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>so many beliefs people have about morality rest on assumptions: my beliefs must be rational, founded on evidence, or else they are invalid. This is a very imp

by keane 11y ago

>so many beliefs people have about morality rest on assumptions: my beliefs must be rational, founded on evidence, or else they are invalid. This is a very important observation. Moral language is fundamentally Imperatives: statements about what humans should do. If one begins by insisting that moral claims must be founded on empirical evidence, one subsequently must hold Moral Anti-realism as it is not adequate to simply suggest evidence for morality. This follows from Hume's recognition of the Is-Ought problem between Facts and Values: we cannot bridge the gap between Facts (mere observations of that which Is) to Values (including our statements regarding what Ought to be) because they are qualitatively different things: ~"In suggested approaches to morality, I am surprised to find authors moving from propositions with the usual copula 'is' (or 'is not') to ones that are connected by 'ought' (or 'ought not'). This change is imperceptible; but is however, of the greatest consequence. For as this 'ought' (or 'ought not') expresses some new relation or affirmation, 'tis necessary that it should be pointed out and explained; and at the same time a reason should be given, for how this new relation can be—inconceivably—a deduction from others that are entirely different from it. I am persuaded, that attention to this one small matter will let us see that the definitions of right and wrong are not based on the relations of objects nor can be perceived by reason." While we are unable to jump the gap by taking an observed Fact to infer a prescribed Value, we can travel from Values to subsequent Values (e.g. if you presuppose human survival--"Humans should survive"--from this Value you can go to another Value: "Humans shouldn't kill"). Of course, starting with any particular presupposed Value is a departure from Empiricism. That is to say, all normative statements are matters of assumptive belief, and one assumed Value is as unempirical as another. The trick of course, unless you become a Nihilist, is what unempirical assumptive Value will you support and proclaim. A really interesting part regarding all of this is that if morality does not truly exist, it was not morally 'wrong' anytime humans proclaimed it truly did. We remember the realization of the Marquis de Sade that if God does not exist then everything that is, is Right; but further, if the unempirical does not exist, then proclaiming it does is not wrong. In the words of philosopher Thomas Nagel: "If sub specie aeternitatis there is no reason to believe that anything matters, then that does not matter either". Wild.

tunesmith 11y ago
Generally, if someone comes to an "ought" conclusion that is different from yours, I tend to think that happens only for two reasons - either they are reasoning incorrectly from their own premises, or they are reasoning correctly but simply hold different moral axioms (values) than you do, values that are the kind of root-level ought statements that "reasonable people can disagree about". I haven't come across convincing arguments that people have actually found moral facts (bridging the is-ought gap), because those arguments usually just come across as very strenuously insisting that a certain moral ought statement should be accepted as a fact. In the case of this paper, I believe the author is suggesting that they've bridged the is-ought gap by suggesting that moral axioms are only created after the fact as justifications that came from emotional impulses. But I don't really see how that argument follows. If one's moral axioms are arrived at after the fact, then they would vary depending on the whims of the arguer's emotions, but then it's just a matter of pointing out the contradictions and demanding consistency. That would only prove inconsistency, not that moral axioms themselves are invalid. The author's discomfort at the end of the paper strikes me more as the type of discomfort that comes from realizing that one's initial axioms might lead to uncomfortable conclusions, leading to a re-thinking of those axioms/values - that's great in terms of the desire to maintain consistency, but I don't see it as bridging the is-ought gap. Such an examination might lead us to alter our values - or alter the conclusions that come from our values - but I don't see it as necessarily supporting the argument that values themselves are invalid, or that everything should (there's that word again!) be looked at entirely in a consequentialist fashion.
- keane 11y ago
  The author of the paper speculates that deontologists arrive at their belief via an emotional psychological process while consequentialists employ a more "cognitive" process. But these observations of psychology, as you write, are unable to bridge the Is-Ought gap. Even when we can demonstrate how humans adopt beliefs, this does not by itself tell us if the beliefs are true. We cannot say "humans believe X" and then conclude "therefore X is true"; further we cannot say "humans believe X because Y therefore X is true" and likewise, and this is where the author errors, we cannot say "humans believe X because Y therefore X is not true". The author makes an interesting critique of Kant's system specifically but the question with regard to realism is if the rule itself is true. The author suggests the Is-Ought gap is true, writing that they do not intend to argue that "one can derive moral truths from scientific truths" (41). Instead they claim "scientific information can undermine factual assumptions on which moral thinking implicitly depends", using this premise to arrive at the formulation on 47 that just because we feel an emotional inclination, this may not correspond to an independent moral truth. This doesn't seem controversial. But the deontologist's thinking does not implicitly depend on the factual assumption 'what evolved is what is True'. The crux of the paper (47-48) is where the author suggests: 1. humans choose beliefs, often irrationally (no one denies this) 2. our judgments result from our emotional state (sure) 3. our emotions came from evolution (alright) 4. therefore it is unlikely there exists a coherent normative moral theory that can accommodate our moral intuitions (perhaps) 5. therefore "we have somehow crossed the infamous 'is'-'ought' divide" (no...not at all) Point 4, while possible, does not follow from Points 1-3, and Point 5 does not follow from Point 4. The author suggests they did not "attempt to derive an 'ought' from an 'is'" instead they merely "inferred...that the phenomenon of deontological philosophy is best explained as a rationalization of evolved emotional intuition [and, crucially, therefore false]." In other words, the argument is (A) deontology was adopted because of evolution (B) therefore deontology is not objectively true. But as you observe the author begins to feel discomfort at this (flawed) line of thought likely because it could apply to everything. As they write "If I care about my self only because I am biologically programmed to carry my genes into the future, should I stop caring about myself?". This is the horror of Empiricism. The author concludes that in addition to believing deontology is not true, they also view their own consequentialist principles as "not true" but as "the best", apparently we are to believe due to the reasoning given above. Ultimately the author appears to not understand what the Is-Ought Facts-Values problem actually implies: we are unable to make an observation about the empirical universe ("Humans have value to humans") and then conclude an objective value statement from it ("Therefore humans should value other humans").

by keane 11y ago

tunesmith 11y ago

Generally, if someone comes to an "ought" conclusion that is different from yours, I tend to think that happens only for two reasons - either they are reasoning incorrectly from their own premises, or they are reasoning correctly but simply hold different moral axioms (values) than you do, values that are the kind of root-level ought statements that "reasonable people can disagree about". I haven't come across convincing arguments that people have actually found moral facts (bridging the is-ought gap), because those arguments usually just come across as very strenuously insisting that a certain moral ought statement should be accepted as a fact. In the case of this paper, I believe the author is suggesting that they've bridged the is-ought gap by suggesting that moral axioms are only created after the fact as justifications that came from emotional impulses. But I don't really see how that argument follows. If one's moral axioms are arrived at after the fact, then they would vary depending on the whims of the arguer's emotions, but then it's just a matter of pointing out the contradictions and demanding consistency. That would only prove inconsistency, not that moral axioms themselves are invalid. The author's discomfort at the end of the paper strikes me more as the type of discomfort that comes from realizing that one's initial axioms might lead to uncomfortable conclusions, leading to a re-thinking of those axioms/values - that's great in terms of the desire to maintain consistency, but I don't see it as bridging the is-ought gap. Such an examination might lead us to alter our values - or alter the conclusions that come from our values - but I don't see it as necessarily supporting the argument that values themselves are invalid, or that everything should (there's that word again!) be looked at entirely in a consequentialist fashion.

keane 11y ago
The author of the paper speculates that deontologists arrive at their belief via an emotional psychological process while consequentialists employ a more "cognitive" process. But these observations of psychology, as you write, are unable to bridge the Is-Ought gap. Even when we can demonstrate how humans adopt beliefs, this does not by itself tell us if the beliefs are true. We cannot say "humans believe X" and then conclude "therefore X is true"; further we cannot say "humans believe X because Y therefore X is true" and likewise, and this is where the author errors, we cannot say "humans believe X because Y therefore X is not true". The author makes an interesting critique of Kant's system specifically but the question with regard to realism is if the rule itself is true. The author suggests the Is-Ought gap is true, writing that they do not intend to argue that "one can derive moral truths from scientific truths" (41). Instead they claim "scientific information can undermine factual assumptions on which moral thinking implicitly depends", using this premise to arrive at the formulation on 47 that just because we feel an emotional inclination, this may not correspond to an independent moral truth. This doesn't seem controversial. But the deontologist's thinking does not implicitly depend on the factual assumption 'what evolved is what is True'. The crux of the paper (47-48) is where the author suggests: 1. humans choose beliefs, often irrationally (no one denies this) 2. our judgments result from our emotional state (sure) 3. our emotions came from evolution (alright) 4. therefore it is unlikely there exists a coherent normative moral theory that can accommodate our moral intuitions (perhaps) 5. therefore "we have somehow crossed the infamous 'is'-'ought' divide" (no...not at all) Point 4, while possible, does not follow from Points 1-3, and Point 5 does not follow from Point 4. The author suggests they did not "attempt to derive an 'ought' from an 'is'" instead they merely "inferred...that the phenomenon of deontological philosophy is best explained as a rationalization of evolved emotional intuition [and, crucially, therefore false]." In other words, the argument is (A) deontology was adopted because of evolution (B) therefore deontology is not objectively true. But as you observe the author begins to feel discomfort at this (flawed) line of thought likely because it could apply to everything. As they write "If I care about my self only because I am biologically programmed to carry my genes into the future, should I stop caring about myself?". This is the horror of Empiricism. The author concludes that in addition to believing deontology is not true, they also view their own consequentialist principles as "not true" but as "the best", apparently we are to believe due to the reasoning given above. Ultimately the author appears to not understand what the Is-Ought Facts-Values problem actually implies: we are unable to make an observation about the empirical universe ("Humans have value to humans") and then conclude an objective value statement from it ("Therefore humans should value other humans").