I’m afraid my schedule prevents me from keeping up with such a fast paced conversation. I don’t see that any of you have attempted to address my three claims. Metacrock, rather than attempt to show the error in them, you map my claims to genetics and determinism. I am not appealing to either. Just because genetics is a factor in defining me as a volitional being rather than as a rock doesn’t mean genetics defines morality. We are volitional beings. Entailed in our nature as rational beings is the need to guide our choices and actions in ways that obtains value. Values are always in the context of the valuer, the one doing the valuing, choosing, and acting. And as I have pointed out before, objective values are not whim based. If you think something is a value when it is really a disvalue then it is really a disvalue whether you realize it or not. As long as objective values with respect to the valuer are the basis for guiding the valuer’s choices and actions, in general the life of the valuer, living and thriving, is going to be at bottom (when the valuer ceases to live, the value system becomes incoherent much like the value system of a rock). In order to obtain living and thriving there are certain actions that you ought to do and there are certain actions that you ought not do. This sure seems to refute the is-ought problem. Could we all just stop with the Hume/MacIntyre/Harris appeals to authority and focus on this argument? And saying things like “You have not done anything to turn an is into an ought. You never will. It can't be done,” doesn’t cut it. I claim,
Come on Miles, Metacrock, runamokmonk, and Met, address the argument please.1. It is a fact that, at least generally speaking, the propensity to flourish is integral to our nature as an organism qua organism.
2. It is a fact that, at least generally speaking, as rational beings, we stand to benefit or to suffer loss by believing, choosing, and acting in particular ways.
3. It is a fact that, at least generally speaking, in accordance with our nature as organisms and in particular as rational volitional beings, in order for the one who’s doing the valuing, choosing, and acting to flourish, that individual ought to prefer to flourish, and that individual ought to act in ways that promote flourishing, and that individual ought not act in ways that adversely affect flourishing.
Rob