"How in the Hell is anyone to respond rationally to "How do you get from what is to what out to be?"
"Hume discusses the problem in book III, part I, section I of his A Treatise of Human Nature (1739):
In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remark'd, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary ways of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when all of a sudden I am surpriz'd to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, 'tis necessary that it shou'd be observ'd and explain'd; and at the same time that a reason should be given; for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.[1]
Hume calls for caution against such inferences in the absence of any explanation of how the ought-statements follow from the is-statements. But how exactly can an "ought" be derived from an "is"? In other words, given knowledge of the way the world is, how can one know the way the world ought to be? The question, prompted by Hume's small paragraph, has become one of the central questions of ethical theory, and Hume is usually assigned the position that such a derivation is impossible.[2] This complete severing of "is" from "ought" has been given the graphic designation of "Hume's Guillotine".[3]
A similar (though distinct) view is defended by G. E. Moore's open question argument, intended to refute any identification of moral properties with natural properties—the so-called naturalistic fallacy.
en.wikipedia.org
Less' assumption about my motive was wrong. I was not positing a biblical answer, just pointing out her basic philosophical error.
She seems to think the answer is that the "ought" is part of the "is", or to say it the way she does: "that's just the way it is". Oh well. No wonder she turned nasty, and then ran away. |
