Here's something that we hear all the time: you can't derive an "ought" from an "is." What's an example of this? You can't derive any obligations or requirements from any fact. So, you can't derive an obligation to do something about poverty from the statement "That person is poor." Just from believing that "That tree is causing trouble" you can't derive any ought statement, such as "We ought to cut down that tree" or "We ought not to cut down that tree."
I don't know much about this area of philosophy, but it seems to me that there's a fairly simple counter-example to this. The fact that it seems simple to me is evidence that it's probably wrong, but I'm not sure where the fault is. So if anybody can figure it out, let me know.
So, "truth" has a certain normativity, ought-ness about it, no? If you think that p is true, then you ought to believe p. For example, imagine encountering a person who thought that it was true that the world was round, but believed that the world was flat. What would you be able to say to such a person? You would say: "you don't really believe that it's true that the world is round. Because if you believe that the world is round, you OUGHT to believe that the world isn't flat, that it's round."
So, isn't there a simple "ought" that you can derive from an "is"? Namely, from "I think that p is true" you can derive that "I ought to believe p."
If anyone can tell me where this reasoning fails, I would definitely appreciate it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
That's that other type of "ought" that I was talking about. First of all, believing "it is true that the world is round" is the same as believing that the world is round (per Frege). Here "ought" simply means "it violates principles of logic if you don't" (since, in this case, the two statements have equivalent content). It does not mean "you're a bad person if you don't".
Post a Comment