IS and OUGHT

[Immanuel Can]

Who's the rival candidate?

My position is that all oughts are constructed by hypothetical imperatives ...

I know. But that's non-responsive to the question.

My question is very simple: if we are not "owned" by God, who "owns" us?

So you should understand that my basic contention is that moral oughts don't exist,

I got that long ago. That's what you believe. I know.

I think the painter values having some control over where the painting goes,

That ducks the question.

So what if a painter WANTS to put the painting she created somewhere? Maybe she wants what it is not reasonable for her to expect to have. So what if she "forms an instrumentalist intent" to get it there; maybe she has a method to try and make her wishes come about, but we still think she has no right over her painting.

But most of us don't seem to think that way, intuitively. We do think, if she made it, she has some right to say what happens to it. What we need to ask, then, is whether that intuition is completely nuts, or whether there's something to our instinct that tells us that creation does entail some right to say how the creation is used.

And what would you say? Are we nuts?

And a second thing about simply "valuing" something and then finding an "instrumentalist" way of making it happen: it's amoral. I don't mean it's necessarily "immoral," but rather that it has not thing to do with moral "oughtness." And this can be easily shown.

Perhaps I value Aryan-ness, let's say. Instrumentally, setting up a system of xenophobic legislation is the instrumentally best way to guarantee what I happen to value. And I can get my society to go along, too: I'll simply tell them that other "races" are "inferior," and that our great, Aryan nation will rise to supremacy when we eliminate intermarriage and "resettle" in interlopers, or otherwise eliminate them. I'll incentivize them with economic and military gains, or public-works projects that make society seem better to the majority of Aryans. And I'll increase the size of our country by invading inferior nations, and by making war on weaker powers.

There. I have something I value. And I have the most instrumental ways of achieving it. And I have the support of my society, as well.

Does that mean I "ought" to do it? Is it now "moral"?

I got curious at some point about what would happen, on your view, if an evil being were to create a creature with agency.

Free agency is a "good." We all realize that. Any creature that has it is better than the same creature without it. A person is always better than a robot or a zombie.

So it's self-contradictory to suppose a genuinely "evil" being would ever want to do it. You'd have to be talking about a partially evil being, one with some ability to create a good. However, since such a thing has never happened, and we have no reason at present to believe it ever could, I see no conclusions that can be drawn from such a scenario anyway.

...if oughts come from values...

They don't, of course.

But let's clear that up, because you say three things that don't work together, I think.

Do you think "oughts" come, ultimately and finally, from values, or from instrumental considerations, or from social consensus?

In other words, is racism wrong because Cat values anti-racism? Or is racism wrong merely because we can't make it "work" for us in some way? Or is it wrong because Cat believes the majority of society doesn't like racism?

Those three are very different claims. And however one tries to blend them, one has to be the primary and decisive explanation. For it's manifest that the three can easily be at variance -- the values of Cat can be not those of her society, and they can be not those that have particular instrumental utility in a given case -- and we need to know which one to pay attention to, when that happens. Which one is the true, root explanation for "oughtness"?

I forget, is it called a syllogism if it has more than two premises?

A syllogism is ordinarily three terms. That's an argument's simplest complete form, and the one least prone to errors.

A syllogism with an unstated middle premise is called an "enthymeme"; and while enthymemes are typical of the way we tend to argue in normal conversation, they are incomplete until the middle premise is made explicit again, and thus they can be misunderstood quite easily.

A syllogism with more than three terms is called a "chain syllogism." And while these are sometimes necessary, they're always risky: because the chance that one will make an error in logic or truth in one of the premises increases as the number of premises also increases. Keeping them to four or, at most five premises is usually wise.

The upshot is that if we are being very careful and strictly logical, we should stick to three-premise syllogisms, which we may "chain" together once each previous syllogism has been shown and recognized as logical and truthful...or "sound," as the technical term goes...building to a total argument. Rapid or instinctive chaining of premises without mediating conclusions is often errant.

That's the technical answer. But you can see it illustrated below. You can see that your "chain syllogism" below wasn't actually tied together in the technically logical way, and had problems both in truth and in structure.

For example, Q4 was gratuitous, and didn't have any proof from earlier premises. But additionally, it had no "middle term" (as it's technically labelled) no "glue" connecting it to Q5, which then became completely gratuitious to everything that had gone before, as well as also being guilty of "assuming the conclusion," a fundamental logical fallacy.

it's just easier to keep things straight if you work with three-term syllogisms. One is then less likely to make an error that your interlocutor notices and finds reason to criticize. See, as I said...

Pause again: from what are these "values" to be derived? From the fact that one has inner urges toward them, perhaps? Or from the fact that one finds one somehow "already believes" them, perhaps? But you must have a better answer than those, surely, since those things don't at all compel the belief that those values are right or good in any way, or that a contingent, fallible being is owed them. So you'll have to make that case.


Now you've just assumed your own conclusion. I don't think this is true at all.

Better to go cautiously. Three-term, solid little steps get a lot farther than chain syllogisms usually do.

Here you've reversed the proper burden of proof: an "ought" must be argued for. We cannot simply say that we can't think of an argument against it, therefore the existence of an "ought" is our default assumption. You need to show that an "ought" IS built on a hypothetical imperative, and show it positively.


Again, you've only assumed your conclusion. There's no reason a person has to think this is true, and in fact, it's pretty evidently false. One big stroke against it is the fact that values change. They don't just change between people, either; they change within the same person, over time. So you can't "ought" to honour something that has no stable identity over time.

That a person happens, at one moment, to "value" something tells us absolutely nothing about the justification of that value. And if it were even potentially justifiable, it would also be unchanging.

You would need a very odd sort of argument to think otherwise, such as "Anything a person believes at a given moment is always true/good/right." And I don't think anybody's going to see merit in that.

I don't think that's obvious. The argument for it isn't sound, and there are additional prima facie problems with it. How can we look to a contingent, transient and fallible being as lone grounds for an immutable and binding justification to the effect that they are self-determining? That's bootstrapping.

These, above, are the same sorts of problems: a lengthy chain-syllogism in which there are no middle terms to glue the argument together with logic.

And regarding the content, I don't see an answer here: maybe you just never got to this. But I think it's a crucial realization.

We need to know what you and I mean by "ought" is the same thing...the moral "ought" in specific, not the instrumental or merely probabilistic kinds of "oughts," and merely not an arbitrary one.

The problem, of course, is that moral "oughts" are not affirmations of what we want, but constraints on what we are inclined toward doing.

"If I value property, then I ought not to steal" is instrumental, because all it describes is the efficacious method for achieving a goal I already take for granted. But "If I really, really want your brooch, I still ought not to steal it" is moral, because it tells me what will be right regardless of my inclinations, and even contrary to them.

Again, the difference between instrumental and moral reasoning is huge. And it's marked by a discord between my instinctive inclinations and the "ought" proposed.

We need no moral edict, "Thou shalt not bash thyself in the head with a brick," because nobody wants to do it. But we do need "Thou shalt not gossip," because everybody does."

This is all one quote block because again, the Q-argument was born in confusion over what you were asking for. I was never arguing for any kind of moral ought.

That's odd, then.

Because then, we're back to the question of what you think makes a thing right or wrong...is it the fact that Cat values it, the fact that it seems to "work' instrumentally for something, or the fact that Cat's society presently approves of it?

If we can get an answer to that, I'll see what sort of "ought" you're backing, and we can be on the same page again.

...this doesn't help your "goodness is identical with God" statements...

I don't think I ever put it quite that way...and if I did, I spoke poorly...but I don't think I did.

I think what I said is that God is the prototype and epitome of goodness, the consummate model and origin from which all our palid, secondary, human conceptions of "goodness" are derived. That is a better way to put it, if I misspoke.

If adultery is wrong, it is wrong because God is faithful. If murder is wrong, it is wrong because God is the giver of life. If covetousness is wrong, it is wrong because God is the great Provider...and so on. The ultimate reason for anything being "sin" is that it "falls short of the glory of God," as Romans and Isaiah both put it.

The Greek word for "sin" is "hamartia," which means "a falling short of the mark," a metaphor from archery. The Christian idea is that human beings have a duty to think, act and behave in ways harmonious with the character of God, so as to achieve their basic teleological purpose of having a relationship with the eternal God, which is the ultimate Good for anybody. Though they have the choice not to do this they "should not" forego that which is not only the right thing to do, but is also in their ultimate best interests as well. That's how a Christian sees it.

Some of your language suggests that God's property of being good is a difference in quantity, but some of your comments suggest it's a difference in quality.

Can you point that out?

...if God is the most good being in the universe, it would make sense to say that God has goodness like anyone else,

"Like anyone else?"

God's goodness is different from human goodness in two ways: first, His is more, and ours is less. But secondly, His is pure, and ours has admixture of evil in it. But that is not to say that the part of human goodness that is genuinely good is not good in the same sort of sense that God's is.

For example, if I lay down my life for my friends, that is good. It is also what God would do, as we know from Jesus Christ. But we know that Christ went beyond this: He died for his enemies. For the word of God says,

For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous person; though perhaps for the good person someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. (Rom. 5:6-9)

So we are saying that God's goodness and human goodness are of a kind...but the human is lesser and polluted by our own limitations. However, when we are predicating "good" we have to remember in which direction the predication flows: we don't say that "God is good" because humans have a perfect understanding of what "good" actually is, or that they are perfectly "good" themselves; we say it because inasmuch as you and I even know what "good" actually is, it is only because we have some innate knowledge of the character of God.

Again, God's goodness is the prototype. We are merely the flawed and fallible "detectors of good." We are like slightly off-calibrated thermometers: we detect the "temperature" of good, but only approximately. We can be off by a couple of degrees, at any given time. But in general, we'll be right.

The important point is this, though. We are not the source or definition of goodness. We are not the benchmarks of God's goodness. Goodness is not in origin a human concept at all, but rather a divine attribute for which we have assigned a particular human word, the word "good."

[Harbal]

All non-human beings that we are aware of do not have the free choice we do. They are not moral beings. (If we accept that no other animal has free will as we do which seems to be the case.)

I don't know what grounds you have for saying that no creature other than human beings are moral, or that a being needs to be moral in order to have free will. I suppose what you mean by "moral being" might clear the matter, but it probably won't.

[Immanuel Can]

All non-human beings that we are aware of do not have the free choice we do. They are not moral beings. (If we accept that no other animal has free will as we do which seems to be the case.)

I don't know what grounds you have for saying that no creature other than human beings are moral, or that a being needs to be moral in order to have free will. I suppose what you mean by "moral being" might clear the matter, but it probably won't.

To support that point, if I may, a person may be quite "immoral" (by any metric you like) and still have free will. In fact, that he can choose to be immoral is part of the basic meaning of saying he/she has free (moral) will. A "moral" being is one that can choose between good and evil. Barring that, what you have is an "amoral" being; meaning, not one that is necessarily "immoral," but one to which the term "moral" cannot be legitimately applied at all.

A rock has no free will. Therefore, it is not immoral for hitting me on the head. It's status is amoral, even if it kills me. But if you pick up the rock and throw it at my head, then you could have chosen not to (you had free will), or you could have bought me a choc ice instead; so you are being immoral, arguably.

Though, admittedly, I know you may occasionally be inclined to invite me to a "rock concert" of this sort.

[Alexis Jacobi]

All non-human beings that we are aware of do not have the free choice we do. They are not moral beings. (If we accept that no other animal has free will as we do which seems to be the case.)

I don't know what grounds you have for saying that no creature other than human beings are moral, or that a being needs to be moral in order to have free will. I suppose what you mean by "moral being" might clear the matter, but it probably won't.

I am unsure if you are taking 'moral' in the way that I mean. Perhaps to you the word means 'goodness'? I agree: no animal can do wrong. All animals, within their ecological systems, do only what they need to do and must do. And all of this fits into the ecological system. Right and wrong cannot be assigned.

As it is normally understood, or in any case asserted, only the human being (animal) can actually make a moral choice. Because it involves thinking, conceptually, about various courses of action and assigning value to actions and to outcomes.

I am not absolutely sure that animals (for example dogs) do not have a sense of guiltiness. And I have also read that a dog who is a subservient member of a dog-tribe (as a wolf) will react with what looks to be regret and guilt when, as it happens, that dog commits a misdeed against a more powerful member of the tribe. A dog that bites his master (owner, friend) will certainly convey guilt, regret and even sorrowfulness.

Is that a moral sense? It is perhaps the shadow of one (when compared to human beings).

Free will (as I understand it being used here) is a Christian concept. And the ideas about such free will are tied, conceptually, to both the ability to do wrong (and evil) and to do good.

I think you might be thinking that 'free will' means the same as the capability of choosing one course over another? All animals make such choices at every moment (to go right, to go left, to go here, to go there) prompted by who knows what thought-processes. But that is not the same as free will in the Christian sense (and in the sense of other philosophical/religious systems).

[Harbal]

To support that point,

I don't think I've ever made a point that you've supported before. and I can't shake the feeling that there has to be a catch.

[Harbal]

I think you might be thinking that 'free will' means the same as the capability of choosing one course over another?

Yes, that is more or less what I was thinking free will means.

But that is not the same as free will in the Christian sense (and in the sense of other philosophical/religious systems).

That explains it, I don't know anything about that sort of free will.

[Immanuel Can]

To support that point,

I don't think I've ever made a point that you've supported before. and I can't shake the feeling that there has to be a catch.

Yes.

You owe me a choc ice.

[henry quirk]

If a basis to believe we "own ourselves" exists, the truth of that is going to have to be established somehow.

I've pointed to that universal intuition all men have about themselves. Seems awfully compelling, to me, that no matter where or when you go, no matter how much folks disagree about everything, the one thing every person knows about himself, right down to the bone, is the same thing every other person knows about himself: I am mine.

As I say: even the slaver, as he fixes prices to men, knows he's his own.

*

It certainly does not follow automatically from the fact that we are free will beings.

This...

you and me are free wills each with a right to our own lives, liberties, and properties.

...is what I said.

I didn't say you and me are free will beings and becuz we're free will beings we each a right to our own lives, liberties, and properties.

I am a free will. I have an inalienable right to my life, liberty, and property.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I think you might be thinking that 'free will' means the same as the capability of choosing one course over another?

Yes, that is more or less what I was thinking free will means.

But that is not the same as free will in the Christian sense (and in the sense of other philosophical/religious systems).

That explains it, I don't know anything about that sort of free will.

Hold on. That cannot be right. When I said that an animal makes choices about, say, getting up or remaining lying down, that is what I meant by "choosing one course over another". That is a form of volition, right?

But I would suggest that you do, and you must, and all the time, make actual moral choices. And in this sense you have to weigh consequences, measure what the effect of your actions and statements may be, as a moral actor with free choice (and thus free will).

I don't know anything about that sort of free will . . .

. . . can be taken to mean that you believe you do not act in any way comparable to the ideal Christian (acutely aware of free-choice) (and this I assert is false); or that all you do is move here and move there according to impulses over which you have no moral-conscious control (that is that you are 'morally asleep' or perhaps unconcerned); or that you have never read in any depth the Christian doctrine regarding free will.

Which comes closest?

[henry quirk]

there's no direct way to link a premise about the shape of a Toyota door handle to the way all handles ought to be

No, but clearly there's a link between free man and it's wrong to slave. The existence of the free man informs & justifies the statement it's wrong to slave.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I am a free will. I have an inalienable right to my life, liberty, and property.

So I take it you are single, yes?

[henry quirk]

You become really human when you decide, as an act of your own free choice, to submit absolutely to God's will.

You mean I become fully human when I chose to recognize others as I know myself to be (as a free will with a right to life, liberty, and property)?

Yes, I agree (pretty sure that's not what you meant, though).

[henry quirk]

I am a free will. I have an inalienable right to my life, liberty, and property.

So I take it you are single, yes?

I was married for 14 years. We were happy together right up to the day she passed. Your point?

[Harbal]

Hold on. That cannot be right. When I said that an animal makes choices about, say, getting up or remaining lying down, that is what I meant by "choosing one course over another". That is a form of volition, right?

But I would suggest that you do, and you must, and all the time, make actual moral choices. And in this sense you have to weigh consequences, measure what the effect of your actions and statements may be, as a moral actor with free choice (and thus free will).

I don't think moral actions are always preceded by a conscious choice. We perform moral actions on sheer impulse all the time. It could be anything from opening a door for someone, or simply saying "thank you", to yanking someone out of the path of an oncoming bus.

that you have never read in any depth the Christian doctrine regarding free will.

Of course I have't.

[Immanuel Can]

If a basis to believe we "own ourselves" exists, the truth of that is going to have to be established somehow.

I've pointed to that universal intuition all men have about themselves. Seems awfully compelling, to me, that no matter where or when you go, no matter how much folks disagree about everything, the one thing every person knows about himself, right down to the bone, is the same thing every other person knows about himself: I am mine.

Not a hugely strong case. In fact, the intuition itself is capable of multiple interpretations.

Does it mean, "I feel sharply that I own myself"? Or does it mean, "I feel keenly my personal responsibility to God, and realize I have to take charge of my choices accordingly?"

I am a free will. I have an inalienable right to my life, liberty, and property.

You quote Locke there, of course.

But Locke did not say these things in a vacuum. He had a specific kind of explanation for WHY we have the rights of life, liberty and property. And when you read what he said, you'll find his all reasons have to do with God, not with free will itself.

Now, perhaps you feel, intuitively, that we can go from free will to rights. Locke didn't think so. And I don't. In fact, the right to conscience, which is surely related to free will, is grounded by Locke in what he calls "The Great Day," or, as we would say, the Day of Judgment.

Here is one section of his argument:


Of the State of Nature.

Sec. 3 ...I myself can only judge in my own conscience, as I will answer it on the great day, to the Supreme Judge of all men.

Sec. 4. TO understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.

A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being nothing more evident, than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection. . . .

Sec. 6. But though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of licence: though man in that state have an uncontroulable liberty to dispose of his person or possessions, yet he has not liberty to destroy himself, or so much as any creature in his possession, but where some nobler use than its bare preservation calls for it. The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions: for men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent, and infinitely wise maker; all the servants of one sovereign master, sent into the world by his order, and about his business; they are his property, whose workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one another's pleasure: and being furnished with like faculties, sharing all in one community of nature, there cannot be supposed any such subordination among us, that may authorize us to destroy one another, as if we were made for one another's uses, as the inferior ranks of creatures are for our's. Every one, as he is bound to preserve himself, and not to quit his station wilfully, so by the like reason, when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind, and may not, unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away, or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another.

Sec. 7. And that all men may be restrained from invading others rights, and from doing hurt to one another, and the law of nature be observed, which willeth the peace and preservation of all mankind, the execution of the law of nature is, in that state, put into every man's hands, whereby every one has a right to punish the transgressors of that law to such a degree, as may hinder its violation: for the law of nature would, as all other laws that concern men in this world 'be in vain, if there were no body that in the state of nature had a power to execute that law, and thereby preserve the innocent and restrain offenders. And if any one in the state of nature may punish another for any evil he has done, every one may do so: for in that state of perfect equality, where naturally there is no superiority or jurisdiction of one over another, what any may do in prosecution of that law, every one must needs have a right to do.

Sec. 8. And thus, in the state of nature, one man comes by a power over another; but yet no absolute or arbitrary power, to use a criminal, when he has got him in his hands, according to the passionate heats, or boundless extravagancy of his own will; but only to retribute to him, so far as calm reason and conscience dictate, what is proportionate to his transgression, which is so much as may serve for reparation and restraint: for these two are the only reasons, why one man may lawfully do harm to another, which is that we call punishment. In transgressing the law of nature, the offender declares himself to live by another rule than that of reason and common equity, which is that measure God has set to the actions of men, for their mutual security; and so he becomes dangerous to mankind, the tye, which is to secure them from injury and violence, being slighted and broken by him. Which being a trespass against the whole species, and the peace and safety of it, provided for by the law of nature, every man upon this score, by the right he hath to preserve mankind in general, may restrain, or where it is necessary, destroy things noxious to them, and so may bring such evil on any one, who hath transgressed that law, as may make him repent the doing of it, and thereby deter him, and by his example others, from doing the like mischief. And in the case, and upon this ground, EVERY MAN HATH A RIGHT TO PUNISH THE OFFENDER, AND BE EXECUTIONER OF THE LAW OF NATURE. . . .

Quotations from The 2nd Treatise of Civil Government.


Locke thought that the accountability of each person to God was the fundamental fact: that when we stand before God, we each give our own account, not standing in a group or clump, and with nobody to give an account to Him but us, individually. From that fact, Locke deduced that God must intend us to have the rights you list: life, because God surely gives us that, liberty, because without it we cannot be accountable for what we do, and property, because without owning anything we cannot prove out stewardship to God. And in sum, he said that also guaranteed us a right to free conscience, because God called every person to account based on what he/she knew, and what he/she did with that.

The long and short of that is that all the rights the US Constitution promises, and the ones the various other bills of rights now assure to us, are derived from the basic belief that you and I are accountable to God...that we are His, not our own, by rights.

So I still say it's not apparent we can get rights by another route...no matter how, intuitively, we may feel.