Hey Jeff,

Great that you have started this thread on Parfit’s new book and for your clear and concise analysis.  I’ve found it to be a good supplement to my own understanding of the book.

My particular interest in the book right now is how Parfit’s analysis addresses Hume’s is / ought problem.  Much to read and think about.

bigstew - 23 February 2012 02:53 PM

Hey Jeff,

Great that you have started this thread on Parfit’s new book and for your clear and concise analysis.  I’ve found it to be a good supplement to my own understanding of the book.

My particular interest in the book right now is how Parfit’s analysis addresses Hume’s is / ought problem.  Much to read and think about.

Hey bigstew,

I am glad you found my posts worth reading.  I have given some thought to the Hume Is / Ought Problem and can offer my thoughts:

Hume’s Is/Ought Problem

Hume brings up an interesting point that ‘oughts’ are ultimately traced back to an ‘is’ and if the ‘is’ is subjective, the ‘oughts’ that rely on it are subjective.  The only point I will make here is that by the same logic, if the ‘is’ is objective then the ‘oughts’ are objective as well.

My problem with Hume’s crowd is their stubborn insistence that ‘is’ is always subjective.

This twist of logic has inspired generations of subjective ‘ought’ police that think that ‘is’ is always subjective and therefore you cannot use ‘oughts’ objectively.

The Earth ‘is’ rotating around the Sun.  How is that for an objective ‘is’ Sir Hume?  We ‘ought’ to believe the Earth is rotating around the Sun.  I suppose Hume may have replied ‘that is a subjective use of ought’.  The only reason he might have a point is that I clumsily forgot to to specify the sense of ‘ought’ in my statement.

As you know, Parfit has documented the ‘reason-implying’ sense in ‘On What Matters’.  In the reason-implying sense ,we ought to believe the Earth is rotating around the Sun.  According to Parfit’s moral theory, this is objectively true.

Hey Jeff,

Thanks for taking the time to respond.  Having someone to talk to about the is / ought problem itself and how it relates to what Parfit has to say is much appreciatted.  So let’s keep up the discussion!

Jeff M - 03 March 2012 01:10 PM

Hume brings up an interesting point that ‘oughts’ are ultimately traced back to an ‘is’ and if the ‘is’ is subjective, the ‘oughts’ that rely on it are subjective.  The only point I will make here is that by the same logic, if the ‘is’ is objective then the ‘oughts’ are objective as well.

I agree with you that a strict reading of Hume’s verificationist epistemology would have to say that if an ought could be derived from an is, the oughtand the is are subjective.  However, I agree with you that epistemicly speaking “facts” are not subjective though. 

The one thing I might be wondering about though is whether Hume is arguing that normative oughts are subjective values which wind up being being something entirely different from objective facts?  For example, if being in agony is objectively bad, what sort of justification do we rely on?
This is what Hume thinks seems to beg the question when he states how one moves from an is to an ought.  The key word he seems to rely on is “imperceptible”. 

What I would like to do is not mis interpret Hume’s analysis, and give non cognitivists the most charitable understanding of how they lay out the is / ought problem.  I’ve been reading his chapter 6 on normativity and jumping back to the first chapter on reasons in attempt to put it all together.

I’m no Hume expert, but having checked out the is / ought problem page on wickipidea , it appears to me that he is actually claiming a complete severing between ‘is’ and ‘ought’. That severing is referred to as Hume’s Guillotine. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is–ought_problem

I do not think anyone can sever the ‘is’ and the ‘ought’ in this statement:

In 2012 we have sufficient reason to know that the Earth is rotating around the Sun.  Today, in the reason-implying sense, we ought to believe the Earth rotates around the Sun.

 

Parfit’s book is basically a how-to manual for deriving ought from is.  I can see how is and ought would be severable in the absence of an objective moral theory that specifies the nature of the connection.  My read on Hume’s use of “imperceptible” is to say that it is easy to miss when we do not specify the connection between our ought and is but instead just assume they are connected.  If that is his point, then I would agree that most people do that when they fail to specify the sense, or use a sense with little normative force.  Even though that is true, I believe Hume did not establish that ‘is’ and ‘ought’ are always severable.