Mnrchst Posted October 9, 2012 Report Share Posted October 9, 2012 http://mises.org/journals/jls/7_1/7_1_4.pdf In this essay, a guy named Patrick O'Neill argues that Rand failed to bridge the is/ought gap. There are some obviously weak points of reasoning/misrepresentations of Oism in the essay, but the essay basically boils down to a section near the end, which basically is this: So some criminal does contradictory action. Why is that necessarily bad? How do we get from 'it's contradictory' to 'one ought not do this'? One doesn't follow the other. I have to agree with him. Rand seems to be on the right track, but at this point, I'm not sure how we get from one to the other. Whadda y'all think? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eficazpensador Posted October 9, 2012 Report Share Posted October 9, 2012 Hume (and this author) are only focused on deduction. You can't get from an 'is' to an 'ought' deductively, Hume's right. Actually you can't get anything into a deductive conclusion without it appearing in a premise. For example, how does one get knowledge about apples? You can't get a conclusion about apples from premises not containing the word apple. In reality, we don't get knowledge of apples from deductive syllogisms. We gain knowledge via induction. Rand crosses the is/ought gap via induction as well. As for why criminality is anti-life, you should search the boards. It's been discussed many many times. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mnrchst Posted October 10, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 10, 2012 "Rand crosses the is/ought gap via induction as well." How? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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