Will, you seem to be saying that ‘ought’ has only one meaning, or one definition. … If so, I’m still not clear on your arguments for this conclusion.
What are your alternatives (at this level of detail)? If I could be using two different definitions, ought1 and ought2, then I expect there are distinguishing arguments that form a decision problem about which of the two I should’ve been using, which in turn determines which of these definitions is the one.
Well, suppose that sometimes, depending on context cues, I use “ought” to mean “paperclip-maximizing”, “prime-pile-maximizing”, and “actually-ought”.
There’s nothing wrong about the first two definitions, they’re totally reasonable definitions a word might have, they just shouldn’t be confused with the third definition, which specifies correct actions.
What are your alternatives (at this level of detail)? If I could be using two different definitions, ought1 and ought2, then I expect there are distinguishing arguments that form a decision problem about which of the two I should’ve been using, which in turn determines which of these definitions is the one.
Well there are cases when I should be using two different words.
For instance, if morality is only one component of the correct decision procedure, then MoralOught and CorrectOught are two different things.
But you’re not talking about those types of cases, right?
Don’t understand what you said. Probably not.
Well, suppose that sometimes, depending on context cues, I use “ought” to mean “paperclip-maximizing”, “prime-pile-maximizing”, and “actually-ought”.
There’s nothing wrong about the first two definitions, they’re totally reasonable definitions a word might have, they just shouldn’t be confused with the third definition, which specifies correct actions.