6 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: Problems with the is/ought fallacy?
The is/ought fallacy is the name of a problem that occurs when constructing arguments, namely, that you can't derive normative conclusions ("oughts") from exclusively non-normative premises. Or conversely, that you need at least some normative content in your premises in order to justify a normative conclusion. This is not very controversial. It's just a function of the way arguments work and how we define validity. Most ethical systems do not face this problem, because they include normative content in their basic assumptions or premises. Utilitarians, for example, think that maximizing utility is good. That's a normative claim. Once you have that, then you can argue that certain choices or actions do or do not maximize utility and are therefore good or bad. No problem with that. There are lots of other problems with utilitarianism, but this isn't one of them.
The people this problem really causes issues for are those who want to ground normative claims on exclusively empirical/scientific/naturalistic accounts of the world. How can empirical *descriptions* of the world justify *normative* conclusions? One answer: some moral naturalists argue that there are moral facts in the universe that are similar to or reducible to physical facts, and that they can be discovered through standard empirical/naturalistic methods. This doesn't violate the rule that you can't derive an ought from an is, it just says that there are oughts right alongside what is, and we can know those oughts using empirical/naturalistic methods.
Anyway, check out this article from the SEP on Moral Naturalism, especially section 1.2 "Why Be a Moral Naturalist": https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism-moral/[1] That article goes over a lot of key ideas in the debate between moral naturalists and non-naturalists, so hopefully something in there will be helpful for you.
1: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism-moral/
Another group that faces this problem are people who want to base ethics on evolutionary biology: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-biology/[2] You might find section 3 interesting, on "Prescriptive and Corrective Evolutionary Ethics"
2: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-biology/
Comment by DieFreien at 12/09/2019 at 06:53 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Can't you just use the is/ought to attack the premises of ethical systems like Utilitarianism? For example, stating "maximizing utility is good" is an implicit "ought" premise because you are stating that utility conduces to things like pleasure and happiness, and we therefore "ought" to follow it or call it good. Utilitarianism may assume this within its premises, but that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't flawed in-of-itself. I could be completely wrong, so please do not think I am a condescending fool. I legitimately want to understand more because I am in dire need of a moral awakening, and I in no way claim to be an expert.