Alonzo Fyfe

Hooboy:

The aversion to pain was an example, not the whole explanation. Aversion to pain, desire for pleasure, desire for sex, concern for one's offspring, hunger, thirst, aversion to dark places, a fondness for dark places, etc. There are countless desires and aversions that play a role. But they all function like pain functions in the example.

Alonzo Fyfe

Pixnaps

great post Alonzo! Clear & well-argued... i could just feel my understanding grow as i read through it

copiae

I've put off responding to this long enough.

Interesting definition, but, two points, if you will:

1) What happens when the needs of the individual directly contradicts the needs of a group? as an example - forced conscription (i.e. those that refuse to go are dragged along anyway).

2) I guess this is an extension of 1), but how does this definition explain actions taken that seemingly contradict self-preservation imperatives? - eg Matyrdom, suicide, fasting, willingly risking yourself to save others, etc?

Maybe this definition only works if you view human colonies as glorified hives.





Yawn. The desire to make an "ought" into an "is" can be argued to be THE driving force for human advancement, in every field.




The point that i was trying to make, is that our morality is not set in stone - more like set in quicksand. If we limit our scope to oh, two thousand years or so we can see that we, in the "civilised" world, have done a 180 degree shift in point of view on things perceived back then to be absolutely moral.

This shift is not a universal trend however, killing children of an unwanted gender is still acceptable in rural areas of certain countries, as is stoning to death an unfaithful wife in others. On a broad scale, the range of moral possibilities, even from a fixed era of observation are nowhere near as limited as you make them out to be.



The question of theft is an interesting one - its very good for the individual, and if society was viewed to be Hive style , then the net effect is zero. However, even when things much more abhorrent to us have been considered moral, theft has always reamined a big no-no.

Why, then, is theft not moral by now? It should be, as, if done intelligently, it maximises the survival chance of the individual, whilst not affecting the society he lives in. You can argue that theft has always been a part of human society, and i can reply that it has always been an immoral part.

Another case point - Prostitution. The acceptance of money for sex is viewed to be immoral by many religious zealouts throughout the world, yet, no harm occurs from it, quite the contrary, pleasure is derived from it. Sex, we can agree, is the best thing for any healthy community - it makes said community bigger. Indeed, it is also one of our most basic human instincts as well. Yet, Prostitution has an extremely diverse moral and cultural acceptance. Sometimes, it is a part of the culture (Geishas), and other times, a punishable offence (most of the United States?).

Finally, I assume from your post, particularly the ending, that you aren't a big fan of free will. If this is the case, then you and I will never agree on this, and there really is no point in further discussion between us, (that is, without discussing determinism first), apart from clearing up any possible mistakes i have made.

Don Alhambra

Alonzo:

Damn, you're good!

Vorkosigan

The basis of moral instincts is that we live in groups and must engage in long-term reciprocal sharing of resources. It has nothing to with pain or other responses, but instead everything to do with sociality. What you've done is assumed, without really thinking about the consequences, that humans are social animals. Your argument, Alonzo, tracked to its end, would have humans living alone like Tigers, to avoid the pain of interaction with others.

Adrian Selby

ought implies can, ought is not can. I don't see where the 'is' is. (There is a gap is what I'm arguing)

When I say someone ought to do something, I'm not stating a fact, such as when I'm saying 'London is the capital of England.'

One has a clear truth value (it is true or false) the other is neither, because whether you ought or not is not a fact, it is a prescription.

Prescription. (It is a fact that there is a prescription, but what is prescribed is not itself a fact.)

Fact.

There's the divide. Just because one is argued as an 'is' because it may be the case that there is a single action one ought to perform, based on a set of principles regarding what we ought to do, does not logically entail that the 'ought' in question is a fact.

Alonzo Fyfe

Vorkosigan:

A 'moral instinct' is no more required to use the tools of praise, blame, reward, and punishment to live in a society than a 'hammer instinct' is required to use a hammer.

All one needs is a recognition that these are useful tools and a basic understanding of how they can be used to achieve the desired ends.

The thesis so far simply states that 'ought' implies 'can' means that we are not going to use these tools where they can have no effect. It would be like using a standard claw-hammer to drive a nail through an steel I-beam. We are only going to use these tools where they have an effect, which is on desires that are maleable -- that can be shaped by their use. Which, by definition, are desires that are not hardwired.

It is rational to place, among those effects, making society more efficient at fulfilling the desires of those who belong to it. There might be some pains associated with living in a society, but these pale in comparison to the benefits of mutual protection, division of labor (allowing, for example, some to specialize on medicine while others specialize in construction), assistance in raising one's children, people to care for us if we get injured or sick, and so forth.

Again, no moral instinct is required. All that is required is the ability to use the tools of praise, blame, reward, and punishment. And the sense to recognize that it is worthless to employ these tools to try to modify traits that are hardwired.

Alonzo Fyfe

Adrian Shelly

The problem with postulating an unbridgable divide between fact and value is in answering the question, "How do values influence events in the real world?"

Regardless of one's views on the implication from 'is' to 'ought', there is clearly some way of getting from 'ought' to 'is'. Values influence the motion of items in the real world. (Or, if values have no influence in the real world, we should rid ourselves of this fiction entirely and stick to 'is' statements.)

In short, we have three options:

(1) Value nihilism. We should simply eliminate the words 'should' and 'ought' from our vocabulary. They have no relevance in the real world. They are represent a fiction that we made up. Though, this generates a problem, saying things like "we should simply eliminate the word 'should'"

(2) Metaphysical dualism: 'Ought' and 'should' refer to some type of mystical value entity distinct from the world, but capable of interacting with it, in such a way that a 'should' or an 'ought' refers to something that can cause humans to act in a particular way. But, what type of entity is this? How does it interact with the real world.

(3) Value realism: 'Ought' and 'should' refer to things in the real world, things that exist in the realm of 'is'. There interaction with other 'is' events is no more mysterious than any other interaction between one 'is' event and another.

Here's the equation that I think works quite well. 'Ought' (or 'should') = "is such as to fulfill the desires in question" (for some selected set of desires). Where a 'desire' is a brain state -- the term describes the functional organization of the gray matter between the ears (a part of the realm of 'is').

Much of what makes sense of the fact/value distinction is captured in this relationship. There is no value without desire. No set of premises that say nothing about desire can yield an 'ought' conclusion. So, you cannot derive an 'ought' from any combination of non-desire 'is' statements.

However, desires are a part of the world of 'is'. The proposition, "John wants chocolate ice-cream' is either true or false in the world of 'is'.

This equation allows for perfectly sensible implications such as, "If you want to get to the movie before it starts, you should leave before 3:00". Which means simply that "Leaving before 3:00 is such as to fulfill the desires in question, where the desires in question are the desires associated with getting to the movie before it starts."

This is the one point that Robert Anthony made that was worthwhile. There must be a bridge between 'is' and 'ought' if 'ought' is going to have any relevance in the real world. This bridge exists within the phenomena of desire, such that there is no value without desire, but where desire exists in the world of 'is', value also exists in the world of 'is'. Desires are real-world entities with the power to prescribe states of affairs for the people who have them.

Jade

Alonzo,

As with many words, "ought" has many uses, not all of which seem to fit comfortably under your definition. For instance, what exactly is the desire to be fulfilled in the following scenarios:

1) "I did a clean re-install of my operating system, that ought to clear up my spyware problem."

and

2) "If you accept the premises as true, and accept the form of the argument as deductively valid, then you ought to accept the truth of the conclusion."

Also, re: Adrian Selby's classification of Ought statements as not having truth-values, and your objection that Ought statements affect the world... there are many utterances that can affect the world that do not have truth-values (and are not facts). For instance, commands ("Go over there!"), questions ("Why are you doing this?"), and so on. Perhaps Ought statements are similar.

Ought statements have the appearance of Fact statements because all too often they appear in the context of arguments, and are purported to be justified by 'supporting' Fact statements:

a) You want the ice cream.
b) The only way to get the ice cream is to pay me.
c) Therefore you Ought to pay me.

As I understand it, you would reword (c) to say: "Therefore payment is such as to fulfill the desire to acquire ice cream", and while this reworking has produced a Fact statement (which can be true or false), this still does not seem (to me) to capture the full meaning and visceral impact of the original (c).

i)"You Ought to do X"
...doesn't seem to be entirely equivalent to...
ii)"The only way to get what you want is to do X".

First, (i) is almost telling the person what to do (like a command), while (ii) has no such command aspect. Second, (i) is a suggestion, while (ii) is a fact. Lastly, (ii) simply relates the conditions of the world to your perceptual apparatus, whereas (i) seems to be speaking as if it were a desire inside of you.

Umm...let me try to explain that last part: When one examines a particular desire via introspection, it almost feels like a physical force compelling you in a particular 'direction'. For instance, my desire to eat or drink feels almost like gravity -- this strange compulsion towards certain objects. The presence of many desires acting upon me is somewhat like being pulled in many directions, with some desires being complementary to each other, while others pull in opposite 'directions'.

The presence of an Ought-idea in my mind is expressed as a similar kind of force -- when I think "I Ought to do X", I feel the pull of X upon my mind. This is not the same for Fact statements -- "The birds are singing" does not summon up cognitive forces. That said, certain fact statements seem to 'release the flood gates', as it were, by triggering or enabling a particular cognitive force -- for instance "I can only get food if I go to the kitchen" enables my desire to eat to focus on the specific action of going to the kitchen. Yet these 'triggering statements' do not seem to possess inherent compulsive force on their own -- not like Ought statements.

Anyway, as you can see, I am not yet convinced you have bridged the Fact/Value chasm, or even that it needs to be bridged (presumably you can have an useful and accurate descriptive moral theory without the need for presciptive elements). What do you think of all this?

Vinnie

I find this whole topic and thread very interesting. I am reading along and just want to thank everyone who has contributed to it and especially Alonzo who appears to be leading the discussion right now

Vinnie