Two things right off: A) It’s obvious oughts are value laden, but B) it’s not obvious is’s are. B is what’s important here. <> Your formulation from Searle either had a suppressed moral premise, or was a non-sequitur. <> “The ides that a value-neutral line of reasoning **can** spawn a value-laden conclusion just seems obviously impossible to me.” <> “The ides that a value-neutral line of reasoning **can** spawn a value-laden conclusion just seems obviously impossible to me.” <> “Now, I agree we can, in everyday language, trivially move from “is” to “ought” but that’s because we share a moral framework (and it would be just too cumbersome to state all our premises). But no derivation has been made in these cases. Rather, the moral premises simply went unstated.” <> “The post with the $64,000 question: are we literally deriving oughts from is’s even WITHOUT a suppressed moral premise, or are we actually making derivations from ought to ought?” <ought is at the basis of its function. I’m not sure what else there is to say on the matter.
Now, if you’ll excuse me:
P1. Draper *IS* hungry.
P2. Draper *IS* intending to stay alive another few days (at least).
C1. Draper *OUGHT* to eat food.
:P~
Okay, that was weird. My long post got cropped into that unreadable mess, above.
Let me try again.
>> Two things right off: A) It’s obvious oughts are value laden, but B) it’s not obvious is’s are. B is what’s important here. <> Your formulation from Searle either had a suppressed moral premise, or was a non-sequitur. <> “The ides that a value-neutral line of reasoning **can** spawn a value-laden conclusion just seems obviously impossible to me.” <<
…let's keep that in mind while we unpack all 3 examples:
I can understand Searle's example being the most difficult to accept, because one COULD critique SP1 as being "value-laden". One MIGHT argue, "well, to order a drink at a bar, it's just IMPLIED that you're obligated to pay for the damn thing". One *could* argue along these lines, but they'd be mistaken. The short answer is that SP1 is an objective, observable act in the world, like any other. The ACT ITSELF is value-neutral. Simply ordering a drink is amoral. I won't get into the FULL explanation right now (it has to do with social ontology and "collective Intentionality") but if it makes you happy, I'm willing to drop Searle's example altogether and move to the next two…
[con't below]
Sorry guys, I dunno what’s happening with the PEL board right now, but I’m unable to paste my *full* reply. Drats.
I’ll try again later on.
Have a good weekend.
>> Two things right off: A) It’s obvious oughts are value laden, but B) it’s not obvious is’s are. B is what’s important here.
If it’s OBVIOUS that “oughts are value-laden” then how did those “oughts” acquire the property of “value-laden” when all we can ever be certain of (if I’ve understood you correctly, which I’m sure you’ll say I haven’t) is a world full of objective, “is-type”, value-neutral statements?
>> Your formulation from Searle either had a suppressed moral premise, or was a non-sequitur.
False dichotomy.
The Searle example (or mine, or yours for that matter) of deriving an “ought” from an “is” contain no such suppressed moral premises. Let’s return to all three examples, one (hopefully) last time:
Searle:
SP1. I walk into a bar and order a drink. (“is”)
SP2. I drink it. (“is”)
SC1. I ought to pay for it. (“ought”)
Jay:
JP1. Johnny wants to kill Southerners. (“is”)
JP2. Southerners eat a lot of BBQ. (“is”)
JC1. Johnny should poison the BBQ supply of the South. (“ought”)
Draper:
DP1. I am a native English speaker. [“is”]
DP2. I say “My hair is brown” (and intend it to be true). [“is”]
DC1. I ought to understand and accept the socially-agreed upon definition of the word “brown” before I speak. [“ought”]
All three of these examples are PERFECTLY VALID means of moving from an “is” to an “ought”. So, to jump ahead a bit, you wrote:
>> “The ides that a value-neutral line of reasoning **can** spawn a value-laden conclusion just seems obviously impossible to me.”
…let’s keep that in mind while we unpack all 3 examples:
I can understand Searle’s example being the most difficult to accept, because one COULD critique SP1 as being “value-laden”. One MIGHT argue, “well, to order a drink at a bar, it’s just IMPLIED that you’re obligated to pay for the damn thing”. One *could* argue along these lines, but they’d be mistaken. The short answer is that SP1 is an objective, observable act in the world, like any other. The ACT ITSELF is value-neutral. Simply ordering a drink is amoral. I won’t get into the FULL explanation right now (it has to do with social ontology and “collective Intentionality”) but if it makes you happy, I’m willing to drop Searle’s example altogether and move to the next two…
Your own example, whether intentional or not, also shows a valid means of deriving an OUGHT from an IS:
– JP1 need NOT be value-laden, because Johnny might actually be in a position where he is NOT considering the morality of his act in the slightest (I think Tom already pointed this out). Johnny’s *desire* to kill carries NO MORE MORAL VALUE than Johnny’s desire to drink because he’s thirsty or sleep because he’s tired.
– JP2 clearly isn’t value-laden
– JC1 describes one (of *many*) “OUGHTS” that Johnny can adhere to in order to satisfy his goal. Now (obviously) another moral argument can be spawned in relation to this one, “Ought Johnny want to kill Southerners?” but to say Johnny has NOT arrived at a valid “ought” in JC1 clearly misses the point and power of “ought” in the first place.
Finally, my example. I purposely chose a linguistic one to illustrate how fundamental, trivial, and common it is to derive “ought” from “is”. We do it every time we open our mouths to speak:
– DP1: In no way can DP1 be construed as “value-laden”.
– DP2: In no way can DP2 be construed as “value-laden”.
– DC1: Oh look! We arrived (cogently) at an “ought” from the two preceding “is’s”. What happened?! :-/
I now want to return to your stance of:
>> “The ides that a value-neutral line of reasoning **can** spawn a value-laden conclusion just seems obviously impossible to me.”
“Obviously impossible” seems a bit firm at this point, wouldn’t you agree?
Like I said before:
If you deny this, you also deny the causal power of all social institutions (that includes natural language and everything you can do with it).
>> “Now, I agree we can, in everyday language, trivially move from “is” to “ought” but that’s because we share a moral framework (and it would be just too cumbersome to state all our premises). But no derivation has been made in these cases. Rather, the moral premises simply went unstated.”
How (or “why”) do we share a moral framework if it’s “obviously impossible” to move from IS-statements to OUGHT-statements?
>> “The post with the $64,000 question: are we literally deriving oughts from is’s even WITHOUT a suppressed moral premise, or are we actually making derivations from ought to ought?”
And the answer, which you refuse to accept, is that we are TRIVIALLY arriving at OUGHT from IS all the time. There are 3 examples in this post alone that show how. I think (correct me if I’m wrong) that you’re big concern is that some “IS” statements *CAN BE* value-laden. I disagree. But let’s suppose you’re right. You still haven’t addressed the cases where the premises are clearly NOT value-laden! (See my “brown hair” example, for instance). Your challenge is to show why we can’t move from “IS” to “OUGHT” for cases such as those.
“Some P’s can be value-laden” does not imply that “all P’s are value-laden”.
Jay, it’s just a plain, epistemically-objective FACT about the world we live in that value-neutral premises CAN (and DO) lead to value-laden conclusions. Obviously our proofs don’t satisfy you. And, I already pointed out how inconsistent it is for you to make a claim contrary to this yet still participate in social institutions (such as language) where is–>ought is at the basis of its function. I’m not sure what else there is to say on the matter.
Now, if you’ll excuse me:
P1. Draper *IS* hungry.
P2. Draper *IS* intending to stay alive another few days (at least).
C1. Draper *OUGHT* to eat food.
:P~
>>
Mike is put in a bad mood by rain.
When Mike is put in a bad mood, Mike kills people.
It is raining outside.
Therefore, Mike ought to kill people.
<<
Non sequitur.
The proper conclusion (if we keep your premises intact) should read:
C1. Mike *will* kill people.
Your argument shows what *IS* the case, not what *OUGHT* to be the case.
Oops, I hit *Submit* a sentence too early.
I then wanted to add (as I already alluded to in Post #50) that: your is/ought “distinction” example perfectly shows that “oughts” DO carry a real-world purpose in guiding moral behaviour. How do we get such statements from IS-only statements??
The fact that “OUGHTS” exist and are meaningful is good enough to collapse the traditional “is/ought problem”. The question is not “is it possible to derive ought from is?” (even your counterexamples show that it’s possible). The interesting question is *how* exactly does it happen?
Hope y’all say something about this–R. Dawkins has a new book coming out the first week of October called “The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True”. I suspect Dawkins is going to be ripped a new a-hole..
Ya know I got mixed feelings about these obnoxious know-it-all science worshipers. I grew up in the Deep South and kinda enjoy seeing those religious fundamentalists that dominate politics and still have too much sway culturally and socially now get a taste of bullish, obnoxious, disrespectful rhetoric from science fundamentalists. They deserve each other and while Harris, Ditchkins might be shown to suck at philosophy I feel it is high time non-religious people get to have some loud mouth preachers in the spotlight.
Anthony Draper,
On my way out of town. I have only a second.
When I get back, I’ll try to focus of what it means to derive an ought from an is. It’s an epistemological issue. Not a social/behavioral issue, and not an ontological issue (like Tom wants to say).
Now, you stomp your foot and say what the FACT of the matter is, and say don’t know what else to say. Well, you’re recently said a lot, so that’s fine.
For now, derive doesn’t mean, “lead to” in a behavioral sense, and our background of social institutions inculcate values, which ensures that we will be able to interpret factual situations as implying certain oughts *without making all our more premises explicit*.
Also, instrumental oughts aren’t necessarily moral. True enough, means-end reasoning can sensibly show that if one wants to win a game, one ought to practice, or some such thing. But all kinds of (instrumental) oughts can be derived from this method, and instrumental oughts have no mechanism that guarantees morality. Conclusions we call good, neutral, or evil can pass through this process. We’re talking about morality, so we’re somewhat fixing the meaning of the word “ought.” In other words, all uses of “ought” are not relevant to the “is/ought” problem of meta-ethics. We started on meat ethics, we should stay on meta ethics. The is/ought problem is about whether we can derive a (non-instrumental) ought from a value neutral set of premises. Now, you obviously think we can, but on the point about how I’m being inconsistent or something by showing how ought can be derived from is, well, all I’ve shown/allowed is means-end oughts can make it through. Those aren’t essentially moral (they may be, they may not be, but they’re essence is instrumental, not moral).
Enjoy your Labor Day.
Jay — thanks for trying to clear up the ought/is distinction.
Please pardon my wrath in advance, but here goes: Many of the comments in this thread (not you Jay) indicate a lack of comprehension of what the ought/is problem is even about. For those of you who think that reams of philosophers have it wrong and that you’ve seen through a patently silly idea: this should be a red flag to you that you need to do some more work. Because every newbie in a freshman philosophy class shares your sense that this is a non-problem, and has to be forced to think about it until the see what’s actually at stake here. Sure, maybe you’re a savant, and after you’ve put this one to rest with minimal effort you’ll go on to invent cold fusion in your bathtub. But just a little humility should suggest that you due some due diligence before you break out the champagne. Because maybe — like Sam Harris — you simply don’t know what you’re talking about.
Yes, there are attempts to naturalize ethics. But they don’t simply ignore the problem or wish it away. You can read more here, at an SEP link I’ve shared many times: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism-moral/. And I have a post in the works that will attempt to clarify the ought/is distinction for beginners.
Wes, thanks for this sobering comment. If I’ve said something to unsettle your philosophical scruples, you have my sincere apologies. Actually, I thought PEL seemed like a good place to have a dialogue; no axe to grind on my part. If this type of discussion is discouraged, I’ll retract further comments.
Tom, if I find the time, I may, but I would say for now it doesn’t look good.
Too many times in these conversation I find myself repeating things I’ve long made peace with. It’s more of a compulsion than anything I find edifying or enriching (I find this site very informative and helpful, I’m just saying rehashing the is/ought issue is like backsliding for me if it’s in the form of a dispute, and I wish I could move onto more complex things, or at the very least, I wish I wouldn’t have to *argue* over and over on is/ought, because that’s both non-enriching and frustrating.)
If we had made some headway, perhaps I would be excited to continue, but we haven’t. And I actually found Wes’ intervention relieving, as I am often at it alone in these arguments in the comment section, wondering if my frustrations are mine alone.
Yours was relatively not-frustrating though Tom, rhetorically speaking. So no hard feelings. But really, we didn’t get anywhere.
Jay, no hard feelings at all. I’ll acknowledge that some of my comments probably lacked the requisite clarity and nuance you and others have come to expect. However, it would be presumptuous to conclude on that basis that the general force of the views I’ve tried to advance here are erroneous or ill-founded philosophically. The basic position I’ve taken was not concocted through informal conversation nor did it come from reading Harris’ TML. I began this discussion by criticizing an ontological distinction in Hume’s philosophy of mind. In turn, you were quick to point out the vagaries surrounding this and other controversies. I conceded that and acknowledged the distincton on your terms. In the process I might have conflated the evaluative issue with a normative one. But that does not efface my original objections. I realize now that I should have formulated the point differently.
You said I adamantly rejected these distinctions. However, I did no such thing. What I argued was that it could be acceptable from the position of non-reductive naturalism. And so granting that, I didn’t think it would serve a useful purpose. I believe this is a reasonable criticism in light of my broader philosophical convictions. For one thing I believe values and normativity of the kind I’ve been defending are accounted for by natural law, practical reason, and the predication of natural functions. I never said that all values and norms could be grounded in this way. In fact, you’ll notice that I sympathized with non-cognitivism or moral anti-realism in relation to emotivist, idealist, and constructivist interpretations. I perfectly agree that the distinction carries weight in relation to artificial or non-naturalistic moral systems. It could be that our disagreement was in part the result of a different philosophical orientation. I’ve been taking a more continental or synthetic view of these issues, while you and others seem to prefer to reduce things to semantics by using a broadly analytic approach.
Be that as it may, I’d be remiss if I didn’t provide further clarification. I think the considerations I’ve tried to bring up here have been given short shrift. It’s obvious that none of these issues have been resolved philosophically. But that doesn’t mean they are not worth discussion. Each of us is appealing to intuition in order to assert our respective views. On my own account, I’ve weighed a number of the possibilities on offer and have come to settle intuitively on the belief that the distinction, in a wide variety of forms, is in error in an important sense. In contrast, you and others, intuitively accept the dominant view as making the stronger argument. That’s fine, just don’t pretend that this is anything more than your own intuitive judgement. We’re not dealing with a question of philosophical expertise here. If you look into the literature, as I’m sure you have, you know that there are intelligent and well-informed people on both sides of this debate. So if I’m going to be upbraided for a lack of humility, I expect others to hold themselves to the same standard.
I’m done with the discussion — consider this the last post.
Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know the PEL forums were so heavily moderated.
Wes, could it be the case that, perhaps, we DO know what we’re talking about and our ideas simply differ from yours?
It took up to post #58 before Jay finally clarified his stance. To paraphrase it: Yes, sometimes IS leads to OUGHT, but those OUGHTS are “instrumental oughts” and not the “moral oughts” I had in mind.
I now want to ask (Jay, yourself, or others): by what distinction are you categorizing a “moral ought” vs. an “instrumental ought?”
As I’ve tried to explain before, all “oughts” are socially-driven. They carry with them a deontology that functions only against a background we find it convenient to call “society”. The simple proof of this is that if you were the only conscious subject in the universe, then there would be NO USE for the notion of “ought”. There is nothing the solipsist ought (or ought not) do if no other conscious agents are around to be affected by his actions.
Grant me this, and then you’ll see that:
– “I ought to cut my hair if I want to land a nice job”, and
– “I ought not torture little boys just to hear them scream”
– “I ought to pay for the food I just ate”
all operate on the same mechanism. Their “good/bad” value comes from a common belief within society. This is the “social ontology” I was alluding to, earlier.
In some sense (a weak sense, I admit, but a very REAL sense, nonetheless) some facts about the world can be epistemically OBJECTIVE even though they originated from ontologically subjective sources (namely, human thoughts and ideas). Think about the English language, as I gave in my previous example. All social institutions operate the same way – including morality.
It’s easy to derive OUGHT from IS when others share a common teleology. For example, it’s only because we *value life* do we say “it’s wrong to kill beings that can feel pain, just for the sake of killing”.
The “moral oughts” you are after are merely a shorthand way of saying “here’s what our society agrees you should do based on these circumstances” — but that’s no different than ANY OTHER “ought”! Jay’s distinction of “moral ought” and “instrumental ought” is unwarranted, unless he can prove how two types of “oughts” can operate under different mechanisms. Be clear. Give examples.
Anthony,
The reason moral oughts are the ones relevant here is because we’re talking about meta-ethics. More specifically, we’re talking about morality, which is the topic Sam Harris has a lot to say about.
It may be extremely important to *some* conversation that instrumental oughts can be sensibly derived from morally neutral premises, but it’s at the very least not incredibly important to conversations about moral realism/skepticism (though it may be to practical rationality), because the desires/ends/goals that set the stage for deriving the oughts are, as I’ve said, morally neutral. That means you can sensibly derive a conclusion that states that one ought to kill every redhead on earth. But since most of us would find that immoral, we should pause before placing much moral comfort in means-end reasoning.
Now, you said that once I “finally clarified” what I am talking about… Well, there are certain assumptions someone must take into these conversations if in fact they’re talking about meta-ethics, moral realism v. anti-realism, moral reductionism, moral non-naturalism, etc. It’s not my job to explain everything, rather, the participants should do their due diligence to figure out what’s involved. Short of that, the participants shouldn’t use debate as the tactic for learning, since debating with someone over something they’ve devoted large amounts of time and energy studying *could* turn out to be an imposition on them. For example, my younger sister and her husband are mechanical engineers. Let’s say there’s something straight from their profession that has made its way into the Zeitgest. Imagine a quasi-famous guy even wrote a book dismissing this contribution from mechanical engineering. Now, before I went to argue with my sister and brother-in-law about how misguided their professions contribution was on this front, I would do my homework. Short of that, I would calmly and openly ask them to explain the issue to me before I simply told them what the issue was.
The only reason I can’t stay away from this particular issue, rather than doing something much more pleasant with my time, is because I have put in the time and energy (though I am not yet a professional), and while I feel like my own individual contributions are negligible, I can’t sit back while erroneous notions prevail, (and thanks to Sam Harris, I think they might be).
Now, back to “finally clarifying” my stance. Umm, see, I think it’s that you insist that the terms we’re using here mean a certain thing, when they don’t necessarily. So when you insist that the issue is X, and I deny that, you believe that I’ve said something that maybe I haven’t. When I link to the SEP on what the is/ought distinction is, I don’t get the impression from the subsequent comments that anyone that disagrees with me has thoughtfully considered it.
So, when I say “look, the is/ought distinction doesn’t necessarily mean XYZ, and I actually will admit ABC,” you take that to be a big clarification, when those who have taken the time to familiarize themselves with the issue already know what I’ve “clarified.” So it’s not really that I had my hand behind my back, was hiding the ball, or some such thing. It’s not that I had in mind some special kind of ought you couldn’t have known about.
Those who haven’t taken the time to study the issue from primary philosophical (and, crucially, meta-ethical) sources have a couple of options. One is to imagine that perhaps there’s more going on than they realize, so instead of assuming they know what the issue is and talking past their interlocutors and accusing their interlocutors of being vague or worse yet wrong, they, in the spirit of inquiry rather than high school debate, try to tease out what the issue is. On the other hand, those who haven’t familiarized themselves with the issue but instead have had a few argumentative and ill-defined conversations at parties, got gassed up while reading some Sam Harris, etc, come to tell those that have taken the time to familiarize themselves with the issue what the issue is really about.
I think Wes has taken his time, and speaking as someone else who has, I can tell you from reading your posts, that no, it’s not that you know just what you’re talking about and your ideas simply differ from from Wes’ or mine… Well, some of what you say is non-controversial, some obvious, but all beside the point. We’ve not taken very many positions in this conversation on moral realism, skepticism, ontology, semantics, reductionsim, naturalism, non-naturalism, etc. And you are doing what freshmen are so wont to do: arguing before you’ve gotten clear on what’s going on, causing the philosophically informed to take up the thankless task of trying to explain to you – even while dodging the objection grenades you’re launching – what’s going on.
Now, other than this, I am getting the feeling you’re just skimming past my posts (not only because you never answered my question on enthymemes). I think this because you wrote “It’s easy to derive OUGHT from IS when others share a common teleology.” But see I like directly to the SEP section (early in the conversation) that said that the is/ought problem is, at the very least, the proposition that no “ought” conclusion can be derived from a purely descriptive set of premises. A common teleology ****is a normative premise**** and is therefore not in violation of the is/ought problem. So it’s not relevant.
Now, onto instrumental versus moral oughts. Think of an instrument like, say, a hammer. Ask yourself, is a hammer good? That should strike you as a weird question. If I were a slave and my abusive master turned his back on me while I had one in my hand, I would see the hammer as a very good thing. However if my abusive master was the one with the hammer, I wouldn’t welcome it at all. Now, a hammer is instrumental. It can go either way.
It’s similar with desires. Surely I don’t have to go into that very far, right? A desire can be what we would consider good, or it could be bad. So you can sensibly derive an bad “ought” conclusion from an set of premises that include a desire premise. This shows that instrumental oughts don’t get the job done in refuting the is/ought distinction when we’re talking about morality, which we are, and have been. An “ought” can mean what’s in one’s best interests, when interests is morally neutral and “best” is means end tailored. The word does function that way sometimes.
Now, in order for the is/ought distinction to have gotten as much traction as it has and still deny fairly obvious instrumental oughts derived from desires/goals/ends, it would have to mean that something pretty stupid gripped the philosophical tradition for many many years. Now I won’t deny that that’s possible, but it seems curious enough to dig a little deeper. It may be true, false, or partially true.
So, circling back around instrumental versus moral oughts, it’s not merely that *I* had moral oughts in mind, it’s that this is what this conversation is about, if in fact we’re tailoring the conversation to the post, and to the series of posts this blog has made related to is/ought and Sam Harris’ TML.
On your set of assertions:
– “I ought to cut my hair if I want to land a nice job”, and
– “I ought not torture little boys just to hear them scream”
– “I ought to pay for the food I just ate”
It shouldn’t take very much work to see that your first sentence is different from your last two. The first is an instrumental “if/then” statement, while the last two are moral assertions not derived. Now, I’ve been trying to explain the relevant use of the word “derive” until I’m blue in the face, so let me try one more time. The use of the word “derive” here is an epistemological/semantic term. I understand that social institutions and norms behaviorally underwrite out values, so it needs no explaining.
To “derive” something in the relevant sense is for it to be justified, or at least made sensible, by some other meaningful statement that comes before it. Now don’t assume that things don’t make sense if they can’t be derived, I mean, maybe some things are self-evident, maybe nothing is, but in either case, we’re talking about semantic/epistemological derivation here, so let’s stick to it. I’ve been pleading with Tom to at least provisionally allow a distinction between the semantic/epistemological issue on the one hand, and the ontological issue on the other, with no success. But let me keep trying with you:
No one is saying that social institutions provide inadequate explanation for our moral sentiments/commitments/beliefs. Or at least, if they are, that’s another conversation. Now, don’t take this to be a big epiphany or huge clarification that I should have provided earlier, because I’m just explaining the issue to you. We’re not just two people that met on the street and starting talking, both with complete freedom to use the words as we wish and the obligation to say exactly how we were using them. Rather, we’re talking about a philosophical issue and that carries with it a history and some limits, we’re on a blog responding to a post, a philosophy blog by people that have spent a significant amount of time and energy studying a technical philosophical issue, on a blog that has a theme going on meta-ethics, Sam Harris’ latest book, and is/ought. Those things provide the parameters of the issue.
So, me saying that I allow that social institutions provide a sufficient behavioral background (if I said that) to explain our moral practices and beliefs is not a huge clarification that I should have provided earlier lest I be vague about my view. Rather, these are the parameters of the issue, objectively.
So, we would have to do some specifying, but let’s please not do that, and I’ll just go ahead and concede,
A) Social institutions/beliefs/practices provide sufficient explanation for why individuals have certain moral beliefs and behave in certain moral ways and take certain moral assumptions to go without saying. x
B) If values exist then there isn’t a dualistic gulf between facts and values. y
C) People’s desires provide a foundation that allows us to see the sensibility of means/end reasoning, and in this way, “ought” can be derived from “is.” z
Now, in closing
x) We’re not talking about whether we can empirically explain why people do what they do morally, say, from the perceptive of an anthropologist.
y) Keep in mind that everyone already knows that values exist in the sense that people have moral beliefs that influence their actions; what I’m conceding to the ontology issue is if values exist in the way moral realists need them to.
z) Unfortunately for the topic of morality, instrumental desires are themselves morally neutral. At least in kind, because they may be charitable on the one hand or genocidal on the other.
You’ve encouraged me to be clear, which i find ironic, because I would encourage you to be much more clear. More clear, for example, on the difference between saying “If you want to get certified as an accountant, then you ought to study for the CPA examination,” on the one hand, and “Do not beat your children” on the other.
I mean really, are you seriously denying the difference in form between a means-end derived “ought” and one that doesn’t refer at all to an antecedent desire (and is not an enthymeme) or “if” premise?!
I mean hell, if one has a desire to do something, I don’t think we need societal moral consensus to see the sensibility of the ought that flows from it. Let me show you,
*Ms. X desires to commit genocide
*Ms. X should study Hitler’s tactical efficiencies and mistakes
*Ms. X should emulate Hitler’s efficiencies, and simply nuke the people left over.
Now, I know the society we live in doesn’t approve of this conclusion, and so do you. But it has the same form as any other means-end reasoning that includes a premise our society would approve of. The word “ought” functions in many ways. It expresses prudence, probability, desirability, obligation, moral rightness, logical consequence, etc. It’s also used to express the sensibility of tailoring out means to our ends.
But the more we argue, the more I have to assume that you simply deny this. You deny, for example, that two people can sensibly say to one another “I want to be a black belt.” and the other, not sharing the person’s goals or caring at all about martial arts or the like, responds, “Then you ought to take lessons.”
Or, I allow, perhaps what you deny is that this happens commonly in our conversations, or perhaps what you deny is that this has the similar form of “I ought to cut my hair if I want to land a nice job.”
But your denial of any of these I find very baffling. Oh well.
On my use of the word “should” late in my post, if you feel that’s a word with a different meaning, replace “ought to.”
>> I mean really, are you seriously denying the difference in form between a means-end derived “ought” and one that doesn’t refer at all to an antecedent desire (and is not an enthymeme) or “if” premise?! <<
All "oughts" refer to antecedent desire!! WTF?!
When I gave my 3 sentences:
– “I ought to cut my hair if I want to land a nice job”
– “I ought not torture little boys just to hear them scream”
– “I ought to pay for the food I just ate”
You replied:
"It shouldn’t take very much work to see that your first sentence is different from your last two."
…but you are mistaken.
All "oughts" operate under the same basic principal. They indicate (and reflect) a socially-driven stance.
The "oughts" in all 3 sentences, above, illustrate this perfectly. It is a short-hand term that reflects the BELIEFS AND VALUES of (the majority of) society.
Further on, you said:
"A common teleology ****is a normative premise**** and is therefore not in violation of the is/ought problem. So it’s not relevant."
…which leads me to believe you missed my point, entirely. (Which is sad, because it was a very basic and modest point, anyway). A common teleology, by itself, is NOT a normatve premise. Yes, it often *leads* to a normatve premise, but it is not identical.
In another flash of insight, you said:
"You deny, for example, that two people can sensibly say to one another “I want to be a black belt.” and the other, not sharing the person’s goals or caring at all about martial arts or the like, responds, “Then you ought to take lessons.” "
…but I *don't* deny this. Again, you've missed my point, because that above dialogue is perfectly consistent with my notion of "ought" and social-derivation. "Black belt" is a social term, and we assume a majority of society has agreed-upon notions of the concept of marial arts. The "you ought to take lessons" is the short-hand way of saying "you'd be conforming with the majority of society's beliefs/desires if you did [x]".
Funny how that last description translates over EXACTLY for my earlier 3 examples of "ought".
In any case, I don't think you did an adequate job constrasting the difference between "instrumental ought" vs. "moral ought". For "instrumental", you gave the example of the hammer, but unfortunately your example breaks down at:
"If I were a slave and my abusive master turned his back on me while I had one in my hand, I would see the hammer as a very good thing"
…but you don't say WHY the hammer becomes a good thing. I think the reason you don't explain it is because you'd arrive at the point I've been driving home all along – a teleology must be bestowed upon the action/object before you can speak intelligently about "good/bad". The whole point of my argment is that the EXACT SAME REQUIREMENTS go for "moral oughts", as well! There is no true distinction between your two versions of oughts – all oughts operate under the same principal. Unfortunately, you didn't provide a clear example of a "moral ought", but I would like to see you do so that does NOT involve a shared teleology at its core. Good luck.
If you truly understand the subject matter, you should be able to provide a 3-sentence (maximum) clarification of the distinction. Forget the wordy emails… you brought up the crucial distinction, so I'm giving you the chance to clearly explain what the difference is. (And that's not so I can get free education from you… it's so I can ten show you how your examples DON'T illustrate a clear difference!)
Show me, and the rest of the readers, in your own BRIEF words, how one detects clear-cut differences between various uses of the word "ought". Our entire argument hinges on it.
Elsewhere, you said:
"That means you can sensibly derive a conclusion that states that one ought to kill every redhead on earth. But since most of us would find that immoral, we should pause before placing much moral comfort in means-end reasoning."
Which begs the question, because you already assume in your premise that "most of us would find that immoral". Again, WHY is that the case? I have supplied the clear answer: it's because we DO arrive at moral "oughts"… they are no different than any other "oughts" we come up with – they are ALL social constructs! No society – no oughts.
The rest of your note had a lot of irrelevant assumptions and bald assertions (mostly about what I know, or my purpose for posting these replies to you), so forgive me if I just choose to ignore those portions without comment.
Draper,
Do you find your demand for me to use BRIEF words a little ironic, considering the length of your posts? No? Didn’t think so.
Anyway, moving on, as I was trying to explain to you before, you don’t get to just show up and decide what the issue is. The issue has a history and conversational parameters that one must familiarize one’s self with if one is going to be speaking on topic. More so if one is going to be debating on the topic. More so if one is going to be cantankerous about the topic.
Once again, I linked to the SEP, which had a very succinct summary of the is/ought problem in the history of English speaking philosophy. I then asked you if Searle’s syllogism was an example of an ethymeme, and you didn’t answer (but since you’ve stomped your foot and screamed, for some ungodly reason, about how moral statements require an underlying teleology, I take your answer to be that our moral statements involve enthymemes, in which case you should redirect your passion).
Now, if you want to dance on the head of a pin about whether a common teleology is a normative premise on the one hand, or whether it provides us with or leads to normative premises on the other, knock yourself out. The important thing is that your foot-stomping about common teleology is beside the point, because a common teleology would provide the resources for moral premises to reside implicitly in our premises (opening up the possibility for enthymemes).
Now, I know you’ll turn red in the face and TYPE IN CAPS and be emphatic!!!!! about how we DO arrive at moral oughts and that society provides the teleology for us to arrive at such oughts!!!!!
But see, you are wasting my time because no one has denied this.
Additionally, there is a TRUE (as you would write) difference between an instrumental ought and a moral one. A simply example suffices for most people to comprehend the difference. Now, what you might want to say, if you were being intellectually responsible, is something like “OK Jay, I can see that in one of my lines of reasoning, I expressed a conditional statement, whereas in the others, I did not. But want I want to say is that the conditional was silent in the one’s where the conditional went unexpressed.”
But that’s not what you said. You said there was no difference. OK so let’s slow down and let me ask you if you see the difference between these two statements,
If you want to get a job, then you ought to go apply for jobs.
and
Treat your children kindly.
No? No difference at all? Or just no “true” difference (or Scotsman).
I assert that the former statement is *conditioned* on the desire to get a job. And trust me, I know you want to jump up and down and scream that all oughts are based on desires, but if you can muster the discipline to withstand that extremely strong urge for just a minute, then you might see some interesting differences.
Now, to help you out a bit, perhaps you can notice that in one instance, the advice is *explicitly* conditional, meaning, the statement doesn’t literally mean, “go apply for jobs,” come hell or high water, rather, it means “IF you want to get a job, go apply for jobs.” Based on your adamant expression of the lack of difference between the moral statements you provided, I’m not sure what you’ll say here, so help me out:
Do you believe all moral statements are conditioned on the desires of the person the statement is aimed toward? I ask because in one statement, the advice is conditioned on whether the person actually wants a job or not. In other moral statements, the kind we both have provided, actually, there is no condition stated.
Now, again Anthony, I know you’re very very serious about this point about society and teleology and what not, and I know you’ll want to say that society provides the backdrop for teleology and all that. But in the statement “treat your children kindly” I can’t imagine that we would withdraw that directive even if the mother said “Ahh, but see I do not have the goal of nurturing and protecting my children.” On the other hand, the statement that explicitly expresses a conditional *literally conditions* the directive on the person’s desire to get a job, the claim does not apply no matter what the desire of the hearer is.
Now, you may be right, maybe all this means is “if you want a job, then applying for a job would be consistent with society’s desires,” but you’re ignoring the whole issue that some pieces of advice and/or directives are expressed conditionally, some aren’t. There is a literal difference between me telling you that you ought not kill that child on the one hand, and me telling you that you ought not drop out of school if your goal is to graduate, on the other. Now, I never said there was no similarity whatsoever, and nor should I have had to, because distinctions can exist between things even when there remain some similarities. I never said there is a chasm or gulf so deep that different uses of “ought” are like oil and water. You’re the one on the limb here, Anthony, not me, since you’ve asserted that I’m mistaken in my observation that there is a difference between your conditional statement and your categorical statement.
Now, I suspect that you aren’t right. That is, I suspect that if society said “If you want to get a job, then jump off a building,” then society would be wrong. Rather, I take there to be facts (objective facts that don’t rely on the sanction of society for their truth) about which courses of action bring about certain desires.
As for WHY we would find certain ends immoral, that is not the issue here. This issue has parameters that you are not careful or mindful of. That you want to use this forum for some points you want to vociferously proclaim is not interesting to me. But suffice it to say, you’re not tailoring your points to the issue at hand. You may be right about a lot, but you’re mostly off topic.
As for your colloquial use of “begs the question” I find it perverse that you take my demonstration that you can derive immoral “oughts” from purely means-end premises to be a fault of my argument because I haven’t said WHY we find these oughts to be immoral. To put it in language you’ll understand WE’RE NOT EXPLAINING HOW WE COME TO HAVE MORAL BELIEFS IN THE FIRST PLACE WE WE DISCUSS THIS TOPIC!!! YOU HAVE IMPOSED THAT ON THE TOPIC!!!
As for your challenge to show you and the readers how there are clear cut differences between uses of oughts, I’ve done it already. Don’t assume that because you don’t understand that no one does. And don’t assume that because I’ve asserted a distinction that I’ve asserted a dichotomy such that there would be no overlap whatsoever. “Clear cut” and “distinction” neither one mean complete dissimilarity or dichotomy.
Now, I find having to painstakingly explain and argue over whether there is difference between conditional and categorical moral statements to be a huge pain, because this is a part of the background that people either already know or quickly grasp without much wailing. But let me try again,
do you think there is a difference (yay, even a “clear cut” difference) between a conditional statement and a categorical statement?
http://www.moralphilosophy.info/imperatives.html
(BTW, I can’t couch for the Kant scholarship in the link, I’m only hoping against hope that it will hit home with you on the simple difference I’m getting at.. Oh, and I do hope this question gets answered, unlike the enthymeme question).
Oh and one more thing, if your whole point is that moral claims have a teleology requirement, then why are you even here arguing? Did you even read the SEP link? An underlying teleology leads to the moral premises, as you acknowledged. So the derivation is this case is from ought to ought, not from is to ought. Seriously, that advice you brashly gave me early on, remember “slow down cowboy.” See any irony there maybe? Again, I didn’t think so.
It’s possible that I’m among those who need to go back and do some homework but, as I understand it, classical pragmatists like James and Pirsig both take a few steps back to tackle this distinction. They reject it at a metaphysical level, at the level of basic assumptions. Truth is a species of the good, they say, and not an idea that corresponds with objective reality. In other words, they say facts are a particular kind of value. They deny the notion that there is such a thing as a value-neutral fact. For both of these gents, this move entails an attack on the whole history of philosophy and a radical reconstruction of it as a value-laden art form. One might object that they seem to be in defiance of the basics taught in freshmen philosophy, but this rebellion is quite intentional. As David Granger puts it in his book “John Dewey, Robert Pirsig, and the Art of Living”, “the disembodied and dispassionate reasoning machine of Descartes is exposed as an impossible – and perhaps even repugnant – chimera.”
Hi David, I’m sympathetic to such notions at the the level of metaphysics (and the line of thinking that runs from Kant to Hegel to the pragmatists), but that doesn’t really solve our problem. The problem simply re-emerges as a distinction between two species of “good” — epistemic and moral. Saying that at bottom the statements we typically take to be factual are actually evaluative (in some sense) doesn’t change the fact that one can’t show any entailment between the types of statements that we typically call moral and those we typically call factual. A metaphysics that puts two species into the same genus (“good”) doesn’t eliminate their distinctness or explain their relationship. See also Putnam’s “Collapse of the Fact/Value Distinction” (http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Value-Dichotomy-Other-Essays/dp/0674013808). But note that the kind of collapse described here has nothing to do with Harris’ view, or aligned notions that an ought can be derived from an is.
Putnam’s approach appears to be similar to James’s and Pirsig’s insofar as they also attack the subject-object distinction and the whole notion of disinterested objectivity, which are the metaphysical assumptions behind the fact-value distinction. Pirsig says the Positivists were averse to metaphysics for metaphysical reasons.
They don’t think facts are covertly evaluative, exactly. It’s that certain facts are picked out from many features of reality that we simply do not notice. They both get at a rarely noticed feature of overall cognitive, namely “selective interest”. The world of facts is what we choose to notice, so to speak, precisely because those are the facts that matter to us for one reason or another. The idea here is that the empirical flux of experience is thick and rich and overflowing and so that we just can’t pay attention to everything. In this sense, some facts are selected because they are of interest but there many more that we do not see at all. We carve out everything, James says.
Pirsig is much more explicit about the various species of good and he uses an evolutionary hierarchy to say that values go all the way down. Health, for example would be good at the biological level, wealth and honor or celebrity would be social level goods and truth is an intellectual species of the good. You may have noticed that this vastly expands the notion of what values and morality are. In this picture, there is constant struggle between the various kinds of values. It would describe common sense morality as the social level putting the breaks on biological values, for example, much like Freud’s clash between the id and superego. The Bill of Rights protects the intellect from social level interference or control, to cite another. I mean, it takes some getting used to but most of our normal moral intuitions fit into this larger picture without any strain of the brain.