David Hume and the Is/Ought Problem

[@mikelarrivee5115]

You either choose somthing because you believe it is good, or you choose completley randomly. You have to think stating facts about the is/ought dichotomy is good to even say it, so you ought not believe that you ought not believe in oughts

[@GoodandBasic]

Brilliant. Nailed it. JB

[@ericzarahn9343]

Isn't that just defining "good" as that which you do?

[@mikelarrivee5115]

@@ericzarahn9343 it was more to point out that the is ought dichotomy can't be used to argue that there are no oughts

[@Sowiso4]

Great video, thanks for introducing David Hume to us.

[@nolanpalmer5181]

Excellent video. I'm loving your philosophical content, and I couldn't agree more. Science cannot and should not serve as the basis of a moral system, because that simply isn't its job. Science is a tool used to understand the physical world and predict it, and a darn good tool, too, but not a code of ethics.

[@sirellyn]

I think this has been solved. How does deep learning determine "ought" from it's inputs? We do it in much the same way. The shorter form of it is, that is/ought is based on INDIVIDUAL models of reality they've made and the circumstances each individual found themselves in. The reason people are having trouble figuring it out, is they tend to think in terms of an "ultimate" is/ought that works for everyone, everywhere, all the time. And it mostly doesn't tend to work that way. One culture's is/oughts are different from another. For each of their circumstances they work just fine. But put them into each other's situations and one may generally work better than the other if you are measuring effectiveness overall. If you were to do this enough with a lot of cultures, you'd find a culture that *generally speaking* has the most generalized effective rule set. But that does not make that ruleset "the best". In fact that ruleset will certainly be much more limiting than other personal tuned ones. Consider the GPT-3 algorithm vs specialized ones. Also in group cases you are taking a lowest common denominator approach. Which isn't ideal at all. Is/Ought only exists within the bounds of an individuals mental map of experiences. Even then it's not accurate. The more people to share is/oughts and the more is/oughts you collect, the far more inaccurate it becomes.

[@ericzarahn9343]

But doesn't your explanation of is-oughts, being an explanation, come from your own "individual mental map of experiences", and if so then how can it be considered objectively true? That is, you seem to be making a universal truth claim about the subjectivity of truth. I don't claim to have a way out if this well-known paradox, but perhaps you do?

[@sirellyn]

@@ericzarahn9343 Let me break this down. 1.) Is/Ought for individuals is very different (but not completely divorced from) Is/Ought of groups. 2.) Ought is based on survival (prosperity) Let me go over point 2. If you make ought value claims that don't lead to your continued survival, you will stop making that value distinction. You'll be dead. Most ought value decisions you make won't obviously lead to your death. So decisions value long term survival, up to a point. And then they value group survival, and then comparative group long term survival. All the same reasoning. If a group continues the same kinds of value judgements, and another doesn't and it survives (and it could be for an unrelated issue) the surviving group's ought value distinctions pass on more readily. Few notes on this: ought's - Prosperity is the smaller sub measurement you can use, that isn't fully accurate, but perhaps the best long term indicator outside of running the experiment to it's completion. ought's The gun is loaded. Ought I point it at my forehead and press the trigger? You can but that line of thinking will be terminated, with you, as will any chance of you repeating the value determination. What if you wanted to commit suicide? Same result. But how does that filter up to the group survival? If someone else realizes suicide was done , ought they do the same? Likely not, unless it lead to their survival. If you argued most people were suicidal, that would affect the group's survival rate. That side of the ought continues to filter out those who would make that decision, until the only groups left would not value suicide highly. comparison

[@davemcgarvie2746]

Wish I knew you were in the burg. I'm just down the road

[@tubelight2135]

How natural law differs from the is and ought theory of Positivists?

[@marklevinaguirre3892]

Can someone explain to me this “One cannot deduce ‘ought’ from ‘is’ ?

[@abledbody]

I don't think if you're dismissing the possibility of subjective morality and value this way that you really understand the underpinning logic behind it. Let me lay it out like this: We know that we _have_ morals and values, and if we assume that they come from somewhere, we should be able to find something to point to and say "There's our reason." We can absolutely do this by pointing to selective pressures (Negatively affecting other people makes you more likely to be ejected from your extremely valuable supporting social structure.) and to cultural pressures. (We've been told to respect the dead.) I think this perfectly reasonable explanation is far more substantiated than any alternative that would suggest morality and value are objective in some way.

[@ericzarahn9343]

But doesn't your example of valuing supporting social structures assume that is a universal value?

[@abledbody]

@@ericzarahn9343 Supporting social structures have a buttload of intrinsic value for the primitive human! For instance, we put a lot of effort into our very defenseless and ineffective offspring, so having people that you can rely on to help raise and protect that offspring when you have other things to attend to becomes invaluable. Humans are also a very delicate species, so physical threats almost always need to be handled with numbers, which requires sociability. Though, I suppose you could argue that for species such as ourselves morality is inevitable, and therefore comes from an objective rule of natural selection. But, as it goes, just because we _are_ a social species, doesn't mean we _ought_ to be socially moral. Edit: Oh, whoop, forgot to address the value part. "Value" in this case is imagined from the perspective of the non-entity that is natural selection. It's not a goal, but an inevitability. A consequence of the rules of nature. An is, not an ought.

[@transcendentphilosophy]

Great explanation. I tend to think that the is/ought gap only applies to logical deduction and doesn't apply ontologically. Values (oughts) reduce to facts (is) about psychology. The facts of nature give us our oughts whether we like that or not. We may not be able to logically deduce why we have our values, but we still have them due to nature.

[@dragonsagesummoner6071]

I have a hypothesis I’m hoping to develop in to a theory of Ought. You may be surprised that “ought’s” might actually have a physical property undergirding them.

[@s3cr3tandwh1sp3r]

Hans-Herman Hoppe has claimed to solve the is/ought problem in his theory of argumentation ethics. Though I think his view ultimately fails because it lacks a metaphysical basis, it is an interesting read.

[@jones1618]

Interesting. Here's an article about argumentation ethics that mentions the "is/ought" divide: mises.org/wire/primer-hoppes-argumentation-ethics I'm not sure I understand the concept except (my preschooler summary of it): "We can't be independent thinking beings with opinions unless we _own_ ourselves. Libertarian ideals then derive from these first principles and, therefore, don't require additional value judgments." I guess he's arguing that all other "ought" arguments derive from those Libertarian principles. In my experience, though, the reach of Libertarian ethics is pretty feeble, essentially saying that my responsibilities and values don't "naturally" extend beyond the nose on my face, as it were. So, it is hardly sufficient to reach many "oughts" beside "I ought not to punch you in your nose. Otherwise, I'm free to do whatever."

[@邓梓薇]

The scene is beautiful..I love the angle directing at the sky feels soothing...And the end is excellent.. are you a Christian?

[@IlusysSystems]

1) Scientific method is logical, however it's output is not. That's why we are constantly correcting our knowledge - because always find some logical inconsistency in it. It's like building indestructible fortress - you better try your destroy it and improve it's weakness. Kinda beautiful and enjoyable process IMO. Haven't watched that video yet tho. 2) I think, that Is/Ought Problem has complexity context. And if anything, we would calculate probability from is to ought. We can not run simulations even at fundamental levels. Even if we use quantum computers, that can "experience" real quantum effects you can not simulate atom of iron, because that atom has it's specific influence on reality that can not be simulated. Otherwise, your simmulation would collapse into iron atom... I would call this a science paradox: Even if we know everything we can, we can not know everything. Now, can I get a statute? :D

[@9Ballr]

The problem of induction isn't that the conclusions of inductive arguments aren't guaranteed to be true even if the premises are true and the logic is good, it's that all inductive arguments rely on the principle that nature is uniform, and there is no non-circular way of establishing that principle as true. Hume isn't pointing out the obvious fact that even good inductive arguments can have false conclusions, he's claiming that we never have any reason to believe the conclusions of inductive arguments at all.

[@Mandibil]

Hume just points out an invalid argumentation structure. He does not say that you cannot get an ought from an is, but that it is not enough just to say: "is or is not" and then of a sudden start saying "ought or ought not...". You have to do better than that, either by attempting filling out somehow the missing bits in the is-ought gap or attempting to use a completely different structure of argument - to get to arguments connected with an ought :-)

[@lizicadumitru9683]

Would it be correct to say the truth, about anything, is good? Another way to say it, is the truth inherently good?

[@GoodandBasic]

I think so. That is why there is no conflict of interest when you make absolute commitment to pursuing the good. Doing so will also have you pursue all truth. JB

[@lizicadumitru9683]

@@GoodandBasic No conflict of interest... I like that. I'm new to your channel, king of random sent me here, rest in peace Grant 😔 Was wondering if you have tackled the idea of what is the definition of good objectively speaking?

[@GoodandBasic]

@@lizicadumitru9683 we've circled around it a fair bit. JB

[@PKMartin]

Do the people who say they don't believe in real goodness actually not believe in "good" at all, or is it just that they think our concepts of what "good" are are completely relative? I think we can agree that good exists on more than one axis, so what you prioritise (individual liberty, loyalty, fairness, sanctity, equality) is where goodness becomes relative. That aside, even though goodness may not be measurable, as we can ask people what they believe contributes to it perhaps we can aim to at least look for whatever measurable thing we can which represents good, the same way 680nm light represents the intangible sensation of "redness".

[@zachmikkablair9537]

So this is going back to the nature or nurture discussion. Do we naturally have an accepted installation of morality from birth or r morals taught and learned thru experience??? Its hard to say. Atleast theoretically.

[@Sowiso4]

Well, isn't the answer obviously "both" ? Nature gives you instinct based morals and nurture gives you value based morals.

[@AnonyMous-og3ct]

We wouldn't be here if we weren't naturally inclined to cooperate at least within a particular group. My conjecture is that humans are extremely cooperative at a tribal scale where everyone knows each other and vital resources are difficult enough to acquire that everyone's cooperation is required to have a decent chance of mutual survival. We can see that with the few remaining indigenous tribes today largely untouched by civilization. Issues like murder and theft are typically non-concerns within their own tribe (they might do this to other tribes) since everyone's survival within the tribe ties to each other. It makes no sense to murder the chieftain even to the murderer or steal the spear of the most productive hunter even to the thief. Where I think things get tricky and codified laws and enforcers (human or divine) become necessary is with a large enough populace and/or an agrarian society where a small group of people can feed and provide for everyone else. Then it ceases to become clear that everyone's survival is mutually tied to the other and the need for laws to prevent crime becomes necessary as actions like theft and murder start to seem more and more beneficial and tempting to the culprit.

[@AnonyMous-og3ct]

​@@Sowiso4 >> Well, isn't the answer obviously "both" ? Nature gives you instinct based morals and nurture gives you value based morals. I tend to think the stronger need for nurture is actually because we've changed the environment so far beyond what we spent the bulk of our evolutionary history against. We didn't spend the 100,000 years or so since our species existed living in a dense populace with thousands to millions of people packed in a small area. Our instincts weren't evolved for such conditions or the technology for that matter or even the long lifespans we have today.

[@ericzarahn9343]

I think that innate morals are required to learn new "oughts" (i.e. the "nurture" component). You need to have a value system (e.g., appetite for food, aversion to pain, desire to please parents, etc.) that external contingencies can exploit in order to modify behavior.

[@gongjiaji2489]

I love Edinburgh

[@PhysicsPolice]

2:00 This argument is extremely naive. By this same logic, we can't measure the quality of a chess move, or the impact on health of a particular medical intervention. Yet, somehow, people can win at chess and medicine can save lives. When you limit your ontology, you miss out on a lot of stuff. Adding morality to one's ontology defined as that which increases wellbeing, all of a sudden we can make objective moral claims, so long as we have clearly defined wellbeing! Same with chess: you can make objective claims about how good a chess move is once you've agreed on the rules of chess. Same with medicine: you can make objective claims about health once you agree on a definition of health.

[@Sowiso4]

Good point, I would also complete the argument by looking at what "Is". Without an aggrement on what "sound" means, on how you measure it and on how you express the results, there is no way to measure that the sound "Is".

[@PhysicsPolice]

Sowiso4 I have no idea what you’re talking about.

[@Sowiso4]

@@PhysicsPolice If I got that right, you are saying, "definitions" make measurements possible for more than just what "Is" and therefore his argument is naive. I'm talking about the problem of linking language and the absolute realitiy. See, language is entirely based on agreement since each word is an abstract representation of something we percieve or want to express. Both "Is" and "ought" are expressional words which entirely depend on definition and therefore are relative. Or in other words: Reality has borders and limits to what is possible and therefore you can measure what truly "Is" with things that truly "are", cause physics do not need recognition to do their thing. Language on the other hand is part of the imaginary realm which has no borders or limits and is entirely based on definition. If something origins from that imaginary realm it's measurability depends only on our definition of it.

[@lizicadumitru9683]

@@Sowiso4 I'm with ya there 👍

[@patientred3203]

The chess and health scenarios don't seem to match with the silly things said in the video. Measuring being closer to a chess victory and closer to prolonging life, there is 1 goal against 1 focus person. In the stabbing scenario, the comparable measure is what goals of the one stabbing are met in stabbing me. A lot of this video seems a long winded road to, "a man's got to have a code" which basically means we need rules and goals to have meaning. Also does it bother anyone else when the video mucks around with the squares on rectangles analogy, but in a way that requires several jumps to get from what he was saying, to what he meant lol.

[@stevespears-ss]

Wouldn't the conclusion of objective ethics lead one to the absurdity that all predatory animals are unethical?

[@GoodandBasic]

Why? JB

[@stevespears-ss]

@@GoodandBasic If ethical values are more than just a humanistic construct for the benifit of humans, then killing would be unethical and immoral for all beings. This seems to be understood in religious texts. The loss of absolute paradise (peace and abundance) is a dilemma for Moses, Buddah, Jesus, etc... It is not a problem if we recognize ethical values as artificial, however useful.

[@Garyskinner2422]

There IS an injured man (from stabbing) we OUGHT to call an ambulance how is this a problem whatsoever in philosophy? Simply do not get it

[@ArnoldTohtFan]

Hume declares that a natural order does not necessarily lead to any moral conclusion. He illustrates this with examples from nature that seem to undermine our moral certainties. Is it wrong to kill your parents? Well, a tree might drop a seed that grows up to choke it and take its light. The tree kills its parent, but we wouldn't say that's wrong. So you say you're against incest? Well, if two animals commit incest, is it a sin? Hume's conclusion is that the acts themselves, parent-killing and incest, don't have any moral valence. Wherever morality is, it can't be out there in nature. Hume's error is that he is mixing up two orders of nature: specific natures and local natures. He is transposing animals who do not have the specific natures of human beings into the situations that make up human local nature. But in a local nature, it matters who is playing what role. Moral significance doesn't just depend on what is done, it depends on what kind of creature is doing it. That's true even outside the moral realm. It's a big day when a baby learns to walk on two legs, but it's not a big day when a dog learns to walk on two legs. Dogs and humans live together, but they can't take on each other's roles. I believe the correct way to get an is from an ought is to regard the hierarchy of nature as a whole. We don't expect much from entities so low on the great chain of being as plants. But I can't resist pointing out that Hume's assumption that plants kill their parents is false, for even plants recognize the roots of their kin and behave altruistically towards them. The seed that Hume describes would be defective, even if we wouldn't call it bad. As for incest, even such humble creatures as mites exhibit evolutionary strategies of inbreeding avoidance. The ways in which animals avoid incest are their own area of biological study. For example, young lions are driven out of the pride to find a different pride and challenge the dominant lion for control over the lionesses. The process of male dispersal ensures that they will not mate with their sisters, nor will the formerly dominant lion be dominant for long enough to mate with his daughters. Incest among lions would, therefore, be unnatural and defective, eliciting as much moral condemnation as would be appropriate for a lion. I stress these examples because they illustrate a general truth: Hume's amoral picture of nature where beasts rage and claw irrationally at one another while only man is moral is an Enlightenment fiction. There are many specific and local natures, but each is characterized by a hierarchy that contains moral order. The same hierarchy characterizes the sub-species of man. We recognize, for example, that no amount of punishment or education will make Africans or Asians behave as we do; we rightly expect less from them. That is also why it is folly to try to accommodate them in our local natures.

[@theJellyjoker]

thirty ought six

[@Notchormama]

Mind blown .

[@PhysicsPolice]

3:38 Woah, why don't you believe morality is subjective? How do you get to an objective morality? Please don't say god.

[@GoodandBasic]

Easy. The alternative position always contains a contradiction. Therefore, by reductio ad absurdum, the inverse must be true. I'm not terribly interested in laying out a grand theory for the rule that determines what is right in all cases. Rather in establishing the meta ethical point that value, like dark matter to galactic orbits, is necessary for the math to work. JB

[@PhysicsPolice]

Good and Basic what are those contradictions? Name one.

[@PhysicsPolice]

Good and Basic what the hell do values (what we as individuals happen to care about) have to do with morality (claims containing an “ought”)? We each have different values. If morality is pinned to our values, then it’s subjective, as it would very from person to person. Your argument from values seems backwards.

[@robertmills413]

@@PhysicsPolice he makes pretty clear that there are shared values we can all agree on, like an arm or trust not broken, that are therefore objective. What your specific wellbeing looks like matters less than how effectively it is attained.

[@PhysicsPolice]

Robert Mills wasn’t clear to me.