Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Thu Feb 11, 2021 7:17 am
Can you present a summary of your argument with reference why No Ought Can Be Derived from IS.
This is probably way too long to be useful here, but here's the idea in a nutshell:
For normatives (oughts, shoulds, etc.) to make sense as a behavioral modality, there need to be at least two options for behavior in a given scenario. For example, for "You should not stab Joe" to make sense as a behavioral modality, it needs to be possible to either stab Joe or to refrain from stabbing Joe in the scenario at hand. So in terms of "is's," it needs to be the case that it
IS possible to stab Joe and it
IS possible to refrain from stabbing Joe. If that's not what the world is like, and only one action or the other is possible, then normatives make no sense, because it doesn't matter what anyone "ought" to do--they'd only be able to do the one action that's possible.
So the question then, is what we should/what we ought to do. What is the case re stabbing or not stabbing Joe doesn't tell us this. It's just two things that are the case, and there's no recommendation embedded in them as two things that are the case. We can choose either option.
So then we can move to things like consequences. For example, if we choose to stab Joe, then maybe we'll wind up imprisoned or murdered by Joe's brother. Those are possibilities. And it's also possible to not wind up imprisoned or murdered by Joe's brother (possibilities we increase by choosing not to stab Joe). Do any of those sorts of possibilities tell us what we should do? Well, that they're possibilities doesn't tell us this. There would need to be something more there than possibilities. It's possible to choose any possible options (or to choose to increase the probability of certain things happening we could say).
No matter where we look, it quickly becomes apparent that the only thing that tells anyone what they should or ought to do are dispositions that individuals have--dispositions a la preferences as well as brute normative dispositions. Different individuals have all sorts of different dispositions when it comes to this, and that's fine insofar as it goes, but even that Frank has a disposition to stab/not stab Joe doesn't tell Frank that he ought to stab/not stab Joe and it certainly doesn't tell anyone in general that Joe or anyone in general ought to be stabbed/not stabbed.
Frank can have the disposition "I ought to stab Joe," but
that doesn't imply that he ought to act on his disposition. It's possible for him to act on it and it's possible for him to not act on it. And Frank or someone else can have the disposition "One ought to act on one's normative dispositions," but again, that doesn't tell us that one ought to--it's still possible to do so or to not do so. The is's--that it
is possible to act on normative dispositions and that it
is possible to not act on normative dispositions don't somehow say which option we should choose.