Abstract
In this chapter, I shall first examine two formalistic attempts to derive ought from is and show why they are not successful. Then I shall discuss the substantive attempt to derive ought from is made by contemporary Aristotelian virtue ethicists, particularly Rosalind Hursthouse. I argue that such an attempt proceeds in the right direction. Its problem largely lies more in the is part than the ought part: since the descriptive is statement is problematic, the normative ought statement derived from it becomes also problematic. So in the last section of this chapter, I examine Zhu Xi’s neo-Confucian attempt to derive ought from is, which in general structure is similar to the neo-Aristotelian one but starts with a different is statement. I argue that this neo-Confucian one is more promising.
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- 1.
I emphasize that this is how “naturalistic fallacy” has been commonly understood in contrast to what Moore actually means by it. Moore develops this term in his argument that “good” is the most basic intuitive moral idea, which can be used to define other moral ideas (for example, “right”) but itself cannot be defined. Any attempt to define “good,” whether in terms of pleasure or divine commandment, in Moore’s view, commits the naturalistic fallacy: “naturalistic fallacy always implies that when we think ‘this is good,’ what we are thinking is that the thing in question bears a definite relation to some one other thing. But this one thing, by reference to which good is defined, may be either what I may call a natural object … or else it may be an object which is only inferred to exist in supersensible real world” (Moore 2005: 39–40). It has thus to be pointed out that Moore’s use of the term “naturalistic fallacy” is not very strict, since while pleasure is indeed something natural, divine commandment is certainly not. For this reason, W. K. Frankena correctly points out that what Moore really means is the “definitional fallacy” instead of naturalistic fallacy (see Frankena 1939: 469).
- 2.
Other significant attempts include those by Hilary Putnam and Michael Slote. In his The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy and Other Essays, however, the main point that Putnam tries to make is more to debunk the fact/value dichotomy (insisting that no statements are purely descriptive and no statements are purely normative, which still accept the difference between fact and value) than to derive value from fact (see Putnam 2002). More recently, Michael Slote uses a whole chapter in his newest book to develop a sentimentalist derivation of ought from is. In his view, “an ‘is’ statement or proposition about human disposition to approve … enables us to deduce a statement about what is morally right” (Slote 2010: 70–71).
- 3.
This distinction between the two senses of “ought” is made by Alison Jaggar: “a philosopher who was committed to the existence of a logical gap between statements of fact and statements of value … might argue that there are at least two distinct senses of ‘ought’: a descriptive sense, where the speaker is reporting an indisputable, objective matter of fact (though institutional, not brute fact); and an evaluative sense which also carries with it the connotation that the speaker would approve of Jones’s carrying out the payment. The objector might then claim that, so long as the premises were construed as containing only descriptive or analytic statements, the final statement of Searle’s example involved only the former, purely descriptive, sense of ‘ought’” (Jaggar 1974: 375).
- 4.
Michael Martin makes a similar criticism of Searle’s argument: “(1′) Goebbels uttered the words ‘I hereby promise you, Hitler, I will kill five million Jews.’ By an argument similar to Searle’s one arrives at (4′) Goebbels is under an obligation to kill five million Jews. Yet this is absurd. Neither Goebbels nor anyone else could be under a moral obligation, that is have a prima facie moral obligation, to perform a morally outrageous act. This suggests that there is something wrong with Searle’s mode of reasoning up to (4) since the same mode of reasoning leads to (4)” (Martin 1974: 150).
- 5.
A similar attempt, with similar merit as well as deficiency, is made by Paul Bloomfield. Bloomfield directly appeals to Aristotle’s function argument: while a statement of the function of something is clearly a descriptive is statement, a normative ought statement can be derived from such an is statement. For example, if a heart’s function is to pump blood and it does not do its job, we can say that “this is a bad heart” or “this heart ought to pump blood.” By analogy, we can have a descriptive statement of the function of human being and then judge whether a particular human being is good or not (see Bloomfield 2001: 128–52).
- 6.
This is also partly related to her understanding of ethical naturalism, which is “usually thought of as not only basing ethics in some way on considerations of human nature, but also taking human beings to be part of the natural, biological order of living things” (Hursthouse 1999: 206).
- 7.
Hursthouse thus states: “We might say that the fifth end was the preparation of our souls for the life hereafter, or that it was contemplation—the good functioning of the theoretical intellect. But to adopt the first is to go beyond naturalism towards supernaturalism, and even philosophers have baulked at following Aristotle and endorsing the second” (Hursthouse 1999: 218).
- 8.
For Toner, “it is striking that although Foot and Hursthouse carry out their projects in continual dialogue with McDowell, to my knowledge neither they nor [Michael] Thompson take up the criticisms McDowell offers in this article [‘Two Sorts of Naturalism’]” (Toner 2007: 226).
- 9.
For this reason, it is indeed superfluous to add a fifth end as amended by Allen Thompson, according to whom, “just as good lions should develop their capacity for hunt, good human beings should develop their capacity for reason”; and so the development of a normatively autonomous capacity for practical reason is “a natural end of our natural kind … a fifth end for Hursthouse’s botanical and ethological model” (A. Thompson 2007: 260).
- 10.
Frans Svensson makes a similar objection: “She may choose to give up on the idea that nature cannot be normative with respect to human beings [in which case it is no longer an ethical naturalism]. … Or Hursthouse could give up on the idea that four ends of social animals substantially constrain what we can reasonably hold to be a virtue in human beings. But in that case the supposed analogy between evaluation of plants and animals and moral judgments breaks down” (Svensson 2007: 199–201).
- 11.
David Copp and David Sobel even challenge whether Hursthouse’s list of four ends is necessarily superior to competing lists that can be equally scientific, as “there are different ways of approaching scientific study of animal kinds. … and we think there can be correspondingly different conceptions of what makes an animal a good instance of its kind” (Copp and Sobel 2004: 535). For example, they argue that evolutionary biologists, descriptive biologists working on the natural history of a species, and veterinarians concerned for animals in the way doctors are supposed to be concerned with humans may very well each provide a very different list of the ends and aspects of animal from the one Hursthouse provide. However, I think we can at least accept that Hursthouse’s list is one of these objective ones.
- 12.
However, as Gowans points out, if other ends of human beings have analogues in non-human social animals and so can be regarded as natural, “it is hard to see what fact about human nature could play an analogous role in an argument for the claim that our ends should include the well-being of human beings generally” (Gowans 2008: 47).
- 13.
In his essay “On Ren,” Zhu Xi states that “although virtues of the heart/mind are comprehensive and thorough, with nothing lacking, to summarize it in one word, it is ren. Let me try to explain it. The heart/mind of heaven and earth has four virtues: originating, penetrating, harvesting, and correcting, and the virtue of originating is all inclusive; the movement of the heaven and earth is spring, summer, autumn, and winter, and the life-giving force of the spring is all inclusive. Thus human heart/mind also has four virtues: humanity, rightness, propriety, and wisdom, and humanity is all inclusive” (Zhu 1996: 3545). But precisely in what sense does the virtue of humanity lead and include the other virtues? For Zhu Xi, since humanity is what makes a human being a human being, it “itself is the substance, while propriety is rules according to humanity, rightness is judgment [regarding concrete situations] according to humanity, and wisdom is the distinction [between right and wrong] according to humanity” (Zhu 1986: [6] 99).
- 14.
Puzzled by this, a student asks how to explain the primacy of the virtue of humanity. Zhu Xi replies: “This is merely an analogy. But even though one hand does not include the four limbs, still when we talk about hand and foot, hand is before foot, and when we talk about left and right, left is before right” (Zhu 1986: [6] 110). So the left hand, which represents the virtue of humanity, is still primary. (Note: in Chinese, we always say “hand and foot,” never “foot and hand,” and always “left and right” and never “right and left.”)
- 15.
About the virtuous human nature, Zhu Xi says that “generally speaking, humans’ virtuous nature (dexing) naturally has these four: humanity … rightness … propriety … and wisdom” (Zhu 1986: [6] 110); and about virtues of human nature, he states that “humanities, rightness, propriety, and wisdom are all virtues of human nature (xing zhi de)” (Zhu 1986: [101] 2583).
- 16.
This non-statistical notion of “characteristic” as both objective and normative is consistent with Michael Thompson’s conception of form of life. In Thompson’s view, the form of life of a given species is not falsified by some (even a significant number of counter examples of members in the species). Those members of the species that do not have the form of life ought to have it. Here, “what merely ‘ought to be’ in the individual we may say really ‘is’ in its form” (M. Thompson 1995: 295). This view is also consistent with the position David Wong develops on the issue of whether moral reason is internal or external. In contrast to both straightforward internalism and straightforward externalism, Wong adopts a mixed position, which affirms that “while reasons are external with respect to the motivations of the individual agent, they are internal with respect to human nature” (Wong 2006: 188). More precisely, moral reasons, especially in light of Zhu Xi’s view discussed here, are always internal to human nature, but not always internal to individual human beings: they are internal to virtuous agents, although not to agents who are not yet virtuous.
- 17.
To say that tui is the distinguishing mark of being human for Zhu Xi is not contradictory with his characterization of the uniqueness of human beings in terms of principle and vital force: the former is an empirical fact, while the latter is a metaphysical explanation of the fact.
- 18.
For Zhu Xi, only sages do not need to make the effort of tui, but this is only because the four natural qualities in sages are naturally extended: “[the four natural qualities] naturally flow out of sages, nurturing all ten thousand things. But all other people need to make effort to extend [these four qualities] to benefit others” (Zhu 1986: [27] 693; see also his letter to Zhang Jingfu in Zhu 1996: 1316).
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Huang, Y. (2020). Zhu Xi and the Fact/Value Debate: How to Derive Ought from Is. In: Ng, Kc., Huang, Y. (eds) Dao Companion to ZHUXi’s Philosophy. Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy, vol 13. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29175-4_34
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