The Normative and the Natural

In the introduction to his beautiful yet tragically underappreciated Logic and the Basis of Ethics, Arthur Prior makes the following remark:

I am inclined to think that almost all that can be said, from a purely logical point of view, on the issue between naturalism and anti-naturalism, has already been said in two quite brief sections in Hume's Treatise of Human Nature (II. iii. 3, and III. i. 1) and in one quite brief chapter in Reid's Essays on the Active Powers (V. vii).  At all events, a thorough mastery of these three items would provide anyone with a complete set of tools for cutting away the thick growths of sophistry which seem in all periods to thrive on the soil of Moral Philosophy.

I am inclined to agree (though I find the derogatory use of 'sophistry' unfortunate!), and have been trying, in a variety of ways, to make a case for Prior's view ever since I first read LBE in graduate school.  At present, however, I want to follow Prior's suggestion and take a closer look at one of the more oft-discussed passages in the second Hume section referred to above: the famous remarks about 'is' and 'ought'.

It is, perhaps, thought by many that here we find expressed what has subsequently become known as 'Hume's Law', declaring the impossibility of deriving normative claims from descriptive ones, 'oughts' from 'iss'.  Presumably, those who think this have the following remark of Hume's in mind, namely

    ...a reason should be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can
    be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.

This remark, however, is not a declaration of what is possible or not, but rather a challenge, or, better, an expression of incredulity.  In any event, full appreciation of Hume's stance on the matter is impossible, I think, unless we pay close attention to what he says before this remark.  The relevant passage in full:

In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remark'd, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surpriz'd to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, 'tis necessary that it shou'd be observ'd and explain'd; and at the same time that a reason should be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.

Hume, it is clear, has two challenges for those who traffic in oughts: First, assuming that ought is different from is, what does it mean?  What function does it perform in the statements in which it figures?  Second, assuming, again, that it is different from is, how does one deduce, or derive such statements from the more familiar is statements? It is this second claim that those who talk of Hume's law are focused on.  But what seems more fundamental is that Hume is expressing, whether feigned or sincere, ignorance of the significance of ought. 

If we take Hume seriously here, as I am inclined to do, his position is nihilistic about normativity: there simply is no other thing than the natural, descriptive world; nothing that ought picks out that is does not.  Nothing, at least, that he--or we--have any hope of understanding.   

One can, of course, disagree with Hume on these matters.  Reid, for one, did.  In the chapter referred to by Prior we find the following:

We may here observe, that it is acknowledged, that the words ought and ought not express some relation or affirmation; but a relation or affirmation which Mr. Hume thought inexplicable, or, at least, inconsistent with his system of morals.  He must, therefore, have thought, that they ought not to be used in treating of that subject.  He likewise makes two demands, and, taking it for granted that they cannot be satisfied, is persuaded, that an attention to this is sufficient to subvert all the vulgar systems of morals.  The first demand is, that ought and ought not be explained.   To a man that understands English, there are surely no words that require explanation less.   Are not all men taught, from their early years, that they ought not to lie, nor steal, nor swear falsely?  But Mr. Hume thinks, that men never understood what these precepts mean, or rather that they are unintelligible.  If this be so, I think indeed it will follow, that all the vulgar systems of morals are subverted.  Dr. Johnson, in his Dictionary, explains the word ought to signify, being obliged by duty; and I know no better explication that can be given of it. 

His second demand is, that a reason should be given why this relation should be a deduction from others which are entirely different from it. This is to demand a reason for what does not exist. The first principles of morals are not deductions. They are self-evident; and their truth, like that of other axioms, is perceived without reasoning or deduction. And moral truths that are not self-evident, are deduced, not from relations quite different from them, but from the first principles of morals

This is what we would refer to today as 'non-naturalism'.  Make of it what you will.  What I want to suggest here, though, is that is rather hard to see what other position on normativity one might take.  Specifically, I think there is here, in the combination of Hume's two challenges, an argument against the very cogency of 'naturalistic realism' about normativity.  If one is a naturalist, then, presumably, one thinks that ought is not different from is. But then it becomes hard to understand just what such a theorist does think normativity amounts to.  Furthermore, if ought statements are indeed translatable without remainder into is statements, why would it be 'altogether inconceivable' that they be deduced from other is statements?  True, not all such statement follow validly from all others, but some do.  'Hume's Law', however, isn't supposed to have exceptions.  What is open to the Humean, however, is to claim that the relevant class of is statement is actually about one's preferences, or motivations, and these are not deducible from descriptions of the various states of the world at which they might be directed.  But this is not something that a naturalist who also fancies himself a 'cognitivist' or a 'realist' will be comfortable with.  But what, then, is such a naturalist left with?  What does such a view actually involve?  I don't see how to make sense of it myself.  Hence I think that you either take normativity seriously and are therefore a non-naturalist, or you are a naturalist and you don't. 

 

Comments

[Eric Thomson]

I think one aspect of the significance of 'ought' is that statements such as "You should not murder babies" do not have a fact-stating role in the sense that "There is a cup on the table" does. I think that, psychologically speaking, the former has implications that the other does not have: I am committed to creating a world in which babies are not murdered, and this even includes trying to convince other people to share this committment.

Even if the above is wrong in specifics, perhaps we should be looking to the inferences licensed by ought claims rather than staring at individual ought claims and trying to divine their meaning. Clearly they have meaning, and on the surface it is different from that of factual claims (though it may be bull: it may be no more large a semantic gap than that between facts about lungs and facts about tornadoes).

Rather than 'truth conditions', Sellars spoke of 'satisfaction conditions' of ought claims: what would the world look like if these ethical committments were implemented?

[Joseph Biehl]

In what sense do ought claims "clearly have meaning"? How can a term/claim clearly have a meaning that no one can articulate?

You suggest that (presumably) in believing that we should not murder babies that we are "committed" to creating a world in which babies are not murdered. How/in what sense are we committed? Is it psychologically impossible to believe this while not caring about whether a world of never-murdered babies obtains? If not this, then what? Is the committment one of expectation? And why must such a comittment, whatever it is, include trying to convince others to be so committed? Is it necessarily the case that whenever someone believes that x 'ought' to obtain they are committed (required?) to convince others of this?

I'm not sure I understand the point about satisfaction condtions. As far as I understand ought claims, they are, primarily, expressions of preference (at varying degrees of remove). So, in the case at hand, the satisfaction conditions of "you should not murder babies" is a world where no babies are murdered. Am I mistaken about this? What if you think that ought claims are not expressions of preference, but something else. Would the satisfaction conditions be different? And what of someone who doesn't care about whether babies are murdered, and feels no inclination to utter our claim. Has he made some kind of mistake? Is there a problem with not being committed to a world of unmurdered babies? If so, what? If he wants to murder a baby, wouldn't his state of mind find satisfaction in a world of (at least one) murdered baby (by him)? Is there something 'wrong' with that satisfaction condition?

A final point for now. Thinking that asserting such ought claims "licenses certain inferences" seems to presume that one makes such judgments and that there are requirements of some kind on subsequent judgments. This seems like a normative claim. So the questions simply begin again: what kind of requirement? A psychological one? Some other? Moreover, it suggests that the 'judgment' is about something. Another way of thinking of it would be that the claim is merely a formulation or expression of how we intend to engage the world, and the 'licensed inferences' are merely the expected, further states of mind one is likely to be in who actively engages the world in that way.

[Eric Thomson]

--In what sense do ought claims "clearly have meaning"? How can a term/claim clearly have a meaning that no one can articulate?--

I was using common sense, aiming to avoid positivisic excommunications of complicated concepts because they do not satisfy some preselected criterion for meaningfulness. If there is a sense in which ought claims do not have meaning, then that sense of meaning is wrong. I am not ARGUING for that, but it is an assumption that seems so reasonable I am willing to take it as a premise. However, I realize that is partly what you are arguing about, so below I wave at a more positive answer.

If you were an anthropologist who had to translate ethical claims from an African language to English, would you refuse, or would you try to find synonyms? If so, what would synonymy be sameness of, if not meaning? If you would not bother to try to find synonyms because of some philosophy of language, you would be a crappy anthropologist.

Note I largely agree that moral realism has to be false, if that implies that morality does not depend on the particular features of our biology/culture/etc. I am arguing now within a non-realist framework.

The intension of an ethical claim most likely depends on psychological and anthropological facts. It seems that most ought claims are subsumed by a larger-scale goal. These core goals/desires/aims are learned very early in life, and form a central nodes in webs of inferences about how to act. These goals act to organize reasons in arguments about what to do (as opposed to how the world is). Certain goal-states are like the assumption that there is an external world: hard or impossible to prove or justify, but figure in so many inferences, are so dammned useful in society that they will be very hard to eliminate.

At any rate, I think your general anti-realist point is a good one, but this does not mean that ought claims are meaningless. It just implies that we are in the awkward position of giving an account of the moral reasoning of the Hitler Youth. We have no culture- and biology- free fulcrum from which to criticise their web of moral reasoning. This doesn't seem a big practical problem, though.

I don't think this mild nonrealism is any more bad than our inability to give an account of Humor without reference to human psychology.

[Joseph Biehl]

Eric,

First, sorry for the delay; I've been away for the last 6 days on a last sojourn before term starts.

I think we agree on most things here, the trouble--if we can call it that--stems from a lack of clarity on my part. When I say that ought claims, etc, have no meaning, I do not intend to say that they have no meaning whatsoever; that, indeed, would be ridiculous. I think they have meanings, but ones that can be exhaustively expressed in 'the naturalistic idiom' as you put it. My claim of lack of meaning is directed towards those--non-naturalists--who would claim that no such naturalistic explication could be exhaustive; those, that is, who would claim irreducible 'normative significance' for such claims.

Perhaps the upshot of the position I am taking that I am most concerned to push at present fits nicely with your comment that such ought claims are "hard or impossible to justify". If, as I am maintaining, there is no 'normative semantic remainder', then such ought claims--claims about what to do, as you put them--are 'impossible' to justify BECAUSE THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS JUSTIFICATION (sorry to be screaming, but this, to me, is precisely what needs screaming from the roof tops, to many 'anti-realists' anyway. I tend to think that certain realists, non-naturalists like Reid,Moore, and Prichard, are the ones that REALLY get this). That there is no such thing as justification, just prediction and explanation, is what the insistent naturalist position ultimately amounts to, and why I have resorted to using the rather dramatic 'normative nihilism' as an alternative label for it.

Your claim that our inability to provide an objective standpoint for criticism of anothers' reasoning (moral or otherwise)--which is, of course, the manifestation of normative nihilism--is not a practical problem, is one with which I completely concur. We don't need such a position to reject or criticise another's thinking or behavior; we need only not accept it.

Thanks for pressing me to be clearer.

[Morgan]

Thanks for the read. I agree with the points you made. http://www.rapidmediafire.com also has peoples thoughts on the matter.