Oughts and Hypothetical Imperatives

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Re: Oughts and Hypothetical Imperatives

Post by Leontiskos »

Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 11:01 am
Leontiskos wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 12:57 am On Becker's account, who you quoted <here>, "The general conception of morality, in a nutshell, is this: moral judgments are judgments about what rational agents ought to do or be, period." Thus according to Becker when the "amoralist" makes a judgment about what he--a rational agent--ought to do, he is making a moral judgment. The concrete, enacted act of a rational agent is naturally something enacted "all things considered."

If for Becker an "amoralist" is a chimera, but for you it is not, then it follows that you must deviate strongly from Becker's view.

Regarding these terms, "moral psychology," or, "moral considerations," we come back to the same nagging problem that has attended so many of your previous posts. There is no way for me to know what you mean by those terms until you properly lay out what you mean by "moral." You have consistently failed to provide an account of what you mean by "moral" and "non-moral".
"The general conception of morality, in a nutshell, is this: moral judgments are judgments about what rational agents ought to do or be, period." – Lawrence Becker

Okay, this statement alone clearly implies that any use of "ought" is moral (ethical), such that one isn't an amoralist unless one doesn't use ought-statements at all.
But that is exactly what Becker is saying. As with Hare, we must separate your own view from that of Becker. Becker follows that sentence by saying, "Prudence, self-interest, altruism, social welfare, efficiency, economy, etiquette, and aesthetic considerations are all relevant, then, to moral argument understood in this way. They must be relevant, at least in principle, if moral argument is argument about what to do all things considered."

An implication is that considerations of aesthetics and etiquette are moral considerations since they affect the ultimate judgment, which is itself moral. They could even be the predominant consideration in certain judgments. In your previous posts you have explicitly rejected the idea that aesthetic judgments are moral judgments, and this is a very concrete way that you differ substantially from Becker.
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 11:01 amGiven the undeniable ambiguity of "ought", I find this implication unacceptable; so I would add the following qualification:

"Moral judgments are judgments about what rational agents ought to do or be" if and only if "ought" is used in judgments to express a...
Here your dissonance with Becker rises to the level of contradiction, for you are redefining his "general" conception of morality into its opposite: a "special" conception of morality. This is what you are effectively saying:
  • "The general conception of morality, in a nutshell, is this: moral judgments are judgments about what rational agents ought to do or be" if and only if "ought" is used in judgments to express a [special conception of morality].
Or more simply:
  • The general conception of morality is a special conception of morality.
You have taken Becker's words and redefined them to mean the very thing they were intended to oppose.

Let's now look at your own view considered separately from Becker. You give three different approaches to answering the basic question:
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 11:01 amGiven the undeniable ambiguity of "ought", I find this implication unacceptable; so I would add the following qualification:

"Moral judgments are judgments about what rational agents ought to do or be" if and only if "ought" is used in judgments to express a (universalizable) duty or obligation,. . .
The first approach says that the moral is the universalizable.
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 11:01 am...a "must" qua deontological necessity...
The second approach says that the moral is the necessary (presumably categorical).
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 11:01 amGiven the above conception, legal oughts (duties/obligations) are moral oughts violations of which are officially sanctionable (punishable) by statal institutions (courts, prisons). That is, violations of legal oughts are crimes, whereas violations of nonlegal moral oughts aren't crimes but vices or "sins".
The third approach says that the immoral is the illegal.


Of course, much of your answer is rife with the same question-begging circularity that has been plaguing our discussion. For example:
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 11:01 am"Moral judgments are judgments about what rational agents ought to do or be" if and only if "ought" is used in judgments to express a (universalizable) duty or obligation, a "must" qua deontological necessity (as opposed to ontological, logical, or physical necessity) . . .
Again, what is the difference between deontological necessity and, say, logical necessity? For Becker logical considerations are also moral considerations. Logical duties are surely universalizable. We are given no clear answer to what this notion of deontological even means.
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 11:01 amTo use an example from a previous post of mine, in the statement "I ought to stay away from that guy, because I know he is prone to violence" "ought" is used non-morally, because it means "I am well advised to stay away from that guy…" rather than "It is obligatory for me to stay away from that guy…".
And like your previous post, this tells us nothing. It presupposes a difference between the obligatory and the prudent, which is the very question at hand. Repeating over and over the words, "obligatory," or, "duty," does not get us any closer to understanding what you think these words mean.

But perhaps the moral is the universalizable, or the categorical-necessary, or the observance of positive law, or some combination of these?
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Re: Oughts and Hypothetical Imperatives

Post by LuckyR »

Leontiskos wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 10:52 am
LuckyR wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 3:45 am
Leontiskos wrote: September 2nd, 2022, 7:16 pmSo then to riff off Socrates, "What is it that makes the moral moral?"

Are you saying that acts required by one's deep values are moral acts? That because the animal welfare-based vegetarian holds a strong value about animals, their actions with respect to animals are therefore (subjectively) moral?
Perhaps my answer got lost in an overly wordy description. I'll repeat and try to clarify. I specifically avoided words such as "values" since in such a granular conversation I predicted having to define values alongside "moral". In your red sentence your use of values seems to mean "opinions" or "beliefs". If true, I can work with that.

In my description of moral I drew the distinction between evaluating the question at hand from a personal (say, selfish) perspective and a broader, specifically impersonal perspective.

In your example of avoiding eating meat by a vegetarian if the reason is personal (say it will cost me more money, or I don't like the taste, or it will make me fat) that is not in the group of acts that I label "moral". If the vegetarian is motivated by a broader perspective, beyond the personal (say, my religion is Hinduism and it is against my religious beliefs, or in the US it is not a cultural norm to eat pet dogs, or as you proposed I believe that planet Earth will be a better place if there is less animal suffering) those are acts that contain an element of the moral. Of course actual decisions are usually made by considering numerous criteria often both the nonmoral and the moral, we've simplified the description of the process for clarity.

Finally to answer your question (assuming I understand it correctly), no the strength (or weakness) of the values held is not important, rather whether those values are derived from viewing the question at hand from a personal or a broader (say global, societal, cultural, tribal or environmental) perspective.

Deciding not to murder someone with a knife because you're wearing your favorite white shirt (and you DEEPLY love that shirt) is NOT a moral decision. Deciding not to murder someone with a knife because you consider it a violation of societal norms (ie "it's wrong") or religious teachings is a moral decision (among numerous other possible morality based reasons).
Okay, that makes more sense. So morality is that which flows from a broader perspective as opposed to a narrow perspective. This is similar to what Pierre Hadot describes as "The View from Above":

  • The View from Above

    From the heights to which he rises in thought, the philosopher looks down at the earth and at mankind, and judges them at their true value. As we read in a Chinese philosophical text, he "sees things in the light of the heavens." The vision of the totality of being and time, mentioned in Plato's Republic, inspires us with contempt for death; while in the Theaetetus, all human affairs are petty nothingness for the philosopher who wanders over the whole extent of the real. He who is used "to embracing the whole world in his gaze" finds mankind's possessions small indeed. This theme recurs in the famous Dream of Scipio, in which Cicero tells how Scipio Aemilianus dreams he sees his ancestor Scipio Africanus. He is then transported to the Milky Way, where he sees the earth from above. It seems like a mere speck to him, so that he is ashamed of the tiny dimensions of the Roman Empire. His ancestor points out to him the vast spaces of the deserts, in order to make him see the insignificance of the space through which all-important fame can spread.

    Influenced by his Neopythagorean source, Ovid places the following words in the mouth of Pythagoras at the end of his Metamorphoses: "I yearn to travel amid the lofty stars. Leaving the earth, this inert way-station, I want to be borne by the clouds.... From above, I will see men wandering haphazardly, trembling with fear at the thought of death, because they lack reason." Epicureans and Stoics also recommended this attitude. From the heights of the serene regions, Lucretius lowers his gaze to mankind and sees them "wandering everywhere, seeking for the path of life at random." For Seneca, the philosopher's soul, transported amid the stars, casts its gaze down upon the earth, which seems like a speck to it. It then laughs at the luxuries of the wealthy; the wars over the borders which people erect between each other seem ridiculous to it; and armies invading territories are mere ants fighting over a narrow space.

    This is also the view of the Cynic Menippus in Lucian's brilliant story Icaromenippus. When the hero arrives on the moon, he sees people stupidly quarreling over national boundaries and the rich gloating over their lands, which, notes Menippus, are no larger than the atoms of Epicurus. When he sees mankind from above, Menippus also compares them to ants. In another work, entitled Charon, the ferryman of the dead looks at human life on earth from a vertiginous height, and considers how foolish men's actions are when one examines them while bearing in mind that their agents will soon die.

    It is significant that Lucian's observer should be the ferryman of the dead. To view things from above is to look at them from the perspective of death. In both cases, it means looking at things with detachment, distance, and objectivity, seeing them as they are in themselves, situating them within the immensity of the universe and the totality of nature, without the false prestige lent to them by our human passions and conventions. The view from above changes our value judgments on things: luxury, power, war, borders, and the worries of everyday life all become ridiculous.

    (Pierre Hadot, What Is Ancient Philosophy?, pp. 206-7)
Glad we are communicating better. What's your opinion on Hadot's work?
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Re: Oughts and Hypothetical Imperatives

Post by Consul »

Leontiskos wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 12:16 pm
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 11:01 am "The general conception of morality, in a nutshell, is this: moral judgments are judgments about what rational agents ought to do or be, period." – Lawrence Becker

Okay, this statement alone clearly implies that any use of "ought" is moral (ethical), such that one isn't an amoralist unless one doesn't use ought-statements at all.
But that is exactly what Becker is saying. As with Hare, we must separate your own view from that of Becker. Becker follows that sentence by saying, "Prudence, self-interest, altruism, social welfare, efficiency, economy, etiquette, and aesthetic considerations are all relevant, then, to moral argument understood in this way. They must be relevant, at least in principle, if moral argument is argument about what to do all things considered."
An implication is that considerations of aesthetics and etiquette are moral considerations since they affect the ultimate judgment, which is itself moral. They could even be the predominant consideration in certain judgments. In your previous posts you have explicitly rejected the idea that aesthetic judgments are moral judgments, and this is a very concrete way that you differ substantially from Becker.
First of all, I've presented Becker's interesting view mainly for consideration minus affirmation. If you got the wrong impression that I fully share his view, I beg your pardon.

If all uses of "ought" are called moral, then, of course, there are no non-moral oughts regarding prudence, instrumental rationality (efficacy), advice, expectation, or aesthetics that express weak oughts, i.e. ones which aren't strongly or "overridingly" normatively binding like moral ones or not even normatively binding at all. (For example, a train which ought to arrive at the station in 30 minutes isn't normatively bound to do so at all, since it is not a morally responsible personal agent.)

However, one can read Becker alternatively as meaning to say that "prudence, self-interest, altruism, social welfare, efficiency, economy, etiquette, and aesthetic considerations are all relevant to moral argument" in the sense that they are non- or extra-moral contributions to moral argument or judgement rather than moral considerations in themselves.
Leontiskos wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 12:16 pm
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 11:01 amGiven the undeniable ambiguity of "ought", I find this implication unacceptable; so I would add the following qualification:

"Moral judgments are judgments about what rational agents ought to do or be" if and only if "ought" is used in judgments to express a...
Here your dissonance with Becker rises to the level of contradiction, for you are redefining his "general" conception of morality into its opposite: a "special" conception of morality. This is what you are effectively saying:
  • "The general conception of morality, in a nutshell, is this: moral judgments are judgments about what rational agents ought to do or be" if and only if "ought" is used in judgments to express a [special conception of morality].
Or more simply:
  • The general conception of morality is a special conception of morality.
You have taken Becker's words and redefined them to mean the very thing they were intended to oppose.
I'm aware that I've been deviating from Becker's conception—for the reason that the ordinary-language ambiguity of "ought" mustn't be swept under the carpet.

When I say the moral oughts are the strong oughts expressing duties or obligations—in which case "x ought to do y" is always synonymously translatable into "x has the duty to do y" = "It is obligatory for x to do y" = "It is deontically necessary for x to do y" = "x must do y, deontologically speaking"—, then this is a general conception or moral oughts.
Leontiskos wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 12:16 pmLet's now look at your own view considered separately from Becker. You give three different approaches to answering the basic question:
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 11:01 amGiven the undeniable ambiguity of "ought", I find this implication unacceptable; so I would add the following qualification:

"Moral judgments are judgments about what rational agents ought to do or be" if and only if "ought" is used in judgments to express a (universalizable) duty or obligation,. . .
The first approach says that the moral is the universalizable.
Yes, following Hare, I think universalizability is a necessary (but no sufficient) condition for a judgement/statement to be moral, in the sense that if I/you ought (not) to do x, then—ceteris paribus (if all other relevant things, factors, or elements remain unaltered)—we all ought (not) to do x.
Leontiskos wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 12:16 pm
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 11:01 am...a "must" qua deontological necessity...
The second approach says that the moral is the necessary (presumably categorical).
No, what it says is that moral oughts (shoulds) express ethical, i.e. deontic, necessities. It is analytically true that if it is obligatory for me to do x, then it is deontically necessary for me to do x; that is, I must do x, deontologically speaking.

Deontological necessities cannot (by and in themselves) actually force or compel somebody to do something. Deontological necessities aren't "inevitabilities", since I can refuse to do what I ought to do, and even do what I ought not to do—whereas e.g. I cannot avoid the physiological necessity of dying one day by refusing to die.
Leontiskos wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 12:16 pm
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 11:01 amGiven the above conception, legal oughts (duties/obligations) are moral oughts violations of which are officially sanctionable (punishable) by statal institutions (courts, prisons). That is, violations of legal oughts are crimes, whereas violations of nonlegal moral oughts aren't crimes but vices or "sins".
The third approach says that the immoral is the illegal.
No, it doesn't. It draws a distinction between legal moral oughts and nonlegal moral oughts (with "legal" used in the descriptive sense of "of or relating to law".)

What is immoral needn't be illegal, and what is illegal needn't be immoral. Therefore, it is not true that "the immoral is the illegal." For example, (nonconsensual) sexual infidelity in a marriage is immoral (morally wrong) but not illegal in Germany. According to the Nuremberg Laws made by the Nazis, marriages and extramarital sexual intercourse between Jews and non-Jews were illegal, but they were still not immoral.
Leontiskos wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 12:16 pmOf course, much of your answer is rife with the same question-begging circularity that has been plaguing our discussion. For example:
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 11:01 am"Moral judgments are judgments about what rational agents ought to do or be" if and only if "ought" is used in judgments to express a (universalizable) duty or obligation, a "must" qua deontological necessity (as opposed to ontological, logical, or physical necessity) . . .
Again, what is the difference between deontological necessity and, say, logical necessity? For Becker logical considerations are also moral considerations. Logical duties are surely universalizable. We are given no clear answer to what this notion of deontological even means.
Of course, to achieve a deeper understanding, we must do a conceptual analysis of these distinctions between kinds of necessity; but it is not the case that you have never heard of them and have no idea what I'm talking about, is it?

Anyway, what is a "logical duty"?
Logical necessity concerns the modal status of truths (true propositions). A logically necessary truth must be true, logically speaking; and it is such that its negation is or results in a formal contradiction that is necessarily false. For example, in standard propositional logic it is necessarily true that p v ~p, because its negation ~(p v ~p) is logically equivalent to ~p & ~~p, which is logically equivalent to the necessarily false contradiction ~p & p.

* The Epistemology of Modality > Varieties of Modality and the Target of the Epistemology of Modality: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moda ... rgEpisModa

* Varieties of Modality: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/modality-varieties/
Leontiskos wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 12:16 pm
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 11:01 amTo use an example from a previous post of mine, in the statement "I ought to stay away from that guy, because I know he is prone to violence" "ought" is used non-morally, because it means "I am well advised to stay away from that guy…" rather than "It is obligatory for me to stay away from that guy…".
And like your previous post, this tells us nothing. It presupposes a difference between the obligatory and the prudent, which is the very question at hand. Repeating over and over the words, "obligatory," or, "duty," does not get us any closer to understanding what you think these words mean.

But perhaps the moral is the universalizable, or the categorical-necessary, or the observance of positive law, or some combination of these?
You keep on accusing me of begging the question, but I dare to assert that my latest definition of the moral (ethical) sense or use of "ought" is neither vacuous nor too nebulous to be intelligible; so I think it is not the case that it "does not get us any closer to understanding what you think these words mean."

"Ought" is used morally (ethically) iff it expresses a (universalizable) duty or obligation (attributed to and possessed by a person), a "must" qua deontological necessity (as opposed to ontological, logical, or physical necessity), a requirement, a demand, a command—rather than something weaker, something non-obligatory: an advice, a recommendation, a suggestion, or an expectation.

As for the distinction between the moral ought and the prudential ought, isn't there an intuitively comprehensible difference being obliged to do something and being well advised to do it, between its being obligatory for me to do something and its being prudent for me to do it?

However, one could argue from the moral point of view that people ought to be virtuous, and that prudence is a virtue, such that one ought to do morally what one ought to do prudentially, in which case there is a moral obligation to prudence. Then, for instance, if I am well advised to stay away from a violent guy as a matter of prudence, it would be morally wrong not to do so, because I have the duty to act prudently, to exhibit the virtue of prudence.
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Re: Oughts and Hypothetical Imperatives

Post by Leontiskos »

LuckyR wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 3:29 pm
Leontiskos wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 10:52 am Okay, that makes more sense. So morality is that which flows from a broader perspective as opposed to a narrow perspective. This is similar to what Pierre Hadot describes as "The View from Above":

  • The View from Above

    From the heights to which he rises in thought, the philosopher looks down at the earth and at mankind, and judges them at their true value. As we read in a Chinese philosophical text, he "sees things in the light of the heavens." The vision of the totality of being and time, mentioned in Plato's Republic, inspires us with contempt for death; while in the Theaetetus, all human affairs are petty nothingness for the philosopher who wanders over the whole extent of the real. He who is used "to embracing the whole world in his gaze" finds mankind's possessions small indeed. This theme recurs in the famous Dream of Scipio, in which Cicero tells how Scipio Aemilianus dreams he sees his ancestor Scipio Africanus. He is then transported to the Milky Way, where he sees the earth from above. It seems like a mere speck to him, so that he is ashamed of the tiny dimensions of the Roman Empire. His ancestor points out to him the vast spaces of the deserts, in order to make him see the insignificance of the space through which all-important fame can spread.

    Influenced by his Neopythagorean source, Ovid places the following words in the mouth of Pythagoras at the end of his Metamorphoses: "I yearn to travel amid the lofty stars. Leaving the earth, this inert way-station, I want to be borne by the clouds.... From above, I will see men wandering haphazardly, trembling with fear at the thought of death, because they lack reason." Epicureans and Stoics also recommended this attitude. From the heights of the serene regions, Lucretius lowers his gaze to mankind and sees them "wandering everywhere, seeking for the path of life at random." For Seneca, the philosopher's soul, transported amid the stars, casts its gaze down upon the earth, which seems like a speck to it. It then laughs at the luxuries of the wealthy; the wars over the borders which people erect between each other seem ridiculous to it; and armies invading territories are mere ants fighting over a narrow space.

    This is also the view of the Cynic Menippus in Lucian's brilliant story Icaromenippus. When the hero arrives on the moon, he sees people stupidly quarreling over national boundaries and the rich gloating over their lands, which, notes Menippus, are no larger than the atoms of Epicurus. When he sees mankind from above, Menippus also compares them to ants. In another work, entitled Charon, the ferryman of the dead looks at human life on earth from a vertiginous height, and considers how foolish men's actions are when one examines them while bearing in mind that their agents will soon die.

    It is significant that Lucian's observer should be the ferryman of the dead. To view things from above is to look at them from the perspective of death. In both cases, it means looking at things with detachment, distance, and objectivity, seeing them as they are in themselves, situating them within the immensity of the universe and the totality of nature, without the false prestige lent to them by our human passions and conventions. The view from above changes our value judgments on things: luxury, power, war, borders, and the worries of everyday life all become ridiculous.

    (Pierre Hadot, What Is Ancient Philosophy?, pp. 206-7)
Glad we are communicating better. What's your opinion on Hadot's work?
Oh, I quite like Hadot, especially his emphasis on ancient philosophy as a way of life or praxis. He would say that the choice of one's way of life--between the various options offered by the different ancient philosophical schools--was as if not more important than the philosophical discourse and doctrine, and that the way of life had a strong effect on the resultant doctrines. I find that idea both persuasive and encouraging. A breath of fresh air compared to the overly abstract, arm-chair variety that is popular today.

Beyond that, I am not qualified to judge the scholarly merit of his work, but it seems to be well-accepted in academic circles.
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Re: Oughts and Hypothetical Imperatives

Post by Consul »

Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 3:39 pm"Ought" is used morally (ethically) iff it expresses a (universalizable) duty or obligation (attributed to and possessed by a person), a "must" qua deontological necessity (as opposed to ontological, logical, or physical necessity), a requirement, a demand, a command—rather than something weaker, something non-obligatory: an advice, a recommendation, a suggestion, or an expectation.
An important aspect is that a moral community tries to prevent omissions or violations of duties (expressed by the moral use of "ought") by threatening people with negative sanctions (punishment), which needn't be legal ones enforced by criminal justice, but can be other forms of social sanctions such as ending a friendship owing to a friend's undutiful behavior.
As opposed to an omission or violation of an ought qua duty/obligation, an omission or violation of an ought qua prudential advice isn't likewise threatened by negative social sanctions—unless there is a general obligation to prudence; but there isn't, is there?

Another point worth mentioning is that if Harman is right, and "there are no aesthetic or prudential obligations, duties, or rights," then the distinctively moral or ethical meaning of "ought" is readily definable in terms of duty and obligation: Where ought-talk is interpretable as and translatable into duty-talk, we have moral talk! We don't where it isn't, as in "Men ought not to wear socks in sandals (because it looks ugly)", which is not synonymous with "Men have the duty not to wear socks in sandals"—unless there is a general duty to beauty; but there isn't, is there?

"We speak of moral obligations, moral duties, moral rights, and moral excuses; and these notions—duty, right, obligation, and excuse—would seem to make sense only relative to some sort of law. For instance, they have no application in judgments of aesthetics or prudence; there are no aesthetic or prudential obligations, duties, or rights. (It is true that we sometimes say that someone "owes it to himself" to do a given thing, but this is a metaphorical way of speaking.)
The point carries over to words like "ought," "must," and "may." Although these words have nonmoral uses, each is also used in a particularly moral sense and, in this sense, to say, for example, that you ought to do something is to say that it is your moral obligation or duty to do it."


(Harman, Gilbert. The Nature of Morality: An Introduction to Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977. p. 59)
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Re: Oughts and Hypothetical Imperatives

Post by Leontiskos »

Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 3:39 pm
Leontiskos wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 12:16 pm
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 11:01 am "The general conception of morality, in a nutshell, is this: moral judgments are judgments about what rational agents ought to do or be, period." – Lawrence Becker

Okay, this statement alone clearly implies that any use of "ought" is moral (ethical), such that one isn't an amoralist unless one doesn't use ought-statements at all.
But that is exactly what Becker is saying. As with Hare, we must separate your own view from that of Becker. Becker follows that sentence by saying, "Prudence, self-interest, altruism, social welfare, efficiency, economy, etiquette, and aesthetic considerations are all relevant, then, to moral argument understood in this way. They must be relevant, at least in principle, if moral argument is argument about what to do all things considered."
An implication is that considerations of aesthetics and etiquette are moral considerations since they affect the ultimate judgment, which is itself moral. They could even be the predominant consideration in certain judgments. In your previous posts you have explicitly rejected the idea that aesthetic judgments are moral judgments, and this is a very concrete way that you differ substantially from Becker.
First of all, I've presented Becker's interesting view mainly for consideration minus affirmation. If you got the wrong impression that I fully share his view, I beg your pardon.
Okay, fair enough.
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 3:39 pmHowever, one can read Becker alternatively as meaning to say that "prudence, self-interest, altruism, social welfare, efficiency, economy, etiquette, and aesthetic considerations are all relevant to moral argument" in the sense that they are non- or extra-moral contributions to moral argument or judgement rather than moral considerations in themselves.
Actually I don't think that makes any sense and I don't think it is possible to read him that way at all. Anything which contributes to a moral argument is a moral consideration, not a non-moral consideration. In any case, this is surely not what Becker is saying.
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 3:39 pm
Leontiskos wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 12:16 pm
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 11:01 amGiven the undeniable ambiguity of "ought", I find this implication unacceptable; so I would add the following qualification:

"Moral judgments are judgments about what rational agents ought to do or be" if and only if "ought" is used in judgments to express a...
Here your dissonance with Becker rises to the level of contradiction, for you are redefining his "general" conception of morality into its opposite: a "special" conception of morality. This is what you are effectively saying:
  • "The general conception of morality, in a nutshell, is this: moral judgments are judgments about what rational agents ought to do or be" if and only if "ought" is used in judgments to express a [special conception of morality].
Or more simply:
  • The general conception of morality is a special conception of morality.
You have taken Becker's words and redefined them to mean the very thing they were intended to oppose.
I'm aware that I've been deviating from Becker's conception—for the reason that the ordinary-language ambiguity of "ought" mustn't be swept under the carpet.

When I say the moral oughts are the strong oughts expressing duties or obligations—in which case "x ought to do y" is always synonymously translatable into "x has the duty to do y" = "It is obligatory for x to do y" = "It is deontically necessary for x to do y" = "x must do y, deontologically speaking"—, then this is a general conception or moral oughts.
In Becker's sense it is a special conception, not a general conception, so it is altogether confusing to call it a general conception while juxtaposing it with Becker's view. If you go back and read Becker's account of "special conceptions of morality," you will see that it maps perfectly to your own view.

Further, it is not true that Becker's general conception of morality makes every 'ought' to be of equal strength. This is probably the central error in your reductio of Becker's view. Just because all 'oughts' are moral does not mean that they are all of equal strength. You keep injecting your own view, which in this case is the view that "moral oughts" are maximally strong and of equal strength.
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 3:39 pm
Leontiskos wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 12:16 pmLet's now look at your own view considered separately from Becker. You give three different approaches to answering the basic question:
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 11:01 amGiven the undeniable ambiguity of "ought", I find this implication unacceptable; so I would add the following qualification:

"Moral judgments are judgments about what rational agents ought to do or be" if and only if "ought" is used in judgments to express a (universalizable) duty or obligation,. . .
The first approach says that the moral is the universalizable.
Yes, following Hare, I think universalizability is a necessary (but no sufficient) condition for a judgement/statement to be moral, in the sense that if I/you ought (not) to do x, then—ceteris paribus (if all other relevant things, factors, or elements remain unaltered)—we all ought (not) to do x.
Okay, sure, but would you say that there are other universalizable 'oughts' other than the moral ones?
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 3:39 pm
Leontiskos wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 12:16 pm
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 11:01 am...a "must" qua deontological necessity...
The second approach says that the moral is the necessary (presumably categorical).
No, what it says is that moral oughts (shoulds) express ethical, i.e. deontic, necessities. It is analytically true that if it is obligatory for me to do x, then it is deontically necessary for me to do x; that is, I must do x, deontologically speaking.

Deontological necessities cannot (by and in themselves) actually force or compel somebody to do something. Deontological necessities aren't "inevitabilities", since I can refuse to do what I ought to do, and even do what I ought not to do—whereas e.g. I cannot avoid the physiological necessity of dying one day by refusing to die.
This is just circular question-begging for the umpteenth time...
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 3:39 pm
Leontiskos wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 12:16 pm
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 11:01 amGiven the above conception, legal oughts (duties/obligations) are moral oughts violations of which are officially sanctionable (punishable) by statal institutions (courts, prisons). That is, violations of legal oughts are crimes, whereas violations of nonlegal moral oughts aren't crimes but vices or "sins".
The third approach says that the immoral is the illegal.
No, it doesn't. It draws a distinction between legal moral oughts and nonlegal moral oughts (with "legal" used in the descriptive sense of "of or relating to law".)

What is immoral needn't be illegal, and what is illegal needn't be immoral. Therefore, it is not true that "the immoral is the illegal." For example, (nonconsensual) sexual infidelity in a marriage is immoral (morally wrong) but not illegal in Germany. According to the Nuremberg Laws made by the Nazis, marriages and extramarital sexual intercourse between Jews and non-Jews were illegal, but they were still not immoral.
Then the notion of legality gets us nowhere. Why even bring it up?
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 3:39 pm
Leontiskos wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 12:16 pmOf course, much of your answer is rife with the same question-begging circularity that has been plaguing our discussion. For example:
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 11:01 am"Moral judgments are judgments about what rational agents ought to do or be" if and only if "ought" is used in judgments to express a (universalizable) duty or obligation, a "must" qua deontological necessity (as opposed to ontological, logical, or physical necessity) . . .
Again, what is the difference between deontological necessity and, say, logical necessity? For Becker logical considerations are also moral considerations. Logical duties are surely universalizable. We are given no clear answer to what this notion of deontological even means.
Of course, to achieve a deeper understanding, we must do a conceptual analysis of these distinctions between kinds of necessity; but it is not the case that you have never heard of them and have no idea what I'm talking about, is it?
As noted from the outset, I think your special conception of morality--your presumption that there are moral 'oughts' and non-moral 'oughts'--is unsustainable gibberish. Given the large number of occasions on which you have now failed to sustain that distinction, it would seem that my view is being vindicated.
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 3:39 pmAnyway, what is a "logical duty"?
Logical necessity concerns the modal status of truths (true propositions). A logically necessary truth must be true, logically speaking; and it is such that its negation is or results in a formal contradiction that is necessarily false. For example, in standard propositional logic it is necessarily true that p v ~p, because its negation ~(p v ~p) is logically equivalent to ~p & ~~p, which is logically equivalent to the necessarily false contradiction ~p & p.

* The Epistemology of Modality > Varieties of Modality and the Target of the Epistemology of Modality: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moda ... rgEpisModa

* Varieties of Modality: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/modality-varieties/
We have a duty to observe the laws of logic (which are not reducible to abstract modal logic). For example, when someone is accused of holding a "double standard" they are being accused of failing to treat equal things equally. They are applying two different standards to things which are relevantly similar. This would be a transgression of logic or rationality.
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 3:39 pm
Leontiskos wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 12:16 pm
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 11:01 amTo use an example from a previous post of mine, in the statement "I ought to stay away from that guy, because I know he is prone to violence" "ought" is used non-morally, because it means "I am well advised to stay away from that guy…" rather than "It is obligatory for me to stay away from that guy…".
And like your previous post, this tells us nothing. It presupposes a difference between the obligatory and the prudent, which is the very question at hand. Repeating over and over the words, "obligatory," or, "duty," does not get us any closer to understanding what you think these words mean.

But perhaps the moral is the universalizable, or the categorical-necessary, or the observance of positive law, or some combination of these?
You keep on accusing me of begging the question, but I dare to assert that my latest definition of the moral (ethical) sense or use of "ought" is neither vacuous nor too nebulous to be intelligible; so I think it is not the case that it "does not get us any closer to understanding what you think these words mean."

"Ought" is used morally (ethically) iff it expresses a (universalizable) duty or obligation (attributed to and possessed by a person), a "must" qua deontological necessity (as opposed to ontological, logical, or physical necessity), a requirement, a demand, a command—rather than something weaker, something non-obligatory: an advice, a recommendation, a suggestion, or an expectation.

As for the distinction between the moral ought and the prudential ought, isn't there an intuitively comprehensible difference being obliged to do something and being well advised to do it, between its being obligatory for me to do something and its being prudent for me to do it?
Let's simplify. One of the first things kids learn when they are taught definitions is that a definition cannot itself contain the word which is being defined. Definitions which fail to observe this rule are circular and inept. But every time you attempt to define "moral" or "duty" or some other analytically identical term, you end up using the definiendum in your definition. Some of the circular definienda found within your newest definition include, "deontological necessity," and "non-obligatory." Beyond being circular, these faulty definitions are also question-begging insofar as the question at hand is whether there is a viable distinction to be made between moral and non-moral 'oughts'.

If we ignore those circular parts of the definition we get something like: "Ought" is used morally (ethically) iff it expresses a (universalizable) duty or obligation. This is at least a coherent definition, and in that sense is promising.
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 3:39 pmAs for the distinction between the moral ought and the prudential ought, isn't there an intuitively comprehensible difference being obliged to do something and being well advised to do it, between its being obligatory for me to do something and its being prudent for me to do it?

However, one could argue from the moral point of view that people ought to be virtuous, and that prudence is a virtue, such that one ought to do morally what one ought to do prudentially, in which case there is a moral obligation to prudence. Then, for instance, if I am well advised to stay away from a violent guy as a matter of prudence, it would be morally wrong not to do so, because I have the duty to act prudently, to exhibit the virtue of prudence.
Some 'oughts' are stronger than others, but I don't know why this would make them moral as opposed to non-moral. We could even say that some 'oughts' bind me whereas others do not. Still, to say that all non-binding 'oughts' are beside the moral seems incorrect, even colloquially.

Of course for Aristotle prudence and morality are closely related:

  • On this account some people say that all the virtues are forms of prudence, and in particular Socrates held this view, being partly right in his inquiry and partly wrong—wrong in thinking that all the virtues are actually forms of prudence, but right in saying that they are impossible without prudence.

    This is corroborated by the fact that nowadays every one in defining virtue would, after specifying its field, add that it is a formed faculty or habit in accordance with right reason, “right” meaning “in accordance with prudence.”

    Thus it seems that every one has a sort of inkling that a formed habit or character of this kind (i.e. in accordance with prudence) is virtue.

    Only a slight change is needed in this expression. Virtue is not simply a formed habit in accordance with right reason, but a formed habit implying right reason.

    But right reason in these matters is prudence.

    So whereas Socrates held that the [moral] virtues are forms of reason (for he held that these are all modes of knowledge), we hold that they imply reason.

    It is evident, then, from what has been said that it is impossible to be good in the full sense without prudence, or to be prudent without moral virtue.


    (Nicomachean Ethics, Book 6, Chapter 13)
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Re: Oughts and Hypothetical Imperatives

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Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 3:39 pmAs for the distinction between the moral ought and the prudential ought, isn't there an intuitively comprehensible difference being obliged to do something and being well advised to do it, between its being obligatory for me to do something and its being prudent for me to do it?
I don't really have time to get into cultural diagnosis, but I will say that colloquially morality seems to be a function of belief strength. Things which we strongly oppose are deemed immoral, things which we strongly promote are deemed moral, and everything in between is "fair game." Presumably this stems from classical liberalism, which took the legal paradigm and applied it to practical action in order to try to overcome intractable religious disputes and other similar difficulties.

But I really doubt that there is anything rigorous in this approach.
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Re: Oughts and Hypothetical Imperatives

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"The semantics of ‘ought’ and related modal verbs in natural language is not for the faint of heart."

(Finlay, Stephen. "'Ought': Out of Order." In Deontic Modality, edited by Nate Charlow and Matthew Chrisman, 169-199. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. p. 169)

8)
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Re: Oughts and Hypothetical Imperatives

Post by Leontiskos »

Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 9:13 pm "The semantics of ‘ought’ and related modal verbs in natural language is not for the faint of heart."

(Finlay, Stephen. "'Ought': Out of Order." In Deontic Modality, edited by Nate Charlow and Matthew Chrisman, 169-199. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. p. 169)

8)
...Because ad hoc, indefensible appeals to opaque notions like "deontological necessity" is a sign that one has a strong grasp of the nuanced semantics of 'ought'! :P
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Re: Oughts and Hypothetical Imperatives

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Leontiskos wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 5:27 pm
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 3:39 pmNo, what it says is that moral oughts (shoulds) express ethical, i.e. deontic, necessities. It is analytically true that if it is obligatory for me to do x, then it is deontically necessary for me to do x; that is, I must do x, deontologically speaking.
Deontological necessities cannot (by and in themselves) actually force or compel somebody to do something. Deontological necessities aren't "inevitabilities", since I can refuse to do what I ought to do, and even do what I ought not to do—whereas e.g. I cannot avoid the physiological necessity of dying one day by refusing to die.
This is just circular question-begging for the umpteenth time…
I don't see any "circular question-begging" here!
Leontiskos wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 5:27 pmThen the notion of legality gets us nowhere. Why even bring it up?
Because there is a relevant distinction between law and morality, isn't there?
Leontiskos wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 5:27 pm
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 3:39 pm Of course, to achieve a deeper understanding, we must do a conceptual analysis of these distinctions between kinds of necessity; but it is not the case that you have never heard of them and have no idea what I'm talking about, is it?
As noted from the outset, I think your special conception of morality--your presumption that there are moral 'oughts' and non-moral 'oughts'--is unsustainable gibberish. Given the large number of occasions on which you have now failed to sustain that distinction, it would seem that my view is being vindicated.
I don't think so, because it is not the case that the distinction between moral and non-moral oughts "is unsustainable gibberish"—given the linguistic fact that "ought" has several meanings, not all of which are (properly called) moral or ethical. For it is arguably not the case that all ought-sentences are synonymous with moral/ethical sentences concerning duties or obligations.

QUOTE:
"Many philosophical discussions of the meaning of ‘ought’ seem to assume that it is an obvious analytic truth that whenever one ‘ought’ to do something, one has a ‘duty’ or ‘obligation’ to do it. This assumption seems eminently questionable to me. I ought to buy a new pair of shoes, but I surely do not have any duty or obligation to buy a new pair of shoes. Duties and obligations are in some sense ‘owed’ to someone or something that is the object or beneficiary of the duty or obligation, while it is far from clear that anything like that need be true of everything that one ‘ought’ to do. So for at least these reasons, ‘ought’, ‘is obliged’, and ‘has a duty’ must be distinguished."

(Wedgwood, Ralph. "The Meaning of 'Ought'." In Oxford Studies in Metatethics, Vol. 1, edited by Russ Shafer-Landau, 127-160. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. p. 128)

"By tying ‘ought’ to obligation, [Patrick] Nowell-Smith here restricts the normative to the moral. But most of our practical decisions do not involve moral thinking; and, in making these decisions, we often ask what we have reason to do, and what we should, ought, or must do."

(Parfit, Derek. "Normativity." In Oxford Studies in Metatethics, Vol. 1, edited by Russ Shafer-Landau, 325-380. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. p. 333)
:QUOTE
Leontiskos wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 5:27 pmWe have a duty to observe the laws of logic (which are not reducible to abstract modal logic). For example, when someone is accused of holding a "double standard" they are being accused of failing to treat equal things equally. They are applying two different standards to things which are relevantly similar. This would be a transgression of logic or rationality.
You may argue that rationality, including logical reasoning, is a virtue people should have; so people have the duty to think rationally and logically. But in fact millions of people hold beliefs, particularly religious ones, which are irrational and illogical. Is it really immoral to hold such beliefs?

Anyway, here's an interesting quotation by Gottlob Frege, the inventor of modern logic:

QUOTE:
"Like ethics, logic can also be called a normative science. How must I think in order to reach the goal, truth? We expect logic to give us the answer to this question, but we do not demand of it that it should go into what is peculiar to each branch of knowledge and its subject matter. On the contrary, the task we assign logic is only that of saying what holds with the utmost generality for all thinking, whatever its subject matter. We must assume that the rules for our thinking and for our holding something to be true are prescribed by the laws of truth. The former are given along with the latter. Consequently we can also say: logic is the science of the most general laws of truth."

(Frege, Gottlob. "Logic." 1897. In The Frege Reader, edited by Michael Beaney, 227-250. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997. p. 228)
:QUOTE

However, "normative science" isn't necessarily synonymous with "moral science"; and when Frege asks "How must I think in order to reach the goal, truth?", is the "must" here equivalent to the duty-expressing, moral "ought" or to the non-moral "ought" expressing instrumental rationality? Given the latter sense, we get: "If your goal is truth, then you ought to be reasoning (arguing) in such and such ways." This implies a moral ought only if pursuing truth is a moral virtue people must or ought to have.
Leontiskos wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 5:27 pm
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 3:39 pm You keep on accusing me of begging the question, but I dare to assert that my latest definition of the moral (ethical) sense or use of "ought" is neither vacuous nor too nebulous to be intelligible; so I think it is not the case that it "does not get us any closer to understanding what you think these words mean."

"Ought" is used morally (ethically) iff it expresses a (universalizable) duty or obligation (attributed to and possessed by a person), a "must" qua deontological necessity (as opposed to ontological, logical, or physical necessity), a requirement, a demand, a command—rather than something weaker, something non-obligatory: an advice, a recommendation, a suggestion, or an expectation.

As for the distinction between the moral ought and the prudential ought, isn't there an intuitively comprehensible difference being obliged to do something and being well advised to do it, between its being obligatory for me to do something and its being prudent for me to do it?
Let's simplify. One of the first things kids learn when they are taught definitions is that a definition cannot itself contain the word which is being defined. Definitions which fail to observe this rule are circular and inept. But every time you attempt to define "moral" or "duty" or some other analytically identical term, you end up using the definiendum in your definition. Some of the circular definienda found within your newest definition include, "deontological necessity," and "non-obligatory." Beyond being circular, these faulty definitions are also question-begging insofar as the question at hand is whether there is a viable distinction to be made between moral and non-moral 'oughts'.

If we ignore those circular parts of the definition we get something like: "Ought" is used morally (ethically) iff it expresses a (universalizable) duty or obligation. This is at least a coherent definition, and in that sense is promising.
The rest of my definition is coherent and non-circular as well, since I don't use the adjective "moral" in my definiens!
Leontiskos wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 5:27 pmSome 'oughts' are stronger than others, but I don't know why this would make them moral as opposed to non-moral. We could even say that some 'oughts' bind me whereas others do not. Still, to say that all non-binding 'oughts' are beside the moral seems incorrect, even colloquially.

Of course for Aristotle prudence and morality are closely related:
  • On this account some people say that all the virtues are forms of prudence, and in particular Socrates held this view, being partly right in his inquiry and partly wrong—wrong in thinking that all the virtues are actually forms of prudence, but right in saying that they are impossible without prudence.

    This is corroborated by the fact that nowadays every one in defining virtue would, after specifying its field, add that it is a formed faculty or habit in accordance with right reason, “right” meaning “in accordance with prudence.”

    Thus it seems that every one has a sort of inkling that a formed habit or character of this kind (i.e. in accordance with prudence) is virtue.

    Only a slight change is needed in this expression. Virtue is not simply a formed habit in accordance with right reason, but a formed habit implying right reason.

    But right reason in these matters is prudence.

    So whereas Socrates held that the [moral] virtues are forms of reason (for he held that these are all modes of knowledge), we hold that they imply reason.

    It is evident, then, from what has been said that it is impossible to be good in the full sense without prudence, or to be prudent without moral virtue.


    (Nicomachean Ethics, Book 6, Chapter 13)
From the perspective of virtue ethics prudence is a virtue, i.e. a morally good-making property, a property the having of which adds to a person's moral goodness; and by definition virtues are moral qualities one ought to have. So here we have a direct connection between prudence and morality.

But if you reject the distinction between moral and non-moral uses of "ought" by arguing that they are all equally moral, you must contend that all sentences of the form "x ought to do y" have one and the same meaning in all contexts, "x has the duty/obligation to do y", which just isn't plausible, is it?
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Re: Oughts and Hypothetical Imperatives

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Consul wrote: September 4th, 2022, 12:37 pm
Leontiskos wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 5:27 pmThen the notion of legality gets us nowhere. Why even bring it up?
Because there is a relevant distinction between law and morality, isn't there?
Law is an extrinsic moral norm, so if one holds that morality must be intrinsic and appropriated by the subject, then law is distinguished from morality just as an extrinsic norm is distinguished from morality.

Colloquially we speak of morality as distinct from law, but my whole point is that the colloquial usage of "moral" is unsustainable. Most of your responses could be reduced to, "Well, we talk about morality this way!" Granted, but just because we talk in a particular way doesn't mean that it ultimately makes sense.
Consul wrote: September 4th, 2022, 12:37 pm
Leontiskos wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 5:27 pm
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 3:39 pm Of course, to achieve a deeper understanding, we must do a conceptual analysis of these distinctions between kinds of necessity; but it is not the case that you have never heard of them and have no idea what I'm talking about, is it?
As noted from the outset, I think your special conception of morality--your presumption that there are moral 'oughts' and non-moral 'oughts'--is unsustainable gibberish. Given the large number of occasions on which you have now failed to sustain that distinction, it would seem that my view is being vindicated.
I don't think so, because it is not the case that the distinction between moral and non-moral oughts "is unsustainable gibberish"—given the linguistic fact that "ought" has several meanings, not all of which are (properly called) moral or ethical. For it is arguably not the case that all ought-sentences are synonymous with moral/ethical sentences concerning duties or obligations.
Again, I grant that we talk that way. Who cares? Why is it that you have been unable to give an account of what morality is? Perhaps it is because your concept of morality is incoherent.
Consul wrote: September 4th, 2022, 12:37 pmQUOTE:
"Many philosophical discussions of the meaning of ‘ought’ seem to assume that it is an obvious analytic truth that whenever one ‘ought’ to do something, one has a ‘duty’ or ‘obligation’ to do it. This assumption seems eminently questionable to me. I ought to buy a new pair of shoes, but I surely do not have any duty or obligation to buy a new pair of shoes. Duties and obligations are in some sense ‘owed’ to someone or something that is the object or beneficiary of the duty or obligation, while it is far from clear that anything like that need be true of everything that one ‘ought’ to do. So for at least these reasons, ‘ought’, ‘is obliged’, and ‘has a duty’ must be distinguished."

(Wedgwood, Ralph. "The Meaning of 'Ought'." In Oxford Studies in Metatethics, Vol. 1, edited by Russ Shafer-Landau, 127-160. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. p. 128)
I grant that there are different kind of 'oughts', but from this it does not follow that there are non-moral 'oughts'.
Consul wrote: September 4th, 2022, 12:37 pm"By tying ‘ought’ to obligation, [Patrick] Nowell-Smith here restricts the normative to the moral. But most of our practical decisions do not involve moral thinking; and, in making these decisions, we often ask what we have reason to do, and what we should, ought, or must do."

(Parfit, Derek. "Normativity." In Oxford Studies in Metatethics, Vol. 1, edited by Russ Shafer-Landau, 325-380. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. p. 333)
:QUOTE
I do not tie 'ought' to obligation. Beyond that, Parfit begs our question unless he can justify his assertion that practical decisions do not involve moral thinking.
Consul wrote: September 4th, 2022, 12:37 pm
Leontiskos wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 5:27 pmWe have a duty to observe the laws of logic (which are not reducible to abstract modal logic). For example, when someone is accused of holding a "double standard" they are being accused of failing to treat equal things equally. They are applying two different standards to things which are relevantly similar. This would be a transgression of logic or rationality.
You may argue that rationality, including logical reasoning, is a virtue people should have; so people have the duty to think rationally and logically. But in fact millions of people hold beliefs, particularly religious ones, which are irrational and illogical. Is it really immoral to hold such beliefs?
It is immoral to think wrongly intentionally and consciously, yes.
Consul wrote: September 4th, 2022, 12:37 pmAnyway, here's an interesting quotation by Gottlob Frege, the inventor of modern logic:

QUOTE:
"Like ethics, logic can also be called a normative science. How must I think in order to reach the goal, truth? We expect logic to give us the answer to this question, but we do not demand of it that it should go into what is peculiar to each branch of knowledge and its subject matter. On the contrary, the task we assign logic is only that of saying what holds with the utmost generality for all thinking, whatever its subject matter. We must assume that the rules for our thinking and for our holding something to be true are prescribed by the laws of truth. The former are given along with the latter. Consequently we can also say: logic is the science of the most general laws of truth."

(Frege, Gottlob. "Logic." 1897. In The Frege Reader, edited by Michael Beaney, 227-250. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997. p. 228)
:QUOTE

However, "normative science" isn't necessarily synonymous with "moral science"; and when Frege asks "How must I think in order to reach the goal, truth?", is the "must" here equivalent to the duty-expressing, moral "ought" or to the non-moral "ought" expressing instrumental rationality? Given the latter sense, we get: "If your goal is truth, then you ought to be reasoning (arguing) in such and such ways." This implies a moral ought only if pursuing truth is a moral virtue people must or ought to have.
Other questions aside, I would simply say that we have a duty to pursue truth; to think and assert in accordance with truth.
Consul wrote: September 4th, 2022, 12:37 pm
Leontiskos wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 5:27 pm
Consul wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 3:39 pm You keep on accusing me of begging the question, but I dare to assert that my latest definition of the moral (ethical) sense or use of "ought" is neither vacuous nor too nebulous to be intelligible; so I think it is not the case that it "does not get us any closer to understanding what you think these words mean."

"Ought" is used morally (ethically) iff it expresses a (universalizable) duty or obligation (attributed to and possessed by a person), a "must" qua deontological necessity (as opposed to ontological, logical, or physical necessity), a requirement, a demand, a command—rather than something weaker, something non-obligatory: an advice, a recommendation, a suggestion, or an expectation.

As for the distinction between the moral ought and the prudential ought, isn't there an intuitively comprehensible difference being obliged to do something and being well advised to do it, between its being obligatory for me to do something and its being prudent for me to do it?
Let's simplify. One of the first things kids learn when they are taught definitions is that a definition cannot itself contain the word which is being defined. Definitions which fail to observe this rule are circular and inept. But every time you attempt to define "moral" or "duty" or some other analytically identical term, you end up using the definiendum in your definition. Some of the circular definienda found within your newest definition include, "deontological necessity," and "non-obligatory." Beyond being circular, these faulty definitions are also question-begging insofar as the question at hand is whether there is a viable distinction to be made between moral and non-moral 'oughts'.

If we ignore those circular parts of the definition we get something like: "Ought" is used morally (ethically) iff it expresses a (universalizable) duty or obligation. This is at least a coherent definition, and in that sense is promising.
The rest of my definition is coherent and non-circular as well, since I don't use the adjective "moral" in my definiens!
"Deontological necessity" is one of your code words for "moral," so the result is the same. Substituting an analytically identical term for the definiendum creates the exact same problem.
Consul wrote: September 4th, 2022, 12:37 pmBut if you reject the distinction between moral and non-moral uses of "ought" by arguing that they are all equally moral, you must contend that all sentences of the form "x ought to do y" have one and the same meaning in all contexts, "x has the duty/obligation to do y", which just isn't plausible, is it?
That does not follow. Rather, since I reject the distinction between moral and non-moral uses of 'ought' by arguing that they are all equally moral, I therefore contend that the sphere of morality is just as nuanced as the sphere of oughtness. You have made this mistake often in our conversation. You think that when I (or Becker) say that all 'oughts' are moral, we therefore mean that all 'oughts' are obligatory. This begs the question. You are the one who thinks that all moral claims are obligatory. I specifically reject that premise. To presuppose such a premise in assessing my position is to beg the question in favor of your own view.
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Re: Oughts and Hypothetical Imperatives

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Leontiskos wrote: September 4th, 2022, 4:10 pm
Consul wrote: September 4th, 2022, 12:37 pm I don't think so, because it is not the case that the distinction between moral and non-moral oughts "is unsustainable gibberish"—given the linguistic fact that "ought" has several meanings, not all of which are (properly called) moral or ethical. For it is arguably not the case that all ought-sentences are synonymous with moral/ethical sentences concerning duties or obligations.
Again, I grant that we talk that way. Who cares? Why is it that you have been unable to give an account of what morality is? Perhaps it is because your concept of morality is incoherent.
Did I say my intention is "to give an account of what morality is"?
I may be labouring under amnesia, but I think what I wanted to do is to define a distinction between moral and non-moral senses or uses of "ought".
Leontiskos wrote: September 4th, 2022, 4:10 pmI grant that there are different kind of 'oughts', but from this it does not follow that there are non-moral 'oughts'.
Right. There might be different kinds of oughts all of which are moral ones.

Yesterday I came upon a book by Gregory Mellema titled The Expectations of Morality (Rodopi, 2004), in which he argues that "we can distinguish statements where “ought” designates moral duty or obligation from statements in which it designates something moral other than duty or obligation." (p. 35)
He calls that alleged weaker kind of moral ought expectation"x (morally) ought to do y" = "x is (morally) expected to do y" (≠ "x is (morally) obliged to do y")—, stating that moral obligation entails moral expectation, but not vice versa.

I haven't yet read the whole book, so I don't know how he spells out his idea of moral expectation in detail. I just mention it here so as to admit that not all moral philosophers equate the moral ought with duty or obligation, which is a problem for those—like me—who do so.
However, one could reply to Mellema that there are different degrees or strengths of duty or obligation, with expectation being a relatively weak form of duty or obligation rather than non-obligation. I know this is just hand-waving until I dig deeper into these matters; but rather than saying that expectation and obligation are different species of the same genus moral normativity, one could say that expectation is a species of the genus obligation = moral normativity. Then, moral expectation as a softer or weaker form of obligation rather than as non-obligation could be called "oaken duty", as opposed to "iron duty". (This terminology is borrowed from David Armstrong, who, talking about laws of nature, distinguishes between "iron laws" and "oaken laws".)
Leontiskos wrote: September 4th, 2022, 4:10 pmI do not tie 'ought' to obligation.
Do you tie "ought" to obligation (duty) in moral/ethical contexts?
Leontiskos wrote: September 4th, 2022, 4:10 pm
Consul wrote: September 4th, 2022, 12:37 pmYou may argue that rationality, including logical reasoning, is a virtue people should have; so people have the duty to think rationally and logically. But in fact millions of people hold beliefs, particularly religious ones, which are irrational and illogical. Is it really immoral to hold such beliefs?
It is immoral to think wrongly intentionally and consciously, yes.
I agree that it is morally wrong to deny known facts. However, as long as the nonexistence of God or gods is not an established scientific fact like plate tectonics, religious believers aren't morally obliged to abandon their faith, are they?
Leontiskos wrote: September 4th, 2022, 4:10 pmOther questions aside, I would simply say that we have a duty to pursue truth; to think and assert in accordance with truth.
This is off-topic here, but as for the value of knowledge and true belief: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-value/

QUOTE:
"The will to truth that still seduces us into taking so many risks, this famous truthfulness that all philosophers so far have talked about with veneration: what questions this will to truth has already laid before us! What strange, terrible, questionable questions! That is already a long story – and yet it seems to have hardly begun? Is it any wonder if we finally become suspicious, lose patience, turn impatiently away? That we ourselves are also learning from this Sphinx to pose questions? Who is it really that questions us here? What in us really wills the truth? In fact, we paused for a long time before the question of the cause of this will – until we finally came to a complete standstill in front of an even more fundamental question. We asked about the value of this will. Granted, we will truth: why not untruth instead? And uncertainty? Even ignorance? The problem of the value of truth came before us, – or was it we who came before the problem? Which of us is Oedipus? Which one is the Sphinx? It seems we have a rendezvous of questions and question-marks. – And, believe it or not, it ultimately looks to us as if the problem has never been raised until now, – as if we were the first to ever see it, fix our gaze on it, risk it. Because this involves risk and perhaps no risk has ever been greater."
—Friedrich Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil, §1
:QUOTE
Leontiskos wrote: September 4th, 2022, 4:10 pm
Consul wrote: September 4th, 2022, 12:37 pm The rest of my definition is coherent and non-circular as well, since I don't use the adjective "moral" in my definiens!
"Deontological necessity" is one of your code words for "moral," so the result is the same. Substituting an analytically identical term for the definiendum creates the exact same problem.
Are "deontological" and "moral" synonyms? Not generally, I think; but—touché!—I concede that the phrase "deontological/deontic necessity" is synonymous with "moral necessity", since there is no non-deontological moral (ethical) necessity.
Leontiskos wrote: September 4th, 2022, 4:10 pm
Consul wrote: September 4th, 2022, 12:37 pmBut if you reject the distinction between moral and non-moral uses of "ought" by arguing that they are all equally moral, you must contend that all sentences of the form "x ought to do y" have one and the same meaning in all contexts, "x has the duty/obligation to do y", which just isn't plausible, is it?
That does not follow. Rather, since I reject the distinction between moral and non-moral uses of 'ought' by arguing that they are all equally moral, I therefore contend that the sphere of morality is just as nuanced as the sphere of oughtness. You have made this mistake often in our conversation. You think that when I (or Becker) say that all 'oughts' are moral, we therefore mean that all 'oughts' are obligatory. This begs the question. You are the one who thinks that all moral claims are obligatory. I specifically reject that premise. To presuppose such a premise in assessing my position is to beg the question in favor of your own view.
Okay, but what is your definition of morality then? I think it is undeniable that ought-sentences expressing duty or obligation are moral ones, but what is moral about ones not expressing duty or obligation but something else (whatever that is)?
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Re: Oughts and Hypothetical Imperatives

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Consul wrote: September 5th, 2022, 3:21 pm
Leontiskos wrote: September 4th, 2022, 4:10 pmI grant that there are different kind of 'oughts', but from this it does not follow that there are non-moral 'oughts'.
Right. There might be different kinds of oughts all of which are moral ones.
"The train ought to arrive at the station in 30 minutes." – There clearly isn't anything moral about "ought" as used here, which is due to trains not being moral subjects. As opposed to human train drivers, trains do not have any duties or obligations; so it is not the case that absolutely all ought-sentences are moral ones, but you can certainly argue that at least all ought-sentences concerning moral subjects or morally responsible persons are moral ones.
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Re: Oughts and Hypothetical Imperatives

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Consul wrote: September 5th, 2022, 3:35 pm-
As opposed to human train drivers, trains do not have any duties or obligations; so it is not the case that absolutely all ought-sentences are moral ones, but you can certainly argue that at least all ought-sentences concerning moral subjects or morally responsible persons are moral ones.
What about the following example?

"You ought to use these tools for repairing your bicycle."

What's moral about "ought" as used here? Would it be morally wrong not to use these tools but others?
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Re: Oughts and Hypothetical Imperatives

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Consul wrote: September 5th, 2022, 3:21 pmAre "deontological" and "moral" synonyms? Not generally, I think; but—touché!—I concede that the phrase "deontological/deontic necessity" is synonymous with "moral necessity", since there is no non-deontological moral (ethical) necessity.
"'Ought', I want to say, is a logical word. It is a deontic modal operator. Its logical properties and function are closely analogous to those of the other modal operators like 'it is necessary that'. The difference is that, whereas the other modal operators govern descriptive statements, 'ought' governs prescriptions (…). 'Ought'-statements entail imperatives with the same content, just as sentences beginning 'It is necessary that . . .' entail indicative statements with the same content. So we could summarize my account of 'ought' by saying that it is the modality standing to prescriptions as 'necessary' stands to descriptive statements."

(Hare, R. M. Sorting Out Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. p. 136)

Deontological necessity is expressible by means of the modal auxiliary "must": If you have the duty to do x, then you must do x (it is morally necessary for you to do x). This normative use of "must" is certainly different from its descriptive use. We must pay our debts, and we must die. The first "must" represents deontological necessity, and the second one represents biological/physiological necessity.
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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