yes. im not asserting its true, but its a possible explanation. i took it to start with lilburne was looking for possible explanations.
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
nirgrahamUK: yes. im not asserting its true, but its a possible explanation. i took it to start with lilburne was looking for possible explanations.
I came to the same conclusion before I read your post. By inclining towards the "is" and turning a blind eye, therefore, disrespecting the "is" what ends up happening is the "is" becomes destroyed. Thus the very thing loved is squeezed and killed. And how will what "is" be explored if what "is" isn't respected and honored. It's a poor experiment to not respect and honor what "is" by any scientist. It would be a manipulation and corruption of the experiment and instead false conclusions not based on what "is" will be the only results.
Can you explain how an ought can be an emergent property of an is? There are at least several theories regarding consciousness as an emergent property of sychronious synapse firings. It's not a mere assertion.
Wilderness, is and ought are two very different concepts. Can you explain why they are entertwined? I think you are spouting nonsense but I'm interested if you can even explain what you think you are thinking.
By the way, introducing purpose in the guise of an if-then statement does not bridge the is-ought divide. Observe.
P1) Zefreak desires to use his time productively (is)---
C1) Zefreak ought to stop posting in this thread because nobody will be persuaded either way (ought)
Hidden premise..
P2) Zefreak ought to achieve what he desires (hidden ought)
I am still waiting to see a single logical derivation of an ought from an is statement. The lack of critical thinking in this thread is depressing.
“Elections are Futures Markets in Stolen Property.” - H. L. Mencken
That brick wall is in front of me. It ought to slow my car down.
"The best way to bail out the economy is with liberty, not with federal reserve notes." - pairunoyd
"The vision of the Austrian must be greater than the blindness of the sheeple." - pairunoyd
pairunoyd: That brick wall is in front of me. It ought to slow my car down.
You win!
edit: before anyone takes it seriously, he is conflating two uses of the word ought. He is using ought to mean natural expectation, whereas the ought that is relevant is normative, or what should be.
it is my move in chess. i have only a king.
i ought to move the king one step in any direction that would not put me in check, or resign.
nirgrahamUK: (is-proposition) it is my move in chess. (is-proposition) i have only a king. (ought-conclusion) i ought to move the king one step in any direction that would not put me in check, or resign.
(is-proposition) it is my move in chess. (is-proposition) i have only a king.
(ought-conclusion) i ought to move the king one step in any direction that would not put me in check, or resign.
hidden ought-proposition: "I ought to play by the rules of chess", "I ought to play chess", there are probably others.
zefreak:hidden ought-proposition: "I ought to play by the rules of chess", "I ought to play chess", there are probably others.
and what oughts are you presuming in this line of inquiry?
February 17 - 1600 - Giordano Bruno is burnt alive by the catholic church. Aquinas : "much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."
nirgrahamUK: it is my move in chess. i have only a king. i ought to move the king one step in any direction that would not put me in check, or resign.
Would you then say making good moves in chess is moral and making bad moves is immoral?
Again, this conception reduces right/wrong to smart/stupid, and makes natural rights theories just as consequentialist as the theories to which they are generally thought to be contrary.
Juan:All this is simply quibbling. When things are not put in terms of ought, the amoralists rewrite them in terms of ought so as to strawman their opponents.
I am NOT an amoralist. I believe taxation is evil, and I hate state power with all my heart. I believe in morality, just not your contrived deductive conception of it.
Lilburne: Would you then say making good moves in chess is moral and making bad moves is immoral?
not at all.
morality is quite different from chess. if i make an illegitimate chess move, it is not morally illegitimate, it is simply chess illegitimate.
Lilburne:I am NOT an amoralist.
I believe taxation is evil, and I hate state power with all my heart.
I believe in morality, just not your contrived deductive conception of it.
That seems like mere opportunism, though. If what you're saying is men ought to do what they see fit as benefiting them best, I'd say yes to that, but this often contradicts the theory of "natural rights."
existence is elsewhere
Lilburne: Juan:All this is simply quibbling. When things are not put in terms of ought, the amoralists rewrite them in terms of ought so as to strawman their opponents. I am NOT an amoralist. I believe taxation is evil, and I hate state power with all my heart. I believe in morality, just not your contrived deductive conception of it.
I can understand what you're saying here. For people like us who are not absolutely convinced of the typical libertarian-Anarchist natural rights theory, we come across as amoral to anyone that does believe it, though we don't see ourselves that way others like Juan do.
It is a fine distinction that often gets muddled between the lines of someone questioning the concepts of morality and someone who rejects it all together, but it does exist, Juan.
Juan:Rochester, so far your grasp on 'morality' allows you to attack humans when they don't act in ways you like - case in point your rant re:animal rights. I don't think your position deserves to be called morality - it is indeed mostly personal preference.
And yes, my morality is based off of personal preference. You know it's really the only difference between our views of morality; I actually admit that the morality I see is only my own.
Oh, Rothbard must be rolling in his grave.
Lilburne:How do natural rights theories cross the is/ought divide?
Only a consequentialist natural rights theory could ever cross the is/ought divide. However, natural rights hardly need to cross the is/ought divide if they are merely a concept used for persuasive purposes.
A man needn't cross the is/ought divide to persuade a woman that she "ought" to sleep with him.
In the same way, a non-consequentialist natural rights advocate need not cross the is/ought divide in order to win others to his way of thinking. If he tries through logic, he is doomed to fail, but that won't always stop him - some value spurious logical reasoning over eloquent non-logical persuasion. (I believe you are trying to persuade through science, which is fine.)
Why anarchy fails
Juan:I believe taxation is evil, and I hate state power with all my heart. You don't believe it. You 'feel' it.
You're right, actually; I should have said, "I feel taxation is evil." Although, contrary to your implication, there would have been nothing deficient about such a statement.
Juan:You've no real argument to show that taxation is evil.
I don't need such an argument, any more than I need an "argument" to regard a mugging I see in a back alley as evil.
Juan:By the way, the state is not the only institution which treats people as means, not ends. I believe in morality, just not your contrived deductive conception of it. My conception is not contrived. What surely is contrived is Hume's skepticism which you seem to follow to the letter.
Heh. You accuse me of doctrinaire Humeanism right after you spout off doctrinaire Kantianism.
I don't follow Hume to the letter. Like with every thinker I read, I take from him what makes sense to me.
Wilmot of Rochester:It is a fine distinction that often gets muddled between the lines of someone questioning the concepts of morality and someone who rejects it all together, but it does exist, Juan.
What baffles me about people like Juan is that it's actually a pretty clear-cut distinction. Believing in individual subjective morality is not the same thing as believing in no morality; it's that simple. That he can characterize someone who forthrightly hates state aggression from the bottom of his heart as "close to amoralism" just shows how besotted with the "Ethics of Liberty" Kool-Aid he is.
Rothbard himself said he hates the state "deep in his belly". It's a shame he felt the need to convolute that sentiment with extreme moral rationalism.
Lilburne:You're right, actually; I should have said, "I feel taxation is evil." Although, contrary to your implication, there would have been nothing deficient about such a statement.
Juan:Too bad there are people who have the wrong moral intuitions eh ? Do you think you have anything meaningful to tell them ?
No I don't. But that won't stop me and other other people with similar senses of right and wrong from taking action against them if they commit aggression.
Juan:I see how well your non-argument works when you tell the amoralist "if somebody is trying to kill a girl in a black alley, blah blah" - what sort of answer do you usually get ?
The same denial you get when you tell the amoralist "prove to me natural authority exists, blah, blah, blah".
Juan:Obviously people who believe that the state is good...are informed by their immoral sense that the state is good.
Most people are informed by the false idea that state aggression is a necessary evil.
I would say there's no divide for the simple fact that a person primarily uses an ought in terms of what is happened before (Gee, I ought've bought X instead of Y.), where as the 'is' is used to imply an action that has occured or is occuring without considerations to alternatives (being weighted by personal valuations). The ought implies in itself an alternative that may or may not be attractive to a human being. The real problem raised by the so-called is-ought divide is the fact that not everyone sees the same conclusion for each possible ought condition.
I think one possible solution is the fact that morality is something learned over time, not merely builtin or held as absolute. Thus, the ought in all moral statements become a mechanism to signal a point by which an individual can seek to judge one's values, finding that which fits best with their own epistemology. Some ought conditions can lead to death, but that by itself doesn't mean the ought swings to is or that is can conversely swing to ought. As zefreak has been suggesting is that oughts are not evaluations onto themselves. They merely signal a means by which a human being can evaluate the choices that can be taken (regardless of perfect knowledge).
"The power of liberty going forward is in decentralization. Not in leaders, but in decentralized activism. In a market process." -- liberty student
ladyattis:I think one possible solution is the fact that morality is something learned over time, not merely builtin or held as absolute. Thus, the ought in all moral statements become a mechanism to signal a point by which an individual can seek to judge one's values, finding that which fits best with their own epistemology. Some ought conditions can lead to death, but that by itself doesn't mean the ought swings to is or that is can conversely swing to ought. As zefreak has been suggesting is that oughts are not evaluations onto themselves. They merely signal a means by which a human being can evaluate the choices that can be taken (regardless of perfect knowledge).
Ladyattis, I must say this whole line of thinking is a wrong turn in moral theory. In plain language, morality has never been about general optimization in action. People don't say it is immoral to go skydiving without a helmet or to have an un-diversified stock portfolio. What sets moral choices apart from other choices is that the former involves possible choices which might be selected with full knowledge that it is likely to be to the detriment of the moral actor's material well-being: risking one's life to save another, abstaining from a tempting crime which would likely go unpunished, etc. Those choices are a distinctive part of human action. That part ought to have a name. It's traditional name is morality. It makes no sense to extend that name to all human action.
pairunoyd: zefreak:hidden ought-proposition: "I ought to play by the rules of chess", "I ought to play chess", there are probably others. and what oughts are you presuming in this line of inquiry?
What do you mean?
As per the rest of the topic, I fear this thread is getting sidelined. It should deal with the possibility of deriving ought statements from is statements. I have been wanting to have this discussion for a long time, as I feel it is important and largely misunderstood.
Lilburne, I agree with much of your position but how do you distinguish "right" moral urges from wrong ones? Do you simply mean moral urges that you have and those that you don't?
the question implicitly assumes that 'oughts' 'arent'. and as such, wont be found amongst the things that are , all the 'is's.
but if oughts 'are' then there will be some is's that are "ought-is's".
another possibility.
theres not a very good way to pluralise 'is' is there ?
zefreak: Lilburne, I agree with much of your position but how do you distinguish "right" moral urges from wrong ones? Do you simply mean moral urges that you have and those that you don't?
The following is what makes sense to me...
There are no cosmically/objectively "right" or "wrong" moral urges. Moral urges are the kind that impel us toward action that is most certain to be to our own material detriment relative to other actions and is usually for the sake of others. Some moral urges concern what is traditionally known as property rights: the urge not to aggress against others and to retaliate against aggression. Of course there are the great many non-moral urges which are not selfless in this way: the basic urges of personal survival and personal promotion. When a basic urge overwhelms a property-relative urge and we thus aggress against someone, our property-relative urges will often engender feelings of guilt. In hindsight a repentant person will feel that the basic urge that impelled him to aggress was "wrong" in that it was excessive. This kind of thing can happen in foresight too. We've all been at a point where we're about to do something that we feel is wrong, but we go ahead and set out to do it anyway. In those cases, our self-promotion urges are overwhelming our moral urges, but the latter are still there engendering feelings of "pre-guilt" and causing us to reflect upon the self-promotion urges as "bad", even though the latter continues to impel us on anyway. If such guilty feelings become strong enough, they will tip the scale and we will act morally.
nirgrahamUK:but if oughts 'are' then there will be some is's that are "ought-is's". another possibility.
Then the question would be rephrased, "How do natural rights theories meaningfully define an 'ought-is'?"
Lilburne:There are no cosmically/objectively "right" or "wrong" moral urges.
Yes, words like "right," "wrong," "immoral," "should," "ought," "rights," etc. are all the language of persuasion. Sometimes they are backed by logical consequentialist arguments (implicitly or explicitly), sometimes they are backed by sophistry, sometimes by appeals to emotion, to verified scientific results, to the "greater good," to the well-being of the speaker or listener, to religion, to metaphysics, or to the sense of empathy, justice, or guilt. But let that not detract from the fact that they are fundamentally words of persuasion toward one's fellows, and unless consequentialistically expounded, they are no more the purview of academics than campaign slogans like "America for Americans!" and "GoBama!"
I personally am done humoring those who bandy about such vague words of persuasion unbacked by logic and call them academic discourse. Even if that turns out to include Rothbard, who I respect tremendously. A fundamental of clear thinking is being able to call fallacies fallacies and truths truths, no matter the source, and to demand clear and unambiguous explanations and definitions. Otherwise, why are we here?
Yes, words like "right," "wrong," "immoral," "should," "ought," "rights," etc. are all the language of persuasion.
A fundamental of clear thinking is being able to call fallacies fallacies and truths truths, no matter the source, and to demand clear and unambiguous explanations and definitions. Otherwise, why are we here?
AJ: Lilburne:There are no cosmically/objectively "right" or "wrong" moral urges. Yes, words like "right," "wrong," "immoral," "should," "ought," "rights," etc. are all the language of persuasion. Sometimes they are backed by logical consequentialist arguments (implicitly or explicitly), sometimes they are backed by sophistry, sometimes by appeals to emotion, to verified scientific results, to the "greater good," to the well-being of the speaker or listener, to religion, to metaphysics, or to the sense of empathy, justice, or guilt. But let that not detract from the fact that they are fundamentally words of persuasion toward one's fellows, and unless consequentialistically expounded, they are no more the purview of academics than campaign slogans like "America for Americans!" and "GoBama!" I personally am done humoring those who bandy about such vague words of persuasion unbacked by logic and call them academic discourse. Even if that turns out to include Rothbard, who I respect tremendously. A fundamental of clear thinking is being able to call fallacies fallacies and truths truths, no matter the source, and to demand clear and unambiguous explanations and definitions. Otherwise, why are we here?
Great post. I personally take this further by avoiding the words such as 'legitimate', 'freedom', and 'liberty'.
In addition, I avoid ideologically-loaded words such as 'murder', 'theft', and 'slavery'. For example, anti-abortionists use the word 'murder' for the killing of fetuses; anti-gun organizations use the word 'murder' for shooting a trespasser; and anti-war protestors use the word 'murder' in statements like "Bush has 'murdered' over one million Iraqis." The word 'theft' is used by copyright and patent owners to refer to those who 'steal' their copyrights and patents. Communists use the word 'slavery' for employees working under the free market. I would replace the words 'murder', 'theft', and 'slavery' with non-ideological words such as 'killing', 'seizing', 'capturing', 'hunting', etc.
Life is filled with misinterpretations, misrepresentations, and prodigal folklore.
Anarcho Mercantilist:anti-gun organizations use the word 'murder' for shooting a trespasser
Juan:Well, if you don't believe in the agent-independent value of freedom, why are you here ?
Presumably, because he has a high agent-dependent valuation of freedom, and he would like to converse with others who do too: perhaps in order to make the world a more free place, pursuant to his agent-dependent valuation of freedom.
Juan:So, if somebody is murdered you don't call it murder. When people are enslaved you don't call them slaves. Rape is not rape. And so on and so forth. Pretty clever, interesting and useful. I do admire philosophers so much.
I would definitely use the word 'murder', 'theft', and 'slavery' rhetorically as slogans, to persuade others. I will definitely say "Bush has murdered over one million Iraqis."
However, the usage of such terms in intellectual debates can create problems. For example, most of the population define 'murder' as the unnecessary killing of innocents. They will say warfare as a 'necessary evil', so they will deny that Bush has murdered over one million Iraqis, even though they knew that Bush has killed over one million Iraqis. So the use of 'murder' has create confusion for the opponents.
Indeed, general semantics has emphasized that terms such as 'murder', 'theft', etc. have caused problems in society.
Some moral urges concern what is traditionally known as property rights: the urge not to aggress against others
Moral urges are the kind that impel us toward action that is most certain to be to our own material detriment
Anarcho-Mercantilist:In addition, I avoid ideologically-loaded words such as 'murder', 'theft', and 'slavery'. For example, anti-abortionists use the word 'murder' for the killing of fetuses; anti-gun organizations use the word 'murder' for shooting a trespasser; and anti-war protestors use the word 'murder' in statements like "Bush has 'murdered' over one million Iraqis." The word 'theft' is used by copyright and patent owners to refer to those who 'steal' their copyrights and patents. Communists use the word 'slavery' for employees working under the free market. I would replace the words 'murder', 'theft', and 'slavery' with non-ideological words such as 'killing', 'seizing', 'capturing', 'hunting', etc.
AM,
I think maybe you've gotten the wrong impression of the direction of this line of thought (at least if I understand AJ correctly).
As a moral agent, I proclaim that Bush DID murder over one million Iraqis, because the killing is disgusting to my sense of right and wrong. I think if most Americans were disabused of the notion that it was necessary for their personal safety, they would feel the same way about it too.
AM:I would definitely use the word 'murder', 'theft', and 'slavery' rhetorically as slogans and titles, to persuade others. I will definitely say "Bush has murdered over one million Iraqis."
However, the usage of such terms in intellectual debates can create problems.