The facts about what people do value does greatly contribute to the field of ethics. The facts show that values vary, not only between societies and cultures, but also between individuals, and sometimes these values can contradict each other. What science cannot say is whether morality should be relative merely because people's ideas of morality vary, though there is some underlying commonality between all ethical systems, and that's the cooperation between individuals within a group.

The 'is' to 'ought' problem says that a moral sentence cannot be justified based on the principle alone. The claim that you can go from 'is' to 'ought' as a justification of morality is circular logic. Moral sentences do not state objective facts about nature. There is nothing inherently good or bad about the functions of the universe or the actions of the beings within the universe. Things are only good or bad based on the perceiver. For example, someone may say that killing someone is bad because it causes harm, and therefore killing is morally wrong, but that same person will say that killing in self-defense is right. If you adopt the 'is' to 'ought' argument, then killing in self-defense is also wrong because it causes harm. A lion eating you for dinner is also morally wrong because it causes harm, and vica-versa. Nothing in nature is objectively right or wrong, or good or bad, and so 'is' to 'ought' fails as an argument for morality.

When did I ever say that "The fact that ought is now based on is-facts and/or is-descriptions is a justification for morality"??! Is this a Straw-Man Arguament or a Red Herring?

When and where did I say that a moral sentence can be justified based on the principle alone?

While much of what you say is true, and while Nature seems to be neutral, we have no way of knowing whether it is indifferent to human survival or human welfare.

Let's be a little humble here. It is true that the size of W Cephei or Antares makes us seem pretty-darn insignificant Relative to them we are not even as big as a mold spore. We're the size of a quark -- or smaller. I keep this video on my desktop to remind me:
[URL="http://%5BURL"]/[/URL]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYOhHmuAUG0"]www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYOhHmuAUG0
From the perspective of Ethics though, as I define it, we are infinite treasures of value!

To be ethical is to recognize that!

Morality is something else again. As you know from studying my manual named ETHICS, it seemed appropriate for me to define the formula in my coherent system, that is:
x epsilon X as morality.
It fitted right in. The left-hand-side formula - one of class membership - is to be interpreted, consistently, as self being true to the inner Self....viz., the physical, objective self corresponding one-to-one to the (meaningful part of the) self-concept.

{ When I speak of symbols being interpeted, recall that every good science has three parts: the theory [a Model of models]; the data [to be explained]; and the Rules of Interpretation }

When we are true to our own true self - as Shakespeare so insightfully noted - we 'cans't be false to any man.'

So, To Thine Own Self Be True!

For if at the root we are all connected -- if nature is a seamless web -- then by being really true to yourself, you are true to everybody.

This is something worth striving for. It is called Integrity. It means we live an integrated life, an authentic life, a life of love and joy. It means we have peace of mind no matter what is going on all around us ...even in a crisis ... even if the walls crumble and the roof collapses and our beloved leaves us, we are not perturbed (much.) We swing into action, but we let nothing disrupt our peace. For our faith carries us through. What is this faith? We believe deeply that the Universe is friendly, that we are its expression, and share in its power. We are, too, energy plus information. We too have untapped resources.
[Why not believe what works?]

(Who, 50 years ago, would have believed you if you told them that one day you could push a button on a thumbnail size remote control, and your car headlights would go on, and its door unlock -- that there is an invisible force that works right through brick walls and brick floors two or three stories down? Or that on a portable phone smaller than a palm we can communicate in Oskaloosa, Iowa with someone in Athens, Greece? Who can gainsay now that there is not also an anti-gravity force in our air that will do some marvelous things?) How do we know that there are not other invisible forces in Nature ready to serve mankind?
We don't.

So when we discuss nature and its relationship to human natuire we ought to be very humble, and admit our ignorance.

I... we agree more than we disagree, and our disagreement may simple stem from miscomprehension on either side.

Just so we get this straight, I strongly believe in morality and value philosophy. I just don't believe that values are objective propositions, or true or false. I'm what they call a meta-ethical non-cognitivist.

I believe that we can know whether nature is indifferent towards human welfare, or the welfare of any other animal for that matter. Nature is not intentional, it is circumstantial. The theory of evolution by way of natural selection alone is telling of this fact. ...Of course I'm willing to change this position when nature shows evidence of intent that resemble the intentional appetites of conscious organisms, but until then I will remain an axiological subjectivist.

When did I ever say that "The fact that ought is now based on is-facts and/or is-descriptions is a justification for morality"??! Is this a Straw-Man Arguament or a Red Herring?

When and where did I say that a moral sentence can be justified based on the principle alone?

While much of what you say is true, and while Nature seems to be neutral, we have no way of knowing whether it is indifferent to human survival or human welfare.

Let's be a little humble here. It is true that the size of W Cephei or Antares makes us seem pretty-darn insignificant Relative to them we are not even as big as a mold spore. We're the size of a quark -- or smaller. I keep this video on my desktop to remind me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfs1t-2rrOM&NR=1

From the perspective of Ethics though, as I define it, we are infinite treasures of value!

To be ethical is to recognize that!

Morality is something else again. As you know from studying my manual named ETHICS, it seemed appropriate for me to define the formula in my coherent system, that is:
x epsilon X as morality.
It fitted right in. The left-hand-side formula - one of class membership - is to be interpreted, consistently, as self being true to the inner Self....viz., the physical, objective self corresponding one-to-one to the (meaningful part of the) self-concept.

{ When I speak of symbols being interpeted, recall that every good science has three parts: the theory [a Model of models]; the data [to be explained]; and the Rules of Interpretation }

When we are true to our own true self - as Shakespeare so insightfully noted - we 'cans't be false to any man.'

So, To Thine Own Self Be True!

For if at the root we are all connected -- if nature is a seamless web -- then by being really true to yourself, you are true to everybody.

This is something worth striving for. It is called Integrity. It means we live an integrated life, an authentic life, a life of love and joy. It means we have peace of mind no matter what is going on all around us ...even in a crisis ... even if the walls crumble and the roof collapses and our beloved leaves us, we are not perturbed (much.) We swing into action, but we let nothing disrupt our peace. For our faith carries us through. What is this faith? We believe deeply that the Universe is friendly, that we are its expression, and share in its power. We are, too, energy plus information. We too have untapped resources.
[Why not believe what works?]

(Who, 50 years ago, would have believed you if you told them that one day you could push a button on a thumbnail size remote control, and your car headlights would go on, and its door unlock -- that there is an invisible force that works right through brick walls and brick floors two or three stories down? Or that on a portable phone smaller than a palm we can communicate in Oskaloosa, Iowa with someone in Athens, Greece? Who can gainsay now that there is not also an anti-gravity force in our air that will do some marvelous things?) How do we know that there are not other invisible forces in Nature ready to serve mankind?
We don't.

So when we discuss nature and its relationship to human natuire we ought to be very humble, and admit our ignorance.

Deep thot...You must be edjufide to speak as you do...My thought is, If you need a hartman to tell you what good is; you will never know...If you want to know, you need a heart, because we first move toward the good for self and neighbors upon what we feel is good, and only after the fact do we reason about it... Try to remember that Plato and Socrates wanted to know what virtue was so they could teach it... You cannot teach virtue even if you can learn it, but when we learn it, virtue, or what we call ethical behavior is only affection, or love, or familiarity, or common purpose... You cannot teach ethics to individuals because once you have taught them that they are individuals you have removed the ethical reference from their lives, and that, in short, is ones identification of self with group... People teach and preach individualism and wonder why we are not more moral... The more individual a person is the less moral they become...To read of primitives is to read of moral society... Their word was their bond...Their life was their honor.... What do we care how we are viewed by our society??? The answer to this question tells in a moment how moral we are...

I am glad we agree more than we disagree. That's good.

But "meta-ethical non-cognitivism" is a very dangerous doctrine for cognitive creatures. Review how Paul Blanshard put the ethical non-cognitivists in their place in his widely-reprinted little essay, The Impasse In Ethics--And A Way Out.

Will you please define for me "subjectivism" and "objectivism."

I like Bertrand Russell's witty comment: "Objectivity is a delusion shared by several lunatics at once."

Whatever objectivity is, didn't I show in my manual, that the formulas - such as 'x is a member of the class-oncept X' - is objective, in the sense that it can be written on the blackboard in schoolrooms all over our planet? It can be universaly taught. Why is that not objective? I believe it is. Just as objective as a calculus formula - which then might serve us by being interpreted, say, in terms of electrical circuits.

Didn't I admit in an earllier post in this thread that we can't take subjectivity out of it because - in Ethics - we are dealing with human subjects, human beings. Because their is subjectivity does not rule out that there can be objectivity too alongside of it. Does it?

The "X" part of the morality formula refers to a living individual with all kinds of subjective beliefs. Yet the formula itself (incorporating that X, and on a higher logical level) is objective ! The formula, being a definition in a thoretical model, is not to be confused with what it is explicating. Botany is not the rose. The rose smells; the science of Botany doesn't!! I'm sure you know this. The formula is in meta-Ethics; the subjective human person can know (or fail to know) his ethics. Ethics, being a knowledge discipline, is not subjective -- at least it doesn't have to be. It can be based upon a set of facts (about human beings.)

I will grant that facts are value-laden; and values are fact-laden. See for example a purportedly descriptive word such as: cruel. Or the word:
fetus. Yet there is an infintely-deep abyss between fact and value, each on their own side of the abyss. Values are a play with facts: we play with facts when we create -- we re-shuffle them. Creativity and valuation are inteimately related. Anyhow, my book, ETHICS, shows by its definition of "x is a good C" that the good can be objective. The use of variables means that a wide range of data may be in the application of the formulae. I don't comprehend how this can be denied. {I may be suffering from a miscomprehension.} So please set me straight.

There is a great danger, Fido, that people will become conformists, and - if they listen to Hegel - subservient to The State. He was a statist, and convinced a lot of Germans who later came to almost worship Der Fueher.

Let me differentiate among two concepts that are often conflated:

Individualism versus Individuality.

The former (individualism) we are both against for many good reasons.

The latter (individuality) suggests uniqueness, autonomy, having a personality that is not herd-minded; that doesn't feel compelled to 'keep up appearances', that is inner-directed rather than merely outer-directed.

There is no such thing as the supposed "rugged Individual," or "the self-made man." It is a myth.

To have individuality, though, is highly to be desired. Every individual should have it. Your position, that there are no individual persons, sounds a lot like monism. There is only "society." But this scares me. I am I. There is no one else (just) like me. [Ask my wife; she'll tell you.] Sure, I was molded and fashionedby various grops, but also by other individuals. Certain teachers greatly influenced me. I am, however,, an individual person. I like that construct. "Society" to me is the fiction. So is the "nation" when it implies a sovereignty that used to be attributed to kings (or queens). To me that presents a clear and present danger, namely, the pursuit of war. War I define as: organized mass-murder in the name of a good cause.

Heaven forbid we should succumb to the pressures of society.

Conformity is a systemic value.
Individualism is an extrinisc value.
Individuality is intrinsic value. (The more you look, the more you'll find.)

Bertrand Russell's statement refers to inter-subjectivity or the agreement between more than one person on the status of a proposition.... I disagree that non-cognitivism is dangerous because it hasn't hurt me one bit. It's only helped me to understand the forces behind moral sentences, which are both emotive and prescriptive.

Cognitivism, and every variant of axiological objectivism, makes the absurd argument that sentences that express sentiment such as "that sunset is beautiful", or "that feels bad", state objective facts about reality. In other words, the objectivist believes that subjective sentiments express truths that are independent of the perceiver. Such sentiments do not state objective facts about nature because they are dependent on the mind....

Ethics is not a knowledge discipline because it deals with values, and values are subjective, i.e. mind dependent. Descriptive ethics and value theory, which empirically studies what people value and maybe even why they value them, is an objective study of a subjective phenomenon. Meta-ethics goes further because it also deals with the justification of moral sentiments, and moral sentiments cannot be justified by the facts of nature.

Minds, and human nature, are parts of nature. The mind may be the "software" and the body the "hardware" but they are both nature.

Of course I was expressing a perspective. And when you bring up the issue of truth, that is a whole other thread. I will offer a thread on it at The Epistemology Forum.

Emotivism and Prescriptivism will eventually be dangerous to humanity by minimizing and de-emphasizing the role of reason in human affairs.

I guess you haven't examined Blanchard's good arguments refuting those positions yet.

Nature alone cannot justify morality because nature is not a moral agent. ...

No, we can talk about whether there's a such thing as moral truth right here in the ethics forum. The fields of philosophy overlap plenty of times. The main idea of the discussion is ethical, so let's keep it in the ethics forum....

Emotivism is the theory that moral sentences express emotional or sentimental values. Prescriptivism is the theory that moral sentences are meant to prescribe an agent to do acts that are good and prevent an agent from doing acts that are bad. These are semantic theories, and as such they say nothing about the use of reason in moral justification. That's called moral rationalism, and it's completely compatible with both theories. Non-cognitivism is only dangerous if you make it so, and the same goes for any theory.

The only people who still argue from 'is' to 'ought' are people who usually don't understand

Nature alone cannot justify morality because nature is not a moral agent.

You write:

I never said any such thing as "nature alone can justify morality." Is this a case of The Straw Man Fallacy? or of The Red Herring? Or both?

You also speak of "people who argue from "is" to "ought" as if I did that. I don't accept the charge that this applies to me.

I merely said that human nature, including its cognitions and conceptions, were a part of nature and deserve study. Moral Psychology - a branch of Psychology - is a going science and it is doing a fine job so far. I believe in the utility of experimentation in the field of Ethics, and I am in good company. See EXPERIMENTS IN ETHICS, a book by Princeton Univ. Professor of Philosophy, Dr. Anthony Apiah. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008).

I define "good" in a Non-naturalist way, such that it passes G. E. Moore's Open Question test. I use Robert S. Hartman's definition, as you will note if and when you read my brief ETHICS book. ...brief as books go.
http://tinyurl.com/2mj5b3
We don't define good-in-general but rather "x is a good C at time t." That is called 'a contextual definition.' It turns out that "good" serves as a quantifier - an axiological one - in direct analogy with the logical quantifier All.

And "valuable" is the axiological parallel with the logical quantifier Some.

You will see there also how we define "ought." It is based upon a series of descriptions, and is a relation between an inddividual and some specific circumstances, and requires the prior definition, "better for."

The latter is based upon the Axiom of Value, which says that something is valuable to the degree it fulfills its concept, or exemplifies it. Again this requires intersubjective or public agreement as to states of affaires. However, by making the issue objective and rational, serious disputes can be avoided that today somethimes result in violence -- because clarity today is lacking.

English words (or other local tongues) are so vague and ambiguous. Using formulas and logic symbols, and consistent interpretations of them, takes a lot of the ambiguity out of it.

Formal Axiology demonstrates that systems are worth very little relative to feelings, involvements, emphasis and empathy -- but it takes logic to do the demonstration, to prove this logically ...which I can do, if anyone is interested. But math and logic usually scare people away: they have a phobia or aversion when it comes to reading formal proofs. So lately I don't bother doing it. Hence in my books I just assert it. [The proof requires a prior familiarity with The Transfinite Theory of Sets.]

I am keenly aware that Hitler and Goebels and Goehring made a non-cognitive appeal to the German population and the Brownshirts, the S,S., and the Nazi army were the result. That's what non-cognitivism can lead to, and that's why I called it dangerous. It was not just 'a misuse' of the iideology, but a direct result of such a denial of reason. We need clarity in the world today in the field of values (including moral values) and must be careful not to equate them with a hiccup, a shout, a sneeze.

See Mary Mothersill's papers on C. L. Stephenson's work.

If your ethical orientation "doesn't entail the denial of reason or logic in making moral decisions" and "it doesn't mean to not use your cognitive abilities when making moral decisions" then on what rational basis do you make your moral decisions?? And what reasoning do you use if not by the use of cognitions??

Along with many good dictionary definition of "ethics", I hold that Ethics is (and should be) prescriptive - in the sense that it will prescribe what is morally good for us.

If it can't or won't, I'm not sure that it is all that helpful nor of any value to us.

The theory I offer does prescribe; and it is objective in ways that the manual explains. It presents universal standards.

I propose we adopt it --- if we want a better life and a better world to live in. My ethical model is a hypothtical imperative. If you want optimum value, live by it.

If you want to just drift and vegetate, ignore it. ...Sure, humanity might then becom extinct. But you let the opportunity to prevent it slip by.

I agree that ethics should be prescriptive...

I never like to use the word objective when referring to morality or anything axiological. I prefer to use the word universal, which I'm sure is the context for which you used the word in the quote above.

Do you have a paper on your ethical ideas? I would love to read about them.