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Mon 22 Oct, 2007 03:46 am
The philosopher would argue that Kinsey draws an unjustified conclusion for one cannot derive 'ought' from 'is' - no matter how large a sample, how many 'is' type facts are gathered they never add up to an 'ought'. But we do it all the time. I see a car coming, and a woman and child stepping off the pavement into the road. She's distracted by the child and doesn't see the car. Should I stop her? Of course I ought to, but why?
No philosophy I've read would argue that I ought not - not even Neitzche, but no one can tell me why I should. Surely this is a failure of philosophy - because, given the 'is' of the situation I really 'ought' to stop her and her child being killed. My own philosophy - Theory A for convenience sake, can explain why.
Theory A begins with an understanding of evolution as the accumulation of function, and in these terms conceptualizes human beings, showing how abstract conceptual thought, the defining characteristic of human beings, arose from unconscious, instinctual behavior.
Abstract conceptual thought allows for the formation of conceptual schemes, employed to reconcile perceptions in non-contradictory relation to form understanding. These conceptual schemes are basically ideas - and perceptions are limited, but accurate to reality. Thus, when I perceive the scene of the woman, child and approaching car - these are initially just perceptions devoid of meaningful content of any kind.
These are the 'is' of the philosopher's argument - but these are never actually experienced. As Talcott Parsons assures us in 'A Theory of Social Action' - 'all talk of raw sense data or the unformed stream of consciousness is methodological abstraction, legitimate and important for certain purposes, but nonetheless abstraction.'
Raw sense data, (or limited, accurate perception) is gathered, but processed before it's experienced - and processed in a manner that imbues the data with meaning. The perceptions are reconciled in terms of conceptual schemes, in fact neurological structures, that stimulated by perceptual data imbue perception with meaning.
These neurological structures are developed by practice in relation to experience - including inner reflection - that the individual would have to be massively deranged by experience to experience the meaningful content of these perceptions as an imperative to watch these people get run over rather than an imperative to call out a warning. Is it impossible that someone might be just so deranged? Perhaps not, but there's no stipulation of abnormal psychology in the 'ought' from 'is' argument. Indeed, we'd expect to be dealing with normal reason.
In the course of a normal life, the individual will experience many situations that are in some way like this - experiencing them as the child (watching others interact) as the mother (helped by others) and as the agent (helping.) Observation and practice make for the formation of the neurological structures that imbue these perceptions with their ought-ness. Only abnormal experiences (not conducive to individual or social function) could result in neurological structures that would reconcile these perceptions in such a way that the individual experience an impulse to watch them die.
One might argue that these are sufficient, but not necessary conditions - but I'd disagree. It's necessary to individual and social function that we do so - individual and social function being necessary to the normal psychology with which we'd expect to be working. One might argue that I've shifted the grounds of the argument - introducing a condition between is and ought - that of individual and social function, but again, this is how the experiencing individual develops and functions.
My own philosophy argues that in an evolutionary context science does provide a guide to morality and ethics, and that we ought to act to survive the threat of extinction that is bearing down upon us. In essence I'm calling out the warning 'hey lady, look out' to the whole of humankind - for distracted by childishness, we are not paying attention to the road.
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