abe smith

Resp to OP;
IMO. nothing is hard-wired into us by "evolution", which is NOT a Platonic entity, if you don't mind! What we are & do, here & now, are the result of accident and survival.

Nothing is "hardwired"; and what-there-is-here-now can be wiped out of existence tomorrow.

Alonzo Fyfe

Adrian Selby:

Desires and prescriptions are the same thing.


The statement, "Agent desires that P", and "P is prescribed for Agent" are two different ways of saying the same thing. There are no prescriptions other than those that spring from a desire, and the idea of a desire that does not prescribe an object or state of affairs for the agent is like the idea of a circle that is not round.

Since "Agent desires that P" is a statement with a truth value, "P is prescribed for Agent" is also a statement with a truth value.

Jade

Here...have some more ammunition.

The 'proper end' of a system is determined by its archetypal nature. One can think of this by imagining the system in its 'ideal form' and in isolation from all distorting factors. In such a situation, the deepest, defining nature of the thing will manifest itself, and by that manifestation define an End. That end is the 'proper end'.

Thus, an object moving in a straight line in a total vacuum and not interacting with any other entity will continue moving in a straight line forever -- the infinitely remote point straight infront of it is its proper end, as defined by its nature (moving).

Thus, a computer 'ought' to work in a certain way because the archetype of a computer (the defining essence of a computer as considered in an 'Ideal Computer [of that model]') describes certain kinds of behaviours that come 'naturally' (from the nature of the thing). When something --be it a virus or whatever-- interferes and distorts the proper, natural functioning of a computer, then the computer can rightly be said to 'not be doing what it's supposed (ought) to do".

In terms of human behaviour and nature, it is important to separate the archetypal features from the distortions. Thus, for a Christian, modern human nature is corrupt and sinful, yet this depraved nature is itself a distortion laid upon a deeper archetype by the Fall -- we 'ought' to seek God because that is what is in our deepest nature to do, despite all the layers of depravity that sometimes conceal that fact.

In another account of morality, it is our nature to seek our advantage, and this advantage is best served by serving the best interests of the greatest possible number of people; thus we 'ought' to seek the advantage of the most people. To not seek the advantage of the most is the result of distorting factors (insanity, perverted and incorrect ideology, etc), which do not eliminate the validity of the underlying human archetype and the 'oughts' that derive from it.

In practical terms, such as "If I want to get icecream I will have to pay for it", the archetype is remodelled to fit the issue in consideration. Instead of focusing on my humanity, we focus on my desire for icecream. Instead of a human, I am 'a thing that wants icecream', and thus the archetype in consideration is 'The Ideal thing that wants icecream' -- the 'proper end' of which is "The Acquisition of Icecream".

Since the natural behaviour of a thing that wants icecream is to try to acquire it by whatever means necessary, and since the only means for acquiring icecream is to pay for it (in this scenario), then the act of paying for icecream is a means to the proper end. Given that this is the only means, (and taking this case in isolation) then it is thus a 'proper means': in other words, I 'ought' to pay for the icecream.

Does this start to answer your questions?

{edited for numerous grammatcal and speling mistaces]

Jade

Well I am sorry for being opaque. Perhaps I can make it clearer -- your translation does not convey the same connotations and shades of meaning as the original. To use your more recent example, "Agent desires that P" does not carry the same meaning (for me) as does "P is prescribed for Agent". Indeed, I have yet to see why I should believe that things called 'prescriptions' should exist at all (though goodness knows there are a lot of prescriptive assertions and commandments). If they don't, then your translation is not logically identical, for precisely the same reasons that you identified above wrt 'proper ends'.

Jade

But this is beside the point -- I am not convinced that 'ought' statements even have truth-values. If they don't, then this is pointless.
Could you phrase this a little more clearly? Why should I not simply believe that Ought statements are like commands and questions (in that they lack truth-values)? Why would this belief be wrong?

Alonzo Fyfe

Jade:

Actually, when I use the term 'opaque', I am talking about the logical sense in which a term is said to be 'referentially opaque'.

Here's an example. Suppose I were to argue that Samuel Clemens wrote "Tom Sawyer". Or, more precisely, Samuel Clemens is the same person as the person who wrote "Tom Sawyer."

Now, you know that Mark Twain wrote "Tom Sawyer". You consider the proposition "Mark Twain wrote 'Tom Sawyer'" along side the proposition "Samuel Clemens wrote 'Tom Sawyer'", and you notice that the first statement is far more familiar. You are more comfortable with it.

Yet, these facts do not support a claim on your part that "Samuel Clemens wrote 'Tom Sawyer' must be false because it fails to capture the feeling that I have when I think 'Mark Twain wrote 'Tom Sawyer'."

The logical test of identity has nothing to do with how you feel when you consider the propositions. Your feelings or attitudes are 'referentially opaque' in that they do not 'shine through' to the object itself.

Whether or not is true that Samuel Clemens wrote 'Tom Sawyer' has nothing to do with how you feel about the proposition. It has to do with whether 'Samuel Clemens" can be substituted for "Mark Twain" in every true proposition about "Mark Twain".

Not that your feelings about the proposition 'Samuel Clemens wrote 'Tom Sawyer' is NOT a proposition about Samuel Clemens. It is a proposition about you -- and it is a referentially opaque proposition at that. Logical identity requires that we focus on propositions about the items themselves.

If you do not mind, I refer you to the philosophical definition of Referential opacity

You may seek to disagree with me on this, but you will be going against over 2000 years in the study of logic. Aristotle brought up what became known as the masked man fallacy, later developed in more detail by Eubulides of Megara. The masked man fallacy argues, "The masked man cannot be my brother, because I know where my brother is right now, but I do not know where the masked man is."

Jade

Ok, that was helpful, Alonzo. I think I can now say how exactly I disagree with you:

You are making the claim that "Agent desires that P" and "P is prescribed for Agent" are two different ways of saying the same proposition -- that they are logically identical. I am denying that. As I see it, the two statements can have different truth-values in much the same way as the following two examples:

1) The rose is red.
2) The rose is such that I percieve it as red.

Number 1 is false, but 2 is true, because 'being red' is not a real property that attaches to objects out in the world -- it is a product of the way in which my brain interprets sense-data. Similarly, 'prescriptions', 'ought', 'should' and so on are just products of my brain that have no correspondence to reality (outside my head). They express a way of feeling about a subject, and those feelings and preferences are located within us -- not in the objects being observed.

So, I would say that these two statements are logically identical:
a) Agent desires that P.
b) Agent thinks that P is prescribed.

But this statement...
c) P is prescribed for Agent.
...is as false as "the rose is red". I would go further and say that all prescriptive statements are false (though I haven't completely given up the idea that they lack truth-values generally).

Jade

Just to add onto what I said above, and to respond to the quoted objections (which are relevant to it), people assert all the time that the world is as they see it. People say that roses are red, that cakes are sweet, that tables are solid, and so on. Yet these statements (strictly speaking) are false. A theory which takes into account the disparity between what the observer sees and the nature of the object being observed must conclude that all such 'naive' statements are false -- yet does this make it a poor analysis, and weaker than one which asserts that things really are as they seem?

Alonzo Fyfe

Sorry, but, (1) and (2) are both true because they mean exactly the same thing.

People use phrases like "the rose is red" all the time without expecting to be understood as saying that the redness is anything other than 'being such as to be perceived as red by the typical human under normal lighting conditions."

It is interesting that you selected the phrase 'the rose is red' as your example, because the standard theory of truth, the Tarsky Theory, is built on an analysis of 'the snow is white', and nowhere in the history of philosophy is 'the snow is white' taken to be a necessarily false statement.

Furthermore, redness is an objective property that can be scientifically measured. We can know that "X is red" is true by determining if it will reflect light at around the 4500 angstrom wavelength and absorb light at all other wavelengths between 4500 and 7500 angstroms.

So, not only is "the rose is red" true, its truth can be verified scientifically.

Yes, redness depends on facts about the human eye. But human eyes exist. They are a part of the real world, and we can make real world statements about eyes, such as the fact that they are made up of cones and rods that are sensitive to photons of a particular energy level.

I have equated goodness to being "such as to fulfill the desires in question." Structurally, there is no difference between this and defining redness as 'being such as to appear red to a typical person under normal lighting conditions." Just as the latter statement can be true (and objectively true), so can the former.

Adrian Selby

How can they be the same thing? One is descriptive of what an agent desires, the other is prescribing for an agent, which is not logically identical. P might be prescribed for agent, it does not follow that agent desires that p.

Indeed, but they are not logically equivalent. That P is prescribed for agent does not mean that the agent has prescribed it, where in the first statement, we are saying something of the agent, not for them.