A post that considers the well known "fallacy" of moving from descriptions to normative judgments, particularly prescriptive statements - and offers three small arguments against it.
I think the fallacy includes the problem that the future cannot be inferred from the present either. If you can't handle even will be from is, surely you can't handle a "should be in the future" from an is.
I'm not really sure about this, but assuming our conception of the cosmos is not completely spontaneous at every moment, potentially all causality will include an infrence from the present to the future - and assuming we accept that causal inferences are valid, what is the problem in infering from the present to the future?
I am not too sure of this myself but it seems to me truth itself has the power to compel. People speak truth to power sometimes at great danger to themselves. Why do they do it? They themselves have no power. But they think truth has greater power than those who threaten them.
Facts, truths, have value. No society can survive if they have all kinds of value except the value of truth. Here, I have MAGA in mind. MAGA is a real life experiment. I expect to see the result of this experiment in not too many months from now.
Well, American politics aside (I'm not a U.S. citizen), I agree with you. Truth has a somewhat coercive aspect to it. Perhaps sometimes it can even be leveraged in a way that triumphs over other kinds of coersions. But how does that relate to the natural fallacy in your opinion?
I think there were two points I was trying to make. One, there is danger in looking at the world only from the logical point of view. Yes, from a factual statement, you cannot derive a prescriptive statement. But people do it often without knowing. Why? For this one may have to look beyond logic.
An example: From a logical point of view, one can defend a scientific theory come what may. But most people would not do it. Why? It would stop us from learning more in science (true also in crime investigation).
Two, truths begat more truths by acting as clues. In that respect, truths compel in a friendly way. Why was Galileo put under house arrest? Because he wanted to teach the heliocentric theory. He could have stayed a free person if he had agreed to teach the heliocentric theory as a mathematical theory. But Galileo would not agree to this arrangement. He wanted to let the public know that the heliocentric theory was true of the real world. He had a good reason. Science is a public enterprise. Truths begat more truths by acting as clues. If Galileo and other scientists at the time had kept their discoveries secret, there would not have been a Newton.
I am also not a US citizen.
Note: What are clues? They are the characteristics of structures, sometimes disguised.. If we know enough characteristics of s structure, we can re-construct it. This is how scientists find out the structure of the universe. And how Sherlock Holmes solves crimes.
Maybe I should add a few more words. Truth begats more truth by providing clues to new truths. This is one more reason why we should make truths public. Values compel action. Truth does also.
I think the fallacy includes the problem that the future cannot be inferred from the present either. If you can't handle even will be from is, surely you can't handle a "should be in the future" from an is.
I'm not really sure about this, but assuming our conception of the cosmos is not completely spontaneous at every moment, potentially all causality will include an infrence from the present to the future - and assuming we accept that causal inferences are valid, what is the problem in infering from the present to the future?
I am not too sure of this myself but it seems to me truth itself has the power to compel. People speak truth to power sometimes at great danger to themselves. Why do they do it? They themselves have no power. But they think truth has greater power than those who threaten them.
Facts, truths, have value. No society can survive if they have all kinds of value except the value of truth. Here, I have MAGA in mind. MAGA is a real life experiment. I expect to see the result of this experiment in not too many months from now.
Well, American politics aside (I'm not a U.S. citizen), I agree with you. Truth has a somewhat coercive aspect to it. Perhaps sometimes it can even be leveraged in a way that triumphs over other kinds of coersions. But how does that relate to the natural fallacy in your opinion?
I think there were two points I was trying to make. One, there is danger in looking at the world only from the logical point of view. Yes, from a factual statement, you cannot derive a prescriptive statement. But people do it often without knowing. Why? For this one may have to look beyond logic.
An example: From a logical point of view, one can defend a scientific theory come what may. But most people would not do it. Why? It would stop us from learning more in science (true also in crime investigation).
Two, truths begat more truths by acting as clues. In that respect, truths compel in a friendly way. Why was Galileo put under house arrest? Because he wanted to teach the heliocentric theory. He could have stayed a free person if he had agreed to teach the heliocentric theory as a mathematical theory. But Galileo would not agree to this arrangement. He wanted to let the public know that the heliocentric theory was true of the real world. He had a good reason. Science is a public enterprise. Truths begat more truths by acting as clues. If Galileo and other scientists at the time had kept their discoveries secret, there would not have been a Newton.
I am also not a US citizen.
Note: What are clues? They are the characteristics of structures, sometimes disguised.. If we know enough characteristics of s structure, we can re-construct it. This is how scientists find out the structure of the universe. And how Sherlock Holmes solves crimes.
Maybe I should add a few more words. Truth begats more truth by providing clues to new truths. This is one more reason why we should make truths public. Values compel action. Truth does also.