The Collapse of the Is/Ought Gap Part of the problem of the is/ought gap is that it may not be an actual

gap in the first place it may be a created gap. As we discussed in the intro to ethics section, this dichotomy between facts and values was found as far back as Plato's Euthyphro (c.400 BCE)1 where there was a discussion about disagreements of calculation and those of hatred and wrath. This differentiation was taken a step further by D. Hume in his essay Treatise of Human Nature (1739)2. Here Hume implies that moving directly from an is to an ought is not logically possible. (the is being that of which is accepted as objectively factually by empirical verification and the ought that is of non-factual values, in many circumstance regarded as social norms or personal inclinations) Hume's is/ought gap is brought into full development by more contemporary philosophers of Karl Popper3 and G.E. Moore. G.E. Moore, the more famous of the two, takes the is/ought gap to its logical conclusion in his work Principia Ethica through his Naturalistic Fallacy4. Here Moore, working from a non-naturalist ethical approach a position that predominantly rests upon the is/ought gap altogether criticizes ethical theories that attempt to derive a should directly from an is. Lets see if I can lay out the position in a simple syllogism without misrepresentation: P1: Facts are not values & values are not facts they are of mutually exclusive epistemological categories; facts are value free and values are devoid of facts. P2: Facts are derived from natural properties of things in and of themselves and therefore can be objectively (empirically) identified and verified P3: Values are derived from non-natural ascribed characteristics of things and therefore can only be subjectively (culturally or personally) identified and verified C: Therefore, any ethical theory that attempts to derive values directly from facts fails to recognize the is/ought gap and commits the Naturalistic Fallacy While the is/ought gap and the Naturalistic Fallacy seem to point out a real and important distinction between facts and values, to call it a dichotomy, a fundamental gap or even a fallacy may go too far. The is/ought gap problem of Hume, Moore and Popper may be an internal or created problem resulting from the philosophical approach in general. As we have been discussing this semester one of the key goals of philosophy is to clarify the questions themselves. In so doing philosophers attempt to strain off the pertinent parts of philosophical problems of ethical theories in this case from the non-pertinent parts. Dong so helps to isolate the fundamental parts of the inquiry. So, Hume, Popper and Moore in their attempts to isolate the structure of an ethical theory, strained off the values from the facts and the facts from the values (a position that has become known as Logical Positivism). The complication here is that in so doing they may have ended up creating a problem that was not really there in the first place. For elaboration lets turn to the study of the behavioral sciences. Created problems tend to arise in many of the social or behavioral sciences more frequently than the mathematical or the natural sciences. As most of the topics of the social sciences deal with direct problems of the world in all its changing variables, creating a model to test said variables becomes a quite complicated task. Of course scientific models are
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Plato: Euthyaphro 7b-d David Hume: Treatise of Human Nature (1739) Book of morals Section I: Vices and Virtues Karl Popper: The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945) & What can logic do for philosophy (1948) G.E. Moore: Principia Ethica - Chapter I: The Subject-Matter of Ethics).

useful as they simplify the problem or hypothesis that is being explored but their very use can threaten the integrity of the resulting data. The problem here is that if there is a created problem in the model that does not exist in the real world, then the data that results will essentially be tainted by the model itself. So if there is a created problem in the model, it only logically follows that all data will inherently contain that created problem. This same problem potential is an inherent threat in the philosophical approach as simplification through isolating the problem or question can create its own problem. This created problem issue has been one of the main critiques of the logical positivists is/ought gap and Moores Naturalistic Fallacy. To be real problems means that not only does the conclusion follow from the premises (valid argument) but that all premises are also true (sound argument), meaning they meet with reality. While it seems that the is/ought gap argument and the Naturalistic Fallacy are both valid, there soundness has been found wanting. Several philosophers such as P. Foot, B. Williams and W.K. Frankena5 have successfully addressed many problems of the Naturalistic Fallacy. Most recently Professor H. Putnam6 has published an entire work outlining the failure of the is/ought gap of logical positivist ethical position. The Williams, Foot and Frankena positions concern aspects such as suppressed premises (enthymatic argument think Aristotles Telos between the is and ought) to the problem of definitions in general, the Putnam position is highly specific. His argument focuses on the first premise of the argument: P1: Facts are not values & values are not facts they are of mutually exclusive epistemological categories; facts are value free and values are devoid of facts. The point here is that while it may be true that facts and values are not the same thing, it is a false assumption that facts are devoid of values and values are devoid of facts. In reality facts themselves particularly those of the logical positivist persuasion are derived from an observable/scientific value system itself. For instance, the value of epistemological observation, simplicity or logical coherence within the logical positivist position itself begins to look as much like a system of values as much as it does a system of mere fact. After all there are a multiplicity of way to collect and interpret information, why is this approach the best? The implication is that facts and values are not of mutually exclusive epistemological categories; they are entangled aspects of our general epistemological engagement. When we interact with the world around us to discover facts we must sort through the information we encounter. When we do so we are not merely describing but we are evaluating and describing simultaneously we are evaluating what is a fact and what is not. As information gathering does not come passively, it naturally requires us to utilize a method (or methods) of discovery and evaluation, all while excluding other methods of describing and evaluating. In the end, to gain factual information about the world requires us not only to describe but to evaluate the description which seems to entangle facts and values inside our epistemological engagement with the world. In the end this collapse of the gap between and is and an ought seems to leave the Hume, Popper and Moore ethical factual separation position out of gas. Now this does not mean that facts and values are the same surely they are distinct each in their own right it merely suggest that the fundamental dichotomy as mutually exclusive categories is unrealistic assumption. So while it is still pertinent for ethical philosophy to distinguish between them, separating them at face value into different realms is not so simple. So, I guess the complexity of our ethical exploration continues.
5

Frankena, W. 1939. The Naturalistic Fallacy. Mind 48, 464-477

Williams, B. 1985. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Philippa Foot "Moral Arguments." Mind (October 1958), 67(268):502-513.
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Putnam, H 2002 The collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy and other essays Harvard Uni press