[MD] A Science of Morals

[david buchanan]

Steve said:

There still seems to me to remain the problem of is/ought (which Harris says is not a problem). How can a description of how the world is tell us about how the world ought to be?


Horse repled to Steve:

Isn't this the fact/value problem - how do we extract ought from is? I would have thought that facts are a particular type of value - maybe high value statements about some aspect of our world. It sounds quite encouraging that Harris doesn't see this as a problem. Steve said: There still seems to me to remain the problem of is/ought (which Harris says is not a problem). How can a description of how the world is tell us about how the world ought to be?




dmb says:


I agree. A fact isn't what simply "is". A fact is what we thing we "ought" to notice or weigh. It is something selected from all that could be noticed or weighed. I'd even go so far as to say that we value facts so dearly that people who refuse to accept them are considered to be dishonest and, in a very real sense, immoral. We're morally outraged when someone tried to hide the facts or distort the facts and rightly so.  		 	   		  
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