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It seems like philosophy students see this far more than other people (based on my informal survey of my philosopher friends) but confusion of descriptive and n

It seems like philosophy students see this far more than other people (based on my informal survey of my philosopher friends) but confusion of descriptive and normative statements, also known as David Hume's "is-ought" problem, is one of the most common fallacies I see anywhere. This is most easily seen on the more populist articles on Hacker News (which I simply found by going to /best). Here's an example: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2037139 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2037139 These people are having an argument about whether it is or is not slavery i.e., a descriptive judgment. However, the question of whether or not it is slavery has little bearing on whether or not it should be done. The commenters are confusing a descriptive statement as relevant to a normative question.

chc 16y ago
Although what you say does happen, I don't see how that comment thread an example of it. Somebody claimed it was slavery, and other people argued that it was not. To say that particular line of conversation was about whether it should be done is a better example of the fallacy — you link to a descriptive debate, and because you think it should be a normative debate, you say that they were arguing the wrong thing.
- Locke1689 16y ago
  It's true that I'm counting relevance to the topic in the conversation. Given that these are replies to a thread with a normative statement, the responses are either a fallacy or completely off-topic. I chose the more charitable interpretation.
  - chc 16y ago
    As far as I can tell, it was neither fallacious nor completely off-topic. It was a response to the logical argument, "We should not do this because this is slavery, and we know slavery is wrong." This is a valid argument, so they were replying that the argument is factually unsound, which is a descriptive sub-issue within the larger normative question. If we are not allowed to debate the facts and can only debate the normative conclusions, arguments almost invariably devolve into emotional shouting matches.
    - Locke1689 16y ago
      Actually, I think that whether or not something can be called "slavery" is irrelevant to whether or not it is wrong. If it shares the same moral violations that our conventional idea of slavery does then it is wrong, but not because it is called slavery but because it violates the same moral or ethical precepts. If it could be called slavery but doesn't violate these precepts then it is not a moral wrong. This is actually slightly related to Socrates' question in Plato's Euthyphro.

chc 16y ago

Although what you say does happen, I don't see how that comment thread an example of it. Somebody claimed it was slavery, and other people argued that it was not. To say that particular line of conversation was about whether it should be done is a better example of the fallacy — you link to a descriptive debate, and because you think it should be a normative debate, you say that they were arguing the wrong thing.

Locke1689 16y ago
It's true that I'm counting relevance to the topic in the conversation. Given that these are replies to a thread with a normative statement, the responses are either a fallacy or completely off-topic. I chose the more charitable interpretation.
- chc 16y ago
  As far as I can tell, it was neither fallacious nor completely off-topic. It was a response to the logical argument, "We should not do this because this is slavery, and we know slavery is wrong." This is a valid argument, so they were replying that the argument is factually unsound, which is a descriptive sub-issue within the larger normative question. If we are not allowed to debate the facts and can only debate the normative conclusions, arguments almost invariably devolve into emotional shouting matches.
  - Locke1689 16y ago
    Actually, I think that whether or not something can be called "slavery" is irrelevant to whether or not it is wrong. If it shares the same moral violations that our conventional idea of slavery does then it is wrong, but not because it is called slavery but because it violates the same moral or ethical precepts. If it could be called slavery but doesn't violate these precepts then it is not a moral wrong. This is actually slightly related to Socrates' question in Plato's Euthyphro.