Hi DMB: On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 2:19 PM, david buchanan <[email protected]> wrote: > > Craig said: > For Searle the Is-Ought gap is the same as the fact/value gap & the > descriptive/evaluative gap. > > > > Steve replied: > > I'm not sure what he means by saying that they are the same. Can you point me > to his essay? I couldn't find it on the web anywhere. > > > dmb says: > > Seriously? I think the similarity between those three pairings is already > contained in the conventional meanings of the terms used. In other words, I > don't think you'd need to read a philosophical essay to see it. >
Steve: I understand that these distinctions are similar, I just don't know what Searle's argument would be in saying that these three "gaps" are the same. The is-ought "gap" is supposed to be a gap that can't be bridged through deduction. The fact/value "gap"...well, I never even heard it talked about as a gap. It is just said that there are useful distinctions to make between facts and values(Putnam), and it is sometimes asserted that there are separate fact and value spheres of reality (Kant). It is also sometimes said that facts are really just values (Pirsig). It is also sometimes said that values are just kinds of facts (Harris.) While it is easy to see "is" assertions as assertions of fact, "ought" assertions are not the only sorts of assertions of value. For example, if I say that I like chocolate, I am making an assertion about value but I am not making any normative claim. I thought perhaps Searle may have had some argument for reducing all values to norms or something or following one of the paths cited above. So, yeah, I would like to read a philosphical essay to see what he has to say. You aren't joining the Fox News anti-intellectual crowd, are you? A Bill O'Reilly everyman approach to the issue in terms of "conventional meanings" doesn't get at the questions I have about Searle, does it? DMB: > But more importantly, don't you see how the MOQ destroys this gap? Lila is an > inquiry into morals, after all, and it concludes by saying reality is nothing > but. The ises are oughts in the MOQ. Everything is derived from value. Good > is a noun, not an adjective. Even chairs are conceived as being composed of > little moral orders. Etc., etc., Steve: When you say that the MOQ destroys this gap, it is as though you think some philosphical questions have been settled for all time and I am just annoying you by still talking about them. I know what Pirsig says. I'm wonderring how his arguments stand up to arguments that others have made. Aren't you also wonderring why, if these questions have been so thoroughly dissolved, that people keep asking about them? Clearly something more does need to be said. > Steve said: > > ...and the form such a better argument will need to take will need to > presuppose not only some factual assertions but some agreement about what > ought to be done under certain circumstances. > > > dmb says: > > And what is good, Steve, and what is not good? Need we ask anyone to tell us > these things? > > Oh, wait. Asking everyone is exactly what we need to do, if you subscribe to > Rortyism because morality is just what society let's us say. Steve: What is the sound of one person, say DMB, convincing himself that he is right? What would one person who had never had a conversation with anyone else know about how to construct a good argument and what sorts of arguments ought to convince her? What could "good argument" even mean under such conditions? Rorty does not hold that morality is just what society lets us say, nevertheless, there is a social (as well as, according to teh MOQ, a biological, and an inorganic) component to the practice of justification. You keep bringing up radical empiricism as though experience answers all questions about justification. I've asked you many times how empirical reality provides us not only with experience in each moment but all the standards for justification for evaluating what reality is supposed to be telling us at each moment. Where do standards for justification come from, DMB? Best, Steve Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
