Jeremy Bowman said:Quoted message said:Phil Roberts Jr. suggests that
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:>'Ought's are entailments or predictions of causal
>hypotheses.Quoted message said:
Thanks for your input Jeremy. As usual, your comments on
philosophical matters are informed and insightful.
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:
-- I don't see why the hypotheses in question have to be
causal, but the idea that there is a special connection
between hypotheses and "oughts" is reminiscent of Kant.
Because 'ought's refer to expectations we have for both
rational agents AND arational nature (the grass 'ought' to
turn green, etc.) and my heuristic of assuming a shared
implicit theory of rationality allows me to unify both types
under a single heading, i.e., as connectives that refer to
entailments of causal hypotheses. From this new perspective,
the sense of prescriptiveness associated with rational
'ought's arises from the fact that we are only quasi-
rational agents and, as such, need to be frequently reminded
of the parameters of our shared descriptive theory, e.g., as
a means of persuading others to 'do the "right" thing', etc.
It is also crashingly obvious that the benefits of many of
these rational 'ought's are not directly physical (e.g.,
championing the cause of the Palestinians by flying
airplanes into sky scrapers) and, as such, seem highly
maladaptive. (If I have to hear one more adaptive account of
morality, I think I'll puke.) As such, it seems to me that
we are in need of some explanation for the centrality of ego-
related emotion in human affairs, e.g., an explanation of
how and why motivation associated with maintaining self-
worth has become of even greater importance than the
motivation to stay alive.
The explanation I have long favored is that the
persuasiveness of moral 'ought's arises from the fact that
thinking of ourselves as rational is central to our self-
esteem, which is just another way of talking about the
'will to survive' in a species that accomplishes its
survival via long range planning employing a representation
of a causal agent (including, apparently, an increasingly
more objective representation of the worth of that agent)
in a represented world.
In other words, morality, or at least the potential to
experience the feelings of worthlessness that give moral
'ought's their persuasive force, is actually a maladaptive
by-product of the evolution of rationality that mother
nature has had to "tolerate" in order to have a rational
species to do her bidding:
"Terrorism is the result of poverty. Not a poverty of
material things, but a poverty of dignity" (Egyptian
philosopher).
What we dedicate today is not a memorial to war, rather
it is a tribute to the physical and moral courage that
makes heroes out of farm and city boys and inspires
Americans in every generation to lay down their lives
for people they will never meet, for ideals that make
life itself worth living. (Bob Dole - dedication of
W.W.II memorial)
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:Philosophers since Hume have disagreed over the correct
way of understanding "oughts", which seem to prescribe
behaviour rather than describe facts.Kant argued that most "oughts" express "hypothetical
imperatives". That is, they prescribe behaviour that
promotes some prior, implicitly understood goal. IF
someone has that particular goal, THEN he has a reason
to behave in the manner prescribed.
That's one way to look at it, for sure. Nor does it seem
to me necessarily antithetical to my own "theory" about
'ought's. Without looking at the matter carefully, and
just off the top of my head, I would suspect that reasons
are themselves appeals to causal hypotheses, e.g., the
reason the grass is green blah blah blah... And the fact
that some of them apply to the achieving of goals merely
means that part of our shared implicit theory underlying
rational 'ought's has something to say about the rational
achieving of goals.
BTW, your mention of 'ought's pertaining to the achieving
of goals has made a mess of my nice simple subdivision of
rational 'ought's. Obviously, a lot of 'ought's might not
apply to either prudence or morality, e.g., how one
'ought' to play chess, etc. Here's my revised version
based on your feedback:
[analysis of 'ought', second iteration]
'Ought's are connectives to entailments of causal
hypotheses. These come in two basic flavors, with a
subdivision in the second:
1. Natural causal 'ought's: e.g., If it rains the grass
'ought' to turn green.
2. Rational causal 'ought's:
a. 'ought's pertaining to the rationality of
means, i.e., one 'ought' to value means to
valued ends, e.g., in chess, one 'ought' to
protect one's king.
b. 'ought's pertaining to the rationality of ends.
Where the rationality of ends is concerned, we are fortunate
enough to have a paradigm of sorts, i.e., the formalization
of prudence in the guise of 'the equal weight criterion':
My feelings a year hence should be just as important to
me as my feelings next minute, if only I could make an
equally sure forecast of them. Indeed this equal and
impartial concern for all parts of one's conscious life
is perhaps the most prominent element in the common
notion of the _rational_. (Henry Sidgwick, 'The Methods
of Ethics'😉.
All these theories [of rational self-interest] also
claim that, in deciding what would be best for someone,
we should give equal weight to all the parts of this
person's future. Later events may be less predictable;
and a predictable event should count for less if it is
less likely to happen. But it should not count for less
merely because, if it happens, it will happen later
(Derek Parfit, 'Reasons and Persons'😉.
Converting this paradigm to one more compatible with the
moral maxim, 'Love (intrinsically value) your neighbor as
you love (intrinsically value) yourself' is a simple matter
of abandoning the self-interest component of the formalism:
Special concern for one's own future would be selected
by evolution: Animals without such concern would be more
likely to die before passing on their genes. Such
concern would remain, as a natural fact, even if we
decided that it was not justified. By thinking hard
about the arguments, we might be able briefly to stun
this natural concern. But it would soon revive... The
fact that we have this attitude cannot therefore be a
reason for thinking it justified. Whether it is
justified [i.e. rational] is an open question, waiting
to be answered (Derek Parfit, 'Reasons and Persons'😉.
What you are left with is a "theory" of rationality in which
the rationality of ends is simply a matter of 'being
objective' plain and simple, not only cognitively, BUT
VALUATIVELY AS WELL, and with no fixed perimeter for where
that objectivity should end.
[analysis of 'ought', third iteration]
'Ought's are connectives to entailments of causal
hypotheses. These come in two basic flavors, with a
subdivision in the second:
1. Natural causal 'ought's: e.g., If it rains the grass
'ought' to turn green.
2. Rational causal 'ought's:
a. 'ought's pertaining to the rationality of means,
i.e., with respect to instrumental values, one
'ought' to value means to valued ends, e.g., in
chess, one 'ought' to protect one's king.
b. 'ought's pertaining to the rationality of ends,
i.e., with respect to intrinsic values, one
'ought' to be as comprehensively objective as
possible, e.g., one 'ought' to "Love
(intrinsically value) one's neighbor as one loves
(intrinsically values) one's self".
In other words, if indeed our moral 'ought's reference an
implicit shared theory of rationality, its a pretty damn
good one, and probably one that is considerably better than
the one that seems to make the most sense to us at conscious
levels, i.e., the one that assumes rationality must entail
self-interest, and as such that rationality and morality are
conceptually distinct.
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:Kant seems to have called this sort of imperative
"hypothetical" because of its "if-then" justification.
The idea is that "on the hypothesis that an agent wants
to achieve such-and-such, then he ought to behave thus".
Kant contrasted these situation-dependent "oughts" with
the supposedly absolute MORAL "ought", which is non-
hypothetical in the sense that it is binding on everyone
no matter what.
Except that Kant's categorical imperative is actually a
hypothetical imperative with both a cognitive and a
valuative premise, i.e., the cognitive premise that Kant's
view of rationality is "true" (which I doubt) and the
valuative premise that the agent in question values
rationality.
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:
Personally, I think that is very confusing terminology.
Various sorts of "ought" can emerge from conditional ("if-
then"😉 statements, but we're not interested in most of
them. The "ought" we can get from a causal law (such as
"what goes up must come down"😉 is not an "ought"
prescribing behaviour, but rather an "ought" expressing
what we are warranted in believing.
Since reasons can be unwarranted and irrational, I think you
are in danger of muddying the waters here. 'Ought' merely
points to what is expected, warranted or not. The issue of
whether the theory it points to is warranted is another
matter entirely, IMHO. Of course, you could introduce a
distinction between "good" and "bad" reasons, but I still
think you are in danger of mixing in some apples with our
oranges, at least at this stage of the conversation.
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:For example, suppose we throw a ball up into the air,
and then apply the law "what goes up must come down". We
might SAY "the ball ought to come down", but we do NOT
mean that the ball is OBLIGED to come down, morally,
prudentially, or in any other way. We mean that we are
entitled to EXPECT it to come down -- i.e. we had better
believe that it will come down.
I think you've just given a pretty good sales pitch for
adopting my heuristic, Jeremy. 🙂
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:I would argue that the "oughts" we are interested in do
not have much to do with conditional (i.e. "if-then"😉
statements, or hypotheses, or causal laws, but rather
that they have an intimate connection with GOALS.
They have an intimate connection with the RATIONAL ACHIEVING
of goals, as I have explained above.
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:For example, games have an "object" or main goal, and
"oughts" prescribe what players of the game must do to
win. For example, chess involves trying to corner the
opponent's king, and players of chess are bound by that
"ought" -- otherwise, they are not really playing chess.
As far as I can see, that "ought" is paradigmatic, yet
it has nothing to do with any casual hypothesis. (If you
like, consider the "ought" expressing the object of a
wholly imaginary game.)
see above
Once again. Thanks so much for your input.
Cheers!
PR