Does anyone else think ‘is’ is derived from ‘ought’?

Reply to Adam Hilstad Perhaps you can expand on why you think this way? Then there will be something to discuss.

[quote=David Hume; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem] In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when [all] of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, ‘is’, and ‘is not’, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ‘ought’, or an ‘ought not’. This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last [i.e. ‘most important’] consequence. For as this ‘ought’, or ‘ought not’, expresses some new relation or affirmation, it is necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time, that a reason should be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it. But as authors do not commonly use this precaution, I shall presume to recommend it to the readers; and am persuaded, that this small attention would subvert all the vulgar systems of morality, and let us see, that the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the relations of objects, nor is perceived by reason.[/quote]

Some additional punctuation added for clarity.

What Hume is saying, in a roundabout way, is that he cannot perceive a metaphysic of value. He can perceive relations that are expressed by the copula ‘is’ or ‘is not’, which basically means, he can recognise a factual statement when he sees one; or a statement that is true by virtue of logic (the well-worn unmarried bachelor). But he cannot ascertain the logical ground on which statements of value - what ought or ought not to be the case - are made. This is why David Hume has been called the ‘grandfather of positivism’.

Reply to Wayfarer

I have great respect for Hume, but I think what we perceive is not a ‘metaphysic of value’, but simply a fact of collective teleonomy—that we collectively do behave this way. To preserve this behavior is therefore consistent in a higher order manner.

Reply to SophistiCat

Fair enough, SophistiCat. As indicated in my last post, I believe this has primarily to do with teleonomy and how we react to it. There is no cosmic reason to do the right thing, there’s just the fact that we are most of us concerned with it, and therefore to fully participate in humanity requires that the rest of us are concerned with it as well. By ‘ought’ entailing ‘is’, I mean something Kantian—our understanding of what is true is shaped by how evidence ought to be interpreted in order to best understand the world and others.

Reply to Adam Hilstad

Agree, e.g. we ought to exclude outliers from a distribution of readings from an instrument calibrated to detect signal in a particular range. Thereby we determine what signal there is.

Quoting Adam Hilstad

It seems to me that the is/ought dichotomy is false, and the illusion of dichotomy is created by placing the ‘is’ first. I tend to think that we believe what makes sense given the evidence precisely because we ought to. In this way, ‘is’ derived from ‘ought’.

:up:

As I mentioned in your other thread, i think your gloss of the is-ought relationship in terms of the ethics of meaning is excellent. I was going to suggest extending this to the whole is-ought problem at that time. It makes absolute sense to me. As to the overall meaning or mechanics of teleonomy, I think that is the thing bears scrutiny.

Thanks! When you say that the teleonomy element bears scrutiny, do you mean you believe that our fundamental ethical motivations are utilitarian rather than intuitive?

Reply to Pantagruel
Thanks! When you say that the teleonomy element bears scrutiny, do you mean you believe that our fundamental ethical motivations are utilitarian rather than intuitive?

Quoting Adam Hilstad

Thanks! When you say that the teleonomy element bears scrutiny, do you mean you believe that our fundamental ethical motivations are utilitarian rather than intuitive?

You've already mentioned "collective teleonomy" - I think that the actual results of our teleonomic endeavours are a product of our evolved capacities, which are a product of individual efforts insofar as the individual either understands or at leasts conforms to collective principles. This is why I've been focussing on the whole phenomenon of social interaction and communication for the last couple of years. The human species is a hive, no less than bees are. Think of what we could accomplish if our mutual-collective understanding reached the level of cooperation of more primitive species. The ego may be our biggest obstacle.

Reply to Pantagruel

The ego may be our biggest obstacle.

I’d probably agree with that. I think we’re more or less on the same page.

Reply to Adam Hilstad I think cognition and perception are normatively , anticipatingly structured . We perceive the world in relation to what we expect to see, which is why even that which surprises us is familiar to us in some way. In that sense the ought organizes the ‘is’.

Quoting Adam Hilstad

I have great respect for Hume, but I think what we perceive is not a ‘metaphysic of value’, but simply a fact of collective teleonomy—that we collectively do behave this way. To preserve this behavior is therefore consistent in a higher order manner.

Quoting Adam Hilstad

As indicated in my last post, I believe this has primarily to do with teleonomy and how we react to it. There is no cosmic reason to do the right thing, there’s just the fact that we are most of us concerned with it, and therefore to fully participate in humanity requires that the rest of us are concerned with it as well.

I am not really grasping your point here, nor how it relates to your thesis. Hume argued that normative statements cannot be logically deduced from non-normative statements, and that is hard to dispute. By the same token, the fact that people behave and think in a goal-oriented manner does not entail any specific goals for us to pursue, nor even a general prescription to pursue goals. (Only if you want to "fully participate in humanity," but that's an instrumental ought, not a normative ought.)

There are other is/ought gaps besides the logical gap: semantic (as in Moore's open question), ontological (as in Mackie's argument from queerness). You appear to go after epistemology in the following:

Quoting Adam Hilstad

By ‘ought’ entailing ‘is’, I mean something Kantian—our understanding of what is true is shaped by how evidence ought to be interpreted in order to best understand the world and others.

It's arguable whether epistemic habits and commitments can be treated as normative, or normative in the same sense as other normative beliefs. I would say yes to the first and no to the second: epistemology seems to me to be an identifiable species, sufficiently distinct from, say, ethics.

Anyway, you haven't said much to go on, so we are left to extrapolate.