Is --> Ought . . . Invalid?
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I've often seen asserted (less often argued) the claim that one cannot legitimately move from an "is" to an "ought," i.e., from noting that something is the case to stating that it ought to be the case, and we can readily concede that some intolerable states of being (e.g., life in some totalitarian society) certainly offer no readily recognizable justification that such states ought to exist.
But suppose we have a human nature, grounded (let us say) in our biological inheritance, such that some states of being (e.g., life in a democratic republic) provide for better human flourishing than other states of being (e.g., life in some totalitarian society), then wouldn't the former be preferable to the latter?
Couldn't one therefore say, "If we want to be in a society that is suited for human flourishing, then we ought to choose a democratic republic over a totalitarian society"? In other words, don't conditionals like the one just stated move from an "is" to an "ought"?
Doubtless, this formulation could be more elegantly expressed than I have managed, and thinkers far more clearheaded than I am have surely already dealt with the issue of such conditionals, so what's the status of this idea that I've been vaguely mulling over for the past several months?
Can't one derive a prescriptive claim from a descriptive statement in this way?
Labels: Ethics, Philosophy
posted by Horace Jeffery Hodges @ 3:42 AM
12 comments
12 Comments:
I'm not sure, but there may be, in your reasoning, a hidden axiological assumption about human suffering, an unspoken premise. You might have to justify why suffering, in particular, is the metric for choosing one type of society over another. (Not that I disagree with your assessment of which society is preferable!)
My own take on the is/ought issue is that, if "ought"s exist, then they are a subset of "is"es—assuming "is"es are things that exist, in whatever sense we take the word "exist" to mean (e.g., rabbits exist, but so do traffic laws and moral codes/precepts).
To ask whether an "ought" exists is to ask whether counterfactuals exist. I understand the philosopher Meinong dealt with that sort of ontological puzzle, which is too complicated for me.
On "a hidden axiological assumption about human suffering, an unspoken premise," that's why I appeal to what people would generally agree upon but express it in a conditional clause. If they generally disagree with the conditional clause, then I'd need to search for some other point of agreement, but if there is a common human nature, then formulating a broadly agreed-upon statement should be possible.
Jeffery Hodges
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Depends on what the definition of "IS" is, or ought to be...:)
Jay
Ah, the famous Clintonian Logic, from which no consequence ever follows . . .
Jeffery Hodges
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This is Sam Harris's angle, too.
Kevin's right about the enthymeme. Your argument is something like:
1) Democratic societies are more conducive to X [happiness, "flourishing", reducing the quantifiable sum of human suffering, etc.]
2) We ought to live in democratic societies.
But the hidden premise sneaks in an 'ought' that the conclusion follows from.
Making the enthymeme explicit, we get:
1) Democratic societies are more conducive to X [happiness, "flourishing", reducing the quantifiable sum of human suffering, etc.]
2) We ought to maximize X.
3) We ought to live in democratic societies.
But even if 1) "is" empirically true, you still need to smuggle aboard an "ought" as a premise in order to get to an "ought" in the conclusion.
Now we might all agree with the conclusion, but if so, that's just because we all happen to agree with the "ought" in 2. In that case, though, you aren't logically getting to "ought" from "is", but just appealing to a contingent consensus of opinion.
Of course, you could say that the "ought" itself simply "is" -- but then we can just dispense with all this logic-chopping, and just say, more simply, that whatever we agree ought to be, ought to be.
I think I'm making a different sort of argument, not a deductive syllogism but a 'reasonable' argument based an empirical truth grounded in our common human nature:
1) Given our common human nature, democratic societies are more conducive to X (happiness, "flourishing," reducing the quantifiable sum of human suffering, etc.).
2) Therefore, if we want to maximize X, then we ought to live in a democratic society.
As you see, I'm not 'smuggling' -- I'm doing this openly.
In other words . . . say we want X. We discover empirically that a democratic society best provides X. We therefore ought to pursue a democratic society.
But perhaps I just don't understand what's meant by "deriving" an "ought" from an "is."
Jeffery Hodges
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Right, but then it seems to me you aren't really "deriving" anything; you're just taking your "ought" (i.e., "say we want X") as the starting point.
Let's see what I'm trying to do. Take the following statement:
1) Given our common human nature, democratic societies are more conducive to X (happiness, "flourishing," reducing the quantifiable sum of human suffering, etc.).
From 1), we could not conclude:
2) We ought to live in a democratic society.
But if we add:
"We want to maximize X."
We can conclude:
"We ought to live in a democratic society."
Or stated more fully:
2) Therefore, if we want to maximize X, then we ought to live in a democratic society.
This sounds like a reasonable conclusion based on empirical facts and human desires.
Also, I don't quite see that "We want to maximize X" contains an "ought." I see only that it makes the conclusion of an "ought" possible.
Jeffery Hodges
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But what bridges the gap between "want" and "ought"? It seems you're just conflating the two. How do you know, just from wanting to maximize X, that you ought to maximize X?
There's still a little miracle happening in there somewhere, or else "want" just means "ought to".
Malcolm asks:
"How do you know, just from wanting to maximize X, that you ought to maximize X?"
Jeffery responds:
Actually, I say something different:
"2) Therefore, if we want to maximize X, then we ought to live in a democratic society."
The formulation is more "If you wanting to maximize X, you ought to maximize Y."
Jeffery Hodges
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I can't see how that changes anything. If we know that Y maximizes X, then to say:
"We want to maximize X, so we ought to do Y."
...is the same as saying:
"We want to maximize X, so we ought to do that which we know will maximize X."
... which is the same as saying:
"We want to maximize X, so we ought to maximize X."
In other words, Y is logically equivalent to "maximizing X".
You're still conflating "want" with "ought to", as far as I can see, or making some sort of leap.
On your formulation:
"We want to maximize X, so we ought to maximize X."
I see that this doesn't work since "want" doesn't mean "ought."
But I don't see the problem of this:
"We want to maximize X, so we ought to do Y."
When I fill this in, the result makes sense:
"We want to maximize human flourishing, so we ought to actualize a democratic system."
The other statement -- "We want to maximize human flourishing, so we ought to actualize human flourishing" -- also doesn't mean the same thing, substantively, since it gives no information on how to actualize human flourishing.
Jeffery Hodges
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