[MD] A Science of Morals

[Matt Kundert]

Steve said:
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.)

Matt:
Oh, I have no idea.  I'm not familiar with any 
paradigm-agreement on that kind of thing, though I think 
everybody still talks ises and oughts.

What strikes me about Horse's point, about Pirsig dissolving 
the Hume's is/ought conundrum, is that once we dissolve a 
"fact" into a stable pattern of value, it still doesn't move us 
towards deriving an ought from an is (for reasons like Steve's 
inability to formulate a practical syllogism without assuming 
as a premise an ought-statement rather than deducing it 
from a previously premised is-statement).  The trouble is 
that it seems--to our modern ears--a non sequitor to move 
from "this is how things are currently being done" to "this is 
how things should always be done."

And I think this is a step forward, a big moral leap forward, 
a kind of dissolving of the bonds of Greek influence on our 
hopes, where what _was_ was the way it was because it 
ought to have been that way.  ("Best of all possible worlds" 
crap.)  The transformation of phusis, nature, from a general 
notion about a thing's constitutional essence (linked 
indelibly, too, to its origins, i.e. its past) to something 
specifically about material junk, like trees and frogs, was I 
think an improvement.  Helps get rid of the 
aristocracy--"Hey, we rule because we've always ruled 
before, so we should rule in the future."

Matt

> Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2010 11:11:52 -0400
> From: peterson.steve at gmail.com
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Subject: Re: [MD] A Science of Morals
> 
> 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
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