[lit-ideas] Re: Grice and Foot on the foundations of morality
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2010 10:23:40 +0100 (BST)
--- On Thu, 7/10/10, Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> It is not necessary to identify the 'naturalistic
> fallacy' with Moore's views any more than it is necessary to
> identify the right account of 'dialectical materialism' with
> Marx, or of utilitarianism with Bentham, or of 'empiricism'
> with Locke, or of 'falsificationism' with Popper, or of 'the
> private language argument' with Wittgenstein.>>>
> It may not be 'necessary,' whatever that means, but it's
> correct. Although Bentham coined the expression (so I'm
> told) his use of it was not Moore's. 'Russell's Paradox' can
> be thought about without referring to Russell. But knowing
> who 'discovered' it, and in the course of what, is something
> every schoolchild should know.
The question every schoolchild might ask here is:- if the so-called
'naturalistic fallacy' need not be identified with Moore's arguments, because
it has a wider and more varied 'use' as an expression, then in what way is it
"correct" - and only "correct" - to identify the expression with its use by
Moore [who, RP points out, did not even originate the expression]?
As is seen directly below I did in effect conflate the 'naturalistic fallacy'
with the issue of whether an 'is' is derivable from an 'ought':-
> Donal then explains himself.
> >> In broad terms the 'naturalistic fallacy' is about
> whether an 'ought' can be derived from an 'is' or whether a
> standard of evaluation can be deduced from a set of facts.
Robert then tips me the wink:-
> For a comment on the conflation of the naturalistic fallacy
> with the is-ought problem, see that indispensable
> philosophical reference work, Wikipedia.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy
Yet that entry seems to accept that the "conflation" is unobjectionable:-
>The is-ought problem
Main article: Is-ought problem
The term "naturalistic fallacy" is also sometimes used to describe the
deduction of an "ought" from an "is" (the Is-ought problem), and has inspired
the use of mutually reinforcing terminology which describes the converse
(deducing an "is" from an "ought") either as the "reverse naturalistic fallacy"
or the "moralistic fallacy." An example of a naturalistic fallacy in this sense
would be to conclude Social Darwinism from the theory of evolution by natural
selection, and of the reverse naturalistic fallacy to argue that the immorality
of survival of the fittest implies the theory of evolution is false. Moralists
Jeremy Bentham and Immanuel Kant both indicated the is-ought problem in order
to identify their theories of morality and law.>
This is clearly the sense in which I used the term 'naturalistic fallacy', a
sense in which the "term...is also sometimes used."
What might well be objectionable would be identifying Moore's account of the
'naturalistic fallacy' with the 'is-ought' problem. I did not do this. Indeed I
never mentioned Moore in my post criticising arguments put in the obituary -
Robert brought him into it afair.
But while identifying Moore's account with the is-ought problem would be a
mistake, the Wiki article does state the two are "related" and I think that is
correct even if only for the simple reason that if 'oughts' were merely a kind
of empirical fact then a 'naturalistic' account of morals would seem to be not
only possible but correct.
Dnl
Ldn
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