We COULD do for ethics something completely parallel to what we do for physical sciences: see what repeatably feels good rather than bad, take that as our repeatable “observations”, and then strategize plans that might satisfy all those feelings, just like we theorize explanations that might satisfy all observations, and then test them against the same kinds of things we based them on, repeat as necessary. — Pfhorrest

I don't think that's possible in any way analogous with scientific investigations. What you are talking about is just psychology, and it is only akin to science in it's statistical dimension, and unlike other sciences it is always going to be reliant upon individual reports if it is not merely concerning behavior of people en masse. You might say studying human behavior is analogous to ethology, but it's not really because humans are way more variable in their responses than animals are.

I also don't think such investigations are necessary because we already know that being murdered, raped, robbed, beaten up, exploited, ridiculed and so on makes people feel bad, and not just at the time the acts occur, but such acts can have lasting negative effects on people.

On the side (what makes people feel good) the problem with a hedonistic approach is that much that makes people feel good is not ethical because it is damaging to their health and people may then become burdens on others.

Human life, behavior and moral responses are way too messy and nuanced to be studied effectively by science.

Aren’t our feelings/emotional states also “is’s?” Aren’t they facts about the world like any other? — Pinprick

Sorry for replying twice to your concerns regarding the is/ought problem but it seems necessary to evaluate the matter further.

It appears that Hume's worry centers on the connection or lack thereof between facts and values. Indeed, the objection is a valid one for there definitely is a difference between statements about what is and statements about what ought to be. Statements of the former kind are value-independent i.e. can be made in the absence of any values but statements of the latter kind are value-dependent i.e. can be made only within a framework of values. Necessarily then that one can't be used to infer the other without explaining/arguing how the two are logically connected. What strikes me as odd is that moral theories are precisely the systems of values that bridge the is/ought gap and Hume, for some reason, seems to have ignored/overlooked/dismissed that as inadequate.

It doesn't include our impressions/feelings of/about the facts of nature and only refers to the facts of nature minus our impressions/feelings with respect to them. — TheMadFool

Is there a reason for this exception? Does he argue that feelings are somehow above/outside of nature? Is it because they’re secondary?

Regardless, couldn’t the argument be made that our feelings are facts about the world, and therefore an is?

The is/ought problem arises out of the absence of an inferential link betwixt descriptive statements (is) and normative claims (ought) but our feelings/impressions about/of deeds/actions provide the missing link, bridges this gap. — TheMadFool

Saying you feel sad seems like a descriptive statement to me. You’re describing how you feel. Much like saying an apple is red. Certainly there are causes of your sadness, but the same is true for redness or any other feature.

What strikes me as odd is that moral theories are precisely the systems of values that bridge the is/ought gap and Hume, for some reason, seems to have ignored/overlooked/dismissed that as inadequate. — TheMadFool

Aren’t they inadequate because they aren’t capable of bridging the gap? It’s funny, because I always felt like it was the moral theories that ignored/overlooked/dismissed the is/ought gap.

Aren’t they inadequate because they aren’t capable of bridging the gap? It’s funny, because I always felt like it was the moral theories that ignored/overlooked/dismissed the is/ought gap. — Pinprick

I maybe mistaken of course but Hume's issue is with how an ought can't be inferred from an is and justifiably so if there were no reasons/explanations on how normative statements that depend on a value system can be derived from prescriptive statements that don't. I'll try another approach. What is an ought really? Doesn't it express a desire/wish/hope that things could be, well, different but different from what exactly? Well, different from what is of course. It appears from what I've just said that the is-ought relationship is not in any sense a logical deduction and therefore Hume's objection is N/A. The ought isn't deduced from an is, rather an ought is desired from an is.

What is an ought really? — TheMadFool

I see oughts more as commands, or even demands. Supposed justifications for why one act/behavior should be preferable to another, or all others.

Doesn't it express a desire/wish/hope that things could be, well, different but different from what exactly? Well, different from what is of course. It appears from what I've just said that the is-ought relationship is not in any sense a logical deduction and therefore Hume's objection is N/A. The ought isn't deduced from an is, rather an ought is desired from an is. — TheMadFool

Then what does justify an ought? How do we arrive at an ought if not by appealing to the current state of affairs? There’s obviously lots of disagreement about what we ought to do, so how do we go about settling these disagreements?

Also, I think part of the point is that we can’t justify desiring things be different. As soon as one is asked why things should be different, either circular reasoning ensues, or the is/ought fallacy occurs.

What you are talking about is just psychology, and it is only akin to science in it's statistical dimension, and unlike other sciences it is always going to be reliant upon individual reports if it is not merely concerning behavior of people en masse. — Janus

Not at all what I'm talking about.

Empirical, descriptive, physical sciences depend on first-person experiences, because that's what observations are, but we don't just take somebody's word for what "looks true to me", or vote on what "looks true to me" to the most people, or anything like that. We replicate their experiences (observations) for ourselves when there's any doubt or disagreement about what's true: we go stand in the same contexts and see if we experience (observe) the same things ourselves, and then try to come up with some theory that explains how all of those experiences (observations) can be consistent with the same reality. The people doing the investigations do that, at least, and their consensus gets reported to the public at large. It's the replication and reconciliation of experiences (observations) that makes science what it is.

If we were to do something analogous with that for ethics, it likewise could not depend on taking someone's word about what "feels good to me", or voting on what "feels good to me" to the most people, or anything like that. We'd have to replicate their experiences (of things feeling good or bad) for ourselves when there's any doubt or disagreement about what's good: go stand in the same contexts and see if we experience the same things (good or bad feelings) ourselves, and then try to come up with some strategy to get to a state of affairs where all the good experiences are had and none of the bad ones are, and call that state of affairs the moral one. The people investigating what's moral would have to do that, at least, and we'd report their consensus to the public at large. It's the replication and reconciliation of experiences (of things feeling good or bad) that would make such a method analogous, make it a hedonic, prescriptive, ethical science.

I also don't think such investigations are necessary because we already know that being murdered, raped, robbed, beaten up, exploited, ridiculed and so on makes people feel bad — Janus

We also know a lot of things about reality just from our common experience of it too. Those aren't the things in question; although sometimes in the course of investigation we learn that everyone's common assumptions were actually wrong in some non-obvious way. Just because we all already know (or at least are very sure) that some common core of things are good or bad, doesn't mean there's not more to learn.

the problem with a hedonistic approach is that much that makes people feel good is not ethical because it is damaging to their health and people may then become burdens on others — Janus

What is "damage to health" but some bodily condition of suffering? And what is "being a burden on others" but seeing to your comfort costing someone else their comfort? Those are still hedonistic concerns. Hedonism doesn't mean short-sightedness or selfishness.

Then what does justify an ought? — Pinprick

The justification of oughts can be found in the system of values one chooses. It's no secret that this is exactly where moral theorists are facing problems as no moral theory is either sufficient or necessary, something that probably is the holy grail of ethics.

What's to be noted however is that an ought isn't inferred from an is as Hume seemed to have believed and if that's the case, Hume's objection is null and void. Oughts do nothing but express our desire for things to be different, that's all there is to it. The bottom line is no argument is being made and if so no fallacy can be committed.

We replicate their experiences (observations) for ourselves when there's any doubt or disagreement about what's true: we go stand in the same contexts and see if we experience (observe) the same things ourselves, and then try to come up with some theory that explains how all of those experiences (observations) can be consistent with the same reality. — Pfhorrest

We don't, and can't, do that at all for most of what counts as scientific knowledge; we simply accept or do not accept science on the basis that we trust or do not trust the experts.

We'd have to replicate their experiences (of things feeling good or bad) for ourselves when there's any doubt or disagreement about what's good: go stand in the same contexts and see if we experience the same things (good or bad feelings) ourselves, and then try to come up with some strategy to get to a state of affairs where all the good experiences are had and none of the bad ones are, and call that state of affairs the moral one. — Pfhorrest

What feels good to me is not necessarily what feels good to others. What feels bad to me is not necessarily what feels bad to others except in the most extreme cases, and even then you never know what some might enjoy. There are [people who hire others to murder them and even eat them, for example. I'll grant that for most people, they wouldn't enjoy being murdered, raped and so on. How do I know that when I haven't asked them all? I believe that on the basis of the way such crimes are generally regarded, portrayed in movies, and so on, and on the attitudes of the vast majority of people I have discussed the subject with.

What is "damage to health" but some bodily condition of suffering? And what is "being a burden on others" but seeing to your comfort costing someone else their comfort? Those are still hedonistic concerns. Hedonism doesn't mean short-sightedness or selfishness. — Pfhorrest

Damage to health most likely leads to suffering in most cases. But people can turn suffering to good account in terms of personal transformation, so the situation is not as simple and clear-cut as you seem to be wanting to portray it. If there was some way to hook people up to "pleasure machines" such that they would feel ecstatic all the time, do really believe most people would want that?

You seem to be using 'hedonism' in a tendentious way that is not in keeping with ordinary parlance. You can probably, with some distortion, squeeze everything through the lens of your tendentious definition, but what would be the point?

You can't make ethics into a science, not without objectifying people, end of story. People simply vary too much.

We don't, and can't, do that at all for most of what counts as scientific knowledge; we simply accept or do not accept science on the basis that we trust or do not trust the experts. — Janus

That’s why I said, in the bit you cut out, that that’s the process said experts use, which makes the consensus of said experts trustworthy for the general public to rely on.

What feels good to me is not necessarily what feels good to others. — Janus

How things look or sound etc are not the same between every observer either. There are different kinds of colorblindness, actual blindness in different degrees, tetrachromaticity, different degrees of hearing sensitivity or deafness to different pitches of sound, people who can or can’t smell or taste various things or to whom they smell or taste different, etc.

Observations tell you a relationship between observers and the world; the predictions based on those observations are that certain types of observers will or won’t observe certain things. An ethical science would likewise have features of subjects of experience baked into both its input and its output.

people can turn suffering to good account — Janus

What is “good account” if not someone kind of enjoyable experience? e.g. getting hurt then recovering makes you stronger, being stronger makes you less likely to get hurt... the avoidance of pain is still the benefit there.

You seem to be using 'hedonism' in a tendentious way that is not in keeping with ordinary parlance — Janus

I’m using it in the ordinary philosophical way going back for thousands of years. You may as well complain that I’m not using “begging the question” in the ordinary way because I don’t misuse it like everyone does today. It’s ordinary people who misuse philosophical terms of art, not me who’s misusing ordinary language.

The justification of oughts can be found in the system of values one chooses. — TheMadFool

So something like “You ought to be compassionate” is justified by something like “I value compassion?” If so, the issue is that you’re extending, or projecting, your values on to me. What is the justification for that? Why should I, or you for that matter, choose to value compassion? In order for values to be able to justify oughts, they must be justified first, or else they are baseless. Any appeal to some internal state seems incapable of justifying anything.

Oughts do nothing but express our desire for things to be different, that's all there is to it. — TheMadFool

This is where we’re disagreeing. Oughts are much more than expressions of our desires in my view. Besides this, to say you want things to be different than they are, is to say that because things are a certain way we ought to do X. So it still seems to be derived from what is. “The current state of affairs is unsatisfactory, therefore we should do X.” The only thing you seem to be doing is adding an additional premise, while trying to eliminate the first. “The current state of affairs is unsatisfactory. I desire to change the current state of affairs. Therefore I (we?) should do X.”

So something like “You ought to be compassionate” is justified by something like “I value compassion?” If so, the issue is that you’re extending, or projecting, your values on to me. What is the justification for that? Why should I, or you for that matter, choose to value compassion? In order for values to be able to justify oughts, they must be justified first, or else they are baseless. Any appeal to some internal state seems incapable of justifying anything. — Pinprick

We can always depend on the fact that we're all human and though there are individual differences, there's something generic about being human - this is evidenced by the fact that despite cultural variations in our sense of right and wrong, within cultures there's, taking into account your concerns, a "miraculous" convergence of moral thought. In short, no individual projects faer idea of morality on another or the entire group, rather everyone arrives at the same moral ideals together.

This is where we’re disagreeing. Oughts are much more than expressions of our desires in my view. Besides this, to say you want things to be different than they are, is to say that because things are a certain way we ought to do X. So it still seems to be derived from what is. “The current state of affairs is unsatisfactory, therefore we should do X.” The only thing you seem to be doing is adding an additional premise, while trying to eliminate the first. “The current state of affairs is unsatisfactory. I desire to change the current state of affairs. Therefore I (we?) should do X.” — Pinprick

My approach to the is/ought problem is simple. When moral theorists state what is and then subsequently make claims about what ought to be they're, contrary to what Hume thought, not inferring the the latter from the former in a vacuum. Rather, what ought to be follows from a background system of values against which what is is set. Granted that the system of values is arbitrary but the point is the necessary inferential link between what is and what ought to be has been firmly established.

It's something like sorting things out on your desk. There's the what is - the state of the items on your desk. Then, based on a system of values (where each item must go), you decide where each item on your desk ought to be.

That’s why I said, in the bit you cut out, that that’s the process said experts use, which makes the consensus of said experts trustworthy for the general public to rely on. — Pfhorrest

That is ideally what the experts are doing. There are many who are skeptical about the degree to which the practice meets the ideal. Having said that, we don't have anything else we can rely upon when it comes to what to believe regarding matters that we cannot investigate ourselves.

How things look or sound etc are not the same between every observer either. There are different kinds of colorblindness, actual blindness in different degrees, tetrachromaticity, different degrees of hearing sensitivity or deafness to different pitches of sound, people who can or can’t smell or taste various things or to whom they smell or taste different, etc. — Pfhorrest

I think it's reasonable to think there is far more agreement in regards to what is perceived via the senses than there is in regard to all but the most extreme moral questions (i.e. rape, murder, child abuse etc).

What is “good account” if not someone kind of enjoyable experience? e.g. getting hurt then recovering makes you stronger, being stronger makes you less likely to get hurt... the avoidance of pain is still the benefit there. — Pfhorrest

I think ethical questions (how best to live) are far more subtle, and not at all simply based on considerations of seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. I can see you're trying hard to recast the usual account into a form that will pass through your lens, but I don't find it convincing at all.

I’m using it in the ordinary philosophical way going back for thousands of years. — Pfhorrest

There is no "ordinary philosophical way going back thousands of years". This is naive, have you never heard of hermeneutics or anachronism? It's all a matter of interpretation. We read translated texts that inevitably embody, to greater or lesser degrees, the presuppositions and biases of modern translators. It is naive to think we can get inside the heads of the ancients.

I think it's reasonable to think there is far more agreement in regards to what is perceived via the senses than there is in regard to all but the most extreme moral questions (i.e. rape, murder, child abuse etc). — Janus

The degree of agreement isn’t important if you’re not taking a majoritarian vote (which I’m not advocating) but rather taking every individual into equal account. And also you don’t seem to be differentiating between moral opinions (“this state of affairs is morally good”) and the experiences I’m advocating we take as the grounds for forming moral opinions (“this experience feels good”); it’s the latter we’re talking about here.

I'm basically advocating that we take as the criterion for a state of affairs to be moral without qualification that in said state of affairs everyone feels good rather than bad, like science takes reality to be that which is consistent with all observations. A right or just action is then one that at least preserves the present degree of goodness thus defined, if not increases it; in the same way that valid epistemological inferences are truth-preserving.

Then within that framework, we investigate what in particular actually is good or right in that sense. At no point do we take someone merely thinking that something in particular is good as a reason to think it actually is, just like in the physical sciences we don't care who thinks what is true. All that matters in the physical sciences is the observations and the validity of inferences about them, not what people believe is real; and likewise in an ethical science all that mattered would be the actual experiences people have, and the justification of actions regarding them, not what anybody merely thinks is moral.

I think ethical questions (how best to live) are far more subtle, and not at all simply based on considerations of seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. I can see you're trying hard to recast the usual account into a form that will pass through your lens, but I don't find it convincing at all. — Janus

The point is just that we could do something like science with regard to moral questions if we wanted to. You’re saying here basically that you don’t want to. I’m already arguing why we should in other threads right now so I won’t do that here as well, my only point here is that we could: we could take morality to be all about hedonic experiences and compile and sort through all such experiences in the same way science takes reality to be all about empirical experiences and compiles and sorts through them.

There is no "ordinary philosophical way going back thousands of years". This is naive, have you never heard of hermeneutics or anachronism? It's all a matter of interpretation. We read translated texts that inevitable reflect, to greater or lesser degrees, the biases of modern translators. It is naive to think we can get inside the heads of the ancients. — Janus

I’m using it the way defined by modern philosophy encyclopedias and consistent with the views espoused in modern translations of ancient texts that also labeled themselves thus. Which is not the way is has crept into modern colloquial speech, but that’s the fault of common folks misunderstanding, not philosophers making stuff up.

The degree of agreement isn’t important if you’re not taking a majoritarian vote (which I’m not advocating) but rather taking every individual into equal account. — Pfhorrest

To take every individual into account is impossible, even if possible in principle.

And also you don’t seem to be differentiating between moral opinions (“this state of affairs is morally good”) and the experiences I’m advocating we take as the grounds for forming moral opinions (“this experience feels good”); it’s the latter we’re talking about here. — Pfhorrest

Strange that you should say that, since it seems to be you who is equating the two.

I'm basically advocating that we take as the criterion for a state of affairs to be moral without qualification that in said state of affairs everyone feels good rather than bad, like science takes reality to be that which is consistent with all observations. — Pfhorrest

As I said above it is simply not possible to test everyone in order to find out if everyone feels good rather than bad in any situation. Add to this limitation the fact that you would be relying on the notoriously unreliable medium of self-reporting, and your project appears completely impractical.




.

Well, the first thing that I want to point out is that there actually seem to be some ought statements that cannot be called prescriptive statements.

This is, of course, trivially true and tangential to any point that I have made. The is—ought divide expresses skepticism that an inference can be made between a descriptive "is" statement and a normative/evaluative "ought" statement. It is not concerned with descriptive statements that contain the term "ought". The statement that "the road ought to be visible now because the fog has cleared" is not the kind of ought statement we care about here. We don't care about inferences deriving an "is" from a descriptive "ought", but rather we are concerned with inferences deriving an "is" from a prescriptive "ought".

Brushing your teeth is the best available decision option at this time for you to take' seems to be a descriptive statement and it also happens to be an is statement.

It is, in fact, not a descriptive statement because the term "best" here is evaluative and prescriptive which makes the statement loaded. Try forming an is—ought inference with your examples and see the issue reveal itself.

P1. If you have options, then you ought to choose the option that is best;

P2. Brushing your teeth is the best option you have to choose from;

Therefore, C. You ought to brush your teeth.

Problems

Just because we have options doesn't mean we should choose any of them. For example, if I had the options to burn my hand, cut my hand, or freeze my hand—I would choose none of these options. This makes the premise false. It is not necessarily entailed that we must choose any option at all.

By calling one of the options the "best" we are making a loaded statement. The option of brushing our teeth here is assumed to be the option that we ought to choose. Why should we brush our teeth? How is it morally obligatory? Well, you could make an argument like the following.

P1. Brushing your teeth makes them clean

Therefore, C. You ought to brush your teeth.

This is deductively invalid. The conclusion is not entailed by the premise. It is possible for the premise to be true and the conclusion be false.

So, the creators of the English language created the word “ought” that could pretty much be substituted most of the time for these long winded evaluative propositions.

Am I in the Twilight Zone rn?

To take every individual into account is impossible, even if possible in principle. — Janus

So is taking into account every observation in the physical sciences. Nobody thinks we're going to actually finish doing that. The point is that that's what you're aiming to get as close as possible to; that's the measure of completeness of success, the scale against which you compare two propositions to each other.

Strange that you should say that, since it seems to be you who is equating the two. — Janus

I'm saying to base the former on the latter, but it's very important to distinguish between them because if you don't, if you've just got the former, the whole process breaks -- just like if you failed to distinguish between beliefs and observations. You'd end up with the equivalent of trying to do physical sciences by polling people about what they believe, rather than going and doing observations, which is (hopefully) obviously not the way to do things.

Add to this limitation the fact that you would be relying on the notoriously unreliable medium of self-reporting, and your project appears completely impractical. — Janus

The point of relying on replicable first-person experiences is precisely so that you don't have to rely on self-reporting. You don't just ask everybody what they want, or even ask them how they feel; you go see for yourself how it feels to be in their circumstances. If you still don't agree about how good or bad things feel, then you have to start looking for differences between each other and taking each other's words for things, but that's no different than color-blind people needing to take normal-sighted people's word about how they see color.

So is taking into account every observation in the physical sciences. Nobody thinks we're going to actually finish doing that. — Pfhorrest

The difference is that the behavior and responses of physical substances, biological organisms such as trees, bacteria, fungi and even animals is invariant or much closer to invariant than the behavior of humans. The assumption of this invariance is taken for granted when we claim to have knowledge of the natural world.

The same is not possible when it comes to the so-called human sciences. A human science is more art than science, and that's why the most insightful understandings of humanity are found in novels and poetry.

The point of relying on replicable first-person experiences is precisely so that you don't have to rely on self-reporting. — Pfhorrest

This accounts only for your own experiences. I thought you wanted to take everyone's experiences into account, so now I'm puzzled as you seem to be contradicting yourself. There is also the point that even when examining your own experience you are relying on the notoriously unreliable process of introspection.

It won't be so unreliable in extreme cases, like how do i feel about being murdered, bu in subtle moral considerations it won't be so clear, and nowhere will it be analogous to empirical observation and measurement. I really think you're barking up the wrong tree here, or tilting at windmills..

The difference is that the behavior and responses of physical substances, biological organisms such as trees, bacteria, fungi and even animals is invariant or much closer to invariant than the behavior of humans. The assumption of this invariance is taken for granted when we claim to have knowledge of the natural world. — Janus

It seems like you still don't understand the fundamental idea of what I'm proposing. This sounds like you think I'm talking about observing humans as the object of empirical study, and protesting that humans are more complex than other objects of such study. But what I'm actually talking about is how empirical study is grounded in first-person experience of the world, and that a moral equivalent, a "hedonic study", could in turn be grounded in a different kind of first-person experience of world. The world being studied is the same in both cases, the people doing the experiencing are the same in both cases, it's only the type of experience that differs: an experience of vision, hearing, etc ("senses"), vs an experience of pain, hunger, etc ("appetites").

This accounts only for your own experiences. I thought you wanted to take everyone's experiences into account, so now I'm puzzled as you seem to be contradicting yourself. — Janus

You confirm other people's experiences by undergoing those experiences for yourself, so you don't have to just take their word on it, and then you take into account that people in those circumstances experience that sort of thing (just like you did), including the other people specifically within that general accounting.

If I do an observation, you don't have to take my word for what I saw, much less what to believe because of what I saw: you can go do that same observation yourself. You have to come over here where I was standing while the same stuff is happening and do the things that I did to get the same experience as I did, but you can do that and confirm for yourself what it looks like to undergo such events. And then once we’re in agreement on what things look like from all the different perspectives in all the different circumstances, we can figure out together what beliefs are or aren’t warranted on the grounds of those observations.

I'm just saying we can do likewise with experiences of pain, pleasure, etc. If I claim that such-and-such feels good or bad, you don't have to take my word for how it feels, much less what to intend because of what I felt: you can undergo that same experience yourself. You have to come over here where I was standing while the same stuff is happening and do the things that I did to get the same experience as I did, but you can do that and confirm for yourself what it feels like to undergo such events. And then once we’re in agreement on what things feel like from all the different perspectives in all the different circumstances, we can figure out together what intentions are or aren’t warranted on the grounds of those experiences.

Of course this does depend on you taking feelings other than the ones you are have right now to be relevant to morality—it requires you not be an egotist—but likewise doing empirical science depends on you taking observations other than the ones you are makings right now to be relevant to reality—it requires that you not be a solipsist.

Moral universalism is as basic a supposition as object permanence, the thing toddlers eventually learn about how mommy doesn’t actually cease to exist while she’s hidden and then pop back into existence when she says “peekaboo!” Things continue being real or unreal even when you can see them. Likewise, things are moral or immoral even when you aren’t personally feeling the relevant pains or pleasures.

But we still need to be able to confirm that IF someone IS in such-and-such circumstance they DO experience such-and-such, by undergoing such-and-such circumstances ourselves, even though we don’t them immediate revise our opinions the moment we stop being personally affected. Because if we couldn't confirm it ourselves, we'd have no choice but to take their word on it.

In practice we usually have no choice but to take people's words on a lot of things in both domains, but with the physical sciences we at least have a group of people who aren't just taking anyone else's word on it, whose word we can subsequently take with more confidence.

The world being studied is the same in both cases, the people doing the experiencing are the same in both cases, it's only the type of experience that differs: an experience of vision, hearing, etc ("senses"), vs an experience of pain, hunger, etc ("appetites"). — Pfhorrest

Yes, but the difference is that in the first case you have commonly precisely identifiable phenomena to study and in the latter you don't.

But we still need to be able to confirm that IF someone IS in such-and-such circumstance they DO experience such-and-such, by undergoing such-and-such circumstances ourselves, — Pfhorrest

I don't see how confirming that all people experience some feeling in a certain circumstance is possible, least of all by merely confirming that we experience said feeling in said circumstance. People and circumstances are highly variable.

On the other hand is we place someone right in front of a tree and ask them what they see right in front of them, we can be highly confident that they will answer that they see a tree.

This is, of course, trivially true and tangential to any point that I have made. The is—ought divide expresses skepticism that an inference can be made between a descriptive "is" statement and a normative/evaluative "ought" statement. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

The is/ought divide is not the same thing as the fact/value distinction. The first distinction was briefly mentioned by Hume in literarily just a paragraph or so. It’s probably a distinction that Hume wouldn’t even remember making if he read back his own work. I think it is a trivial distinction at best. The fact/value distinction is a more serious distinction that was made by another group of philosophers called the logical positivists. I think those philosophers sometimes had a tendency to misread Hume and assume that the is/ought distinction somehow provides an argument for the fact/value distinction. I don’t see how it does provide any argument for the existence of a fact/value distinction and Hume himself never said that it does.

The statement that "the road ought to be visible now because the fog has cleared" is not the kind of ought statement we care about here. We don't care about inferences deriving an "is" from a descriptive "ought", but rather we are concerned with inferences deriving an "is" from a prescriptive "ought". — Cartesian trigger-puppets

Yes, but a statement like “you ought to brush your teeth” is not a prescriptive ought statement either. It is an evaluative ought and I’m claiming that value realists can argue that evaluative claims are factual and that the fact/value distinction is an illegitimate distinction.

It is, in fact, not a descriptive statement because the term "best" here is evaluative and prescriptive which makes the statement loaded. Try forming an is—ought inference with your examples and see the issue reveal itself. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

Well, who exactly gets the authority to define what a descriptive statement is? It could be argued that evaluative statements are descriptive statements because they describe things related to value. After all, doesn’t it make more sense to say that descriptive statements are statements that describe stuff even stuff related to value? I’m also not sure what you mean when you say that value claims are “loaded” claims. Loaded in what way exactly?

P1. If you have options, then you ought to choose the option that is best; — Cartesian trigger-puppets

I think this premise is meaningless because I think it’s basically just saying If you have options, then it is better to choose the best option. It’s kinda obvious that it’s better to pick the best option and I don’t how that’s different than saying that you ought to pick the best option.

Just because we have options doesn't mean we should choose any of them. For example, if I had the options to burn my hand, cut my hand, or freeze my hand—I would choose none of these options. This makes the premise false. It is not necessarily entailed that we must choose any option at all. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

Well, isn’t choosing no option an option itself? If you have an option to choose not to have anything bad happen to your hand then isn’t this the best available option in that case?

Why should we brush our teeth? — Cartesian trigger-puppets

Because brushing your teeth causes cavities and the sensations caused by these cavities produce experiences that have a felt quality that you are psychologically compelled to regard as being worse than the felt qualities of most normal experiences that you have in life. An additional consideration is that there doesn’t seem to be any downsides to brushing your teeth.

How is it morally obligatory? — Cartesian trigger-puppets

It’s not morally obligatory, I just think that it’s objectively better or objectively more wise to brush your teeth under nearly any circumstance imaginable.

P1. Brushing your teeth makes them clean

Therefore, C. You ought to brush your teeth.

This is deductively invalid. The conclusion is not entailed by the premise. It is possible for the premise to be true and the conclusion be false. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

Yes, that’s the is/ought divide but I don’t see how it implies the fact/value distinction. Why think that value statements are not factual statements and why think that they have to be derived from non-evaluative statements?

Yes, but the difference is that in the first case you have commonly precisely identifiable phenomena to study and in the latter you don't. — Janus

This makes me think you must still not understand what I'm saying, because it's the exact same phenomena I'm talking about in either case, just a different thing about them that we're paying attention to. You set someone somewhere during some event and ask them to record the things they see, feel, etc. Or, you set the same person in the same place during the same event and ask them to record their pains, pleasures, etc. The thing being studied -- the phenomenon of that event happening at that place -- is the same in either case.

I don't see how confirming that all people experience some feeling in a certain circumstance is possible, least of all by merely confirming that we experience said feeling in said circumstance. People and circumstances are highly variable. — Janus

Those are problems for physical sciences too, and can be overcome in the exact same way. You have to control for variables of both the thing being observed and the observer themselves, the object and the subject.

Even how things look or sound etc are not the same between every observer. There are different kinds of colorblindness, actual blindness in different degrees, tetrachromaticity, different degrees of hearing sensitivity or deafness to different pitches of sound, people who can or can’t smell or taste various things or to whom they smell or taste different, etc.

Observations always only tell you a relationship between observers and the world; the predictions based on those observations are that certain types of observers will or won’t observe certain things. It is those relationships that can be objective (as in universal), not just the object-end of them. An ethical science would likewise have features of subjects of experience baked into both its input and its output.

On the other hand is we place someone right in front of a tree and ask them what they see right in front of them, we can be highly confident that they will answer that they see a tree. — Janus

Are the leaves of trees green or red? People will give you different answers depending on the tree, even for the same tree depending on the time of year... some people will even give you different answers for the same tree at the same time, because their color vision differs between them. Yet somehow that hasn't destroyed the possibility of dendrology.

This makes me think you must still not understand what I'm saying, because it's the exact same phenomena I'm talking about in either case — Pfhorrest

I think it's more a case of you not understanding, or not wanting to accept, the critique. This seems to be the stock response you have for all critiques of your ideas.

It's not the same phenomena: Individual feelings and responses are available publicly only insofar as they can be communicated. The environment is perceptually available publicly tout suite.

Are the leaves of trees green or red? People will give you different answers depending on the tree, even for the same tree depending on the time of year... some people will even give you different answers for the same tree at the same time, because their color vision differs between them. Yet somehow that hasn't destroyed the possibility of dendrology. — Pfhorrest

This seems like a very minor, pretty much irrelevant quibble to me. Agreement about almost all the detectable features of trees are publicly available with little possibility for disagreement. Dendrology is simply not a controversial science.

Anyway it looks like we are going to have to be satisfied to agree to disagree; which seems to be the usual outcome of our conversations.

I think it's more a case of you not understanding, or not wanting to accept, the critique. This seems to be the stock response you have for all critiques of your ideas. — Janus

Of course I'm not going to accept a critique of an idea that isn't the one I'm putting forth. And I'm often putting forth intentionally new ideas that are purposefully differentiated from all of the more well-known ones, because I found all of the well-known ones unsatisfactory and set out to try something new. So if someone pigeonholes my into one of those more well-known categories instead of engaging with that I'm actually saying, of course I'm going to point that out instead of defending a position that isn't mine.

It's not the same phenomena: Individual feelings and responses are available publicly only insofar as they can be communicated. The environment is perceptually available publicly tout suite. — Janus

Now you're just denying completely the subjectivity of observation? Or again failing to understand what I'm talking about? "The phenomena" is the stuff that's happening out there in the world: it's the thing we're experiencing, not our response to that experience. All experiences of phenomena are had subjectively, whether those experiences be empirical or hedonic in nature.

Anyway it looks like we are going to have to be satisfied to agree to disagree; which seems to be the usual outcome of our conversations. — Janus

If you're fine with that then I am too.

The is/ought divide is not the same thing as the fact/value distinction. — TheHedoMinimalist

The difference between the fact/value distinction and the is-ought divide is that the former also encompasses aesthetics.

I don’t see how it does provide any argument for the existence of a fact/value distinction and Hume himself never said that it does. — TheHedoMinimalist

It doesn't necessarily provide an argument but rather questions if it is possible to derive one exclusively from the other. The arguments that positivism offers are pretty straight forward, however. The premise is simple; if something can be empirically verified, then it is factual and thus descriptive. For example, if I make the statement that "My right hand has 4 fingers with 1 thumb," it provides a description for the way things are. A statement such as this can be checked and verified through empirical observation. It is a fact. It is a description of the world that corresponds with observation and continues corresponding even if an observing agent feels or thinks otherwise.

On the converse, a statement that makes an evaluation, such as, "Murder is bad" seems to be expressing something that cannot be empirically verified. It may be true that an agent holds negative feelings towards the act of murder and that may manifest as a subjective preference against murder, but that would be a fact about the agents attitude. There simply is nothing in the world that we can observe that corresponds with 'badness' and without such a thing we have no way to verify whether or not it is the case.

Yes, but a statement like “you ought to brush your teeth” is not a prescriptive ought statement either. It is an evaluative ought and I’m claiming that value realists can argue that evaluative claims are factual and that the fact/value distinction is an illegitimate distinction. — TheHedoMinimalist

The statement "You ought to brush your teeth" is necessarily a prescriptive statement because it is recommending that an action be taken. It implies that a desirable outcome would result thereafter. It contains the term 'ought'. Prescriptive statements are a subset of evaluative statements, which is the only distinction between the two that I am aware of.

Well, who exactly gets the authority to define what a descriptive statement is? It could be argued that evaluative statements are descriptive statements because they describe things related to value. — TheHedoMinimalist

Are you making a case against the general consensus amongst analytic philosophers who differentiate between descriptive and prescriptive statements based on the reasons I have thus far offered? Most people understand that there is a very different kind of thing being described when it comes to value judgements. Something that extends beyond merely describing that which corresponds with empirical observation.

Regarding what could be argued, well, it would have to be a semantic argument because the premise "Because they describe things related to value" concedes that there is a distinction between the two.

After all, doesn’t it make more sense to say that descriptive statements are statements that describe stuff even stuff related to value? — TheHedoMinimalist

I suppose if we redefine the terms it could, perhaps. Even so, you seem to be aware that there is a distinction between statements that describe stuff and ones that describe stuff and stuff related to value.

Because [not] brushing your teeth causes cavities and the sensations caused by these cavities produce experiences that have a felt quality that you are psychologically compelled to regard as being worse than the felt qualities of most normal experiences that you have in life. — TheHedoMinimalist

I like how much effort you put into this argument to make it appear purely fact-based. Let's formalize it and see what the statements break down to.

P1. There is a range of possible experiences that scale between two points on a spectrum.

P2. We classify the two points located at each extreme of the spectrum as: 1) the worst possible experience, and: 2) the best possible experience.

P3. A tooth cavity produces an experience that generally registers on the side of the spectrum classified as: 1) the worst possible experience.

P4. Brushing our your teeth reduces your chances of getting a tooth cavity.

Therefore, C. You should brush your teeth.

Now, lets classify the nature of each statement.

P1. Descriptive. (Some experiences vary from others. This is a fact that can be tested and verified empirically.)

P2. Evaluative. (The classification is a fact, since we could observe the proclivity for people to classify experiences as either better or worse. However, each classification is based on two opposing value judgements "worst" and "best" neither which can be empirically observed, but must instead be subjectively expressed by an agent).

P3. Evaluative. (It is a fact that, if a poll was taken, the overwhelming majority would classify experiences related to tooth cavities as: 1) the worst possible experience. But, the term "worst" is both irreducible and non-corresponding to anything empirically observable.)

P4. Descriptive. (This is a fact that can be experimentally verified through empirical analysis.)

C. Prescriptive and evaluative. (It suggests an action by implying a positive value judgement).

Note that just because a premise has been distinguished as evaluative does not mean that it is necessarily false. The distinction is made mainly for the purpose of exposing problems specific to evaluative statements

P1 is something we all grant.

P2 is valid since it follows from P1 but a few problems emerge. First, that it is not entailed that every agent will classify the experience within the same category. Second, the category itself is based on an arbitrary measurement that is phenomenally dependent. Lastly, a premise cannot be true in some cases and false in others.

P3 follows from P2 but runs into the same problems that P2 has. It can be true some of the time and is ultimately relative to the agent.

P4 is sound because it is always the case and there is a wealth of clinical evidence to support it.

C is not necessarily entailed by the premises and it has the same specific problem that P3 and P2 have, in that they can be sometimes be false. It is possible, in fact probable, that certain agents do not classify experiences associated with tooth cavities in the first category. Similarly, it is probable that some do and yet associate the experience as desirable. Many things that are relative to a particular agent can affect whether or not a given premise—or, even the conclusion itself—can be true. This is not a problem when arguing just from the facts.

Yes, that’s the is/ought divide but I don’t see how it implies the fact/value distinction. — TheHedoMinimalist

It is the other way around, actually. The fact that value statements seem to describe something, not only beyond that which is described by factual statements, but also, something that doesn't correspond with anything observable, as factual statements do, reveals a distinctive problem about them that warrants our appreciation.

Why think that value statements are not factual statements and why think that they have to be derived from non-evaluative statements? — TheHedoMinimalist

Because they do not report something that is observable or falsifiable, and that is what facts are supposed to do. I only think that they must be derived from non-evaluative statements in order to bridge the is-ought divide and establish an is-ought inference. I remain skeptical that this can be done and for you to think otherwise means that the burden of proof lies with you.

Are you making a case against the general consensus amongst analytic philosophers who differentiate between descriptive and prescriptive statements based on the reasons I have thus far offered? — Cartesian trigger-puppets

I notice there is no mention in your treatment of analytic philosophy’s view of the fact/ value distinction of writers like Quine, Wittgenstein, Davidson, Putnam, McDowell
or Rorty. Do you find any of them useful to your understanding of the fact-value distinction?

The premise is simple; if something can be empirically verified, then it is factual and thus descriptive. For example, if I make the statement that "My right hand has 4 fingers with 1 thumb," it provides a description for the way things are. A statement such as this can be checked and verified through empirical observation. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

I don’t think that the fact that your right hand has 4 fingers can be empirically verified though. This is because there are many alternative explanations that can be offered for why your hand appears to have 4 fingers when you look at it other than the explanation that you really do have 4 fingers. One such alternative explanation is that you might be living in simulation created by a mad scientist that programs the simulation to make you believe that you have 4 fingers but you only actually have 2 fingers on your real hand that exists outside of the simulation. You would probably find that alternative explanation implausible but this belief would not be based on empirical evidence. Rather, you just have an intuition that the mad scientist theory is a bit kooky. Similarly, I think my intuitions about value can provide me with objectively true answers on questions of value for the same reason you would likely think that you can rely on your intuitions to arrive at objectively true answers about the falsehood of my mad scientist hypothesis. After all, you can’t empirically verify that the mad scientist hypothesis is false because you have no way of observing the mad scientist. Yet, things that we have never observed can still potentially exist.

Prescriptive statements are a subset of evaluative statements, which is the only distinction between the two that I am aware of. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

I don’t think that it’s the only distinction. According to the first dictionary definition of prescriptions that I could find, prescriptions are actions of laying down authoritative rules or directions. I don’t think a statement like “you ought to brush your teeth” is laying down authoritative rules or directions. I think it is just expressing a value judgment. So, the statement you ought to brush your teeth is kinda like other evaluative statements like the statement “John is better at math than Mark”. Just as I think John can possibly be objectively better at math than Mark: I also think that it can be objectively better to brush your teeth than not brushing your teeth.

Are you making a case against the general consensus amongst analytic philosophers who differentiate between descriptive and prescriptive statements based on the reasons I have thus far offered? Most people understand that there is a very different kind of thing being described when it comes to value judgements. Something that extends beyond merely describing that which corresponds with empirical observation. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

I’m not aware of there being any general consensus on this issue among analytic philosophers. The fact/value distinction and the distinction between descriptive and evaluative statements has been challenged by plenty of very famous and high profile analytic philosophers such as the philosophers mentioned by @Joshs. If you want to get a brief summary of their reasons for rejecting the fact/value distinction, I would recommend watching a 12 minute video on YouTube called “Fact-Value Entanglement” which is on the Philosophy Overdose YouTube channel. Though, I should warn you that Hilary Putnam who is speaking in this video is expressing his points in somewhat smug and condescending manner which I didn’t appreciate particularly.

Even so, you seem to be aware that there is a distinction between statements that describe stuff and ones that describe stuff and stuff related to value. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

Well, that’s what makes your definition of a descriptive statement confusing to me as that you seem to think that descriptive statements describe everything except values. I don’t understand why values and only values are singled out of the definition of the word.

First, that it is not entailed that every agent will classify the experience within the same category. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

I agree, I don’t think that experiences are objectively better or worse than other experiences. Rather, there are facts about how a particular person would subjectively evaluate the felt quality of a particular experience and from those facts we can objectively conclude that particular decision options are better than other decision options.

Second, the category itself is based on an arbitrary measurement that is phenomenally dependent. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

There seems to be lots of factual non-evaluative statements that are also based on arbitrary measurements that are phenomenally dependent. For example, think about the following statement:

S1: There is a sufficient amount of scientific evidence for the theory of evolution.

Is S1 factual? Seems like it to me. Is S1 based on arbitrary measurements? I would say so because we can’t empirically measure the amount of evidence that a given theory has and the word sufficient always seems to be necessarily vague as well. Is S1 phenomenally dependent? This one is a little more controversial but it seems that whether or not a given theory has a sufficient amount of evidence is predicted on our intuitions which do not seem to be necessarily different than the intuitions that we use to make value judgements. Though, it could also be argued that S1 is actually also an evaluative statement but that would pretty much make any kind of belief an evaluative statement and I doubt that this is a conclusion that you are willing to accept.

Because they do not report something that is observable or falsifiable, and that is what facts are supposed to do. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

I don’t think that facts are necessarily supposed to report something that is observable or falsifiable and you will find plenty of academic analytical philosophers who also don’t think about facts in those terms. This way of thinking about facts has largely fallen out of style since the decline of the logical positivist movement in the mid 20th century.

Just to be clear, you are quoting my response to a question asking who the authority is when it comes to defining what a descriptive statement is. It is not a claim stating that analytic philosophy takes a view one way or another when it comes to the fact/value distinction.

I think that Hilary Putnam best encapsulates much of the views put forward by the philosophers in your list with regard to objections to the fact/value distinction, or f/v dichotomy, as Putnam seemed to favor.

Hilary Putnam makes the case that facts and values are entangled. Putnam, under the influence of figures such as Quine, Peirce and William James, argued against the existence of a fact–value dichotomy, or, at least that the distinction between the two weren't as absolute as Hume and the Positivists believed them to be. This rejection was essentially derived from either a premise stating that normative judgments (ethical or aesthetic) can be factual based or a premise stating that there are normative elements to factual statements—even empirical statements such as those expressed within scientific methodology.

Putnam was a well-known figure of analytic philosophy and was especially drawn towards a pragmatic view of morality. I think that he, as with his contemporaries, focused a concerned with what views such as subjectivism, non-cognitivism and internalism seem to entail and that this motivation lead him to take some pretty extreme positions in opposition. He was, at some point, a metaphysical realist, but later adopted his own view known as internal realism, of which he also came to later abandon in favor of the views of scientific realism. He was somewhat of a neo-platonist when it came to his views in ontology. He later shifted to take a pluralistic, meta-philosophical view similar to those of Wittgenstein—even adopting some of the views of continental philosophers in the later years of his career.

His arguments seem to all stem from his work on the mind-body problem, which I think is his best work. It makes a case for a non-physical existence that is based on the causal relationship between psychological states, concepts, language and material objects. Another view deeply embracing pragmatism. In a way, at least in every day life, I take a pragmatic view of the world, but I think that it forces philosophers to over engage in motivated reasoning.

Sorry for the tangent, but I hope it at least gave you some idea of how the figures on your prolific list of philosophers who, in some way, reject the fact/value distinction have influenced my understanding of it.

I don’t think that facts are necessarily supposed to report something that is observable or falsifiable and you will find plenty of academic analytical philosophers who also don’t think about facts in those terms. This way of thinking about facts has largely fallen out of style since the decline of the logical positivist movement in the mid 20th century. — TheHedoMinimalist

I think this may be where our differences lie. The distinction that I draw between facts and values is much more current and ubiquitous than a few 20th century philosophical treatises.

Think of how the prosecution and defense teams of a courtroom use statements of fact and statements of value. If I was being charged with burglary, and the prosecution presented its case, which of the following statements do you think the court would more likely engage with?

The suspect left a fingerprint near the window which determined the point of entry of the brake-in.

A neighbor witnessed the suspect exiting the house while carrying the stolen jewelry box.

A footprint that was collected at the scene of the crime which matches the shoe size and pattern that is left by the shoes the suspect was wearing that day.

The suspect hates thieves.

The suspect doesn't think the stolen jewelry looks valuable.

The suspect says that he did nothing wrong that day.

I understand that there are serious problems in epistemology, such as Cartesian examples of radical skepticism (evil demon, brain in a vat, computer simulation controlled by a mad scientist) which are all problems that I appreciate. I think that there are nonetheless distinctive characteristics when it comes to the justification of evaluative statements and statements of fact.

I understand that a statement of value can be a type of fact about the preferences or attitudes of an agent. If you say that you like blue or that you think stealing is wrong, then, I suppose I could concede that it is a type of fact about your color preferences or your attitude towards the act of stealing. The problem with having evaluative facts is that there is no method to substantiate them or evidence to support and confirm them. They necessarily depend upon the agent to express them, either directly or indirectly, for substantiation and the only evidence there is that suggests they are true is contained within the privacy of the agents subjective mental states.

The court would appreciate the statements regarding a fingerprint, eyewitness, and footprint because these statements correspond with how we experience reality. If what is stated has the semantic content that most members of a language associate with a concept which corresponds to the way we experience the world, even with varying degrees of accuracy, arbitrarily defined by human standards such as limited sense perception and inconsistent cognitive processing, it is what we call a fact. The type of fact that is most compelling and that most pressure us to adopt a new belief.

The court would be mostly dismissive of the value statements because of the lack of correspondence between the semantic content of what is stated and the association of conceptual frameworks constructed through our prior experiences and that can be replicated by reproducing a similar interaction with reality. You can't experience values other than your own except for our abilities to relate to the correlation between neurological stimuli and emotive responses. Taking an approach to linguistically appeal to a value judgement has substantially less force and is more likely to fail at changing someone's prior beliefs than taking an approach to linguistically appeal to a coherently shared concept that mutually corresponds with the way we experience the world during particular interactions with it.

On a side note, I find it both funny and ironic that I chose to regard the views of Putnam while you were simultaneously suggesting a reference video featuring Putnam lecturing on the topic. We both seem to view him as a competent proponent of the view.

he problem with having evaluative facts is that there is no method to substantiate them or evidence to support and confirm them. They necessarily depend upon the agent to express them, either directly or indirectly, for substantiation and the only evidence there is that suggests they are true is contained within the privacy of the agents subjective mental states. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

Well, it seems to me that there is public evidence to support various value claims. For example, when I try to argue for a value claim, I usually make an argument using something like an analogy or a thought experiment or just provide an example. This is why I’m constantly writing “For example” on every response that I give in a philosophy forum. It’s my way of illuminating my intuitions and showing my interlocutor the merits of my philosophical beliefs and theories. I would consider that to be a kind of evidence. It’s a more speculative kind of evidence but we are talking about more speculative philosophical topics here. I think all philosophical opinions are going to have this feature of only being able to be supported by evidence that not everyone will appreciate or take seriously. For example, take the debate around the possibility of an existence of an afterlife. I can provide you a philosophical argument that could be used to support the existence of an afterlife and I can provide you a philosophical argument against the existence of an afterlife. While we can never truly know who’s right, it would quite silly nonetheless for me to say that nobody is objectively right regarding this issue just because the evidence for both sides is highly speculative. I think philosophers shouldn’t be afraid to provide speculative reasons or speculative arguments in an attempt to resolve a philosophical issue because a philosophical issue wouldn’t be much of a philosophical issue if all philosophers just thought that the correct answer was obvious. So, in conclusion, I don’t see how value philosophy is any more speculative than other topics in philosophy as philosophical issues can rarely be resolved with any sort of obvious empirical evidence.

The court would appreciate the statements regarding a fingerprint, eyewitness, and footprint because these statements correspond with how we experience reality. If what is stated has the semantic content that most members of a language associate with a concept which corresponds to the way we experience the world, even with varying degrees of accuracy, arbitrarily defined by human standards such as limited sense perception and inconsistent cognitive processing, it is what we call a fact. The type of fact that is most compelling and that most pressure us to adopt a new belief. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

Well, I think there are other reasons why courts would find fingerprint evidence more reliable; the evidence is meant to support a non-evaluative claim that a person performed a particular action like murder. After the non-evaluative evidence gets collected, it then gets evaluated and that’s when the courtroom does start making lots of evaluative claims. The first thing that the court needs to determine is that the suspect is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. But, what exactly counts as reasonable doubt? You can’t exactly answer those kinds of questions with empirical evidence it seems. Rather, I think the court has to make a value judgement about the evidence and make an educated guess about the likelihood that the client is innocent. It seems to me that there are objectively better and worse ways to evaluate the empirical evidence that is presented to the court and it seems to me that there are objectively better and worse ways to draw conclusions from the available evidence. Thus, I think it does make sense to think that value judgements can be factual and objective. Otherwise, we can’t reasonably be angry if a seemingly biased jury decided to convict a man of a crime with evidence that we intuit as being weak. We would have to just say that the value judgement of the court here was just an expression of their attitude or something silly like that.

Finally, I want to mention that the value judgements that are present in the courtroom do not end there. Someone also has to determine how a particular convicted person should get punished as well.