created by TychoCelchuuu on 04/07/2020 at 06:07 UTC
82 upvotes, 6 top-level comments (showing 6)
The "is/ought problem," also rarely known as "Hume's guillotine," "Hume's law," etc. is a point made by the philosopher David Hume[1]. Hume, in the process of objecting to moral theories that disagreed with his own moral theory, suggested that many moral philosophers provide arguments that spend a lot of time talking about how the world is, and then at one point start talking about how the world ought to be, without ever making it clear how we get from the first sort of statement to the second sort of statement. At least on their surface, the two sorts of statements seem very different. The first sort of statements, "is" statements, describe things in what we might call a "non-normative" sense, which means that they aren't directly about how anyone should act, or about what would be better or worse, or anything like that. They aren't directly about morality, in other words. The second sort of statements, "ought" statements, *are* "normative" - they judge how things should be, or what we ought to do, or what would be better or worse.
1: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/
There's some controversy over *exactly* what Hume meant to suggest by pointing out this gap between "is" and "ought" (for discussion, see here[2]). But one thing is clear: his point is that the two sorts of statements seem very different, and so it's hard to see how we can draw conclusions about normative statements merely from non-normative statements. Anyone who is trying to do this owes us some kind of explanation, which Hume thinks the other philosophers hadn't provided. This is the "is/ought problem." How do we get from "is" statements to "ought" statements?
2: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-moral/#io
There are, broadly speaking, two sorts of replies to the is/ought problem. The first sort of reply gives a recipe for moving from "is" to "ought." The second sort of reply says that there's no way to avoid the problem, and so moral arguments need to start with some "ought" statements, too, instead of starting only with "is" statements.
Some philosophers argue that we can cross the is/ought gap. The simplest argument is one given by John Searle in the paper How to Derive an "Ought" from an "Is"[3]. He suggests that we can cross from "is" statements to "ought" statements in (for instance) arguments like this:
3: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2183201
1. Mack says "I promise to pay Blaine $5 on Tuesday."
2. Mack has promised to pay Blaine $5 on Tuesday.
3. Mack has undertaken an obligation to pay Blaine $5 on Tuesday.
4. Mack is under an obligation to pay Blaine $5 on Tuesday.
5. Mack ought to pay Blaine $5 on Tuesday.
This argument seems straightforward. Moreover, most of those statements seem like "is" statements. Maybe they are all "is" statements except the fifth. But the fifth is definitely an "ought" statement. So at some point it must be possible to move from "is" statements to "ought" statements without doing anything wrong. Problem solved!
This is literally the simplest response to the "is/ought" problem, which is why I reproduce it in full here. Typical responses that jump the gap are *much* more detailed. They go on for many pages. For a very good example see chapter 6 of Brink's book *Moral Realism and the Foundation of Ethics*, which is another attempt to jump the is/ought gap. Broadly speaking, lots of projects in metaethics[4] contain attempts to jump the is/ought gap. There is disagreement about whether any of them succeed.
4: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/metaethics/
Other philosophers accept Hume's argument and thus build morality not merely on "is" statements but also on one or more "ought" statements. This is one typical view about what Hume himself did. Hume (the way many people read him) identified the is/ought gap and thus built a moral system that also has a few "oughts" in the premises, so that we can derive "oughts" in the conclusions. Whether or not this is a good description of Hume, it's definitely a good description of many other philosophical views. For instance, many read Kant's moral philosophy[5] as being built on at least one "ought" statement.
5: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral/
Some people erroneously think that the is/ought gap, if it exists, shows that morality must be a joke. The is/ought gap, according to this understanding, disproves the possibility of anything being morally wrong. Either we reject the gap or we reject morality. Obviously it should be clear why this is incorrect: as noted above, the second sort of reply accepts the is/ought gap, but hardly gives up on morality. Many people on reddit have this erroneous view because Sam Harris believes it and Sam Harris is popular on reddit. Sam Harris, however, badly misunderstands the is/ought gap. For a description of his misunderstanding in detail, see this series of posts by /u/wokeupabug: one[6], two[7], three[8].
The closest thing to this sort of view which is philosophically respectable is the view that the is/ought gap motivates non-cognitivist[9] views in ethics. Some people think Hume was a non-cognitivist, for instance. But non-cognitivism is distinct from moral skepticism[10], and the view that Hume was a non-cognitivist is not a very common one. In any case, the is/ought gap is not supposed to be an argument for moral skepticism. It is an argument for an approach to morality which either motivates the jump from "is" to "ought," or which starts with one or more "oughts," or which does not rely on the notion of "oughts" at all.
9: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-cognitivism/
10: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism-moral/
https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/2tkq32/responses_to_humes_guillotine/
http://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/2sivxx/isought_problem/
http://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/1op3o1/what_are_the_usual_responses_to_the_isought/
https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/4uc335/isought_problem_responses/
https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/czbb3c/has_there_been_an_indepth_rebuttal_to_humes/
Comment by Spooksey1 at 04/07/2020 at 18:13 UTC
7 upvotes, 3 direct replies
This may be a stupid response, but doesn’t the jump the gap example necessitate the value statement that “promises or obligations should be fulfilled” before Mack making a promise has any meaning? The fact there is just neutral information, the sense data where Mack promises the $5, the meaning we interpret from his communication relies on value statements.
The classic fact/value gap misuse, as I see it, is with the various “intellectual dark web” edgelords, like Sam Harris as you mentioned. When Jordan Peterson says lobsters practice hierarchy therefore it is intrinsic in human society - and that is how we should arrange our society. Even if he is scientifically correct, which they seldom are, it doesn’t mean we ought to do anything. He is making the classic erroneous leap. Social Darwinism is essentially where most of these dweebs end up and it makes the same error.
That’s not to say that factual information doesn’t have any relevance to our values, but it is more complex and perhaps out of reach (or totally the wrong kind of knowledge) of our scientific understanding currently.
I agree wholeheartedly that the is/ought gap doesn’t necessitate moral skepticism. I think it is a powerful and valuable way of distinguishing human society from some harmful aspects of nature. Our values can be free.
Comment by Jellyfish_Born at 10/10/2020 at 11:09 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Interesting read this.
Comment by Books_and_Cleverness at 13/09/2020 at 01:30 UTC
0 upvotes, 2 direct replies
I used to be a pretty hardcore moral relativist but totally changed my mind after watching this Sam Harris Ted Talk[1] which is apparently considered some sorta Basic Bitch thing to do around here.
1: https://www.ted.com/talks/sam_harris_science_can_answer_moral_questions?language=en
A statement like "we should avoid maximum suffering" is basically the same as "a square has four sides." I don't see any way to disagree without playing a pointless language game. The /u/wokeupabug critiques you cited here are pretty spicy but I either don't really get them (very possible) or don't see them as super meaningful critiques. The idea seems to be that Harris misunderstands the is/ought problem, isn't actually disagreeing with Hume's distinction. Maybe that's the case but if so, then why worry about the is/ought problem in the first place?
My reading of Hume is that he considers this a big problem in large part because it implies moral relativism; my objections to horrifying evils like torture or slavery or websites that autoplay audio are merely matters of opinion on some basic level. If not then what are worried about exactly?
Consider The Worst Possible Misery for Everyone. Imagine a world where every conscious creature suffers as much as it can, for as long as it can. That's bad. We ought to avoid it. If words like "bad" and "ought" have any meaning at all, they have to apply here.
Maybe that's not getting from an "is" to an "ought", but if so, I don't see why is/ought is something worth worrying about.
Comment by [deleted] at 13/09/2020 at 01:15 UTC
-2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
[removed]
Comment by [deleted] at 06/07/2022 at 14:11 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
[removed]
Comment by ideal_observer at 30/12/2022 at 00:20 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Maybe I’m misunderstanding the question, but isn’t this exactly what Kant tried to do with the Categorical Imperative? To overcome the is-ought gap by creating universalized imperatives that are logically necessary (like how universalizing lying is supposedly logically impossible because it would make truth nonexistent, meaning that no one could ever lie, so we must universalize truth-telling)? Please correct me if I am mistaken about anything.