Philosophy Now Forum

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Sep 09, 2020 4:06 am You ought to breathe.
This ought can be verified and justified empirically and philosophically.

There is no philosophical 'ought' in respect of breathing.

Your approach depends on local context. You 'ought' to breathe IF you want to stay alive. You 'ought' to cross the road if you want to get to the other side etc. This is not a philosophical or ethical use of the word. It is philosophically uninteresting.

There can be no ethical 'ought' unless it can be derived from an 'is',

PeteJ wrote: ↑Thu Sep 10, 2020 2:26 pm

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Sep 09, 2020 4:06 am You ought to breathe.
This ought can be verified and justified empirically and philosophically.

There is no philosophical 'ought' in respect of breathing.

Philosophy is a meta- thing, it encompasses everything.
Ought to breathe is basically biology but essentially related to existence [being] which is a major topic of philosophy.

• Major subfields of academic philosophy include metaphysics, which is concerned with the fundamental nature of existence and reality.
  Metaphysics is the study of the most general features of reality, such as existence, time, objects and their properties, wholes and their parts, events, processes and causation and the relationship between mind and body. Metaphysics includes cosmology, the study of the world in its entirety and ontology, the study of being.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy

Philosophy is basically a love of wisdom and it is wisdom that I brought in 'ought to breathe' as an analogy to moral ought.

Your approach depends on local context. You 'ought' to breathe IF you want to stay alive. You 'ought' to cross the road if you want to get to the other side etc. This is not a philosophical or ethical use of the word. It is philosophically uninteresting.

There can be no ethical 'ought' unless it can be derived from an 'is',

You don't have any authority to decide it is uninteresting and irrelevant for others.

If you dig deeper into it, i.e. acquire more wisdom, you will be able to reconcile the ought to breathe to the moral fact of [for example] ought-not to kill, ought-not to rape, ought-not-to to do evil to others and yourself.

This post may give you an idea of what I meant above;

Re: All Moral State-of-affairs are Facts
viewtopic.php?p=470514#p470514

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Fri Sep 11, 2020 5:39 am Philosophy is a meta- thing, Etc...

I think you ought to consider what I said, which is not wrong.

PeteJ wrote: ↑Fri Sep 11, 2020 1:01 pm

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Fri Sep 11, 2020 5:39 am Philosophy is a meta- thing, Etc...

I think you ought to consider what I said, which is not wrong.

What are the justifications for your 'ought'?

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Sep 12, 2020 4:55 am What are the justifications for your 'ought'?

It' would have to be a long answer, and really I would rather argue that there is no such thing as an 'ought'. But insofar as there is one it must be derived from the nature of Reality or iow from an 'is'. So the argument would go...

The nature of Reality is such that it is in our own best interest to behave in a certain way, and if we wish to pursue our own best interest then this is how we 'ought' to behave,

But I'd rather replace 'ought' here with, 'how it would be most sensible to behave', or perhaps, 'how it would be most effective to behave given our goal'.

For this approach the nature of Reality must be such that it has ramifications for human behaviour, thus it only works for certain descriptions of Reality.

PeteJ wrote: ↑Sat Sep 12, 2020 2:46 pm

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Sep 12, 2020 4:55 am What are the justifications for your 'ought'?

It' would have to be a long answer, and really I would rather argue that there is no such thing as an 'ought'. But insofar as there is one it must be derived from the nature of Reality or iow from an 'is'. So the argument would go...

The nature of Reality is such that it is in our own best interest to behave in a certain way, and if we wish to pursue our own best interest then this is how we 'ought' to behave,

But I'd rather replace 'ought' here with, 'how it would be most sensible to behave', or perhaps, 'how it would be most effective to behave given our goal'.

For this approach the nature of Reality must be such that it has ramifications for human behaviour, thus it only works for certain descriptions of Reality.

Your above is merely an issue of semantics.

I can agree 'ought' in the widest sense can be 'how it would be most sensible to behave', or perhaps, 'how it would be most effective to behave given our goal'.
This is merely replacing one word with a phrase or statement.
However within the moral and ethics perspective the term 'ought' is something very critical which can have serious consequences on matter of killing, murder, mass murder, rapes, violence, etc.

In this case the moral ought would be ''how it would be most effective to behave given our goal of doing good and not committing evil acts'.

Imagine if we are to use the intended point ''how it would be most effective to behave given our goal of doing good and not committing evil acts" 200 or 300 times in an article with reference to morality and ethics.

As a matter of communication, it would be more effective to use one word "ought" instead of the above phrase or statement, as long as we understand what the word represent.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sun Sep 13, 2020 5:21 am Your above is merely an issue of semantics.

Of course it is.

As a matter of communication, it would be more effective to use one word "ought" instead of the above phrase or statement, as long as we understand what the word represent.

Quite so. We can use any word any way we like as ling as we understand what we mean.