Fact-Value Distinction

Chapter 8 Philosophy

values

ideas that guide your life decisions, morals that shape how you treat others, choices that define your personal aesthetic

what do values describe?

how people think things should be, not necessarily how they are

fact-value distrinction

distinguishes between what is the case (facts) and what people think ought to be the case (values) based on beliefs about what is good, beautiful, important, etc.

descriptive claims

statements about matters of fact

evaluative claims

express a judgement about something’s value

what do descriptive claims make statements about?

how the world is

what do evaluative claims make statements about?

how the world ought to be

what does it mean to say that evaluative claims are prescriptive?

they state what should be the case or what people ought to do in a given situation

naturalistic fallacy

error in reasoning that assumes you can derive values from facts about the world

fallacy

error in logic or reasoning

what do fallacies include?

drawing the wrong conclusion from a premises of an argument or jumping to a conclusion without sufficient evidence

Principia Ethica

G. E. Moore’s book that explores the naturalistic fallacy

the is-ought problem

asserts the challenge of moving from statements of fact (something is) to statements of value (something ought to be)

A Treatise of Human Nature

book by david hume that expresses that morality has to do with what people believe and how we feel, and beliefs and feelings are not factual or derivable from facts

open-question arguement

people often answer the question “is x good?” with another statement of goodness, therefore not closing the question and leaving it open

moral realists

argue for a more objective concept of morality

example of moral realism

murder is immoral

moral skeptics

argue against an objective basis for morality by emphasizing that moral values are not factual and involve a different mode of thinking that is distinct from logical or scientific reasoning

Hilary Putnam’s “Beyond the Fact-Value Dichotomy”

argues that scientists frequently must choose between conflicting theories and use desirable principles like simplicity or coherence to devise an explanation for complex observational datawh

how do certain types of descriptive claims imply an evaluative claim?

if linking purpose and function, people may say that something is bad if it does not fulfill its purpose

telos

argue that values are based on the fulfillment of a goal