(September 6, 2012 at 10:16 am)genkaus Wrote: Are you sure about that? I see sciences dealing with "oughts" everyday. Economics deals with measures that ought to be taken t maximize productivity. Political sciences deal with what a government's policy ought to be. Medical sciences deal with what ought to be the best course of treatment for patients. Applied sciences deal with what ought to be done to create most stable structures (civil engineering) or most efficient machines (mechanical).
I don't see any inbuilt oughts of aristoteleanism in these cases and there are competing oughts here as well - such as between patient's life and quality of life or a structure's stability and cost efficiency. However, the conceptual gap between is and ought have been bridged very well in these cases.
You are avoiding the issue again, I'm pretty sure you realise that though. Surely nobody thinks that ethics can be grounded in political science or civil engineering.
The economist can tell us what we ought to do to increase productivity but not whether we ought to want to increase productivity for moral ends. The what we ought to do to achieve such and such a goal in the economics case is an instrumental ought, it has nothing to do with morality. The question of whether we ought to want to increase productivity in order to make peoples lives better is a moral ought, but not one the economist can address without appeal to external moral commitments.
Medical science, likewise, can answer questions of what morally ought to be done only once the moral oughts have already crept back in. The premises are not purely factual. Once we agree that something like the limiting of suffering is a moral good, medical science can tell us what we ought to do to achieve it. It can not tell us whether we (morally) ought to limit suffering.
In short: Hume's Is-Ought problem applies to moral oughts, not instrumental oughts.
Now, how can moral oughts (not instrumental oughts) be grounded in a value-free psychology?
