2024-08-1315:36 Status:PseudoBrief Tags: Razors, laws and principles Hume Naturalist bias Appeal to tradition Hume’s Fork
What ought to be cannot be derived from what is: prescriptive claims cannot be derived solely from descriptive claims, and must depend on other prescriptions. “If the cause, assigned for any effect, be not sufficient to produce it, we must either reject that cause, or add to it such qualities as will give it a just proportion to the effect.
You can’t jump from an is statement like, “it is raining”, to an ought statement like “We should go inside”, without also assuming some other goal, like “I want to remain dry”. Someone with different goals might decide to go outside based on the same information. A bird might be hungry, and going outside when it’s raining might make it more likely to catch worms. A fish might wonder why anyone would want to remain dry in the first place.
Basically, an is statement cannot help you prioritize one goal over another, it can only tell you what course of action is likely to help or hinder whichever goals you choose to pursue.
Source(s)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT7yXG2aJdY = general idea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is–ought_problem = branching https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/r1v09x/eli5_humes_guillotine/ = simplification