In this thread, I would like to discuss the is-ought problem and show that we can bridge between descriptive and prescriptive statements. I have another thread entitled “Two axioms of ethics”. In that thread, I introduced two axioms of personal and relational right. The personal axiom states that each individual has all the rights over his or her own life only. Relational rights, however, are those grounded in relationships. I derived the positive and negative golden rules from the relational and personal axioms, respectively. I also claimed that the personal right axiom generates autonomy, consent, and negative duties, whereas the relational right axiom generates duties of care, responsibility toward others, and reciprocity. This means that we can make moral decisions based on these two axioms.
What remains is to show that these two axioms are grounded in descriptive facts about humans, cannot be given up, and should be respected.
I start from the personal rights that are more fundamental first, and show that giving them up to others leads to problems. I give a short list of problems and leave the rest for the readers to discover and discuss:
Assume X wants to give up his personal rights to Y. But Y also does not have any personal rights, so he could not add rights to his rights as well. This means that no one has any rights, so no decision can be made.
Giving up your personal rights to another person, you always need the presence of another person to decide for you. This is problematic, so it is not acceptable.
The tension between two individuals’ decisions about what you should do.
Who is going to decide to whom your personal rights should be given? You cannot decide about it since you have no right over your personal rights. The same applies to others.
Now that we have established that the personal rights axiom is grounded in descriptive facts about humans and giving them up leads to unresolvable problems, we can discuss the relational rights axiom. Any person has the right to get involved in a relationship or not. This comes from the personal right, which is fundamental. Your time, your body, etc., are yours, and you can decide whether you want to share them with others or not. However, once you decide to get involved in a relationship, you respect the relational rights as a matter of necessity, since you know that the relationship collapses otherwise.
To summarize, I established that the prescriptive statements are derivable from descriptive statements in two steps: 1) I first showed that we can distinguish between what is right and what is wrong in a moral situation based on two axioms of ethics, and 2) Two axioms of ethics are grounded on descriptive facts about humans at the personal and relational levels.
I can’t see how you’ve solved or even addressed the is-ought problem. You talk about establishing axioms, but inherent in this is that we ought to adopt those axioms.
Frankly, the real problem with the is-ought fallacy is that it can become a moving target depending on how you frame an issue. When I ask myself “what ought I do”, my answer will likely to be informed by objective facts, but I am not asking myself a question about the facts of the world.
I can however observe the social phenomena of morality (social norms, etc) and note that it seems to serve a specific function, and suggest the sorts of norms that are most effective at serving this function. All of this is dealing with objective facts.
I don’t see why we think we should be able to derive “ought” from “is” anymore than we can derive “car” from “bus”. They’re different things. They live on an overlapping venn diagram, but they are distinct things.
I explain how the axioms that are prescriptive statements are derivable from descriptive statements about humans in the personal and relational levels. This is a double-edged sword; using one side, we can tell the old is-ought problem is resolved, and using another side, we can most importantly tell why we ought to respect these axioms. I showed that giving up personal rights leads to absurdity in human life, and giving up relational rights naturally dissolve relations, which is against your wish if you want to keep the relationship.
The problem is how to derive what you ought to do from objective facts. You didn’t demonstrate the objective facts that you prefer. You didn’t explain how you could derive what you ought to do from your preferred objective facts either. And finally, you didn’t explain why people should accept your objective facts.
What norm are you suggesting? Why should people accept your norm?
There is no problem, what you ought to do isnt based on what is, it is based on what your goal is. What you ought to do to achieve a goal DOES depend what is.
“Cannot get an ought from an is” is a philosophical circle jerk much like the problem of free will.
Yes, you cannot get ought from an is, not because of some deep philosophical problem but because its nonsensical. Ought needs a goal, not an “is”. THEN you can look at the what is to determine how to achieve that goal, THEN we can do something philosophically useful instead of wasting time.
Non-problem.
Sorry, you keep saying you’ve shown it, but I don’t see it. Explain it to me like I’m a five year old.
I don’t think that’s the problem. It isn’t how to derive what you ought to do from objective facts. Derivation implies that the objective facts of the matter contain everything required to arrive at the answer, and that is simply not the case. In your formulation, you need to combine the facts with your axioms, which are moral prescriptions, in order to arrive at an answer. You aren’t removing the is-ought divide, you’re just prescribing the ought, and then pretending like it doesn’t exist, leaving you to say “See, there’s only an “is”!”. It’s a shell game.
I’m not suggesting norms, I’m noting that they actual exist. That’s a fact.
Sure, but so is cake and flour, but it would be silly to say that flour is cake. There is a distinction between is and ought, and there’s no reason to believe that one should be entirely reducible to the other simply because we’d prefer it to be so.
I have witnessed discussions on free will as well. Most of the time, people either don’t define free will well or enter the domain of how to derive free will in a deterministic agent! Anyway, it is off-topic, but I have my own thread on free will. If you are interested, I would be happy to discuss it with you in that thread.
No, the goal does not define ought, since people have different goals, which might lead to different oughts! And discussing morality is not a waste of time. We establish laws based on morality. Given that, we should find a framework in which all individuals can agree on whether something is morally right or wrong in a moral situation.
Ok, it seems that I need to give an example. Let’s start with relational rights. Assume that you want to get involved in a sexual relationship with someone. This requires at least that you share your time and body with your partner. So, your partner has the right to have your time and your body. If you don’t share your body or your time with your partner, then the relationship will naturally collapse. You cannot say that you want to be in a sexual relationship with your partner and don’t want to share your time and body with him/her. Regarding personal rights, I discuss four cases in the OP and show that giving up your personal rights leads to absurdity in human life.
As illustrated in OP, I showed that prescriptive statements can be derived from descriptive statements in two steps. I first discuss that relational and personal rights are essential. Giving up our personal rights leads to absurdity in human life, and I provide a descriptive statement about relational rights. Once the relational and personal rights are established, we can derive what is right or wrong in a moral situation.
I mean, why should we accept any norm if there is no way to justify it?
You get that rights are a version of moral prescriptions, right? You can’t impose rights and pretend that you have arrived at ought from is.
We shouldn’t necessarily. You appear to be entirely missing my point about the distinction between “is” and “ought”. We can make factual observations about how morality works, based on observations. That doesn’t logically imply a personal imperative to adopt those norms, but it might offer us some insight that might inform our personal moral decision making.
I assume you are asking about the second statement since the first statement is trivial. Any relationship is mutual. By mutual, I mean you get something and give up something, and the person in the relationship with you gets something in return and gives up something as well. In the example of a sexual relationship, you give up your time and share it with your partner, so as a result, your partner has a temporary right over the time you share. The same applies to your body. Your partner has a temporary right to have access to the body you share, too. You get the same rights in return as well. That is the meaning of a relationship.
No, for example, in the case of relational right, this statement “you respect the relational rights as a matter of necessity, since you know that the relationship collapses otherwise” is descriptive. Don’t you agree with this? I am simply establishing relational right with this statement, which is a descriptive true statement. We can then derive what is morally right or wrong given relational and personal rights.
The observation may partially support moral decisions, but it cannot provide full support in all cases. Think of abortion, killing criminals, keeping criminals in a non-human condition, etc. How can the observation help us to make a moral decision for these cases? Moreover, the observation is based on a criterion. You can justify the observation based on the criterion, but there is no way to justify the criterion.
No, the meaning of a relationship is that the two (or more) parties relate. There can be a purely exploitative relationship. In such a relationship, one party benefits entirely to the detriment of the other. Maybe you mean that’s how relationships ought to work?
That’s simply false. The relationship doesn’t “collapse”, it just becomes unpleasant for one party. The parties are still relating.
How can it help us make decisions? Or are you asking how can it fully logically entail a decision? It helps us make decisions by allowing us to consider if we want to live in a more cohesive society, and if we do (I imagine most of us would want to most times) what decisions would be more optimal for that.
It doesn’t attempt to create a logically inevitable formula to be able to plug any moral dilemma into in order to arrive at an unquestionably correct answer. Frankly, to think that is a reasonable expectation of moral theorizing is ludicrous.
If I were to give the most logically charitable reading of what you’re proposing, then I have to interpret “relationship” as meaning the sort of relationship where you care about the other party. In which case, your theory only addresses a narrow range of moral questions. If we include all examples of how humans relate, then it is simply a fact that “might makes right” is frequently a workable relational strategy.
Without an “ought”, if someone wants sexual gratification and doesn’t care about the feelings of others or their reputation, so long as they are confident they can evade punishment, then rape is a viable strategy. That’s why we need “ought”. Because there are times when the world presents us with zero sum games, there is frequently power imbalanced among people, and sometimes people don’t have empathy, sometimes people are even sociopaths.
I am talking about relational right here and not relationship.
I am not interested to discuss exploitive relationship here. I am simply interested in defining relational right now. We can come back to exploitive relationship and discuss that it is morally wrong to exploit a relationship.
Here, I am only interested in explaining what your and your partner’s relational rights are when you get involved in a simple sexual relationship.
It is not false, and I am not talking about an unpleasant relationship here. I am talking about relational rights here in a simple relationship, like when you meet a girl in a bar, and you both want to spend a night with each other. If you don’t want to spend time and share your body with your new partner at all, respecting her relational right, then there would be no relationship.
It is not ludicrous; it is necessary; otherwise, moral decisions would become completely arbitrary depending on what moral system you are following.
Crystal clear thinking, imo. This is also why, in another recent thread, it was entirely missed that an “ethical truth” is not necessarily a fact about the world, as opposed a fact about what happens in it. Objectively happens.
You literally said the words “that is the meaning of a relationship”. There is no physical object or measurable force called “relational right”, it is something invented.
Again, where do you imagine “relational rights” come from?
What relational rights? Rights are an expression of moral prescription, not something that exists independent of moral judgements and values. Saying someone has rights is just another way of saying that you ought to treat them a certain way. You’re starting with your ought in your axioms, but pretending it isn’t there. You’re just deriving ought from ought.
Again, you literally said “since you know that the relationship collapses otherwise”, which is what I’m responding to. If you don’t want me to respond to the actual words you use, choose different words. Relationships don’t “collapse”, they just become unpleasant for one party in the example you offered. Please pay attention to your own arguments
That’s a ludicrous statement. Just because we don’t have an overly simplistic logical model whereby we plug a moral dilemma in and get an answer out, doesn’t in the slightest way imply that we have no coherent way to make moral judgement, and it’s all arbitrary. That is called black and white thinking, and it’ll get you into a lot of logic trouble. The fact is, if it were as simple as you suggest, I promise you 100 people who have given the subject a great deal more thought and study, would have come up with it 1000 years ago. The fact is, every attempt to create an airtight, inarguable model of morality that was reducible entirely to a small number of logical principles and axioms has failed. I can think of two reasons for that.
Humans don’t have the requisite cognitive ability to meet the task, or
It’s a really complicated and multifaceted subject, so by definition any model that accurately represents the subject will also be complicated and multi-faceted.
It’s possible that #1 is true, and I lack the cognitive ability to recognize your unique brilliance, surpassing the likes of Kant and Aristotle. All things considered, I think #2 is far more likely.
Of course different goals will have different oughts, so what? That doesnt mean there is anything of substance to the is/ought problem.
“Ought” requires a goal. Not including a goal along with an “ought” is the mistake that leads to a problem.
The second you have a goal what “is” will inform your “ought”.
I’m not joining this discussion about deriving ought from is. I just want to add that the Kantian ought is born out of logical necessity, while the Humean ought out of the natural origin.
These two thinkers do not argue necessarily that we ought to have morals. Rather, we ought not to do certain things because it leads to a contradiction; or that our desires and motivation are naturally what compel us to act a certain way because it’s pleasurable or not act a certain way because it’s painful if we do.
Ok, it seems that I have to define the relationship and relational right here. We say that two people are in a relationship when they are somehow connected. A relational right, however, is a right that depends on the relationship and exists only because of the relationship. So, you and your partner are in a sexual relationship, whereas you and your partner have the right over each other’s time and body.
Yes, I invented it, and it is real, given its definition.
Relational rights come from the fact that you agreed to get involved in a relationship. If you want to get involved in a sexual relationship, then you need to share your time and body with your partner so your partner has the relational right over your time and body. The same applies to you; you have the relational right over her time and body.
I haven’t said a word about morality yet in our discussion of relational rights. You are concluding something false here since you don’t yet understand what I mean by relational rights.
Again, I am not talking about an unpleasant relationship here. I am saying that your time and your body are yours, but you cannot have sex if you don’t want to share them. No sharing, no relationship!
You don’t have to define anything, you just have to pay attention to what you said. I have responded directly to things you’ve said, and you say “that’s not what I’m talking about”.
You can’t define things into reality. I will repeat: Rights are moral statements. If you start with a moral statement, you aren’t deriving ought from is, you are just asserting an ought.
Again, a moral theory that ignores all but pleasant relationships isn’t very useful.
Simply false. No sharing, no pleasant relationship. You defined relationship as “two people are in a relationship when they are somehow connected”. Just because a connection isn’t consensual doesn’t mean it isn’t a connection. I doubt I’m going to keep responding if it only involves you and I repeating ourselves. If you can find it in yourself to offer some new and substantive response, I look forward to it. Otherwise, I don’t see a point to further discussion.
No it doesnt. What is the goal of morality? Once you decide that necessary part of “ought”, what IS will inform you whats right and wrong to the goal of morality. Still a non problem.
I don’t understand you. I gave a very simple example of a relationship and defined a relationship and relational rights to help you understand the difference. Now you are saying that I have to pay attention to what I said!
I can use terms in the way I like as long as I define them properly. And rights are not always moral statements. For example, you have the right to drive your car. This right has nothing to do with morality.
I start from relational and personal rights, and derive moral right and wrong. I also discuss how relational and personal rights are aspects of human life, so we cannot disregard them.
I don’t understand what your point is in bringing up an unpleasant relationship. Do you understand what my point is?
Simply right. If you and another person don’t want a relationship and don’t invest time, effort, etc., to establish a relationship, then there would be no relationship. That’s what I mean by disregarding relational rights leading to the collapse of the relationship if the relationship exists, and you cannot, of course, establish a relationship if you ignore relational rights.
Consent in any relationship is important since it is related to personal rights, especially if both parties are mature enough and the relationship requires consent from both sides. There are, of course, relationships like parents and infant relationship in which the consent of the infant cannot be taken because s/he is not mature enough. Anyway, I started with a sexual relationship since it is simpler to understand.