Hume's is/ought problem? (L3 - Is Ought Problem - Hume) 

Yes, but you’re still assuming that we ought to do what is healthy or we ought not do what’s immoral. You ought not sneak hidden values into your arguments. 😀

​@@jennosyde6903 Oh sorry, this is an ancient comment but IIRC, it wasn't directly in response to the video and the is/ought gap. It was in response to a broader metaethical discussion. If I remember it, the person I was talking to stated that we can't logically claim anything is immoral, not even make statements like, "Torturing babies for fun is immoral," because they claimed that to state that anything is immoral implies (without being explicitly stated) that we "ought not do it". Whereas I don't interpret language this way. To state that anything is immoral in my view does not mean that we ought to be moral or ought not be immoral. It's just making a claim that something is or isn't moral in ways I see no different from claiming that something is or isn't healthy. There is no "ought" from my perspective embedded in the claims of moral realists.

There’s a distinction between “you should do x” and “I value x/I want you to do x.” One is an ought statement, the other is an is statement.

@@williamanon2050 Where does "you should do x" come from? It comes from "I value x"

@@transcendentphilosophy But you agree that you can’t derive “You should do X” from “I value X?”

​@@williamanon2050 No I don't agree. I made a whole RU-vid video articulating why the is-ought gap is a confusion of logic. Ontologically, shoulds reduce to values. You have a biological value, and that manifests into a psychological should. Creatures should do the things that their biology values. Obviously there is a hierarchy of values and one value can sabotage another value, so the biological creature should act in such a way to satisfy all their values, not just some of them in a self-destructive way. To say that creatures should not do what their biology values is an appeal to a transcendent moral authority, like the Christian God, who hates natural biological values - an indefensible position.

@@transcendentphilosophy You can say it's an indefensible position, yet it is one many, like myself, hold. It's not inherently illogical to believe one should value something different. You, right now, think the people in the islamic world who value throwing gays off rooftops, covering their women in all black, and thinks public beheadings are great, should change their values. If you discovered that their values were rooted in biology or some other fact about their psychology - so what? Does that suddenly change how you feel about their values? Only if you had a value such as "people should only value what they already do" or "people should never change their values" could you defend such a stance. But I hope you see how indefensible *that* position is. Can you really say you value not having gays thrown off rooftops, if you also insist anyone who does so, should continue? That their underlying values motivating their behaviour, must not be changed? That just doesn't follow for me. So hopefully you agree changing values is acceptable. Now all you have to do is apply that same standard to yourself. Treat yourself as yet another person who *ought* to be willing to change their values to better ones. Of course the trouble there is, better according to *who* ? We can only ever appeal to our own values for guidance. But the idea that nature somehow as imbued us with perfect moral values is absurd.

Then you run into a separate problem for instance humans aren’t programmed definitively like certain programs are and so there’s a aspect of will in this situation for humans that isn’t applicable to a software. The program ought to follow the program because it has no will. While a human doesn’t ought to be fearful, or ought to be moral. For it has free will.

@@coreydenison4560 It’s not really a problem for me because I don’t believe in free will. But let’s suppose we have free will. That doesn’t change the fact that we are programmed with particular values, it only means we won’t necessarily pursue our values like a computer.

I think your missing something with this analogy, that being with a certain AI, if it has a specific computer programming, it’s not really the case that it ought to follow that programming, it’s more that it has to follow that programming. For me at least, to say someone ought do something implies there is an opportunity for them to do something else, but a computer like this lacks the ability to do something outside its programming, thus it is meaningless to say they ought do something if they can’t do anything else. Same thing with humans, because if we are evolutionary “hardwired” with certain preferences and desires (which I believe we are), then it’s only that we have to follow those desires, not that we ought follow them. Here’s how I would word it: It is the case that an AI has a certain programming It is the case that the AI has to follow that programming Therefore, it is the case that the AI absolutely follows it programming (No ought claims made).

@@omaralsofi9855 I agree with most of what you said, but I think the key difference is that I view all necessary behavior as a type of obligation. Not _meaningless_ obligation, but _trivial_ obligation. Obligation only becomes interesting when we don’t know what actions will be taken, and so we typically discuss morality in terms of _possible_ actions. But there’s no reason we couldn’t discuss morality when there is only a single possible action (ie a necessary action).

no, it only applies to moral considerations

Does it logically follow that it isn't desirable to incur penalties? No, that's a value judgement. Desires are not factual claims. Nor is it obvious how the desire to not be penalized by the government, should be weighed up against the desire to do what is right, or just. To save innocents for example, even if it is illegal. Hume's objection does stand against all the examples you mentioned, there's a hidden ought you didn't mention. "Fire can burn you therefore you ought not touch the fire" doesn't actually logically follow from the mere fact of fire burning you. You need to add the premise that "you ought not want to be burned" first. It's implicit in your statement, but it's there nontheless.

your emotions!

Explained very basically, Hume is a moral sentimentalist, he argues that morality isn't defined by rationality, but by emotions. For example: if you were to witness a murder, you would feel fear, disgust, sadness, etc... Humans feel sympathy, and this would bring you to the conclusion that murder is wrong, (which is a good conclusion, btw) He sees rationality as a product of emotions, rather than emotions as a product of rationality. You wouldn't feel bad for the murder victim because you think logically "oh, killing is wrong, now I will feel sad"

​@@roseskyeohmywhy do we think it's wrong

1. Biological instinct: we have a survival instinct which deters us from suicide and murder. 2. Cultural conditioning: the morals we are brought up to have. We are told early on that murder is bad. One major caveat is that not all cases of moral issues are both. Many morals are purely cultural. For example, gay marriage. It has been deemed as immoral to be with the same sex, because some societies have deemed it as such. There has been a shift in acceptance because the culture slowly began to view it as OK. This is why gen Z is more accepting than generations before them. They grew up in a more accepting culture. @@sync2597

When a moral issue is based in culture. We come up with an explanation under the guise of rationality. "Being gay is unnatural." "Kids grow up best with two parents of the opposite sex." These statements have been proven incorrect.

You are valuing well-being as something to be acted on. Which is completely reasonable and pretty much everyone would agree. But it is still an axiom. There's no way past Hume's guillotine without these moral axioms

​@@sub-harmonik What if the subjective goal is stated in the premise as a fact? Ex: P1: I want to live a healthy life. P2: Junk food is unhealthy. C: Therefore, I ought to refrain from eating junk food [if I want to live a healthy life, but that's redundant with P1]. Doesn't that bridge the gap now that the goal is explicitly stated as a premise rather than assumed in the conclusion? Another: P1: This patient has been diagnosed with cancer. P2: The patient has expressed a desire in treating the illness. P3: The most viable treatment for this type of cancer is chemotherapy or radiation therapy. C: Therefore, the patient ought to receive chemotherapy or radiation therapy. Is there still an is-ought gap? If so, I'm confused as to what "ought" even really means if it's not an expression of what we believe (which can be objective in the sense of being independent of our subjective tastes and capable of being arrived at by anyone else seeking to be objective) to be an optimal way to fulfill a stated goal.

@@darkengine5931 you are implicitly using the premise that people ought do things that will result in an outcome that they want. Which is reasonable, but that is an axiom. (and there should also obviously be other considerations in any ethical decision bc your wants and needs aren't the only things that should be considered in every situation) In your junk food example, that actually isn't really an ethical statement. When you include these subjective premises you are making is statements: I should do X if I want Y outcome. That's just a statement about what a certain outcome will be given a certain behavior (an is statement), not a statement about what a certain outcome should be. You are saying the outcome should be a certain way because you want it to be a certain way. But that seems kind of circular. Why do you want it to be a certain way? And why is doing things that result in an outcome you want 'good'? (which is really another way of saying you ought to do it) the entire issue is that what one ought do must necessarily be based on these kinds of 'ought axioms'. If you continue to ask yourself e.g. why you ought to do things that will result in outcomes you want (and ask why you ought to do those things etc.), you will only be able to reach other 'ought' axioms. And in my opinion those ought axioms always lead to basically the seeking of pleasure and the avoidance of pain (which are the most basic of these ought axioms). and therefore those are what the things that we refer to 'good' and 'bad' are based on

​@@sub-harmonik >> you are implicitly using the premise that people ought do things that will result in an outcome that they want. I'm then left with the question of what "ought" actually means if that's not embedded into its definition. >> In your junk food example, that actually isn't really an ethical statement. What exactly composes a moral/ethical statement if I may ask? I tend to view any practical definition as one concerned with the well-being of ourselves, loved ones, complete strangers, maybe even living creatures of other species (depending on how far our empathy goes). >> And in my opinion those ought axioms always lead to the seeking of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. I tend to agree if we use something more like Mills' definition than Bentham's although I see a lot of subjective discrepancy in short term vs. long-term, foreseeable vs. unforeseeable, known vs. unknown. It's something I figure omniscience would resolve. I suspect we'd all be consequentialists of some form if we could foresee the consequences of every possible action over infinite periods of time.

​@@sub-harmonik I had a look through the various ways "ought" is defined and I think the base case for recursion is this: >> [...] used to indicate a desirable or expected state. I think that's the root of it all. When it's defined relative to duties or responsibilities, I think when we subject the question of why we ought to abide by our duties or responsibilities, it recurses back to the above sort of definition as the base case to terminate the recursion. From my view, to state that one "ought" to do something means that it is desirable for them to do so in our best estimate (and our best estimate isn't necessarily just a matter of preference, but instead one capable of being arrived at independently by any subject if we're rigorous in our assessment).