https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/4uc335/isought_problem_responses/
created by [deleted] on 24/07/2016 at 06:34 UTC*
13 upvotes, 6 top-level comments (showing 6)
Hi,
I'm looking for responses to the Is-ought problem.
Specifically, I'm wondering how someone can justify the criteria by which you judge artwork. For instance, I think a movie is good. Why? Because it fulfills the requirements of good movies. But why must those be the requirements rather than any other?
I'm wondering how it's possible to justify that. Obviously you are doing nothing but descriptive work when you say that a movie fulfills criteria, but the criteria themselves must be propped up with value-laden language. Why ought to anyone value movies which are beautiful and make logical sense over ugly ones that are incoherent? I don't know how I can say why.
I came across this[1] Wikipedia page with some response, but all of them seem to have flaws.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem#Responses
Is there really no way to justify values from descriptive facts?
Comment by [deleted] at 24/07/2016 at 11:01 UTC
6 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Don't use Wikipedia for Philosophy, Google IEP and sep for help.
E.g. plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-moral/#io
plato.stanford.edu/entries/metaethics/#IsOOpeQueArg
Comment by autopoetic at 24/07/2016 at 11:43 UTC
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
It's a minority view, but some people have been arguing that you can ground normative questions in the organization of living things. The basic thought is that something is good for an organism if it supports it in its efforts to maintain its internal unity against the background of the abiotic world. Evan Thompson looks at this in depth in his book Mind in Life, and you can read a paper length version by Weber and Varela here[1] (pdf).
1: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.342.9756&rep=rep1&type=pdf
I came across this Wikipedia page with some response, but all of them seem to have flaws.
Well yes. But the flaws also probably have flaws, which may be addressed if you looked deeper than a wikipedia article, say by reading one of the cited articles or books.
Comment by pleepsin at 24/07/2016 at 15:50 UTC*
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
So, many people, including philosophers of art, agree that the is-ought gap exists, but nevertheless have no problems making normative claims. The fact that the is-ought gap exists shouldn't mean you can't justify your ought claims, just like it doesn't mean you can't justify your is claims. It only means when you make arguments you have to keep track of which kinds of claims you're making (and make sure an argument with an "ought" conclusion has an "ought" premise).
You might be interested in how we *know* any ought claims at all, and that is the realm of *normative epistemology*, or most frequently, *moral epistemology*. A lot of ethicists think we get our ethical knowledge from intuition, like we get our linguistic knowledge.
Nevertheless, here is an argument against the is-ought gap that is often motivating rejectors of it:
1. There are moral facts
2. The only facts are those which are reducible to naturalistic facts.
3. Naturalistic facts are strictly descriptive.
4. So moral facts are reducible to strictly descriptive facts.
5. If the is-ought gap exists, there is no way to validly infer a moral conclusion from descriptive premises.
6. If moral facts are reducible to strictly descriptive facts, there is a way to validly infer a moral conclusion from descriptive premises (plug the grounding fact into your premises).
7. so the is-ought gap doesn't exist.
Comment by lacunahead at 24/07/2016 at 15:54 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Because you're interested in a problem articulated by Hume, you'll be interested in reading his own take on whether there are standards for aesthetic judgment: Of the Standard of Taste[1]. His answer is a qualified yes, with such a standard being grounded in the lasting judgments of qualified critics over time.
1: http://www.econlib.org/library/LFBooks/Hume/hmMPL23.html
Comment by TychoCelchuuu at 24/07/2016 at 14:00 UTC
-1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
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/
Comment by [deleted] at 24/07/2016 at 09:07 UTC
-2 upvotes, 2 direct replies
[removed]