Good piece Briggs. MacIntyre's formulation is not at all conclusive. Consider how it might be modified by additional information. 1. A sea captain ought to go down with his ship. 2. Bob is a sea captain and last surviving member of the royal family. 3.Bob's death at sea will result in tremendous tumult and instability leading to a communist massacre of Bob's people.
Bob ought not to do what a sea captain, considered abstractly ought to do because Bob is not exclusively a sea captain. Bob has other ethical obligations. Thus the is can never prove the ought because the ethical, even in an example that appeared to be a trivial tautology, is contingent on the totality of a man's existence.
When I was up to my eyes in the writing on the truth-aptness, if any, of moral language, the neo-Aristotelians always made the strongest case against anti-realists and non-cognitivists. Sorting language so neatly into exclusive boxes of bare description and emotive evaluation is a highly artificial construction, cooked up by philosophers, that has little to do with how people really live and act.
I think it was Philippa Foot who pointed out that we have a whole slew of value terms like "rude" which involve a judgment of character or action but are not logically separate from factual descriptions. Maybe an "ought" can't be deduced from an "is", but that doesn't matter much if your basic concepts for navigating moral life are already a blend of the two.
If a soul insists on building a meta-ethical system around thin abstractions like "good", a moral sense of "ought" (MacIntyre's example, also Anscombe's), or obligatory actions and so forth, it's no wonder things turn sideways. But no real persons or peoples use moral language in such ways, and philosophers haven't made much of a case for why anyone *ought to* care about their word-games.
Morality is a product of the gene-centred evolutionary forces which shape human social psychology. We have evolved as if our sole goal was to propagate our genes, and morality has evolved only insofar as it helps us achieve that goal.
Amazing, Briggs! You dismantled New Age hornets and Postmodern rot in an hour.
I have a bit of a problem with the word "rationalists". Because Stove called the opposite, irrationalists, as a derogatory to authors like Popper, Kuhn or Lakatos.
But all who endorse Popper abductive reasoning (utilitarianism by another name) and who worship Bayes' Theorem as a golden calf call themselves rationalists, not irrationalists. And they have never heard about Stove.
So, I wonder, did David Stove call himself a rationalist, but with a different meaning?
I don't quite understand the watch example. It's my understanding that a watch cannot be ethical or moral but it can be effective to its end/purpose. Couldn't this devolve into saying everything is merely effective or not, while morality is not substantially anything deeper than a way of dressing up effectiveness to persuade or manipulate? My hunch is that morality derives from being rather than only doing or effecting. In other words, we ought to do things because they are effective to our telos but even more so because we become someone by doing them.
I appreciated the various examples/illustrations as you developed this. I would not be able to follow without them!
A friend is writing a book about corporate management. I am going to recommend he calls it "GAAP's Assisted Suicide Potion" ...
Good piece Briggs. MacIntyre's formulation is not at all conclusive. Consider how it might be modified by additional information. 1. A sea captain ought to go down with his ship. 2. Bob is a sea captain and last surviving member of the royal family. 3.Bob's death at sea will result in tremendous tumult and instability leading to a communist massacre of Bob's people.
Bob ought not to do what a sea captain, considered abstractly ought to do because Bob is not exclusively a sea captain. Bob has other ethical obligations. Thus the is can never prove the ought because the ethical, even in an example that appeared to be a trivial tautology, is contingent on the totality of a man's existence.
"copulation of propositions". Hume sure new how to turn a phrase.
Enjoyed this post
-1 > -2
-x > -2x
-.1 > -2
-.1x > -2x
(1-1.1) > -2
(1-1.1)x > -2x
1x - 1.1x > -2x
(10-10.1) > -2
(10-10.1)x > -2x
10x - 10.1x > -2x
even if x=1,000,000
When I was up to my eyes in the writing on the truth-aptness, if any, of moral language, the neo-Aristotelians always made the strongest case against anti-realists and non-cognitivists. Sorting language so neatly into exclusive boxes of bare description and emotive evaluation is a highly artificial construction, cooked up by philosophers, that has little to do with how people really live and act.
I think it was Philippa Foot who pointed out that we have a whole slew of value terms like "rude" which involve a judgment of character or action but are not logically separate from factual descriptions. Maybe an "ought" can't be deduced from an "is", but that doesn't matter much if your basic concepts for navigating moral life are already a blend of the two.
If a soul insists on building a meta-ethical system around thin abstractions like "good", a moral sense of "ought" (MacIntyre's example, also Anscombe's), or obligatory actions and so forth, it's no wonder things turn sideways. But no real persons or peoples use moral language in such ways, and philosophers haven't made much of a case for why anyone *ought to* care about their word-games.
Let h=the number of all births of man counted until today is GREATER [not less, thx PE Bird] than the number of all deaths of man counted until today
Let e=man is mortal
(A) Pr(h|e)=1
If ‘born again’ is excluded from ‘birth’ then (A) may be true.
What can we say about:
(B) Pr(h|e & man is extinct) = 1
-If there is no one left to benefit from the statement
-If there is no one left to observe the evidence
-If concepts of ethics, fact, logic, and tautology wink out of existence with their creators.
In consideration, perhaps (B) is malformed.
If there was a time where there were no men, and later a time when man appeared (let's call that birthed), then there would be a man before one died.
I noticed my error and will correct
I think this might be related to the successor function where 0 should be excluded from the list of natural men.
Speaking of natural men, if men can only be born from 2 humans, where did the first 2 humans come from?
See Genesis 1
Morality is a product of the gene-centred evolutionary forces which shape human social psychology. We have evolved as if our sole goal was to propagate our genes, and morality has evolved only insofar as it helps us achieve that goal.
Amazing, Briggs! You dismantled New Age hornets and Postmodern rot in an hour.
I have a bit of a problem with the word "rationalists". Because Stove called the opposite, irrationalists, as a derogatory to authors like Popper, Kuhn or Lakatos.
But all who endorse Popper abductive reasoning (utilitarianism by another name) and who worship Bayes' Theorem as a golden calf call themselves rationalists, not irrationalists. And they have never heard about Stove.
So, I wonder, did David Stove call himself a rationalist, but with a different meaning?
He called himself, if anything, a positivist, but not in the old sense of the word. He was seeking for a new positivisim.
I don't quite understand the watch example. It's my understanding that a watch cannot be ethical or moral but it can be effective to its end/purpose. Couldn't this devolve into saying everything is merely effective or not, while morality is not substantially anything deeper than a way of dressing up effectiveness to persuade or manipulate? My hunch is that morality derives from being rather than only doing or effecting. In other words, we ought to do things because they are effective to our telos but even more so because we become someone by doing them.