Is to an Ought: A problem?

[fast]

I would discourage speaking of "ought" as being uppercase or lowercase. Instead, accept that there is ambiguity such that the term can be legitamately used in other ways. When you place your hand over an open flame and find that the consequences are detrimental to your well being, then notwithstanding good countervailing reasons to do otherwise, you should remove your hand from the open flame, and that "should" corresponds to the "means to an end" ought where what we should do is predicated on the results we're after. When there is a moral component, what we should do is dependent on what's right (or what makes for a better world, despite opinions). It's better to help a child from being burned than otherwise, and even if there is a lesson worthy argument for allowing the sufferage to materialize, that can be objectively weighed.

What's interesting is that the idea that we should do X and should not do X is only seemingly contradictory. If I want to rob the bank when it's dark, then I should not plan for robbing the bank during daylight hours. Should I plan to rob it during nighttime hours? Well, remember, there's ambiguity at play, so in accordance to the "means to an end" should, I ought to rob it at night, and that's true, but the truth that I should not rob the bank because morally, it's makes for a worst world is not contradictory.

What's contradictory is when the same sense is in opposition.

 

[WAB]

I have only a little time. I'm on my break from work. I work a split shift. Split shifts suck and are psychology damaging! I really ought not to work a split shift...

But seriously, since we probably won't avoid moral oughts, let me try again. Once again, I will be as simple as possible. Once things get heavy, and I see all kinds of razzle dazzle (kennethamy's phrase, God rest his soul), using various symbols that look like math, I begin to lose interest.

Let's try this (but I'm sure one or more of you clever-dicks [British slang - not to be confused with a penis, but referring to someone named Richard, I think] will foil me yet again!):

• My sons are drowning. I love my sons, and would rather die than live without them. These are two Ises. One, that they are drowning, a clear and objective fact; and two, I love them more than life itself, a subjective thing, but a fact nonetheless. Ergo,
• I ought to try and save them from drowning.

The only objection I can think of is that my desire to protect my sons is a subjective feeling, based on emotion, and that I can't justify saying I've gone from an is to an ought because I could do the very same thing with just about anything I feel emotional about, like the fact that I think anyone who doesn't like ice cream and the Dire Straights song "Sultans of Swing" must be crazy (just kidding. Well, kinda).

 

[ronburgundy]

[Quote = ronburgundy]
Oughts are all about the whether you happen to want it or not.
Moral subjectivists keep making claims like that one.

And we keep providing irrefutable logic to support the claim. While moral realists have never been able to define any moral stance in a way that retains it core properties as a moral prescription without it also completely depending upon a purely subjective want that exists only as an emotional state. IOW, create a valid deductive arguments where the conclusion is a moral stance and none of the premise make any implicit assumptions about what anyone or thing prefers or wants. IF you succeed, apply for a Nobel Prize because you are the first in human history.

But it's hard to take them seriously, because when push comes to shove and they're making moral judgments, instead of merely philosophizing about them, subjectivists tend to compartmentalize their philosophy away from their morals and say stuff like this:

What is counterproductive and dangerous is deny objective reality, and the reality is that any sincere support for Trump could only be done either via extremely defective judgment processes entailing serious self-delusion, or via extremely immoral motives.

It seems they're moral subjectivists some of the time and moral realists some of the time. Well, what does it matter, nobody's perfectly consistent, right? The reason it matters is that moral subjectivists appear to morph into moral realists precisely when they're making the moral judgments they feel most strongly about.

Nothing about my second comment presumes any sort of moral objectivism or realism. Features like being "dangerous" and "counterproductive" are both inherently relative features. Everything that is dangerous and counter-productive must necessarily be safe and productive in relation to the opposite goals (and every goal has an opposite).

As to the causes of supporting Trump, nothing in that part of the statement is a moral position. They are claims of fact about "is" questions, and the rest of my post that you didn't include provided my logical reasoning as to why those are the only plausible psychological explanations why someone would sincerely support what Trump is doing and says he will do.

It is hard to take moral realists seriously, because (besides the position being logically absurd), realists always show that they don't even know what the basic difference between an is and ought question are, and they constantly miscategorize each as the other. When they aren't doing that, they are being dishonest about what it actually means for a claim to be objectively accurate.

 

[ronburgundy]

Agreed. All oughts are based on wants. Wants are ultimately tied to transitory emotional states that happen to exist but are not derived logically. Not only are "wants" neccessary for any ought, but they are fully sufficient with no need for any "is". An ought is really just a rewording of a want. "want to " and "ought to" are interchangeable, and no "want" has any more rational validity than any other.
"I don't want to not touch the flame." has the same status as "I don't want to hurt real bad.", and its the same as just saying "I ought not to touch the flame."

That's a philosophical argument; but "An ought is really just a rewording of a want." is not a philosophical claim. It's a linguistic claim. Linguistics is science, not philosophy. Linguistic claims are testable. Let's test that one. Which specific want is an ought really just a rewording of? You are asserting the existence of a "want to" claim that's interchangeable with "Person P ought to not do act X." in the semantics of English. Can you exhibit it?

It is semantics. There is no semantic referent for "ought" other than "want". The claim "Person P ought to do X." does not contain a proposition that refers to any relation in the objective world, that the claim can be compared against to determine its accuracy.
The burden is on you to tell us what that objective referent would be, if it is anything other the the relation between X and what someone subjectively wants.

For example, "Person P did do X." is a statement of fact referring to an action X that person P either did objectively engage in or not.
We can can use the scientific method to determine whether person P actually did X.
However, there is no scientific method that would allow us to evaluate whether they "should do X.", because it doesn't actually have any semantic meaning, unless we add the conditional of "if person(s) Y want the outcome that X will produce."

 

[fast]

I have only a little time. I'm on my break from work. I work a split shift. Split shifts suck and are psychology damaging! I really ought not to work a split shift...

But seriously, since we probably won't avoid moral oughts, let me try again. Once again, I will be as simple as possible. Once things get heavy, and I see all kinds of razzle dazzle (kennethamy's phrase, God rest his soul), using various symbols that look like math, I begin to lose interest.

Let's try this (but I'm sure one or more of you clever-dicks [British slang - not to be confused with a penis, but referring to someone named Richard, I think] will foil me yet again!):

• My sons are drowning. I love my sons, and would rather die than live without them. These are two Ises. One, that they are drowning, a clear and objective fact; and two, I love them more than life itself, a subjective thing, but a fact nonetheless. Ergo,
• I ought to try and save them from drowning.

The only objection I can think of is that my desire to protect my sons is a subjective feeling, based on emotion, and that I can't justify saying I've gone from an is to an ought because I could do the very same thing with just about anything I feel emotional about, like the fact that I think anyone who doesn't like ice cream and the Dire Straights song "Sultans of Swing" must be crazy (just kidding. Well, kinda).

If X is the case (where X are my two sons are drowning), then what is the case is that my two sons are drowning. What I should do (aka, what I ought to do is) allow them to drown, as that is the proper course of action to achieve my desired end result, if the end result is to collect insurance from their deaths. Hence, what we should do is directly dependent on the desired end result. So, it takes more than what merely is the case to arrive at an ought, for there is no ought without a desired end.

I don't recall Kennethamy saying that. I miss him.

 

[ronburgundy]

I have only a little time. I'm on my break from work. I work a split shift. Split shifts suck and are psychology damaging! I really ought not to work a split shift...

But seriously, since we probably won't avoid moral oughts, let me try again. Once again, I will be as simple as possible. Once things get heavy, and I see all kinds of razzle dazzle (kennethamy's phrase, God rest his soul), using various symbols that look like math, I begin to lose interest.

Let's try this (but I'm sure one or more of you clever-dicks [British slang - not to be confused with a penis, but referring to someone named Richard, I think] will foil me yet again!):

• My sons are drowning. I love my sons, and would rather die than live without them. These are two Ises. One, that they are drowning, a clear and objective fact; and two, I love them more than life itself, a subjective thing, but a fact nonetheless. Ergo,
• I ought to try and save them from drowning.

The only objection I can think of is that my desire to protect my sons is a subjective feeling, based on emotion, and that I can't justify saying I've gone from an is to an ought because I could do the very same thing with just about anything I feel emotional about, like the fact that I think anyone who doesn't like ice cream and the Dire Straights song "Sultans of Swing" must be crazy (just kidding. Well, kinda).

Your argument is logically invalid. The conclusion is unsupported by the premises. Nothing about loving them necessitates saving their lives, so let's get rid of that part. The only thing that matters in your second premise is its statment of WANT, namely "I would rather (same as want) die than live without them." But that isn't good enough. First, let's reword that into a clear statement of fact about your wants.

Just wanting to save them more than staying alive yourself isn't enough. Countless other wants could be harmed by trying to save them. So, the want served by the action must be greater than all other possible combined wants that could be hampered by the act.
This new premise in bold should cover it and it is an assertion of fact that is either true or not.

P1. My kids are drowning/dying.
P2. I want them to stay alive more than I want anything else.

C: I ought to save them from drowning/dying.

However, nothing in the premises connects wants to prescribed actions that serve those wants. So, the conclusion still does not follow.
A telltale redflag of an invalid argument is that the conclusion introduces new concepts not already entailed by the premises. Valid conclusions are really just explicit statements of relations between concepts already stated in and implicitly connected by the premises.

So, a third premise must take as a given some claim that makes optimizing wants as the basis for what one ought to do. So, you need the following:

P3. I ought to do what optimizes my wants.

Now the conclusion is valid, but to get there you had to start with a premise that has the same non-objectivity and lack of support as the conclusion by itself. That premise is not a fact about what is, but nothing but pure emotional preference that you can never justify without another such argument that must also include a premise of pure emotional preference ad infinitum.
IOW, while your conclusion is coherent with your premises, there is no more rational basic to accept it a "true", than if you just assert it without providing any rationale at all. It isn't true or untrue. It's just an expression of what you feel.


BTW, the required 3rd premise isn't just pure emotion, but its an emotional stance not shared by any moral system except maybe that of Donald Trump. Almost every act considered immoral can also optimize wants. So, to make it something even you would agree to, you'd have to put tons of qualifiers on it that are all themselves just rooted in subjective want (e.g., "I ought to do what optimizes my wants, if and only if it doesn't doesn't harm others wants.) .

 

[untermensche]

...I ought to try and save them from drowning...

Most definitely.

You ought to do the things that give you pleasure and prevent you from having pain.

But that "ought" in the hands of another takes joy in watching their children drown.

Your "ought" gives the most evil license to do the most evil things.

 

[WAB]

Your "ought" gives the most evil license to do the most evil things.

Oh you clever Dick!* Foiled again!

I really, really want to ask you to define "evil", but let's not go there. I hope we agree on what evil is.

*Which reminds me, I failed to capitalize Dick in my prior post. I used the lower case 'd', which actually would refer to the penis, when I should have used the big 'D', to refer to someone named Richard.

***

fast,

Kennethamy had used that term at least one time that I remember, in one of those endless free will threads.

He and I butted heads often, but eventually we came to an understanding. We had a brief exchange via PM, and it was very cordial. I miss him, too.

 

[untermensche]

Moral schemes built around "harm" reduction seem to work better than those built around moral commands.

It is harmful to cause injury to somebody who does not want it.

It one has the power to prevent injury it is harmful to fail to prevent it.

If somebody wants injury and you fail to provide it, you have not harmed them, you have failed to give them pleasure.

So the maxim is, I will not do harm.

 

[Bomb#20]

Oughts are all about the whether you happen to want it or not.

Moral subjectivists keep making claims like that one.

And we keep providing irrefutable logic to support the claim.

No you don't. None of you ever do. Your arguments to that effect always contain blatant logic errors. In fact, you've already provided irrefutable logic to torpedo your own claim. "A telltale redflag of an invalid argument is that the conclusion introduces new concepts not already entailed by the premises." Your words. Well, how the bejesus do you figure you can get from a you-want-it to an ought in the teeth of that red flag?

While moral realists have never been able to define any moral stance in a way that retains it core properties as a moral prescription without it also completely depending upon a purely subjective want that exists only as an emotional state.

Let's suppose I stipulate to that. So what? It's irrelevant to your claim, twice over.

In the first place, whether a moral realist has ever made a case has no bearing on whether you have a case. You're making a you-want-it-of-the-gaps argument that's not in any material way different from a god-of-the-gaps argument; what you're saying amounts to "You can't explain morality without youwantit; therefore youwantitdidit."

And in the second place, there is a light-year separating "completely depending upon a purely subjective want that exists only as an emotional state" from "whether you happen to want it or not". How do you figure you can jump from a premise involving the former to a conclusion involving the latter? The latter is a "new concept not already entailed by the premise". It's entirely plausible that whether I ought to kill a man depends upon whether he wants to be dead, which is a purely subjective want that exists only as an emotional state, even though he's in terrible pain from cancer and if I were in his pajamas I'd be begging to be killed. But to jump from that entirely reasonable premise to your wildly implausible conclusion that whether I ought to kill him depends upon whether I want him to be dead is an illogical inference. Your conclusion contained a "you" that did not appear in the premise. That's a red flag that your argument is invalid.

IOW, create a valid deductive arguments where the conclusion is a moral stance and none of the premise make any implicit assumptions about what anyone or thing prefers or wants. IF you succeed, apply for a Nobel Prize because you are the first in human history.

I understand you aren't offering that as a serious argument; you're just ridiculing me for entertaining moral realism as a serious hypothesis, as though disposing of realism would give the slightest help to a case for subjectivism. That said, in the first place, I don't claim my arguments are original, so I won't be applying for that prize. And in the second place, your challenge is misplaced. Moral claims are synthetic/a posteriori. What's called for is a strong inductive argument, not a valid deductive one. You might as well demand a valid deductive argument for why you should suppose all men are mortal.

What is counterproductive and dangerous is deny objective reality, and the reality is that any sincere support for Trump could only be done either via extremely defective judgment processes entailing serious self-delusion, or via extremely immoral motives.

It seems they're moral subjectivists some of the time and moral realists some of the time. Well, what does it matter, nobody's perfectly consistent, right? The reason it matters is that moral subjectivists appear to morph into moral realists precisely when they're making the moral judgments they feel most strongly about.

Nothing about my second comment presumes any sort of moral objectivism or realism. Features like being "dangerous" and "counterproductive" are both inherently relative features. Everything that is dangerous and counter-productive must necessarily be safe and productive in relation to the opposite goals (and every goal has an opposite).

As to the causes of supporting Trump, nothing in that part of the statement is a moral position.

By all means, please explain how you calling the motives that result in support for Trump "extremely immoral motives" does not qualify as a moral position.

They are claims of fact about "is" questions, and the rest of my post that you didn't include provided my logical reasoning as to why those are the only plausible psychological explanations why someone would sincerely support what Trump is doing and says he will do.

"Psychological explanations", the man says. Psychology is a science; at least it aspires to be one. That puts it in the domain of "is". How do you figure a psychological explanation gets from an "is" to an "extremely immoral motives"?

 

[The AntiChris]

You're making a you-want-it-of-the-gaps argument that's not in any material way different from a god-of-the-gaps argument; what you're saying amounts to "You can't explain morality without youwantit; therefore youwantitdidit."

I don't think this is fair criticism.

It seems to me that there is plenty of evidence that emotional commitment is very strongly correlated with moral claims (I know, correlation isn't proof - but it is evidence).

For example, most people would find the following claim rather odd:

"I personally don't care either way about X, but I know X is morally wrong and people ought to refrain from X".​

At the very least most of us would wonder if this person was using the word 'morally' in the same way as most of us do. The more extreme "X" the greater our skepticism (try substituting paedophilia or rape for X in the above).

So the argument really isn't that morality can't be explained by "youwantit" it's that "youwantit" is a very good explanation of morality in that it reflects how most people use and understand moral claims.

 

[Speakpigeon]

I assume that your argument is: If you put your hand over a flame it hurts real bad THEREFORE you ought not to put your hand over a flame.

If that's true then you inference is not valid. To have a valid inference you have to add a little extra, for example: If you put your hand over a flame it hurts real bad THEREFORE if you don't WANT to hurt real bad then you ought not to put your hand over a flame.

So, yes it works, it's not complicated, but this shows that you need to add not just a little extra but something like the word "want". This is just to make it very nearly formal because even if not included explicitly it is in fact included implicitly. And this is important since it shows that the OUGHT requires something like WANT in the premises, as in: If you WANT something then, sure, you OUGHT to do something (else) to get it.
EB

Agreed. All oughts are based on wants. Wants are ultimately tied to transitory emotional states that happen to exist but are not derived logically. Not only are "wants" neccessary for any ought, but they are fully sufficient with no need for any "is".

Well, there I disagree. "Is" statements are necessary. It's just that they are usually left unexpressed. We go for more concise statements wherever we feel others will understand without the fuss of doting all "i"s and crossing all "t".

For example, even in my rewording of LJH's initial argument, there is still the original explicit "is" that if you put your hand over a flame it hurts real bad:

If you put your hand over a flame it hurts real bad THEREFORE if you don't WANT to hurt real bad then you ought not to put your hand over a flame

If we don't want to feel pain there's traditionally been nothing we could do except consider actions in the material world because we usually don't know how to suppress pain other than by either not doing objectively painful activities or doing something objectively known for having a calming effect on pain such as taking painkillers. However, it's essentially a contingent fact. Humans have traditionally been not very god at controlling their feelings, sensations, or emotions except through some action on the material world. If you don't like somebody it's probably easier to just avoid meeting them in the flesh because you're not going to be able to stop your perception of them if they are right in your face and you're not going to be able to stop your emotional distress once you are perceiving their presence.

However, here is an altogether different kind of example:

I don't want the distress of thinking of Mary so I ought not to think of her

That's all essentially in the mind and subjective but still clearly valid. However, there's still an obvious "is" there which is that distress is explicitly associated with thinking of Mary in the premises, which makes the conclusion necessary and obvious.

An ought is really just a rewording of a want. "want to " and "ought to" are interchangeable,

No, they're not. "Wants" are subjective states of mind necessary to the justification of the premises, whereas "oughts" belong to the conclusion of the reasoning.

and no "want" has any more rational validity than any other.

"Wants" are just facts. They are subjective facts but facts nonetheless. Objective facts are, well, objective, but they're not more rational than subjective facts. It is just as rational to take into account the fact that you feel pain than it is to take into account the fact that a flame can do serious damage to your skin and flesh. And the validity of arguments based on subjective facts is just as good as that based on objective facts and this should be obvious since good logic is formal logic, which is oblivious to the distinction between even the real and the imaginary not to speak of the distinction between the subjective and the objective.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

...if you don't WANT to hurt real bad then you ought not to put your hand over a flame...

And if you want to hurt real bad you ought to.

So the ought has nothing to do with the activity.

Objection dismissed. You just ignored the first part of the reasoning that if you put your hand over a flame it hurts real bad.

If you put your hand over a flame it hurts real bad THEREFORE if you don't WANT to hurt real bad then you ought not to put your hand over a flame

I'm sure you ought to do better.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Lots to chew on here.

Perhaps I got off on the wrong foot, or hand, as it were.

Maybe if I try something else:

• If I need to defecate, that's a biological fact, an is.
• Therefore, I ought to defecate.

***

I am wracking my brain trying to imagine some scenario wherein a person needing to defecate would not want to defecate. I am coming up empty.

I do appreciate that many people seem to enjoy pain and suffering. I'm a bit of a masochist myself, so my OP is flawed.

Can anyone come up with a situation wherein a person needing to defecate would not want to defecate? I imagine someone will be clever enough to foil me again.

I may not want to defecate right now because it's not the polite thing to do (I'm at a posh dinner) but I may still need to defecate so I will both ought to defecate because I need to and ought not to defecate right now because it's not the polite thing to do. And clearly, "need" also carries some burden for concluding with an "ought".
EB

 

[Bomb#20]

That's a philosophical argument; but "An ought is really just a rewording of a want." is not a philosophical claim. It's a linguistic claim. Linguistics is science, not philosophy. Linguistic claims are testable. Let's test that one. Which specific want is an ought really just a rewording of? You are asserting the existence of a "want to" claim that's interchangeable with "Person P ought to not do act X." in the semantics of English. Can you exhibit it?

It is semantics. There is no semantic referent for "ought" other than "want". The claim "Person P ought to do X." does not contain a proposition that refers to any relation in the objective world, that the claim can be compared against to determine its accuracy.
The burden is on you to tell us what that objective referent would be, if it is anything other the the relation between X and what someone subjectively wants.

For example, "Person P did do X." is a statement of fact referring to an action X that person P either did objectively engage in or not.
We can can use the scientific method to determine whether person P actually did X.
However, there is no scientific method that would allow us to evaluate whether they "should do X.", because it doesn't actually have any semantic meaning, unless we add the conditional of "if person(s) Y want the outcome that X will produce."

Was that a "No"? You can't exhibit a "want to" claim that's interchangeable with "Person P ought to not do act X." in the semantics of English? (Specifically when it's a "moral ought", in case that wasn't clear.)

When you say "The burden is on you to tell us what that objective referent would be, if it is anything other the the relation between X and what someone subjectively wants.", you're wrong. You're committing a "shifting the burden of proof" fallacy. I didn't assert that "ought" has an objective referent, so I don't have the burden of telling you what it is. You're the one who asserted that it has an objective referent: "An ought is really just a rewording of a want." So the burden is on you to tell us what it is.

You have a want in your garage that an ought is just a rewording of. May we see it? Or is it an invisible want?

 

[Bomb#20]

You're making a you-want-it-of-the-gaps argument that's not in any material way different from a god-of-the-gaps argument; what you're saying amounts to "You can't explain morality without youwantit; therefore youwantitdidit."

I don't think this is fair criticism.

It seems to me that there is plenty of evidence that emotional commitment is very strongly correlated with moral claims (I know, correlation isn't proof - but it is evidence).

For example, most people would find the following claim rather odd:

"I personally don't care either way about X, but I know X is morally wrong and people ought to refrain from X".​

At the very least most of us would wonder if this person was using the word 'morally' in the same way as most of us do.

Well, suppose somebody said "I've been deaf from birth, but I know a falling tree makes a noise." Most of us would wonder if this person was using the word 'noise' in the same way as most of us do. He sort of isn't -- he can be using it to mean "the air vibrations that normal human ears can detect that people label 'noise'", of course, but that would probably leave us all suspecting there's an aspect of noise that he doesn't grok. But this shouldn't delude us into thinking noise depends on ears. If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, yes, it makes a noise. If a person says he doesn't care about rape but knows it's morally wrong, he's presumably got brain damage, but is willing to take other people's word for it that it's wrong.

So the argument really isn't that morality can't be explained by "youwantit" it's that "youwantit" is a very good explanation of morality in that it reflects how most people use and understand moral claims.

But it doesn't. You'd have to have an absolute tin ear for moral speech in order to hear a moral claim and imagine other normal English speakers use it or understand it as a "youwantit". The notion that an ought is a rewording of a want is an absolutely classic example of armchair science. It is always defended with philosophical arguments, never with linguistic evidence. If you disagree, can you exhibit the want in RB's garage?

 

[WAB]

I know of no-one who can hold their hand over a flame and not feel excruciating pain, as well as suffer damage to said hand. That's the IS.

Therefore, I Ought not put my hand over a flame. Lots of baggage attendant upon the word "ought" (Especially when you use the capital O). Now, who would argue against the proposition that one "ought not" (reverting to the small o) put their hand over an open flame, particularly since it hurts like the dickens and causes major tissue damage? Who, I'm thinking, would be people who might be inclined to argue for the sake of argument.

I'll bet C_Mucius_Scaevola might be inclined to argue for the sake of argument.

(If you don't know why, Google his user name.)

I Binged actually. People said I was Googling too much, and that it might cause blindness, hairy palms, and a sunken chest. Alas, the sunken chest has come to pass, and my vision is starting to get blurry, so I started using Bing. The last thing I want is hair on my palms. Imagine having to shave your palms? Shaving my noggin is work enough.

But seriously, imagine the stamina required to do something like young Mucius! My hat is off to him. Those Romans had some serious cojones. Imagine throwing yourself on your own sword. Last I heard, swords are sharp, not to mention dangerous. I'd like to think I'd be willing to die for my honor, but damn, I don't know if I'm that honorable. Gimme some hemlock, and let me give a long speech, and I could be honorable just fine. Long as I get to drink half a bottle of Wild Turkey first.

Has anyone here read William Peter Blatty's Dimiter ? I read it once, and didn't grok it at all. I'm about a third of the way through it again, and am still confused. I think it might have something to do with certain Christian thought that suggests Christ felt no pain while being crucified. I've also heard of people (very religious folks, of the carnivorous variety) who believe that animals don't feel pain. I think this is supposed to relieve the anxiety over what goes on at the slaughterhouse.

Which reminds me, anyone read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair? I'll never look a chicken square in the eye again.

/derail over.

 

[The AntiChris]

If a person says he doesn't care about rape but knows it's morally wrong, he's presumably got brain damage, but is willing to take other people's word for it that it's wrong.

Here you make my point for me.

The person who doesn't care about rape must take the word of someone else (someone who does care) about the moral wrongness of rape.

Sincere moral commitments are always accompanied by relevant emotional commitments.

What we appear to disagree about is whether emotional commitment gives rise to sincere moral commitment or if it just happens to be the case that sincere moral commitment is always accompanied by emotional commitment but there is no causal connection between the two. It seems to me that the first explanation is the simplest.

 

[untermensche]

And if you want to hurt real bad you ought to.

So the ought has nothing to do with the activity.

Objection dismissed. You just ignored the first part of the reasoning that if you put your hand over a flame it hurts real bad.

If you put your hand over a flame it hurts real bad THEREFORE if you don't WANT to hurt real bad then you ought not to put your hand over a flame

I'm sure you ought to do better.
EB

Changes nothing.

Hurts real bad.....Therefore: if you WANT to hurt real bad you ought to.

The ought has nothing to do with putting your hand under a flame. Which hurts either way.

It is all about WANTS

Therefore: I ought to do what I WANT to do.

Not a very impressive maxim.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Objection dismissed. You just ignored the first part of the reasoning that if you put your hand over a flame it hurts real bad.

If you put your hand over a flame it hurts real bad THEREFORE if you don't WANT to hurt real bad then you ought not to put your hand over a flame

I'm sure you ought to do better.
EB

Changes nothing.

Hurts real bad.....Therefore: if you WANT to hurt real bad you ought to.

The ought has nothing to do with putting your hand under a flame. Which hurts either way.

It is all about WANTS

Therefore: I ought to do what I WANT to do.

Not a very impressive maxim.

Which shows you don't understand how it works. So let me show you:

If you want something then you ought to do something. But do what exactly? We don't know. So now let's assume you don't want to hurt. Interesting but still it doesn't tell you what you ought to do. So now there's an "is" to help you: if you put your hand over a flame you'll hurt. Ah now you know what to do, i.e. you ought not to put your hand over a flame.
EB