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    Indexing 'ought' to different ends fails as an analysis o... — Carmelics
    Home/Moral Responsibility
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    Indexing 'ought' to different ends fails as an analysis of moral obligation

    Moral Responsibility
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    2 reasons for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Indexical analyses of normative terms collapse the distinction Kant draws between hypothetical and categorical imperatives, which tracks a real semantic difference.
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    • 2.If 'ought' were always indexed to contingent ends, moral discourse would be reducible to instrumental rationality, yet Moore's open question argument shows 'good' resists such naturalistic reduction.
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    • 3.Since 'ought' in moral contexts shares the same categorical, non-hypothetical force Moore and Kant identify, indexing it to variable ends misrepresents its semantic structure.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Frege's compositionality principle requires that terms contribute stable semantic content across contexts for inference to be truth-preserving.
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    • 2.If 'ought' shifts its reference with each agent's ends, the valid inference from 'You ought to keep promises' and 'This is a promise' to 'You ought to keep this promise' breaks down.
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    • 3.A semantic analysis that undermines the validity of basic deontic inferences recognized across Hare's prescriptivism and standard deontic logic must be rejected as inadequate.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.If 'ought' statements are indexed to the agent's own ends, then 'We ought to bomb London' (Nazi) and 'Nobody ever ought to bomb anything' (pacifist) would not contradict one another
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    • 2.It is evident that those two statements do contradict one another
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    • 3.An analysis of 'ought' that eliminates genuine contradiction between such statements cannot be correct
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    Topics

    Moral ResponsibilityPhilosophy of Language

    Connections

    1 topic

    Truth & Knowledge2 linked

    Related

    A semantic analysis that undermines the validity of basic deontic inferences rec...An analysis of 'ought' that eliminates genuine contradiction between such statem...Frege's compositionality principle requires that terms contribute stable semanti...If 'ought' shifts its reference with each agent's ends, the valid inference from...
    +5 moreShow less
    If 'ought' statements are indexed to the agent's own ends, then 'We ought to bom...If 'ought' were always indexed to contingent ends, moral discourse would be redu...Indexical analyses of normative terms collapse the distinction Kant draws betwee...It is evident that those two statements do contradict one anotherSince 'ought' in moral contexts shares the same categorical, non-hypothetical fo...

    Similar

    An analysis of 'ought' that eliminates genuine contradiction between s...81%The argument slips between 'ought' (normative) and 'will' (descriptive...80%The 'ought' might instead concern something else, such as religious pr...79%Failing to establish genuine moral obligation is failing to account fo...78%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: russell-moral
    View source passageHide passage
    But, as Russell plainly believes, there is a subject of debate between them, which means that relativistic readings of “good” and “bad” must (at least sometimes) be wrong. A similar problem afflicts his own subsequent analyses of “ought” and “right”. Since their “oughts” are indexed to different ends, it seems that when the Nazi says “We ought to bomb London” and the pacifist says “Nobody ever ought to bomb anything” they are not contradicting one another, though it is as clear as daylight that
    Extraction notes

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

    Details

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