We start with some basic axioms, and then to differing degrees of success, end up with intricate systems that we then apply to practical situations. But the axioms themselves are not susceptible to proof, it seems. — Philguy

I think that's basically it, yeah. I'd just add that the axioms (or principles) are generally not even thought. Most of our activity (read: behavior, morality, actions, etc) is unconscious and non-rational. It doesn't really follow rules, recipes, and algorithms -- that is abstracted after the fact, constructed and projected on what happens. But these rules and principles -- these axioms -- are extremely useful, and even though they tend to be "absorbed" through experience and development in one's culture (like language) in a kind of reflexive/habitual way, doesn't mean they're not "real."

In the end, it does seem to be based largely on "faith." You accept these axioms (consciously or not), as beliefs or assumptions, and operate on the basis of them. Long before the formulation of "gravity" people were still avoiding walking off of cliffs, and long before the formulation of the "Golden Rule" people were still treating each other in ways they would want to be treated. Rationality, logic, abstract thinking, and even conscious awareness only goes so far.

The "lived world" seems much more fluid and, in a way, groundless than what philosophers and scientists (especially in the West) have wanted -- in the sense of making everything explicit, abstract, rule-based, theoretical, mathematical and measurable.

And no -- I'm not advocating or trying to open a door for "religion."

I want to agree with you, but I think you are making a naturalistic fallacy.
— Antinatalist
It would help if you would explain why you think that. I've been careful to defend my view against Moore and Hare, so what now is your objection? Or, if you don't think I've successfully defended myself against them, can you say why? — Herg

There could be some important nuance in your defending, and I don´t reach it. Are way speaking of the same thing? Moore simply says that "goodness" can not reduced to natural properties of some.
I think that Moore thought that every value´s, that is naturally (or supernaturally) found to be good, relation to good itself is quite similar than the nature of mathematical theorems to completeness.
Those theorems are incomplete by their very nature (every formal axiomatic system capable of modelling basic arithmetic). I have to admit right after, that my knowledge of mathematics is very limited and some may say that this comparison is bad or even ridiculous.
According to Moore, we could never reach the state where we just can define something for pure and absolutely good. There´s always question about is that what we defined as good, really good.

The name of this topic is What are we doing? Is/ought divide. Do you consider also, that David Hume was wrong?


"I also want to say I value pleasure as a good thing, but if we look just what is pleasurable and always favor that kind of experiences, acts etc. we are coming to unbearable problems."
— Antinatalist

I haven't claimed that pleasure is the whole of ethics. I'm simply claiming that it's a fact that pleasure is good. — Herg

I assumed that that it is your point of view, I just wanted bring into focus that with pleasure could come some bad. I just wanted to make that point clear, I assumed correctly that you think like you said (that pleasure is not the whole ethics).

Somebody could have pleasure, when she/he is torturing someone else. I don´t regard that kind of a pleasure as good.
So, when valuing pleasure I think is important what kind of circumstances it occurs.
I find it hard to believe that the pleasure of the torturer could be so great that it would outweigh the pain of the tortured, so I think a simple utilitarian-style pleasure/pain calculus can deal quite easily with this objection. — Herg

Yes, I think usually that is the case. Anyway, I find utilitarian ethics untenable.

According to Moore, we could never reach the state where we just can define something for pure and absolutely good. There´s always question about is that what we defined as good, really good. — Antinatalist

Yes, that is the Open Question argument. I think it fails because Moore fails to define what we mean by 'good'. He basically just gives up on trying to define it, and assumes that good is indefinable, that it is just a word that refers to something we can't find in nature. This is where I disagree with him, because I think we can define 'good', indeed I think I have defined it, and I expect I shall continue to think that until someone proves me wrong.

The name of this topic is What are we doing? Is/ought divide. Do you consider also, that David Hume was wrong? — Antinatalist

Yes. If I'm right about the meaning of 'good' and 'bad', then if an action causes pain, then that action, other things being equal, is a bad action. The fact-value bridge has been crossed, and I think we should ask ourselves, in that situation, which is more plausible: that the fact that the action is bad means we ought not to do it, or that the fact that the action is bad has no moral significance at all, and we are morally free to do it if we wish despite its badness. I think the former position is more plausible than the latter, because we are now in value territory, and there's what seems to me a compelling congruence between the good/bad split, the right/wrong split, and the ought/ought not split. This isn't a watertight argument, but it seems to me that once we have crossed the fact-value divide, there's little reason not to go the whole hog and accept that we ought not to do bad things (such as causing pain).

Anyway, I find utilitarian ethics untenable. — Antinatalist

Well, again, supporting reasons for this position would be nice. But having been told off by Gregory for being too demanding, I'm not going to push.

According to Moore, we could never reach the state where we just can define something for pure and absolutely good. There´s always question about is that what we defined as good, really good.
— Antinatalist
Yes, that is the Open Question argument. I think it fails because Moore fails to define what we mean by 'good'. He basically just gives up on trying to define it, and assumes that good is indefinable, that it is just a word that refers to something we can't find in nature. This is where I disagree with him, because I think we can define 'good', indeed I think I have defined it, and I expect I shall continue to think that until someone proves me wrong.


The name of this topic is What are we doing? Is/ought divide. Do you consider also, that David Hume was wrong?
— Antinatalist — Herg

Yes. If I'm right about the meaning of 'good' and 'bad', then if an action causes pain, then that action, other things being equal, is a bad action. — Herg

You are making a naturalistic fallacy by its definition. Of course the naturalistic fallacy can be itself a fallacy. Sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson thinks that way, so you are in good company.

The fact-value bridge has been crossed, and I think we should ask ourselves, in that situation, which is more plausible: that the fact that the action is bad means we ought not to do it, or that the fact that the action is bad has no moral significance at all, and we are morally free to do it if we wish despite its badness. I think the former position is more plausible than the latter, because we are now in value territory, and there's what seems to me a compelling congruence between the good/bad split, the right/wrong split, and the ought/ought not split. This isn't a watertight argument, but it seems to me that once we have crossed the fact-value divide, there's little reason not to go the whole hog and accept that we ought not to do bad things (such as causing pain). — Herg

There´s a misunderstanding. The "no ought from is" -statement does not tell what is a morally good thing, or morally bad thing - or even what is morally permissible. So it does not say anything about what we are morally free to do.

Anyway, I find utilitarian ethics untenable.
— Antinatalist
Well, again, supporting reasons for this position would be nice. But having been told off by Gregory for being too demanding, I'm not going to push. — Herg

Of course. I just assumed - obviously wrong - that this was just a sidetrack of the topic.
In utilitarianism human being will and should - at least in some cases - treated as a mean, not the end.
While I´m neither Kantian, I agree on this with him, that we should treat human beings as end in itself rather than (merely) as means to other ends.
And I think also that Fyodor Dostoevsky was a great philosopher and some parts of his The Brothers Karamazov are very valid argumentation against utilitarianism.

I believe the solution to the is/ought dichotomy is that it is a false dichotomy—‘ought’ entails ‘is’, for what is the case is what ought to be the case given the available evidence and the powers of our understanding. And the truth ultimately aids us in doing the right thing. ‘Is’ is therefore an outgrowth of ‘ought’.

I believe the solution to the is/ought dichotomy is that it is a false dichotomy—‘ought’ entails ‘is’, for what is the case is what ought to be the case given the available evidence and the powers of our understanding. And the truth ultimately aids us in doing the right thing. ‘Is’ is therefore an outgrowth of ‘ought’. — Adam Hilstad

I slightly disagree.

I quote Edward O. Wilson and my response for him in my essay from 2004. This is long quotation, but I think necessary.



Biological world-view and religious naturalism

"The time has come for ethics to be removed temporarily from the hands of the philosophers and biologicized." (Edward O. Wilson, 562, 1975. Sociobiology. The New Synthesis. Cambridge, Belknap 1975.)

...some slightly irrelevant "jargon" from ought/is -perspective...


”...Many philosophers will respond by saying, But wait! What are you saying? Ethicists don’t need that kind of information. You really can’t pass from is to ought. You are not allowed to describe a genetic predisposition and suppose that because it is part of human nature, it is somehow transformed into an ethical precept. We must put moral reasoning in a special category, and use transcendental guidelines as required.No, we do not have to put moral reasoning in a special category, and use transcendental premises, because the posing of the naturalistic fallacy is itself a fallacy. For if ought is not is, what is? To translate is into ought makes sense if we attend to the objective meaning of ethical precepts. They are very unlikely to be ethereal messages outside humanity awaiting revelation,or independent truth vibrating in a non material dimension of the mind. They are more likely to be physical products of the brain and culture.

From the consilient perspective of the natural sciences, they are no more than principles of the social contract hardened into rules and dictates,the behavioral codes that members of a society fervently wish others to follow and are willing to accept themselves for the common good. Precepts are the extreme in a scale of agreements that range from casual assent to public sentiment to law to that part of the canon considered unalterable and sacred." [Wilson, CONSILIENCE. The Unity of Knowledge 1998, 249-250. New York: Alfred A. Knopf 1998.] I believe the solution to the is/ought dichotomy is that it is a false dichotomy—‘ought’ entails ‘is’, for what is the case is what ought to be the case given the available evidence and the powers of our understanding. And the truth ultimately aids us in doing the right thing. ‘Is’ is therefore an outgrowth of ‘ought’."

To this, my response is that "ought" is the will, desire or intention of a being, and in this sense it truly "is". From this intention of a being, or from the normative attitude of ”should”, no obligation can be drawn. This is purely analytic. The issue is very simple if, generally speaking, the normative attitude of "ought" is a product of the brain and culture and it is required in order to maintain human life; the occurrence of this attitude is common amongst the living. No evolutionary process can even give a probable estimate as to why life would be a value over non-life. However, Wilson is admittedly correct in stating that, when assessing the possibilities and ethicality of actions, one must consider what is possible and what is not. But to assess life as a value over non-life, there is no material produced by the rational mind or empirical data (during, for example, the evolution of billions of years). Among evolutionary biologists,organized religion has often been seen as a contemporarily meaningful adaptation of natural selection. In the modern world, however, the popularity of religion has decreased. This has been seen both as an advantage and as a handicap; a fruitful phenomenon for the scientific world-view, but also the risk of falling into a meaningless spiritual void. Religions have responded to the spiritual needs of people and, even if they were to disappear, the need for sacred narratives remains. Wilson sees this both as a problem and as a challenge for the future.

"If the sacred narrative cannot be in the form of a religious cosmology, it will be taken from the material history of the universe and the human species. That trend is in no way debasing. The true evolutionary epic,retold as poetry, is as intrinsically ennobling as any religious epic. Material reality discovered by science already possesses more content  and grandeur than all religious cosmologies combined. The continuity of the human line has been traced through a period of deep history a thousand times older than that conceived by the Western religions. Its study has brought new revelations of great moral importance. It has made us realize that Homo sapiens is far more than a congeries of tribes and races. We are a single gene pool from which individuals are drawn in each generation and into which they are dissolved the next generation,  forever united as a species by heritage and  a common future. Such are the conceptions, based on fact from which new intimations of immortality can be drawn and a new mythos evolved." [Wilson 1998, 265] 

The end of the last sentence is especially intriguing: “new mythos evolved.” However, regarding life as an axiomatic, dogmatic value can hardly be regarded as a new idea.