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    Aquinas's ethics does not invalidly attempt to deduce 'ou... — Carmelics
    Home/Virtue Ethics
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    Aquinas's ethics does not invalidly attempt to deduce 'ought' from 'is'

    Truth & KnowledgeVirtue Ethics
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Aquinas repeatedly affirms that practical reason's first principles are undeduced
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    • 2.If practical reason's first principles are undeduced, then the sources of all relevant 'oughts' cannot be deduced from any 'is'
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.Aquinas grounds the first precept of natural law ('good is to be done') in the metaphysical claim that good is what all things seek by nature.
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    • 2.Deriving normative force from a teleological fact about natural inclinations still moves from 'is' (what nature seeks) to 'ought' (what reason prescribes).
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    • 3.The appeal to 'undeduced' practical principles conceals rather than eliminates the naturalistic inference embedded in Aquinas's account of the good.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.MacIntyre and Lisska argue Aquinas's ethics is defensible precisely because it embeds norms in natural teleology, but this concedes that 'is' facts about human nature do normative work.
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    • 2.If human nature's teleological structure is doing the justificatory work, then the practical principles are not truly self-evident but functionally derived from metaphysical biology.
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    • 3.A principle whose content is fully determined by facts about natural ends cannot be 'undeduced' in the sense required to escape Hume's guillotine.
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    Related

    A principle whose content is fully determined by facts about natural ends cannot...Aquinas grounds the first precept of natural law ('good is to be done') in the m...Aquinas repeatedly affirms that practical reason's first principles are undeduce...Deriving normative force from a teleological fact about natural inclinations sti...
    +4 moreShow less
    If human nature's teleological structure is doing the justificatory work, then t...If practical reason's first principles are undeduced, then the sources of all re...MacIntyre and Lisska argue Aquinas's ethics is defensible precisely because it e...The appeal to 'undeduced' practical principles conceals rather than eliminates t...

    Similar

    One cannot derive an 'ought' from an 'is' (Hume's is-ought gap).83%An analysis of 'ought' that eliminates genuine contradiction between s...80%All attempts to cross the is-ought gap are questionable78%Aristotle's function argument is vulnerable to the is-ought criticism.77%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: aquinas-moral-political
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    Aquinas’s repeated affirmation that practical reason’s first principles are undeduced refutes the common accusation or assumption that his ethics invalidly attempts to deduce or infer ought from is, for his affirmation entails that the sources of all relevant oughts cannot be deduced from any is. There remain, however, a number of contemporary Thomists who deny that such a deduction or inference need be fallacious, and regard Aquinas as postulating some such deduction or inference. They are chal
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit