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Is-Ought Problem actually solved? Problem of Universals

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Grames said:

Why is there only one possible instrumental answer?

Because there is only one fundamental alternative to life.

And this:

How can there be such a thing as a justification not in the form of an argument?

A validation in the form of sense perception.

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Why is there only one possible instrumental answer?

Because only life is an end in itself, requiring no further justification. Being alive requires taking action to stay alive, that is just a fact. Any other instrumental answer would assume being alive to accomplish the end, so one could keep asking "why?" until arriving back at the fact of being alive.

How can there be such a thing as a justification not in the form of an argument?

If all arguments are justified by other arguments, everything is circular and futile. The evidence of the senses provides the validation of some simple judgments (that you can see, that you see things, things come in different colors, etc..), and all knowledge is built up from and remains dependent upon that fundamental knowledge.

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Because only life is an end in itself, requiring no further justification. Being alive requires taking action to stay alive, that is just a fact. Any other instrumental answer would assume being alive to accomplish the end, so one could keep asking "why?" until arriving back at the fact of being alive.

If all arguments are justified by other arguments, everything is circular and futile. The evidence of the senses provides the validation of some simple judgments (that you can see, that you see things, things come in different colors, etc..), and all knowledge is built up from and remains dependent upon that fundamental knowledge.

Very interesting Grames, I had never thought of the solution to the is/ought problem in this way. Do you think it would be fair to say that the solution to the is/ought problem is self-evident? That is, the very labeling of it as a "problem" presupposes that one has made a connection between "is" and "ought" already? Or do you think that "self-evident" would be a misleading term in this particular context?

Tristan

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If logic is used to attack the validity of logic that is the stolen concept fallacy. If the same argument is made to attack ethics that is a more indirect version of the stolen concept fallacy when there is an intellectual commitment to keep ethics logical and justified. In the alternative, for someone already convinced ethics come from God or social convention or evolved instincts then the is-ought problem is a reassuring rationalization to stop trying to make ethics make sense.

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  • 1 year later...

*** Mod's note: Merged with an earlier thread.  -sN ***

In answer to those philosophers who claim that no relation can be established between ultimate ends or values and the facts of reality, let me stress that the fact that living entities exist and function necessitates the existence of values and of an ultimate value which for any given living entity is its own life. Thus the validation of value judgments is to be achieved by reference to the facts of reality. The fact that a living entity is, determines what it ought to do. So much for the issue of the relation between “is” and “ought.”

 

 

— Ayn Rand, “The Objectivist Ethics,” The Virtue of Selfishness

 

 

I am having some difficulty with refuting David Hume's is-ought dichotomy. I am arguing with another individual (one who advocates anarchy).

 

To summarize his argument:

 

 

Ethics cannot be universal. An individual may survive without valuing life. An individual may eat without valuing food, simply to avoid the pangs of hunger. In fact, even if he does value food, it doesn't necessarily imply that his ultimate standard of value is his life. His life can be an inadvertent consequence of his other actions.

 

I am not exactly sure how to approach this argument effectively. Above all, it is a challenge for me to defend the ethics of my philosophy as truly objective.

 

I have read The Virtue of Selfishness (Ayn Rand) and Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It (Craig Biddle) and both have helped me to get this far into the defense of Objectivist ethics. But I am, effectively, stumped.

 

If for my own intellect above all, I hope you can help me to resolve this and refute my opponent's perspective.

 

Could someone help me to understand the objectivity and factual basis of ethics in Objectivism?

 

Thank you; I look forward to your response.

Edited by softwareNerd
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Well I'll start by saying that it's simply not possible to survive without valuing life. So he's flat out wrong on that account. As for food, I don't see why one would value it if not for the life sustaining properties of it. Maybe you can eat simply because you enjoy the taste of food, but try being deprived of food on a consistent basis and then rejecting an orange because you don't like the taste of citric. Unless you don't value life, you're not going to reject it.

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Rand defines a value as something which one acts to gain or keep. It is a metaphysical fact that individuals act and have values. One cannot act randomly or not act.

Even if an individual thinks "I will just lay here until I die," that is a choice and an action which implicitly declares a value (in this case the value is "lieing in one place until death"). Nor can an individual litterally act in a random or nonsenical manner.

It is also a metaphysical fact that individuals prefer pleasure and happiness over pain and misery. One can argue about the anomolies which constitute exceptions to these rules, but that is another matter entirely.

Given that human beings have a specific universal nature, it is another metaphysical fact that some values will result in pleasure and happiness while other values will result in pain and misery. Thus man must derive a system of ethics which chooses the right values to pursue which will result in pleasure and happiness.

EDIT - I don't think Rand describes or answeres the "is-ought" contention very well in VoS.

Edited by Dormin111
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Ethics cannot be universal. An individual may survive without valuing life. An individual may eat without valuing food, simply to avoid the pangs of hunger. In fact, even if he does value food, it doesn't necessarily imply that his ultimate standard of value is his life. His life can be an inadvertent consequence of his other actions.

By definition, ethics is a code of values by which man can judge what is good and evil.. it guides all of man's choices and actions. Ethics were created for those who value their lives, not for those who don't (they wouldn't need ethics at all, would they?) But ethics can be universal- meaning that everyone can apply them to the choices they make. Oist ethics focus on what is actually good for man based on his nature. The standard of this ethical code is man's life, and this is a value that must be chosen. If he chooses to live, what must he do to survive and be happy? "Since everything man needs has to be discovered by his own mind and produced by his own effort, the two essentials of the method of survival proper to a rational being are: thinking and productive work" [1]

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Ethics cannot be universal. An individual may survive without valuing life. An individual may eat without valuing food, simply to avoid the pangs of hunger. In fact, even if he does value food, it doesn't necessarily imply that his ultimate standard of value is his life. His life can be an inadvertent consequence of his other actions.

Definitions.

“Value” is that which one acts to gain and/or keep.

A person who claims to not value life yet finds time to eat, wears clothing to keep warm, and takes shelter from bad weather is a liar and a hypocrite.

Values are actions, not bullshit ideas locked inside one's head.

Edit: Just to expand on this a bit more:

There are, in essence, three schools of thought on the nature of the good: the intrinsic, the subjective, and the objective.

The intrinsic theory holds that the good is inherent in certain things or actions as such, regardless of their context and consequences, regardless of any benefit or injury they may cause to the actors and subjects involved. It is a theory that divorces the concept of “good” from beneficiaries, and the concept of “value” from valuer and purpose—claiming that the good is good in, by, and of itself.

The subjectivist theory holds that the good bears no relation to the facts of reality, that it is the product of a man’s consciousness, created by his feelings, desires, “intuitions,” or whims, and that it is merely an “arbitrary postulate” or an “emotional commitment.”

The intrinsic theory holds that the good resides in some sort of reality, independent of man’s consciousness; the subjectivist theory holds that the good resides in man’s consciousness, independent of reality.

The objective theory holds that the good is neither an attribute of “things in themselves” nor of man’s emotional states, but an evaluation of the facts of reality by man’s consciousness according to a rational standard of value. (Rational, in this context, means: derived from the facts of reality and validated by a process of reason.) The objective theory holds that the good is an aspect of reality in relation to man—and that it must be discovered, not invented, by man. Fundamental to an objective theory of values is the question: Of value to whom and for what? An objective theory does not permit context-dropping or “concept-stealing”; it does not permit the separation of “value” from “purpose,” of the good from beneficiaries, and of man’s actions from reason.

(Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 21–22, cf. Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, 209, on the presuppositions of the concept “value”)

The person holding values only in their head as desires or an “emotional commitment” is acting out the subjectivist theory of the good, and that is what is shown in that quote the OP wanted an answer for.

Edited by Grames
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Hume's challenge is a tautology. He said that you can't infer an evaluative conclusion from premises with no evaluative terms in them. This is a case of the wider tautology that you can't infer a conclusion that isn't implicit in the premises. True but obvious. Philippa Foot, a philosopher who has some points in common with Rand, pointed out decades ago that the arguments of modern non-naturalists (i.e. of those who claim that evaluations aren't statements of fact that are true or false) define natural statements (statements of fact that are true or false) to be the ones without any evaluative language. This also applies to Hume as I recall his argument. You can't draw conclusions about biochemistry from premises that contain no biochemical terms, but this doesn't prove that biochemistry is outside the realm of reason or that we can't know universal truths about it.

A more interesting question is whether evaluations can be natural statements. Hume's challenge does nothing to rule the possibility out, and I'm satisfied that Rand (among others) has shown that they can be.

I think the essential problem with what you quote from the anarchist is that he confuses explanations with conscious goals. The former tell you why something is good, not somebody is aware of pursuing. Take the statement

An individual may survive without valuing life.
The value of life explains why some pursuits are or aren't good, and the fact that it isn't on somebody's mind at a particular time, or ever, doesn't change this.

The next statement,

An individual may eat without valuing food, simply to avoid the pangs of hunger.

is simply a contradiction. If he chooses to eat and if he does so in order to avoid hunger pangs, then it's a value.

Finally, take

even if he does value food, it doesn't necessarily imply that his ultimate standard of value is his life. His life can be an inadvertent consequence of his other actions.

A particular person's values or attitudes are insufficient to show that life is his ultimate, deliberate goal, but this says nothing about whether life ultimately explains valuing. Edited by Reidy
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  • 3 years later...

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