I’m commenting on the post-change “Is-Ought” section. It seems to me that most of the examples given of “ought” reductions do not support the conclusion that “the is-ought gap can be bridged”, because the reductions are wrong. Anyone can propose a naturalistic definition of “ought”, but at a minimum, to be right a translation of an “ought” statement into an “is” statement has to preserve the truth value of the “ought” statement, and most of the reductions listed fail to do so.
Take the first example:
“X is obligatory (by deontic logic) if you assume axiomatic imperatives Y and Z.”
If you give me any specific proposal for Y and Z, I’m pretty sure I can find an X such that “you ought to X” is obviously false and “X is obligatory (by deontic logic) if you assume axiomatic imperatives Y and Z” is true, or vice versa.
I’m commenting on the post-change “Is-Ought” section. It seems to me that most of the examples given of “ought” reductions do not support the conclusion that “the is-ought gap can be bridged”, because the reductions are wrong. Anyone can propose a naturalistic definition of “ought”, but at a minimum, to be right a translation of an “ought” statement into an “is” statement has to preserve the truth value of the “ought” statement, and most of the reductions listed fail to do so.
Take the first example:
If you give me any specific proposal for Y and Z, I’m pretty sure I can find an X such that “you ought to X” is obviously false and “X is obligatory (by deontic logic) if you assume axiomatic imperatives Y and Z” is true, or vice versa.