9 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: Problems with the is/ought fallacy?
I'm not really sure what you're talking about when you say "apply the is/ought to valuations of good and bad."
The is/ought distinction is highlighting the fact that you can't validly infer a conclusion about moral values (the ought) from premises that aren't about moral values (the is). So what you apply it to are arguments which purport to infer a conclusion about a moral value but which don't have premises about moral values. But this is just a general point of logic: you're just pointing out that the argument isn't valid.
This is no different from how we can't validly infer conclusions about cats without having premises about cats. You can apply this rule if I say, "Look, I'll prove cats are better than dogs: I have two hands, therefore cats are better than dogs." And you'd say, "Hold on, that argument plainly isn't valid."
Comment by DieFreien at 12/09/2019 at 07:33 UTC*
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
OH! So, basically, you cannot logically argue that "murder is wrong" if your premise is "murder causes people to die". However, you CAN argue murder is wrong if your premise is "causing death is wrong". So, I now fully comprehend the application of this fallacy. Correct me if I am still wrong, but, in this sense, couldn't I disagree with the premise of "causing death is wrong" since the premise implies it wrong due to the consequences of causing death? Couldn't I say that the argument is unsound because of this?