Steve,
Thanks for this; we seem to be in agreement. Here is my understanding, expressed as simply as possible, and no simpler!
1. The ontology of is begins with quantum gravity. Fundamental particles and forces have been discovered in the universe, including electrons, gravity, and others. I have written my ontology of is here: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wikiversity.org_wiki_Beyond-5FTheism_What-5Fthere-5Fis&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=Yrp85sYF3SiKWmcih0dWryerbK33Q7ecBiJcitbHOug&s=M9URItZdcv1Dhvn0_K0P9ONUipozl8cc9a3Xa9rV-Nc&e= Gregg begins his periodic table at quantum gravity.
2. No moral particles corresponding to electrons have yet been found in the universe. (Ronald Dworkin proposes we call these hypothetical particles morons, in analogy to electrons. If found, morons would provide moral guidance and form the basis of ought. He concludes they do not exist; moral realists disagree. Hope springs eternal!)
3. Therefore, the ontology of ought is a social construct <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wikiversity.org_wiki_Exploring-5FSocial-5FConstructs&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=Yrp85sYF3SiKWmcih0dWryerbK33Q7ecBiJcitbHOug&s=VHJJUpA01cID8YFk1L--t5ziHi1bULHwn0Ft993VwXE&e= > that emerges from human experiences, interactions, and discoveries.
4. We can do this; we are doing this. Many candidates for the construction of a moral ontology have been proposed. Gregg proposes dignity, well-being, and integrity. I proposed flourishing, the golden rule, human dignity, human rights, and facing the grand challenges. Virtues <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wikiversity.org_wiki_Virtues&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=Yrp85sYF3SiKWmcih0dWryerbK33Q7ecBiJcitbHOug&s=ZeSr6ciB47evpU9Y3VZ6hMSsrwPrnTDieAGdcX3bkxQ&e= > (values in practice) have been proposed for millennia, and a consensus seems to be emerging. These concepts are converging toward an ontology of ought. I wrote my moral ontology here: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wikiversity.org_wiki_Moral-5FReasoning&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=Yrp85sYF3SiKWmcih0dWryerbK33Q7ecBiJcitbHOug&s=z-IDBhqV3e46Uk3XCPUheGvD0b3cfEAuNM2em9dhyEA&e=
5. Although it is philosophically true that we cannot derive ought from is, accepting assumptions based on empathy (and perhaps symmetry) can get us there.
6. The work is ongoing. Physicists continue to explore is more deeply. Moral philosophers of all stripes (including psychologists and social scientists) continue to refine our moral reasoning. I use the phrase “seeking real good <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wikiversity.org_wiki_Living-5FWisely_Seeking-5FReal-5FGood&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=Yrp85sYF3SiKWmcih0dWryerbK33Q7ecBiJcitbHOug&s=aGNVyTvYctpRJ2sWC48xJbJGrLH7kqma5D92jo8FHZ8&e= > ” to describe on-going efforts to better understand both is and ought.
Thanks,
Lee Beaumont
From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Steven Quackenbush
Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2020 8:51 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: The Is-Ought Distinction
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Hi everyone,
I'm glad to see that the perennial is-ought problem is getting the attention it deserves on this listserv! For the most part, I don't think psychologists feel the weight of the problem. I'll cite Kohlberg as a noteable exception (as his account of moral development can be read as the progressive de-yoking of is and ought).
Comments:
* Nick writes: "There only IS, there is no ought."
* There's a sense in which I agree with this. The "ought" lacks ontic being. It is not. All we can say about it is that it should be.
* I think we are making a category mistake when we question the existence of Value (akin to asking about the volume of a triangle).
* We can indeed speak of "values" as existing states of affairs (as when we compare the ideologies that inform the thinking of liberals and conservatives in the United States). But these are simply values considered as facts. Value as such is left untouched in these discussions. In the end, the question is not "what do I value", but rather, "what should I value?"
* Michael writes: "Oughts are created in the very process of our intersubjective engagement with each other"
* I agree, at least insofar as intersubjective engagement (the cultural dimension of human experience) gives rise to the problem of value.
* From this point of view, an important question concerns why the problem is ignored (or deemed irrelevant) by otherwise thoughtful individuals.
* For some, I suspect that a tendency to deny the reality of the "ought" is a healthy response to an Other who imposes (or threatens to impose) ego-dystonic values. In other words, standing against the "ought" may be a first step on the path to spiritual freedom. I'm reminded here of the second of Nietzsche's "three metamorphoses" (see link <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__nietzsche.holtof.com_Nietzsche-5Fthus-5Fspake-5Fzarathustra_I-5F01.html&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=rVhOmXU3MCP8htFkeCtogMLYieVZAI38mxfKDkvztLo&s=_RU4xYbAM63ZwWu4NHzbrD2Lo_lZQqm609kzYB166fw&e=> ). But, needless to say, the "ought" so denied is not the Ought that ought to be.
* For others, a failure to appreciate the weight of the is-ought problem might be attributable to the fact that the problem is truly meaningless in the context of their experience. How do we explain the concept of color to a person blind since birth? How do we explain Value to someone who has never really been anything other than what they are.
* I'm reminded here of Sartre's discussion of the role that generative relationships (e.g., parenting) play in encouraging individuals to cross "the barrier of the moment" and consider their lives in relation to a valuable future.
* According to Sartre (1971/1981), “if later on, with a little luck, [the child] can say: ‘my life has a purpose, I have found a purpose in my life,’ it is because the parents’ love, their creation and expectation…has revealed his existence to him as a movement toward an end...He is the conscious arrow that is awakened in mid-flight and discovers, simultaneously, the distant archer, the target, and the intoxication of flight” (p. 133).
* Simply put, the individual's subjective experience of time as unfolding toward a meaningful future is contingent upon the fact that his/her existence was already meaningful to someone else.
* This, I think, is an important aspect of what Michael refers to as "our intersubjective engagement with each other".
When these relationships break down (e.g., when I am little more than an object in the eyes of the Other), the is-ought distinction collapses with it.
* All this has stunning implications: The is-ought problem is not really a "philosophical" problem at all. Or, if you prefer, there are psychosocial conditions that must be met in order for a person to participate in this sort of philosophical inquiry.
~ Steve Q.
On Sat, Nov 28, 2020 at 4:31 PM Andrea Zagaria <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> > wrote:
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Beautifully said, Micheal.
I merely dissent on the juxtaposition of natural vs human/social sciences. Humans are natural beings, so the symbolization ability is inherently natural. Don`t get me wrong: there is no doubt an epistemological emergence in the cultural dominion due to something like Gregg`s JH (he would probably argue for an onto_epistemicological emergence, I nevertheless prefer to focus only on a epistemological plane, as I have some concerns with ontological emergentism). Social sciences are legitimately separated from natural sciences. However, I have some concerns in labelling morality as something that is not natural. Maybe it should be better to describe it as something that needs more than a naturalistic paradigm to be satisfactorily explained, I won't question you on that. But that morality is not natural, that doesn't sound convincing.
Neither I am an advocate of neuroethics, for the record. Social sciences are on a different plane of
explanation (connected to " lower " planes, though not determined by them).
A beautiful essay by the philosopher Alex Morgan came to my mind ("representations gone mental"). He argues that symbolization is present not only in animals but also in plants and maybe in things as well. As always, the problem is that we do not have a unanimous definition of what a symbol is.
In TOK`s terms, however, symbolic justification is uniquely human. Problem is, we do not exactly know what a justification is. As Gregg knows, I have my personal formulation (a proposition aimed at explaining why), but perhaps I am going too far....
Any thoughts?
Andrea
Il sab 28 nov 2020 21:38 Greg Thomas <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> > ha scritto:
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Thanks, Michael, for bringing up insights by Kenneth Burke. He was a favorite of two of my key intellectual and cultural influences, Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray.
Here's a post-election essay in which I refer to Burke also:
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.tuneintoleadership.com_blog_election-2Dreflections-2Dand-2Dthe-2Dblues-2Didiom&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=Yrp85sYF3SiKWmcih0dWryerbK33Q7ecBiJcitbHOug&s=p6rAFE2xm0L_eyyQ50zW0Zoy-Z4aIkBiHyKTULs-dBU&e= <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.tuneintoleadership.com_blog_election-2Dreflections-2Dand-2Dthe-2Dblues-2Didiom&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=QscKv3YjvxhGbrSz5LurOMaJrmEROKMKND9yQAlFo3Q&s=S9KxYbM6riQ0w4B1o0JJuKz510kDBH4L0rgFqNUlbKk&e=>
Greg Thomas
On Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 12:56 PM Michael Mascolo <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> > wrote:
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Nick and All:
Nick: I read your Is-Ought Fallacy essay with interest.
I will focus only on the central point as it relates to the is-ought fallacy. You write:
There only IS, there is no ought. There can’t be an ought outside of an idea, which is a conclusion subjectively derived either mentally or biologically to perpetuate a belief system or evolutionary process, respectively and very generally speaking in a mind and matter dialectic.
In his famous "definition of man" [sic], Kenneth Burke, building on Spinoza, remarked that “there is no negative in nature”. That is, there is only “there” in nature — there is no “not there”. The “not there” is provided by symbol using animals. With the capacity to build symbols, humans (and some other animals) are capable of inventing the negative — the “no — the “not there”. And with the “not there” — this wonderful invention of symbol using (and mis-using) animals, comes the capacity for morality — that is, the sense of what is “not there” but should or ought to be there.
In this way, I would suggest that Nick is right that there is no ought in the natural world — no reason why the tiger ought not to eat the lamb. However, there are oughts in the human world — in the human world of shared symbolically-mediated experience. Oughts are forms of evaluation (what the philosopher Charles Taylor calls “strong evaluations”) . They are brought into existence through the human capacity for symbolization as it occurs within intersubjective exchanges with others. That is to say that the “ideas” of which “oughts” are a part are not simply subjective constructions; ideas are not private experiences that are encased within individual persons. Ideas have their basis in the human capacity for symbolic and intersubjective (that is “inter-experiential) engagement with each other. Oughts are created in the very process of our intersubjective engagement with each other: I take the bread out of your mouth; you resist, cry, strike out; I feel empathy, fear or the like. We now have the task of figuring out how we ought coordinate our needs. This brings us to the oughts of morality.
And so, I suggest that oughts exist — not the the natural world, but in the intersubjective world of human relations. Although the intersubjective world is constructed, it is as real as the material world. It just exists in our human experience.
All my very best,
Mike
Michael F. Mascolo, Ph.D.
Academic Director, Compass Program
Professor, Department of Psychology
Merrimack College, North Andover, MA 01845
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Things move, persons act. -- Kenneth Burke
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On Nov 28, 2020, at 12:24 PM, Nicholas Lattanzio <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> > wrote:
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Well Gregg, that does appear to be the question doesn't it? I imagine the 1st-person perspective equivalent to what you're describing as me being able to see in all directions, and based on what is perceived make attempts to look at itself by those same perceptual processes. Like the hole in a donut trying to see itself as the donut and the hole simultaneously. Although you may not be satisfied with my answer, which of course comes from a nondual perspective, I hope you can see the value of the position I take in finding an answer from the position you take, I believe therein lies the key, a sort of nondual empiricism.
But I think we'd agree that the situation you've described is our current state of affairs (i.e, literally all of your work to systematize knowledge and more). I think that this kind of barrier is in our definition of ourselves. "We" can't get that view as individual human beings or forms of life. The systems, ecological and otherwise, that allow life to exist also can't get that view. They are two sides of the same coin, and we are that coin. We are that unknown knower. I am this (a human, secondarily identified as "Nik") so that I can know that (apparently external reality), and I am that (the reality) so that I can know/be this (the apparently separate individual human identified as "Nik"). To define my existence according to only what I am conscious of or can be made conscious of (our existing knowledge systems) doesn't appreciate the limitations of the human organism, nor does it give credence to the omnipotence of existence itself.
I was free writing about this earlier in thinking about Is-Ought, I figure I'll format into an essay but I've attached it below. It may better address your question if I am understanding it correctly. Quite a thought-provoking discussion!
Regards,
Nicholas G. Lattanzio, Psy.D.
On Sat, Nov 28, 2020 at 9:54 AM Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> > wrote:
Thanks, Nik. As you know, I am a big fan.
Here is my question:
What if the object you are looking at is an evolving 7 dimensional set of nested cones that we are both inside of but trying to get an outside view of?
(To get seven plus the inside/out, there are three space, one time in Matter, which is four, then there the superimposed Life, Mind, and Culture dimensions, then there is the scientist that is from the inside trying to be on the outside, the there is the Imaginary Garden perspective that factors the scientific knower perspective in then out which then collapses into wisdom energy)
Hope folks have a good break 😄✌️.
G
Sent from my iPad
On Nov 28, 2020, at 10:18 AM, Nicholas Lattanzio <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> > wrote:
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Greetings all!
I hope everyone was able to enjoy some sort of festivities with loved ones in recent days.
Given the complex nature of the varied listserv discussions and community presentations over the past few months in particular, I thought I'd share this short (7min) bit of wisdom spoken by the brilliant Daniel Schmachtenberger. Enjoy!!
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__youtu.be_ZNcyc-5FsEtpU&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=Yrp85sYF3SiKWmcih0dWryerbK33Q7ecBiJcitbHOug&s=5yAYd9MGuu2U4hzPheQ4DbtWHSKjxztO-c9AP4BjEmw&e= <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__youtu.be_ZNcyc-5FsEtpU&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=zPCtsvHTO1_srLNBYxiLq3MphYKIqpWTRXplqU9H_fQ&s=vFydBqoN6IlVrdLwkI3llciIB4XYhpFzJYGOo2OUlDQ&e=>
Regards,
Nicholas G. Lattanzio, Psy.D.
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<The Is-Ought Fallacy_Free Writing1.pdf>
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