[MD] A Science of Morals

[Steven Peterson]

Hi Horse, Craig, (Matt)

On Sat, Apr 3, 2010 at 11:30 AM, Horse <horse at darkstar.uk.net> wrote:
> Hi 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.

It philosophical technical jargon I think there is supposed to be a
difference between values and ought statements, but I'm not clear on
what that is. I think it is something like values are supposed to be
what makes us make "ought assertions" and facts are what make us make
"is assertions." Both sorts of assertions are capable of having
truth-value while facts and values are neither truth nor false. Harris
does not make any distinction here. (Maybe Matt could clear up the
technical academic usage issues.)

While (you and) Pirsig would say that facts are a type of value,
Harris says that values are a type of fact. Pirsig wanted to collapse
everything into aesthetics and Harris wants to collapse everything
into science, but the moves both have the same effect in blurring an
unbridgeable dichotomy (eternally separate spheres of reality) into a
distinction that may be useful for certain purposes. Both claims are
not making whatever technical distinction there may be among
philosophers between is/ought assertions and facts and values, and
both are saying that "ought assertions" can have whatever epistemic
standing and truth-value that "is assertions" are capable of having.
Both moves dispel the common misconnection that values can't be
reasoned about and that science and reason itself have no concern for
values.

I think there is still a problem in trying to extract ought from is.
For example, how do we reason from such facts as...

(1) Sally is hungry
(2) If Sally doesn't eat she will surely die
(3) Sally wants to live
(4) It's lunchtime!

to

...

(10) Sally ought to eat?

How do we fill in (5)-(6) with only statements about the way the world
is in such a way to logically force a conclusion about how the world
ought to be? While I do think that Sally ought to eat, I don't know
how to make that conclusion without admitting at least one "ought
statement" into the argument such as "If Sally wants to live then
Sally ought not to let herself die."

I also see no problem with admitting such "ought statements" into our
arguments as unproven axioms. Mathematics is also based on unproven
axioms such as "through every two points there exists only one line."
If admitting such axioms does not concern us about math, then it
needn't concern us in our conversations about morals. I haven't heard
Harris make such an argument, however. He talks as though we will
discover morals by studying how the world is in an emerging science of
the mind including content from psychology and neuroscience.

Best,
Steve