(September 6, 2012 at 2:04 pm)discordianpope Wrote: I obviously did miss the point. Because it seems you weren't bloody well making one. Obviously science has no problem deriving instrumental oughts from facts because nobody ever has, nobody ever will, it was never an issue and it has nothing to do with morality. You say as much yourself - so what was the bloody point of mentioning them?
The point was that you were wrong. You said that science doesn't deal with "oughts", it deals with what is. Clearly, it does. Later on, you changed it from "ought" to "instrumental ought". That is moving the goalposts.
(September 6, 2012 at 2:04 pm)discordianpope Wrote: You can't use that fact that there is no problem in deriving instrumental oughts from factual premises to support the idea that that science can get at moral oughts. It just doesn't make sense. When you say that a science of morality would reduce moral imperitives to instrumental ones you are just stating as a fact exactly what I am denying. You can't reduce moral oughts to instrumental oughts because the first are values and the second are facts. THIS is the is/ought problem! Stating it as if it isn't a problem doesn't make it go away.
Unless, ofcourse, those values are factual. Your entire argument and subsequent distinction is based on the assumption that what we consider "values" cannot be factual, i.e. not have a basis in facts. But if they can, then the problem would simply go away.
(September 6, 2012 at 2:04 pm)discordianpope Wrote: So, from that, your argument seems to be that a science of morality dissolves the is ought problem, but how will depend on the science itself, which you don't seem inclined to say anything about. Meh, I'm not convinced. Maybe you could offer a single reason... argument... anything...?
I've shown you how other sciences dissolve the is-ought problems within their scope. And saying how science of morality would do it would be empty speculation. By your response, it seems that you won't be satisfied until the there is some actual work done in it. So, I guess, you can just wait around.