created by GravyJigster on 11/12/2013 at 01:05 UTC
10 upvotes, 6 top-level comments (showing 6)
So yeah, the is/ought problem seems to be a dealbreaker for many objective moralities. I was just wondering though, is it a necessary question for objective ethics? Have some philosophers (successfully) attempted to circumvent it?
Comment by Snietzschean at 11/12/2013 at 02:29 UTC
8 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Hume attempted to circumvent it (and I would say successfully). I think many people play up the Is/Ought Gap too much. All Hume is saying in the *Treatise* is that, of all the systems of morality that he had the opportunity to study, they all had the same problem, which is that they tell people that x, y, and z *are* certain truths, and then they say that we *ought* to do A, without demonstrating the connection between the Is and the Ought. The Is/Ought Gap is essentially an observation that many systems of morality lack a connection between the way things are and what we ought to do as a result.
The beauty of Hume's moral philosophy is that it's rooted his conception of the way human beings are, in his understanding of human psychology, and so effectively bridges the Is/Ought Gap.
The Is/Ought Gap isn't some unbridgeable moral problem, it's just a statement about how moral systems often neglect to demonstrate the chain of reasonings which lead from Is to Ought.
Comment by TychoCelchuuu at 11/12/2013 at 02:57 UTC
6 upvotes, 1 direct replies
It depends what you mean by "a system of ethics." If that includes a metaethical justification of the system, then I'd be a little worried about an inability to jump the gap. If by "a system of ethics" you just mean a system of normative ethics that has no particular metaethical commitments, then I don't think that system necessarily has to have an answer for the is/ought problem. Maybe metaethics can solve that one.
Comment by kabrutos at 11/12/2013 at 04:20 UTC
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Some metaethicists think that normative facts are, deep down, just descriptive facts. These metaethicists are usually kinds of 'naturalists' or 'reductionists.' (See here[1].) That sort of naturalism has many problems, but there are also many philosophers who accept it. In any case, they tend to think that there is no is-ought problem because deep down, there aren't really any "oughts," at least in ethics.
1: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-non-naturalism/
In contrast, the is-ought problem isn't really a problem for moral non-naturalists. They don't think we need to start with descriptive facts, so we don't need to get from descriptive facts to normative facts. There are simply brute facts about the relations between descriptive facts and normative facts; for example, we might start with the normative facts that happiness is good and suffering is bad.
It is possible to bridge the gap *epistemologically*. Some metaethicists would say, for example, that the descriptive fact that it seems to me as if murder is wrong is evidence for the normative fact that murder is wrong.
Comment by Cannablissx at 11/12/2013 at 09:03 UTC*
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Have some philosophers (successfully) attempted to circumvent it?
Check out Stephan Finlay's Paper *Oughts and Ends*.[1] He proposes a naturalistic theory of the semantics of "ought", which he calls the end-relational theory. It attempts to decompose "oughts" in to descriptive, nonnormative concepts. It also claims to be an interpretive account, aiming to identify the meaning of its everyday use by ordinary speakers.
1: http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~finlay/OughtsandEnds.pdf
Comment by [deleted] at 11/12/2013 at 20:09 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
More to the point: How can a proposed system of ethics substantiate the claim that it is objective, if it does not first demonstrate the logical connection between *is* and *ought*?
Comment by RhinoCity at 22/12/2013 at 11:52 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
John R. Searle has tried it in his essay *How to Derive "Ought" from "Is,"* but I think Sam Harris' attempt in *The Moral Landscape* is more successful.
He thinks that if there are facts to be known about conscious experience (about the potential for suffering and well-being), and if there are objectively better or worse ways to move from suffering to well-being, then you have an objective moral framework.