Furthering Philippa Foot

[Count_Timothy_von_Icarus]

@Banno

Of course one could reduce deontology to a first-order logic; at the cost of restricting the domain

I don’t think it needs to be reduced. What I am objecting to is that any claim about goodness must be second-order.

@Banno

I’m usually pretty careful with my use of necessity. Can you show me were?

Well, here:

@Banno

1. [quote=“Count_Timothy_von_Icarus, post:380, topic:1218”]
   1. If I step into the fire I will be burned. (is-statement, non-evaluative)
   2. It is bad (not choice-worthy) for a man to be burned. (ought-statement, evaluative)
      Therefore, I ought not step into the fire. (ought-statement, evaluative. )

This syllogism derives an ought from an is and an ought. That’s fine.

No sequence of Is-statements alone implies any ought-statement.
[/quote]

Your objection was that “good” must be an ought statement. If you allow that it can be a first-order description, then this isn’t a good objection. Whereas, if it can only be second-order, so that any apparent description of a condition has to be transposed into a prescription regarding an action or a preference, (“people ought not (be burned)”) that seems to necessarily rule out the descriptive option, no?

To be sure, the premise has “normative” content (a loaded term, just like “evaluative”), but if the is-ought gap only means that one cannot derive practical conclusions from wholly irrelevant premises, it is trivial. No one ever said that all premises and all arguments can inform action.

As noted in that original post, someone could demand the additional premise: “we should choose the better over the worse.” That isn’t an objectionable premise. But it is on par with demanding that every argument contain the premise “we should make valid inferences instead of invalid ones” and “we should affirm truth and not falsity.” That is, those aren’t revokable premises, they are formally constitutive of practical and theoretical reason respectively.

@Banno

That we can chose a logic to suit our purposes does not meant that all logics are equally suitable to a given task.

In virtue of what are they more or less “suitable?” My objection is that the suitability of the logic being advanced here seems to be precisely that it enshrines the fact/value distinction. Indeed, that is explicitly what it is designed to do. But formalizing a metaphysical position doesn’t thereby make it a “truth of logic.”

@Banno

“It is bad that (the fox’s leg is trapped)” is about the statement "the fox’s leg is trapped” and so is second order.

Also, as this interpretation is defective as a general rule (and aside from the obvious fact that you changed a universal statement into a particular). Consider: “He is a good baseball player” does not mean “it is good that (he is a baseball player).” And it would be pretty odd to say “it is good that (foxes have their legs in traps)” (universal). Your switch to the particular from the universal in your rendering makes it more plausible re cases where it might be intended either way. In the universal, it would be quite an odd thing to say.