The Is-Ought Problem (David Hume) 

Very much agree that well-being and harm are much better words but both still lean heavily on subjectivity so neither are an "is". Morality and empiricism don't get along.

Steve Hartley isn't it a fact that are well being and harms are facts about the world ? The fact that they rely on subjectivity does not tell much, because every experience by a subject, including the one in variation of quality of life, relies on subjectivity. That does not mean that you can't find experiences that are common among subject. And that is besides the point, because even if you could not find experiences that are common among all subjects, there would still be being like you and me who do, for whom a decrease of well being would be bad. Let me know what you think of that

@@modernethics5027 still very much the is ought problem, because you have just turned it into the problem of evil, and you can't proof wether it is good or bad objectively morally. Unless there is an innate compass, but the only reason that would ought to be the case would there would have to be a necessary being that we derive these moral truths from.

​@@modernethics5027 We would all agree that wellbeing is good and harm is bad. But, this doesn't get us anywhere. The fundamental question of ethics is still open: what is good and what is bad? We want the good, of course. But, we don't always know what is good. That's why Socrates simply said: evil is only ignorance. Meaning that we all do wrong when we don't know any better. We may know some objective facts, like the sun is the source of all energy on earth. But, that doesn't tell us anything about what you or I ought to do. Here is a profound formula to orient us: Do what you love. Or else, love what you do. If there is confusion, we better pause, be still and get in touch with our inner peace and inner truth. That shall set us free to realize what we love and what we need to do, if something needs to be done.

Not being able to know the best or absolute answer to what will maximize well-being or minimize harm, still leaves the possibility that there is a right answer. Striving to get as close to the right answer as humanly possible seems to be a morally righteous pursuit.

Thank you very much. So happy to hear these videos are helping. We will be continuing and hoping this channel grows.

Thank you very much. And yes a lot more videos in the works.

yes, but your intuitive sense of the right or justice still can clash with another's and hence the dilemma of moral reasoning or the question of objective truth which Moore maintains we can intuitively know.

You're welcome. Thanks for watching.

DK RT This is easy - you can derive ought from is... using evolution and the selfish gene theory. Whatever behaviour maximises survival of your genes is more likely to manifest and be preferred in selection ... in a hyper social species, selection of certain behaviours is favoured over others and communicated in moral anecdotes etc so people know what to aim for... . As our environment is constantly changing (our Is), our moral outlooks also changes (our Oughts). It’s not that complicated. The Hindu’s has a concept called Dharma which kinda touched on this.

There is no gap. Morality is itself a fact of nature, a biological imperative characteristic of social beings. The "ought"(morality) is itself an "is."

@@Witnessmoo Yes! Morality comes in stages, and the moral landscape expands as we develop as social beings contingent upon the material conditions (which explains differences in moral prescriptions in different societies). I came to this from Marx. You?

Thank you!

An abortion is a good example. Killing someone to save other lives. Pulling the plug on someone who is on life support and doesn't stand a chance to ever survive without it.

@@darrenbrown7037 An abortion is a terrible example. Killing someone to save other lives? So you would justified in killing a healthy child if their organs could save 5 sickly kids lives?

@@darrenbrown7037 Why might procuring an abortion be a morally good (not neutral) thing to do?

@@josephpostma1787 I mean there are countless examples. For me the obvious one- if the pregnant person was raped, they were young, they did not have the means to care for or support another life, and having the baby would cause tremendous amount of suffering for both the mother and the child who has to be born into a life already full of suffering, confusion, and trauma. To go ahead with an abortion before stages of development in utero is obviously in so many ways, the moral and correct thing to do, specifically if that’s what the would be mother wants to do. I can’t comprehend why people think bringing a person into this world when the mother doesn’t want to have the baby is better than not having the baby. The suffering is infinitely less when safe abortion is an option.

Thank you :)

You're welcome. Glad you liked it.

Thank you very much. And thanks for the suggestion, definitely something to think about.

Isn’t it the same guy changing his voice😭😭

Thank you very much

Thank you :)

You're welcome :)

I hope this helps: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-p4fFl-J0Vks.html

Yes but thats assuming something only 'is' when we believe it to be so, or 'ought' to be so While in reality, things that 'are' do not depend on our beliefs about them, they will continue to 'be' whether or not we are there, as well as continue to 'be' even if we believe they 'ought' not to be Basically, things exist and are, no matter what we think about them. Even if all conscious beings died instantly, the universe and all its laws continue to exist. Hope that helps

@@markorezic3131 You said: "While in reality, things that 'are' do not depend on our beliefs about them, they will continue to 'be' whether or not we are there, as well as continue to 'be' even if we believe they 'ought' not to be " Do you believe that?

@@kveldulfpride Well yeah, I see what you mean, but what I stated wasnt true because I believe it is. Here's the thing, believing in something doesnt change the truth, that being said, things that 'are' without being believed in have been shown empirically to 'be'. So that alone doesnt depend on my statement about it, I was just telling what was already observed, not what I believed to be true. Thats different from saying I think rainbows should be green, without ever seeing a rainbow in my life. That statement cannot become a 'rainbows are green' statement when I do eventually see a rainbow, while on the other hand, I didnt come to the conclusion about things 'being' before I was empirically shown it to be true, it was the other way around. The rainbow scenario however involves assuming before knowing. Even if I assumed correctly, it was never my assumption that made rainbows green.

@@markorezic3131 "that being said, things that 'are' without being believed in have been shown empirically to 'be'." Who says things 'are' without being believed? You can prove things through logic, but as to the relevance of said argument, requires a set of values of the questioner prior to the proof. These prior assumptions are essentially faith. Show me how you can observe what 'is' without logic to recognize 'it'. In other words, does something exist without a consciousness to potentially observe it?

@@kveldulfpride What I meant by that statement is that EVEN* things that arent believed in are proved sometimes to empirically 'be'. Meaning belief or assumption beforehand do not alter the underlying truth about what we are observing. Hence belief can be used to strengthen already empirically shown knowledge, but not to cause something to be true itself

This still doesn’t hold up because value judgements are non-natural facts Here you’ve just replaced god with with the individual and their socialisation

sam ward no I haven’t “replaced god” because a god has not been substantiated and I’ll go a step further and say that it can’t. And you’re going to have to explain to me how a value judgement that can be demonstrated to come from human minds is a “non-natural fact”. so you’ve basically asserted the existence of “god” and the “non-natural”. can you provide sound/valid evidence for either?

Charlie ...my main objection to sam ward is that he said “value judgements” are “non-natural facts”. I’m ok with saying something is “abstract” but when you say non-natural that implies something outside of nature which could mean supernatural. so sam would have to clear this up by letting us know how he is defining “non-natural”.

@ian philip - If there are "no non-natural facts", is money a "natural fact" or a "non-natural lie"?

@@differous01 everybody keeps throwing around this word "non-natural". I'm gonna ask you what I ask the other guy. define what you mean by "non-natural".

Thomas Vu Thanks "I ought to help the poor" is egoic and delusional language featuring the imagined contra-causal homunculus somehow not infinitely regressing while driving the body around like some kind of hot, wet amino-acid burning car. It's fundamentally incoherent. But it does feel like what's happening at first intuition. There are in reality only descriptions. "I will help the poor given sufficient stimulus." "I will remove my hand from a hot enough flame" is another. Effort of holding the hand in the flame, for example, is merely an approximate awareness of something like the metabolic cost of the activity. It's useless really, we're wed to our delusions so strongly that we tend to experience their exposure as pain and suffering.

I cannot see all of your reply for some reason. Which sucks because it looks interesting. But it appears to be the usual insistence that somehow the magic, contra-causal mini-self obtains. It doesn't for the same reason a colorless green cubic sphere doesn't. "Ought" is delusion. There is only being. I am helplessly averse to suffering and pain and helplessly attracted to homeostasis, wellness, structural integrity, non-traumatized psychology, etc. Almost all Humans are, and are so as a result of the metabolic pathways of which we are composed. Even a Human with congenital analgesia can understand the tissue damage that results from exposure to open flame, and though she cannot feel the pain, can inductively reason and will at some threshold of understanding withdraw the hand (or cease whatever mutilation we're imagining to explore "oughts.") "The sun fuses hydrogens therefore I ought to eat pancakes for breakfast" is an example of a meaningless non sequitur. The premise has nothing to do with conscious systems. This is the only distinction between what is and how we experience "ought" that can possibly obtain. "I am hungry and desire pancakes. I am helplessly aware that eating pancakes will not harm anyone, and I helplessly desire to not harm anyone if at all possible. I will eat the pancakes." All descriptions. I can be confused about whether or not eating pancakes will or will not harm anyone. Morality is about trying to figure this out. It's a simple computation. Conscious, intelligent systems are the basis of all possible value. We are helplessly compelled by the laws of physics toward more of this, and toward valuing it. Pointing to a rock and saying "therefore I ought to value well-being" is nonsense. Pointing to a conscious person who may be "poor and hungry" and being helplessly compelled to help them gives us more access to consciousness. If they starve to death, consciousness diminishes. We may need them. It's stupid to waste processing power. Even the most violent psychopath intrinsically functions like this, in that she does not kill everything it is possible for her to kill. The Twilight Zone episode "Time Enough At Last" seems to hint at this.

As you said everything can be described by an is statement given enough data. However since we are not omnipotent the Concept of ought arises from uncertainty do to our limited knowledge. It can be best compared to an Axiom in formal logic. Something that is assumed to be true so logical proofs can be built upon it. For example how we cant “prove” 2+2=4 without the Peano axioms of mathematics

Lol!

It depends on what you mean by pleasure. The point that you are making is I think that a higher quality of life for any being means more pleasure for this being. But that is if you assume that pleasure and pain are the only possible type experiences. But how would you consider a state of flow that is different from the pleasure that you would get from the satisfaction of some desires ? If we save the live of a relative, we do not solely to so for they, we also do so because they matter to us, not because they bring us pleasure but because we value them. It is true that saving them could lead to positive emotions, but it would be maybe not precise to call that pleasure.

in premise form that argument would be something like this. 1. Killing is not in accordance with gods will. 2. Gods will is always good 3. Therefore we ought not to kill But this assumes not only that a god exists, but also that our epistemology can know of this will and that the will is good. If all these presumptions are true, then yes we can somewhat derive an ought from an is.

@@ericgiangiulio2036 Thankyou for that

Interesting idea, but a problem with this (I can imagine) is that things that might be socially-acceptable might not be morally-permissible. For example, slavery was once legal, commonly-practised and socially-accepted. If owning a slave back in the 18th century was socially-acceptable, then your moral standing in society would not be hurt, and so there's seemingly nothing morally wrong with owning a slave. In fact, if being an abolitionist and campaigning for the abolition of slavery earned you the ire of your peers, then campaigning to end slavery might even be IMMORAL as it would hurt your reputation in society.

@@saeedbaig4249 there are different levels of morality. Institutional, Personal and Universal. Universal moralities supercede Institutional ones. Institutional moralities supercede personal ones. Examples of Universal moralities are Life Liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Institutional values become immoral when they enslave people. However, my personal values such as not killing others can be suppressed institutionally because of institutional principles such as the draft. When a Universal value is disrupted by an institutional one or personal one, it could be argued that both are immoral. When a personal value disrupts an institutional one, that could be immoral. Example Vaccination. But that's just a theory

Jeff Doe Jeff Doe the whole idea of ethics is searching for eternal truths about morals. We can’t go around saying there’s all these different levels of ethics. We have to somehow prove that there are universal rules in morals - something that obviously is hard to do considering how long people have been trying to answer it. If there are different levels of morality, and those ethical values can be broken when two levels contrast each other, then were those levels of morality ever really there? If we forge our own morals based on these ever-collapsing levels, our morals have no truth to them and might as well be useless.

Pragmatism is not ethics. You described pragmatism not morals

You're making a consequentialist argument. Sadly, a large part of the human population is lousy at imagining consequences or exercising empathy. Also, cruel people are actually empathetic, since their knowledge of the suffering they can inflict on others is why they carry it out. This is why deontological morality is also needed. And it goes without saying that neither may be effective in stopping sociopathic behavior.

How does this way of viewing human behavior explain inherent fears and unlearned actions? How can conciousness only be what is learned if a baby just born already searches for a nipple to eat without coaching?

@@fighterx4133 People can learn from parents and those round them very fast and subconsciously pick up fears from them. As in they see others are scared, don't know much about the world, and so just avoid that. Never really questioning why. Some people can also just built something up in to a fear or naturally just feel more scared of something. Point is it can still be something learned, but feels like they always felt that way. As for a baby been hungry, the baby is looking for a food source due to naturally knowing it needs food. The woman will direct a baby to the breast. A baby will suck on a finger if put in front of it. It naturally just tries to feed. I don't know if that is a conscious action, or simply just a reflex of being hungry. Obviously are bodies exist in a certain way and so natural biological urges happen as a result of this. I'm not sure how much of what we do alters biology, although evolution shows changes happen, some epigenetic, some mutations, I'm not sure how much of what people do, long term changes genetics way in to the future, but what we do in life even affects biology. That been said I guess there could be some level of consciousness that is inherited and isn't learned. But that still can be passed on from the actions of those in the past. I guess if one looks at how consciousness arose in the first place, and why we do I think that would be more related to DNA, and asking more how did consciousness get there in the first place, when I was talking more about how a being that is aware changes behaviour based on what they learn through being highly conscious. As in I was talking more about how consciousness is shaped in life, as in how ones thoughts and feelings shape actions, due to a heightened consciousness, over simply been conscious. I think looking that deeply into the how conscious came to arise, is a little like asking how the universe came to arise. I'm not really sure there is an answer that is easy to understand. I mean it's likely that objects kind of bumped in to each other and some how the first organisms were formed, and at that low level kind of bumped in to each other and then sort of created DNA on a very basic level, and that lead to consciousness some how beginning in that individual, but it doesn't really explain how. It could also be that there is some kind of consciousness that an organism taps in to and filters out to then have it's own sort of self identity. I'm not sure anyone actually knows for sure why beings have consciousness, but how people act because of that consciousness is mostly due to what they learn from existing was my point.

"Morality stems out of empathy" No. If you believe this, then you believe that someone who lacks empathy has nothing holding them back from committing atrocities. Same goes for "love", "compassion" etc

@@iamjustaguy12345 That is correct most people that lack empathy have next to nothing holding them back. However they will act a certain way if they feel they gain something. But they're not doing it for morality, they're just doing it to not get hurt or gain something. It's not about doing what is right for them, or being ethical. They literally don't care.

Reed_isYoda ru-vid.com/group/PL1mr9ZTZb3TX3tuBN--XNn4TQcLfVtqiq

Samuel Saenz you’re going to have to do better than that

What? I thought that proved the exact opposite

@@user-td3ut4tg3v no because you can't derive a moral ought from an objective is, so all moral claims are based on subjective presuppositions.

God is meta physical and not an is in the sense empericalists describe. What this branch of philosophy means by is is sense data. Meta ethics derived from a meta physical being dorsnt cause this fallacy so you are correct in your assessment.

A god could not possibly fix this problem, unless you are a follower of the Divine Command Theory, which is easily countered by the Euthyphro Dillema?

Well, there is a logical formula for the is-ought distinction: for all sets of propositions A, and all propositions p and q, if p being a member of A implies that p is morally indifferent and q is morally significant, then it is not the case that q is derivable from A or (∀A)(∀p)(∀q)(((pϵA)>In(p))&Si(q))>~(A⊢q).

@@ismailchennani4496 no scientific basis for your conclusion

You can’t get an ought from an is isn’t a morally loaded statement. It’s a claim about the accordance with mutually accepted rules of reason

@@JohnDoe-lj7zu like language.

@@javery161 what

@@JohnDoe-lj7zu Is not my statement based on logic and reason? It’s like saying “does truth exist?” as soon as you say “no” you’ve just proved that it does. I think by proving this, like the “ought”, we can derive morality from that. Preferred behaviour.

@@javery161 the whole point is that you can’t infer moral facts from non moral facts I have no idea how that disproves itself

They are different entirely. What we perceive with sense data ie everything we interpret through sight, smell, taste and hearing is simply data. The statement that rock is green gives no implication of action. Meta ethics derive a course of action that should be taken to align with an universal truth, ie what is good verse bad. You can make a simple statement of this is good or bad but why should you do what is good versus what is bad is the meta ethics part. I think what you are trying to say is along the lines of saying simple statements like eating healthy is good. The ethics comes in on why you should be good.

​@@fighterx4133 Isn't the disagreement not on whether we ought to be moral but what is moral in the first place? Can't that hypothetically boil down to just moral facts, capable of being empirically tested for validity, if we can agree on a definition of morality as we can for health? For example, we can't objectively say that one ought to be healthy, but we might be able to objectively say that drinking turpentine is unhealthy. Then anyone who takes the action of drinking turpentine could be said to be engaging in unhealthy behavior. Why can't we do the same with morality and say, for example, that torturing innocent children for fun is immoral if we can hypothetically arrive at a consensus on what the word, "morality", should mean? Not whether one ought to or ought not do it, but at least be able to describe the action as immoral should one do it.

@@darkengine5931 where you derive morals is one of the oldest philosophical questions. Read up on Hume's is/ought problem and metaphysics.

@@darkengine5931 if the act is immoral one should ought not to do it. You don't run a society with purely reactive consequences. Actions are deemed immoral beforehand and are taught not to be done to prevent a degenerating social behavior on a large scale. I don't understand why you think you can't teach morals then just deem things to be immoral after they are done. If you have to teach morals first you have to derive the source of morals out of the material world or else your reasoning becomes cyclical. Do you understand now.

​@@fighterx4133 I will give it a shot! I find myself deeply puzzled why the idea of moral truths is somehow different from health truths, e.g., except for its lack of intersubjective consensus in arriving at a suitable and applicable definition. The definition of health also evolved; for example, it used to be defined based on the four humors related to earth, wind, air, and fire during the Middle Ages.

Wait really?

*I used the stones to destroy the stones*

You are basically repeating the paradox.. ...But there are always people believe morality is something deeper than this and believe there are essentials behind phenomenon...But things could just be what they are

So I help an old lady cross the street to maximize the potential of my gene Inheritance?

You cannot derive an ought from an is without assuming at least one additional ought statement. You actually subtly assumed an ought statement when you suggest that evolution itself ought to be what determines whats right or wrong. It may factually explain WHY humans think things are right or wrong (Is) but it cannot say if they objectively are or not (ought)

You are oversimplifying the question. If I or anyone for that matter, tells you that raping babies is what’s best for their survival who are you to say that it is wrong? On what moral ground, do you justify that it would be wrong?

U would rather be in comfort of filling the gap of ignorance with "I don't know, so God did it" than actually try and contemplate objective truth? Okay, sure.

@@em3m998 You're either too stupid or ignorant to even BEGIN to contemplate existence itself. You believe THEORIES like the big bang, as a fact. While I on the other hand am simply open minded to the possibility that there seems to be a pretty good chance there is an intelligent creator behind all of this. That's the issue with pseudo intellectuals, they think themselves smart for being close minded. All it would take for you, is for the scientific community to make it a popular belief that there is/might be a god, for you to start nodding in agreement.

Evolution is real and denying it is a conspiracy theory.

@@em3m998No, what he might be saying this, this is simply an answer to how, and not an answer to why, going off of a purely physical standpoint would be a fallacy of composition, from your position, you have to argue why everything can be explained through empirical data and scientific method

@@samyfaltas5872 I'm not sure I understand your comment but regarding with "everything can be explained through empirical data and scientific method", as an atheist, we can simply say "We don't know" and that would be perfectly fine.

@Jacob L You seriously need to read a philosophy 101 textbook before coming into these comment sections.

@@t.d.2016 You didn't really address what was being said though.

I'm a moral realist, meaning I think morality is objective. The best analogy I could come up with is this. The laws of logic are abstract, but they are by all means objective. No one created the laws of logic, but rather discovered them. Just because something is abstract, doesn't mean it isn't real and objective. Logic is descriptive. I think everyone can agree on these things. So why shouldn't this same line of reasoning apply to morality as well? There is no logical way one could prescribe epistemic oughts, while rejecting moral oughts. Since I am responding to you, in order to have a good and productive conversation, you would say I ought to be intellectually honest. And I would say the same to you. We do this because it is pragmatic, right? But why are we being pragmatic in the first place? This must mean that intellectual honesty is objectively binding, and is also tied to our sense of moral honesty. So if you are willing to throw out moral oughts, you must also be willing to throw out epistemic oughts as well. And that would be nonsensical.