Regarding the failure of ought is
In the book Truth and Unstable, when it comes to the supposed-is fallacy and learning norms from facts, I didn’t really understand what the fallacy was. From what was written, it seemed like this was an agreed-upon premise, but I didn’t really understand the explanation for why it’s impossible to learn norms from facts. Is the appeal here also to a desired premise?
Consider and you will see that an argument that derives a norm from a fact is always an invalid argument. For example (just for the sake of illustration), women today are different in their education from women at the time of the Gemara and therefore must be trained to testify. In more detail:
- Women used to be uneducated. It’s a fact.
- Women today are educated. It’s a fact.
- Conclusion: Although women were disqualified from testifying during the Talmud, today they must be qualified to testify. The norm.
This argument is invalid (validity is a necessary consequence of the conclusion from the premises). Why? Because you have to add the assumption that their disqualification from the testimony was based on the changed characteristic (such as education). Note that the assumption added to make the argument valid is always of a nature that links the fact to the norm. In our case, the additional assumption is that it was the lack of education (a fact) that caused the disqualification from the testimony (a norm). Now the argument is valid, but in this form the assumptions are not just factual.
So what is the failure in basing morality on the evolutionary principle of survival?
I don't understand. This is exactly the fallacy of ought-is. The evolutionary principle is a fact and moral principles are norms.
So what premise is missing to make the argument valid?
For example, that what is beneficial for survival is moral. Then of course the question will arise how you know this, and you haven't solved anything.
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