Hillary Putnam: Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy

[Veritas Aequitas]

Here is another upper-cut to those who insist there is no objectivity in Morality and using the Fact-Value Dichotomy as a defense.

The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy and other essays,
by Hilary Putnam.
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts,

• Table of Contents:
  Introduction
  Section I: The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy
  1. The Empiricist Background
  2. The Entanglement of Fact and Value
  3. Fact and Value in the World of Amartya Sen
  Section II: Rationality and Value
  1. Sen’s “Prescriptivist” Beginnings
  2. On the Rationality of Preferences
  3. Are Values Made or Discovered?
  4. Values and Norms
  5. The Philosophers of Science’s Evasion of Values

Here is a Review on the Book by T Keith;

Overview.

Hilary Putnam’s latest book is more or less a transcription from lectures he gave in November 2000 at the invitation of the Rosenthal Foundation and the Northwestern University of Law.
The more casual nature of the talk makes for an enjoyable read that flows very much as one would expect from a lecture than one would normally get from reading a formally written book.

Putnam has constructed a brilliant, yet concise, exposition and argument for the failure of the fact/value dichotomy in philosophy.
We are exposed to what Putnam keenly calls the “Final Dogma of Empiricism,” whereby philosophers of language and science have attempted to expunge values from the hallowed ground of scientific investigation and logic.
But Putnam argues that value judgments creep into our preferences for one scientific view over another when we attempt to determine why one view is more reasonable than another.
We are typically offered, as a response, the claim that views must be adjudicated on the basis of their plausibility, coherence, or simplicity.
Putnam, however, argues that such “standards” of objectivity are themselves infused with value preferences.

One very important contribution that Putnam makes is the argument that there is a rippling effect that is caused throughout many disciplines once we codify the myth that facts are divorced from values.

In his treatment of Amartya Sen’s views on economics, for instance, Putnam argues that the fact/value dichotomy has played a significant role in the traditions of economic theory.
Sen has argued against viewing economic theory in terms of a discipline that eschews value judgments.
As both Sen and Putnam would likely argue, a view that depicts economic theory as purely factual may be able to tell us how to go about achieving certain ends, but it cannot tell us which ends are more valuable.
Since the economic system we adopt affects the lives of people in a very direct way, the avoidance of values in an economic system leaves a vital breach in the fabric that is economics.

next: The Main Argument

[Veritas Aequitas]

Review Continue..

Main Argument.

Putnam traces the origin of the fact/value dichotomy to the views of David Hume.
Once Hume excluded moral judgments from the realm of knowledge, a distinction was made between cognitive judgments and non-cognitive judgments.

Judgments of fact or of relations between our ideas were the sorts of judgments that an observational or rational process could in principle decide.
But values were not considered to be the sorts of things that one could decide using observation or reason.
Instead, value judgments were considered to be those judgments based in sentiment, which, it was argued, are immune from the scrutiny of science and formal logic.


The logical positivists of the 20th century extended this Humean notion to claim that judgments which are immune from observation and reason are to be held as nonsense, a term which means that the judgment literally lacks an ability to be objectively confirmed or disconfirmed.
As the views of the logical positivists came to prominence, the dichotomy of fact and value was established as an unchallenged doctrine.
The objectivity of scientific investigation was held to be paradigmatic of a rational methodology that was not influenced by the caprice of subjective values.

But this standard of objectivity came under scrutiny by 1950 with Quine’s famous attack on the analytic/synthetic distinction.
The traditional empiricist picture of sensible claims being either statements of pure mathematics or statements of observational fact, against the view that non-cognitive statements are based in convention was, as Putnam states, “a hopeless muddle.”

The main line of argument begins with the acknowledgement that epistemic values are also values.
When we decide that judgments must be coherent, plausible, reasonable, and simple, we are drawing normative judgments about how we ought to reason.
But Putnam argues that there have been no successful algorithmic methods for hypothesis selection.
Instead, scientific inquiry proceeds through criticism and valuation.
In particular, Putnam argues for what he calls the democratization of inquiry, which involves the principles of fallibilism and experimentalism.
These principles involve the acknowledgement that our views are provisionally held on the strength or weakness of the available evidence and that any of our views could turn out to require modification, given the goal we are trying to achieve.
And while this acknowledgement does not tell us which values to hold, neither does it tell us which non-value goals to hold, if there are such things.
What matters is that fallibilistic, experimentation is conducted for the achievement of our goals whether we consider those goals to be value-based or not.
As Putnam states, “…what is valid for inquiry in general is valid for value inquiry in particular…”

Putnam concludes his book with an exposition of the evasion of values in science.
Throughout the work of many 20th century figures, the hope was to find a rule that could vindicate scientific inquiry, whether Reichenbach’s straight rule of induction or Popper’s falsifiability theory.
But both projects fail, as Reichenbach’s rule can only show, at best, that inquiry may converge on the right hypothesis in the long run, while it does not provide a rule for hypothesis selection.

Popper’s theory proposes a way to make observation the guiding force in theory selection, but in practice, when observation conflicts with what has been taken to be a fact, we sometimes give up the theory, while on other occasions, we give up the fact.
As Quine pointed out, decision is often a matter of pragmatic features that are not purely observational.

Putnam concurs with this Quinean claim and adds that even at the observational level, “we have to decide which observations to trust.” In the end, the empiricist hope of a discovery of a way to reduce hypothesis selection to an algorithmic procedure failed.
What is considered to be reasonable may be objective in a conventional sort of way, but decisions of this kind carry value judgments at their every turn.
Putnam ultimately sides with his pragmatist teachers who argued that “knowledge of facts presupposes knowledge of values.”

All those interested in the transformation in philosophy that led from a purely language based enterprise to a more pragmatic way of viewing philosophy should find this book of tremendous value and interest.
Hilary Putnam has once again produced a work of great importance, while writing with the kind of clarity that other philosophers ought to strive to emulate.

[Veritas Aequitas]

For those interested in the Video Version:

Full Lecture at UCD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN9ZTgLUOKs
Professor Hilary Putnam gives a lecture at UCD in which he criticizes the fact/value dichotomy. The presupposition of such a dichotomy seems to be that if something is a value judgment, then it cannot possibly be a statement of fact, and that value judgments are merely subjective. But is this plausible? Putnam attacks this dichotomy, arguing that we have no clear, unproblematic notion of "fact", and that facts and values are essentially entangled with one another, even within science. He discusses the work of Charles Stevenson and draws on the work of people like Quine with his attack on the analytic-synthetic distinction to help make his case. The fact-value dichotomy was a crucial doctrine of the logical positivists and various other emotivist approaches to ethics which make values non-cognitive and outside the sphere of reason and rationality altogether. This subjectivist and irrationalist kind of view has been culturally very influential and has even had an impact on policy. Putnam exposes the underlying philosophical assumptions and attacks them.

Clips from the above lecture
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJxn-sqADUA

Interview on the Issue
Putnam on The Fact Value Dichotomy and Bad Philosophy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLJfEVu3kbY
Hilary Putnam discusses the fact-value dichotomy, a legacy of logical positivism that has invaded other fields, including economics and political theory. He argues that philosophers must do philosophical work because they are often better at it than non-philosophers who will do it anyway, in order to stave off the nonsense that ensues. He also defends the pursuit of purely intellectual questions in philosophy even as he cites Dewey as his hero in terms of his philosophical engagement with practical questions.

[Peter Holmes]

1 That we value facts does not mean that facts are values - and Putnam doesn't say they are.

2 Quine's attack on the analytic/synthetic distinction merely exposed a metaphysical problem in the theory of truth. And truth-theory deals only with linguistic expressions - because reality isn't linguistic.

3 The pragmatism theory of truth - truth is what works - is another demonstrably muddled metaphysical concoction. We've survived for millennia on working falsehoods, but that didn't and doesn't make them true.

4 The claim that moral subjectivism is irrational is pure, burden-of-proof-shifting nonsense.

[Skepdick]

Both Putnam and Reichenbach come short under simple implication.

Neither of them say what happens when human inquiry achieves the goals that it set out to achieve, nor do they state what those goals are.
But lets suppose that inquiry does have some achievable goals. What happens when those goals are achieved? Do we stop inquiry and focus on other things then? What?

There is no theory to "converge" on. The only convergence possible for humans is an extinction event.

Inquiry is a Sisyphean task - it ends when humans end.

[Skepdick]

2 Quine's attack on the analytic/synthetic distinction merely exposed a metaphysical problem in the theory of truth. And truth-theory deals only with linguistic expressions - because reality isn't linguistic.

Yeah, but truth is linguistic. Which theory of truth do you value most?

My favourite one is the there is no truth.

3 The pragmatism theory of truth - truth is what works - is another demonstrably muddled metaphysical concoction. We've survived for millennia on working falsehoods, but that didn't and doesn't make them true.

So if truth has no utility value then what is it for?

[Veritas Aequitas]

1 That we value facts does not mean that facts are values - and Putnam doesn't say they are.

As usual you are beating strawmen based on ignorance.
You did not get the gist of what is written in the review.
If you are not sure, then you have to read the book before you can give a credible counter response.

Putnam did not jump in straight to claim Facts are Values, rather, he is claiming facts are evaluative within the specific Framework and System of Knowledge [in this case Economics & also morality]. He mean empirical facts can be generated in terms of values, i.e. value judgments which can be "objectively true" thus are in turn facts.

Note this is what Putnam wrote in the Introduction;

THE IDEA THAT “VALUE JUDGMENTS ARE SUBJECTIVE" is a piece of philosophy that has gradually come to be accepted by many people as if it were common sense. In the hands of sophisticated thinkers this idea can be and has been developed in different ways.

The ones [as held by Peter Holmes and gang] I shall be concerned with,
hold that “statements of fact” are capable of being “objectively true” and capable, as well, of being "objectively warranted,”
while value judgments, according to these thinkers, are incapable of object truth and objective warrant.

Value judgments, according to the most extreme proponents of a sharp “fact/ value” dichotomy; are completely outside the sphere of reason.

This book tries to show that from the beginning these views rested on untenable arguments and on over-inflated dichotomies.

In the above, Putnam is attempting to prove those who insist, "value judgement are incapable of being objective" are wrong.

This is an answer to your,
What could make morality objective?
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=24601

2 Quine's attack on the analytic/synthetic distinction merely exposed a metaphysical problem in the theory of truth. And truth-theory deals only with linguistic expressions - because reality isn't linguistic.

You have a weird idea of truth.
Where is your reference for this?

Note the proper definition of Truth:

Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality.
In everyday language, truth is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as beliefs, propositions, and declarative sentences.
-wiki

Your idea of "what is fact" is based purely on the logico-linguistic mode only but it it is not based on truths [especially the empirical].
This is where Quine's attack is appropriate.

3 The pragmatism theory of truth - truth is what works - is another demonstrably muddled metaphysical concoction. We've survived for millennia on working falsehoods, but that didn't and doesn't make them true.

Not relevant to the OP.

4 The claim that moral subjectivism is irrational is pure, burden-of-proof-shifting nonsense.

Morality-proper deals with Justified True Moral Beliefs as a GUIDE-only standard.

What you claimed as moral subjectivism is pseudo-morality which is more relevant to Ethics [Applied] and morality [PURE].

Since humans and reality are so multivariate in forms, it is inevitable there will be a range and variety of models by humans on how they regulate their conduct of what is right and wrongs [good and evil].
But all these forms of regulations are grounded on some generic principles of morality - and often these generic principles are merely intuitive.

• Example, take Nutrition which are critical for all human beings,
  there are a tons of forms and variations in how human produce and obtain their food, process it, eat it.
  But within those forms there are standard generic principles of Nutrition for all humans.
  Those generic principles of nutrition were driven by instinct, intuitive, experiences, common sense, folk beliefs even at present, but Science is revealing what are the factual generic principles.

The above is applicable to other aspects of human activities and within certain patterns there are principles that are generic which can be justified from empirical evidences and philosophical reasoning. Science has since reveal loads of this facts.

It is the same with human conducts of 'good and evil' which are related to morality-per-se where what is currently acted intuitively should be made explicit as moral facts.

[Peter Holmes]

1 That we value facts does not mean that facts are values - and Putnam doesn't say they are.

As usual you are beating strawmen based on ignorance.
You did not get the gist of what is written in the review.
If you are not sure, then you have to read the book before you can give a credible counter response.

Putnam did not jump in straight to claim Facts are Values, rather, he is claiming facts are evaluative within the specific Framework and System of Knowledge [in this case Economics & also morality]. He mean empirical facts can be generated in terms of values, i.e. value judgments which can be "objectively true" thus are in turn facts.

Note this is what Putnam wrote in the Introduction;

THE IDEA THAT “VALUE JUDGMENTS ARE SUBJECTIVE" is a piece of philosophy that has gradually come to be accepted by many people as if it were common sense. In the hands of sophisticated thinkers this idea can be and has been developed in different ways.

The ones [as held by Peter Holmes and gang] I shall be concerned with,
hold that “statements of fact” are capable of being “objectively true” and capable, as well, of being "objectively warranted,”
while value judgments, according to these thinkers, are incapable of object truth and objective warrant.

Value judgments, according to the most extreme proponents of a sharp “fact/ value” dichotomy; are completely outside the sphere of reason.

This book tries to show that from the beginning these views rested on untenable arguments and on over-inflated dichotomies.

In the above, Putnam is attempting to prove those who insist, "value judgement are incapable of being objective" are wrong.

This is an answer to your,
What could make morality objective?
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=24601

2 Quine's attack on the analytic/synthetic distinction merely exposed a metaphysical problem in the theory of truth. And truth-theory deals only with linguistic expressions - because reality isn't linguistic.

You have a weird idea of truth.
Where is your reference for this?

Note the proper definition of Truth:

Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality.
In everyday language, truth is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as beliefs, propositions, and declarative sentences.
-wiki

Your idea of "what is fact" is based purely on the logico-linguistic mode only but it it is not based on truths [especially the empirical].
This is where Quine's attack is appropriate.

3 The pragmatism theory of truth - truth is what works - is another demonstrably muddled metaphysical concoction. We've survived for millennia on working falsehoods, but that didn't and doesn't make them true.

Not relevant to the OP.

4 The claim that moral subjectivism is irrational is pure, burden-of-proof-shifting nonsense.

Morality-proper deals with Justified True Moral Beliefs as a GUIDE-only standard.

What you claimed as moral subjectivism is pseudo-morality which is more relevant to Ethics [Applied] and morality [PURE].

Since humans and reality are so multivariate in forms, it is inevitable there will be a range and variety of models by humans on how they regulate their conduct of what is right and wrongs [good and evil].
But all these forms of regulations are grounded on some generic principles of morality - and often these generic principles are merely intuitive.

• Example, take Nutrition which are critical for all human beings,
  there are a tons of forms and variations in how human produce and obtain their food, process it, eat it.
  But within those forms there are standard generic principles of Nutrition for all humans.
  Those generic principles of nutrition were driven by instinct, intuitive, experiences, common sense, folk beliefs even at present, but Science is revealing what are the factual generic principles.

The above is applicable to other aspects of human activities and within certain patterns there are principles that are generic which can be justified from empirical evidences and philosophical reasoning. Science has since reveal loads of this facts.

It is the same with human conducts of 'good and evil' which are related to morality-per-se where what is currently acted intuitively should be made explicit as moral facts.

Putative and highly disputed fact: there are generic moral principles, often knowable by intuition.

Moral assertion: humans should/ought to act on those principles; it's morally right do so and morally wrong not to.

Once again, there's no connection between those two assertions. The second isn't a fact, and it doesn't follow, even if the first is true.

I suggest you apply this demonstration to the next fallacy you try to peddle. Never know - it may give you pause.

[Skepdick]

Putative and highly disputed fact: there are generic moral principles, often knowable by intuition.

Moral assertion: humans should/ought to act on those principles; it's morally right do so and morally wrong not to.

Once again, there's no connection between those two assertions. The second isn't a fact, and it doesn't follow, even if the first is true.

I asked you, and you ignored me - so I will ask you again.

If all facts are true, does this imply that all truths are facts?

According to you: are there truths which are not facts?

Because it really really really begs the question: If it' true who cares that it's not a fact?

[Veritas Aequitas]

Putative and highly disputed fact: there are generic moral principles, often knowable by intuition.

Moral assertion: humans should/ought to act on those principles; it's morally right do so and morally wrong not to.

Once again, there's no connection between those two assertions. The second isn't a fact, and it doesn't follow, even if the first is true.

I suggest you apply this demonstration to the next fallacy you try to peddle. Never know - it may give you pause.

Note I raised this thread

• There are Moral Facts
  viewtopic.php?f=8&t=29777

The 'second' does follow because you ignore the middle minor premise, i.e. the moral framework and system that generate the moral facts in alignment with its referent.

Note in,

• The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy and other essays,
  by Hilary Putnam.
  Table of Contents:
  Introduction
  Section I: The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy
  1. The Empiricist Background
  2. The Entanglement of Fact and Value

Putnam in the above explained how facts are entangled with value and vice-versa.
I'll be preparing a summary of that chapter on how Putnam justified this thesis of his.
This is also how Bohr relied on the complementariness and the entanglement of Yin and Yang to discover the truths of Quantum Physics, where that stupid PantFlasher ignorantly condemned as woo woo.

Putnam also explained from the history of how the Logical Positivists disentangled Fact from Value based on their 'sick' and bastardized philosophy which was initiated by Carnap.
I'll summarize this point from Putnam's book later.
What you are stuck with is a very sick ideology arising from the analytic-synthetic dichotomy which was destroyed by Quine.

As I had requested [Putnam had asserted the same] from you, justify what you claimed as 'fact' exists ultimately as a fact-in-itself. I had insisted what you claimed as 'fact' in your sick ideology is ultimately 'fart' i.e. illusory.

In this thread,
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=29757
Charles Pigden: Is-Ought - No Impact on Moral Objectivity

Pigden demonstrated how the analytic philosophers cheated in insisting [no Ought from Is - NOFI] by sliding it a hidden premise of analyticity.
Read it!