Hume Not Consistent with his No OUGHT from IS

[Peter Holmes]

Claim: the assertion 'the lights in my house are on' has truth-value. Correct. They are or aren't on.

Claim: the command 'turn on the lights' has truth-value, because if someone obeys, the lights will be on; and if no one obeys, the lights won't be on. Incorrect. Der.

[Immanuel Can]

You did not ensure your 'desiring neighbor's wife' and 'need for insulin' complied with the above principles, i.e. no proper verification and justification.

You're talking nonsense again. It's not my job to justify either. It's YOURS, if you insist we have an ought from an is.

"Desire" or "need" are "is" facts; as such, they are devoid of moral status, and you can see that they are because the "desire" listed above is pretty much universally conceded to be "immoral," and because even though the second is a genuine "need," it is not at all apparent that anybody else is obligated to provide it.

Both "I need" and "I desire" have no logical link to "you ought to give them to me." Sorry.

The principle is...,

A bunch of blather, and nothing to the point. But I'm seeing that that is all I'm going to get here.

Okay, I'm off to pastures with at least a slight touch of green in them.

[Skepdick]

Claim: the assertion 'the lights in my house are on' has truth-value. Correct. They are or aren't on.

Claim: the command 'turn on the lights' has truth-value, because if someone obeys, the lights will be on; and if no one obeys, the lights won't be on. Incorrect. Der.

Idiot... I am not making any claims, I am stating facts.

There's no logical connection between an is and an ought.

There is a logical connection between the English sentence "Alexa, turn on the lights" and the lights actually turning on.

The logical connection is imperative logic - Alexa's programming. Literally.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Claim: the assertion 'the lights in my house are on' has truth-value. Correct. They are or aren't on.

Claim: the command 'turn on the lights' has truth-value, because if someone obeys, the lights will be on; and if no one obeys, the lights won't be on. Incorrect. Der.

As usual you are too narrow minded and dogmatic in sticking to the logical and linguistic perspective with their respective FSK and conditions.
'Turning on lights' is not effectively a moral issue.

You cling on to the above and fallaciously force them [logic and linguistic] into the morality FSK is the moral non-cognitivist view.
Non-cognitivism is the meta-ethical view that ethical sentences do not express propositions (i.e., statements) and thus cannot be true or false (they are not truth-apt).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-cognitivism

Note in the same survey re 58% of philosophers are moral realists, 66% learn toward cognitivism and only 17% of non-cognitivists agree with you.

• Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism?
  Accept or lean toward: cognitivism 612 / 931 (65.7%)
  Other 161 / 931 (17.3%)
  Accept or lean toward: non-cognitivism 158 / 931 (17.0%)

The above is a hint [subject to detail investigation] your view is outdated.

The main point is we are dealing with morality within the moral FSK and therefrom, there are moral facts [IS-OUGHT] with truth-values as verified and justified empirically and philosophically within the moral FSK.

[Peter Holmes]

Claim: the assertion 'the lights in my house are on' has truth-value. Correct. They are or aren't on.

Claim: the command 'turn on the lights' has truth-value, because if someone obeys, the lights will be on; and if no one obeys, the lights won't be on. Incorrect. Der.

As usual you are too narrow minded and dogmatic in sticking to the logical and linguistic perspective with their respective FSK and conditions.
'Turning on lights' is not effectively a moral issue.

You cling on to the above and fallaciously force them [logic and linguistic] into the morality FSK is the moral non-cognitivist view.
Non-cognitivism is the meta-ethical view that ethical sentences do not express propositions (i.e., statements) and thus cannot be true or false (they are not truth-apt).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-cognitivism

Note in the same survey re 58% of philosophers are moral realists, 66% learn toward cognitivism and only 17% of non-cognitivists agree with you.

• Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism?
  Accept or lean toward: cognitivism 612 / 931 (65.7%)
  Other 161 / 931 (17.3%)
  Accept or lean toward: non-cognitivism 158 / 931 (17.0%)

The above is a hint [subject to detail investigation] your view is outdated.

The main point is we are dealing with morality within the moral FSK and therefrom, there are moral facts [IS-OUGHT] with truth-values as verified and justified empirically and philosophically within the moral FSK.

1 Yes, moral assertions have no truth-value, because they don't make falsifiable factual claims. Moral cognitivists are wrong.

2 Do try to think carefully. Only factual assertions - linguistic expressions have truth-value. So when you say 'there are moral facts ... with truth-values', you're referring to linguistic expressions. So you're 'sticking to the logical and linguistic perspective'. I, by contrast, clearly distinguish between features of reality and what we say about them. And I suggest you give it a go.

3 Outside language, features of reality obviously have no truth-value, because they're not linguistic expressions. So if by 'moral fact' you mean 'moral feature of reality', then your claim that 'there are moral facts ... with truth-value', is incoherent. It's just sloppy thinking.

[Terrapin Station]

Here is a point where Hume was not consistent with his famous "No IS from OUGHT" maxim.

...in Hume’s own moral philosophy the transition from is to ought is made and made clearly.
But too much must not be made of this, for Hume is a notoriously inconsistent author.
Yet how does Hume make this transition?

Hume, as we have already seen, argues that when we call an action virtuous or vicious we are saying that it arouses in us a certain feeling, that it pleases us in a certain way.
In what way?
This question Hume leaves unanswered.
He passes on to give an account of why we have the moral rules we do have, why it is this rather than that which we judge virtuous.
The basic terms of this account are utility and sympathy.

Consider for example the account of justice which Hume gives in the Treatise.
He begins by asking why we accept and obey rules which it would often be in our interest to break.
He denies that we are by nature so constituted that we have a natural regard for public rather than private interest.

• “In general, it may be affirm’d that there is no such passion in human minds as the love of mankind, merely as such, independent of personal qualities, of services, or of relation to oneself.”48

If private interest would lead us to flout the rules, and we have no natural regard for public interest, how then do the rules come about?

Because it is a fact that without rules of justice there would be no stability of property, and indeed no property, an artificial virtue has been created, that of abiding by the rules of justice, and we exhibit this virtue not perhaps so much because we are aware of the benefit that flows from our observing the rules as because we are conscious of how much we are harmed by others infringing them.

Our long-term benefit from insisting on strict observance of the rules will always outweigh our short-term benefit from breaking them on this occasion.

In the Enquiry human nature is exhibited as less self-interested.

• “It appears also, that, in our general approbation of character and manners, the useful tendency of the social interests moves us not by any regards to self-interest, but has an influence much more universal and extensive.
  It appears that a tendency to public good, and to the promoting of peace, harmony, and order in society does always, by affecting the benevolent principles of our frame, engage us on the side of the social virtues.”49

But what is clear is that Hume’s altered picture of human nature is made to provide the same type of explanation and justification of moral rules.

We are so constituted that we have certain desires and needs; these desires and needs are served by maintaining the moral rules.
Hence their explanation and justification.

In such an account we certainly begin with an is and end with an ought.

................................
From A SHORT HISTORY OF [Western] ETHICS by Alasdair MacIntyre pg 111

The last sentence is a misunderstanding, at least insofar as what is presented in support of it (that is, I'm not denying that maybe Hume maybe bucks the maxim elsewhere--I don't recall if he does--but that's not what he's doing here).

The whole gist of the maxim is that no set of facts implies any normative, at least at a foundational level.

What Hume is doing in what is quoted is describing the way that people happen to be, including how their normatives arise, what the content tends to be, how they tend to work for people. It's an anthropological account basically.

That in no way is saying that the set of facts so described in itself prescribes any normative.

[Iwannaplato]

But commands are imperative and so can have no truth-value. A command doesn't make a falsifiable claim about the way the world should be.

Horseshit. Of course imperatives have truth-value.

I utter the sentence "Alexa, turn on the lights". It is now true that the lights in my house are on.

This is a verifiable and falsifiable fact about the world.

The sentence
I utter the sentence Alexa turn on the light
can be true or false.
But an imperative sentence is an act of telling someone to do something. They may or may not do it.

But then moral imperatives are a subcategory. Don't steal. It is not telling us a fact about the world, just an opinion about what people should think of as bad acts.

So here we can have someone says get an abortion.
another person says don't get an abortion.

We don't know which is correct and in fact we have no process of determining which is correct. Unless the woman is not pregnant. Then both people are beling strange and are confused.

and another person

[Terrapin Station]

The point with the above is to dispel the arrogance of the moral fact deniers like Peter Holmes et. al. who insist blindly, dogmatically and arrogantly, as long as whatever is identified as "is' in their limited interpretation, no 'ought' can be derived from it.

If one doesn't like or disagrees with "No 'ought' follows from any 'is'" maxim (again, at least on a foundational level), the thing to do, rather arguing over what Hume said or didn't say (because after all, what does that matter unless the point is solely Hume scholarship?--what Hume said or didn't say ultimately has no bearing on whether "No 'ought' follows from any 'is'" is correct), then the thing to do is simply to show how some "is" would imply some "ought."

[Terrapin Station]

I utter the sentence "Alexa, turn on the lights". It is now true that the lights in my house are on.

This is a verifiable and falsifiable fact about the world.

It would be weird if you can't see the conventional semantical difference between "Turn on the lights" and "The lights are on."

[Skepdick]

It would be weird if you can't see the conventional semantical difference between "Turn on the lights" and "The lights are on."

There's no such thing as conventional semantics. The meaning of words/sentences is always contextual.

You know this, that's what makes the philosophical language games possible.

[Terrapin Station]

It would be weird if you can't see the conventional semantical difference between "Turn on the lights" and "The lights are on."

There's no such thing as conventional semantics. The meaning of words/sentences is always contextual.

You know this, that's what makes the philosophical language games possible.

So there's nothing that words/phrases/etc. conventionally mean? That would make understanding other people very difficult, wouldn't it?

[Skepdick]

So there's nothing that words/phrases/etc. conventionally mean?

It depends on which theory of meaning you have in mind.

Some would say use is meaning; some would say intent is meaning; some would say interpretation is meaning.
Semantic holists would say that a term or a sentence can only be understood through its relation to the prior context in which it's being used.

The same phrase/sentence can be interpreted in various context, giving it very different meanings.

That would make understanding other people very difficult, wouldn't it?

It is very difficult. Human communication fails, except by accident.

For starters, what do you mean by "understanding"? How do you know that you understand what I mean when I say "I went to the bank yesterday."?

[Terrapin Station]

So there's nothing that words/phrases/etc. conventionally mean?

It depends on which theory of meaning you have in mind.

Some would say use is meaning; some would say intent is meaning; some would say interpretation is meaning.
Semantic holists would say that a term or a sentence can only be understood through its relation to the prior context in which it's being used.

The same phrase/sentence can be interpreted in various context, giving it very different meanings.I

How would any of those theories of meaning have an impact on whether there are conventional meanings? Pick a theory that you believe would have an impact on that and show the impact.

[Skepdick]

How would any of those theories of meaning have an impact on whether there are conventional meanings? Pick a theory that you believe would have an impact on that and show the impact.

Ok, use is meaning.

If I am using language for a purpose different to yours, then my language means something different to your language.

This is Wittgenstein's view, later elaborated by Rorty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDiENpmpY78

[Terrapin Station]

How would any of those theories of meaning have an impact on whether there are conventional meanings? Pick a theory that you believe would have an impact on that and show the impact.

Ok, use is meaning.

If I am using language for a purpose different to yours, then my language means something different to your language.

Sure, and this would imply that there is no conventional meaning (that is use) via? You completely forgot about that part.

If meaning is use, then there's no conventional usage because . . . well, because of what? The mere fact that people can use terms in different ways doesn't imply that there is no conventional way to use them.