FACTS AND VALUES: IS THERE A NATURALISTIC FALLACY?

Mashe Mroy

La T ~ o b e University, Melbourne
I. Context
In answer to those philosphers who claim that no relation can be established between ultimate ends or values and the facts of reality, let me stress that the fact that livhg entities exist and function necessitates the existence of values and of an ultimate value which for any given living entity is its own Be. Thus the validation of value j u d m e n t s is to be achieved by reference to the facts of reality. The fact that a living entity is, determines what it oxlght to do. So much for the issue of the relation h&.we~ "is7' ~ lzd " ~ ~ g h t " . '

In makhg this statement, Ayn Rand has chdlenged a Iong established philosophical tradition, a tradition that was started with David HumeZ9 ~ e i n f ~ r c by e d Kant3, stressed by British Analytic philosphy as the prohibition of armments from factual premises to normative conclusions4 alistie fallacy), promoted by Eo@cal positivism as the thesis sf ennativism, namely that ""pure9' normative statements have no ""egnitive" but only "emotive" meaning" a d . adhered L o even by an apparent non-conformist Kke Popper6 in his "criticd dualism of facts and norms". Clearly, the fact that Rand is opposed to the whole tradition of the donaha& academic philosphy concerning a fundsmmental issue of armeta-ethics7does not show that she is mong. As it wjilI be clear shortly3I will a r e e in detaa that she is perfectly right. But it is worth stressing that the fact just anuded to explains to a considerable deg-ree the resistance of the b u k of academic philosophers to grant Objectivism a serious consideration. Many of them find it sufficient to claim that Objectivist ethics is "naive'bsinee it commits the ""naturahstic fdlaeyVs and $0 concEude from that

30

REASON PAPERS NO. 2

that it deserves no further scru%bly. Since the issue s f the relation between facts and values, or the alternative (equivalent)issue of the existence ornsn-existence of lodcal entailment relations between factud statements and so caned ""normative" statements, h a % not been n an elaborate manner by either Rand or other discussed i Objectivist phgosphess, the fundamental disageemeat on this matter between Objectivists and most academic phdosphers creates a communication barrier. This communicakion barrier is dzferent in nature from those which arise due to the highly emotionalg?, dmost hystwica4 response of some academic planosphers to "egoism"', The latter kind sf response indicates that no communication is ws~~thwhi~e--since a person tvho does not cannot be accept that ""emotions are not tools of communicated with. But someone who %m.olds that Rand's n principle, since it violates .;%.ha% that ethics is fistaken i prhciple, may be shcerely individual considers to be a lo@ca% mistaken, Beace this paper.

The purpose of the present paper is to examine the claim that Objectivism commits the "naturalistic fallacy" by reflecting on this alleged falazacy itself, and by analyzing, from the poirat of view of the phzosopby of lanmage, the locutisnary function of so called ""normative expressions" and 'hormative statements.'Th2e the inteuectual framework for the discussion is perfectly consistent with Objectivist epistemo%oa(and can be dkectly embedded in it), it does not depend on it, academically. Rather, I will use, to a Barge extent, the pknossphy of language of an academic philosopher, Yehoshua Bar-HiMel, I will use, though, only those aspects of his phgosophy of language which are consistent with Objectivism,

HII. Inference and Context

FACTS & VALLTES: 1sTHERE A NATURALISTIC FALLACY?

32

posefu&PIB," The purpose of a linguistic act, is to affect a Iisterner in a specific mhazlnner.j2 Any eonnmunicstion process (isnvolk7ing speech acts by both interlocutors) is, therefore, determined by the purposes of both interlocutors, one with repeet to the other. The purposes may vary--1 may wish to inform you about something, obtain your a ~ e e m e n make t ~ you cooperate with me, or even antagonize you. But whatever are my purposes, if 1 use l a n a a g e t o reach them, I have t o communicate some information t o you!3 Now, whenever I communciate kformation to you, by means of language, I do not state expEcit8y all of it, by means of fully spelled out formulations, Rather, 1rely on the fact that our; commurnication takes place in a s p e c ~ i c eontest, in order 50 make my communication as short as possi$le.'" Indeed, If I tell you " h a mh u n g ~ y "1 do not provide you a fully explicit message. Who is h u n g y ? When is he h u n ~ y ? What business of -mine is it? You are to answer these questions, usually for yourseK, not on the basis of my stated seaatenee but on the basis of the cmtezt. The context tells you (by Xookhg at me and identifying me) who is h u n p y , what "erne it is (by looking a t a watch) and why you are supposed to care (say, because YOU have just invited me to a swirr?, and I indicated that a visit to a restaurant beforehand may be advisable). Thus, the coHaA;extualityof lanpage use implies that when a fact of reality is identzied by sonleone via language, the Enguistic formulation is not always (rather, usuauy not) fully explicit, Rather it relies, to a large d e p e e , on the coaztezt. More specifteauy, certain locutions (suela as 'TI",""now" and many others) serve to direct the attention of the Gstener to the relevant conterrhual features which have to be taken into account in order to complete the reconstruction of the fact you identi$. The fact that certain Banpistic locutions are i d e z i c d - namely that they serve as means of referring to the context as a source of specific kinds of relevant imformation--is crucial for the understanding of normative formulations. For 1 will establish Hater that aD so eaUed ""normative locutions" are indexical, and hence that whenever one makes a complete, fully explicit paraphrase of sentences expressed by their means, they are eliminated in terms of fully descriptive locutions. But before reaching this point let us observe that

32

REASON PAPERS NO. 2

this faet aifeets very seriously the issue of hference relations between sente~lces.
#I. I am h u n p y . Hence, E am h u n g y ,

#2. Moshe Kroy is Biungy at 2 a.m. 28/13/75. Hence, 1 am hungpy.

At first inspection, you will accept #I as valiti, #2 as hvagd. But this is due to Back of sufficient attention, AetudIy, if the premise of #I is ~ a d before e dinner, by John Doe, and its conclusion is uttered after dinner, the agument is no longer valid. On the other hand, if #2 is uttered by me, Moshe Kroy, at 2 2%.m. 28/8/75, #2 is perfectly valid. Clearly, under these eheumstances, the premise of #I idsntifjes a different faet from the one identified by its conclusion, while both premise and conclusion s f8 8 2 identify the same fact. Thus, the use sfhdsxical expressions (such as ""I' and ""am9' --w-hich refers to stake of existence at the present tkxg, the time of utterance, that is) impGes that the issue of the vaEdity or jinvalidrity sf a r w ~ x e n tcannot s be decided just by reference to the seneieaces they involve. An arg-kamentis vaKd only7 if its premises identify the same facts of reality as its conclusion, But the indentzication of a fact of reality by a use of sentences in utterances is always eon textual^ Hence, the evaluation of of arguments stated in EngEsh (or any validity or invafidi~y other natural laneage) requires taking colatext into account. This fact, in itself, suffices to cast considerable doubt on the f those who hold the doctrhe that '~"nsrmative stateposition s ments" cannot be inferred from '"descriptive statements". The point 6 s that the demarcation between "normative9' and ""descriptive" statements is drawn by reference to a linguhtic criteria. Normative statements are those which hvolve, in "ought", formulation, limutions such 8s "valuev9, ""permitted", etc., and descriptive statements are those which do not. But since entagmentit, or won-entailment, depends not on sentences as suck but on the facts which these sentences serve to identify, and these facts are always identzied by sentences i n specsic eontesto, it fs11ows that it is impos&ble to say anythisag in general about entailment, or non-entailment, bet~veen sentences as such, w i t h a t reference to the specsic contex"iin which they are used. Even ad%, which seems to "xd ean obvious ease of an immediately valid hference, is not always

FACTS &- VALUES: I S THERE A NATURALISTIC FALLACY?

33

valid. I t is valid only when both premise and conclusion are uttered by the same speaker, and when the speaker did not eat between the act of uttering the premise and the act of uttering the conclusion, Thus, whoever claims that no arwment with factual premises and normative conclusions is vaEd tries to do the impossible: to make a general claim about hference relations between sentences, without takhg into account the e m t e z t s in which they are used. Hence such a position is stronly suspect to begin with, and its advocate is faced with the task s f justifying it. As a martLer of historical fact, there has mot been a single armment in favor of the claim that normative statements do not follow kom descriptive statements. This cEah has always been maintained dopatically--as if it were self-evident, which it obviously is not, So even without a detaned analysis of the use of normative expressions, the rather f r a p e n t a r y discussion of phdosophy of language provided thus far invalidates the position of those upholding the naturalistic fallacy to a considerable deqee. But only a complete analysis of these expressions wdl suffice to show it completely wrong,
IV. Normative E ~ u t i o n s

Consider diillooe 83,

Mother: You should go t o sleep.

This is a perfectly natural, perfectly everyday life kind of didowe. It exhibits the use s f the "normative 1mution9' shouu. What is the context for this use? The context, clearly, is established in p a d by Johpa9sprior utterance and, also, by a knowledge basis common to both John and Mother. John inrforms Mother he is tired. Mother assumes she and John agyee that no one w m t s to be tked. Hence she suggests to him the relevant meam to achieve his impfied end--the end of becoming, once again, fresh and widely awake: sleep. Observe that John could reply with #4,

34

REASON PAPERS NO.2

#4. 1enjoy being tked--and I enjoy it all the more so the more tired I am.

#4 is odd--since it is either a joke, or a reflection of some k h d of aberration on the side of John. But it cancels the relevance of Mother's reply. Mother, if she really respects John's individuaGty, would t h e reply with something like #6.
#6. So don't go to sleep. Stay awake. Want some strong coffee? (Or, if she i s a paternalistic authoritarian, would say #B.)

#6. You should go to sleep all the same since I want that you will be refreshed.

In either case, the purpose of ""should9' is to indicate a relevant means to some end. The end is usually not speczied: it is @en (or assumed to be $iven) by context, When the assumed end is explicityly withdrawn, or denied, the ""sould" statement loses all its force. Thus, i n the context where person A assumes person B to desire the end E, and where A takes M to be a relevant means to E (or better, the best means for achieving E, or sometimes the only means avanable for brindng about E), A may communicate this assumption to B by sayiwg: ""You should do M"--abbreviating thereby the much longer "You want to achieve end E, and M is the only (or best ) means to realbe EN. The word ""shou19* is then an hdexical word. It is used in order to refer to a speczie feature of contextually shared knowledge: the aim (or aims) of the person to whom one add(who may be oneself). resses the ""shou%d" Accordingly a ""sosuB9' statement is true provided both the hllowing conditions are satisfied: i. The person to whom the "should9' statement is addressed wants to achieve the end which the speaker assumes that person wants to achieve. ii0 The arelion which is recommended by the use of ""sould" is the only means, or best means, to achieve this end, Thus one can object to a ""skould" statement on either of two grounds: a. One dms not have the aim the other assumes one has. b, One knows of better means of achievhg it--or has reason to suspect the recommended means t o be irrelevant, or even damaang from the point of view of one's own aims,

FACTS &- VALUES: IS THERE A NATURALISTIC FALLACY?

35

Observe, nEoresxjer,that in view of i, and ii, the fouowing a r p m e a t is valid, provided that its premises and conelusion ;rare stated by the same speaker, eon~eeuti%~ely,
87. You. want to become Presidenz s f the U.S. The only way to beconle President of tlre U,S, is to promise t o the voters reduction of "cxalion and giivernment spending. Hence, yon should promise to your voters reduction o i taxa~ion and governsneiat expenses.

#$, however, violates sipfctures subscribed t o by those who uphoBd the ""naturalistie fauaey" claim. It infers a ""soula%"cona:lusion from factual p r e ~ ~ s e Therefore s. it is b~vaKd according to their doctrine. Bnt obviously it is valid, And the fact of its %ral%di"cy refutes the doctrine, Now, on what grgauds can someone ascribe a g v e n goal to another? This isslae, of the greatest importance to m s r d philosophy, is totally krelevant in the present context. Rand holds that one person1 can address "shssrlds" to another on the basis of the principle %sf %on-cor~t~diefz'on~ as sppEed to & h a t person's system o f goals. None can consistently hold a godsystem which hcludes one's own death--since one's death will make the realbation of that person's other goals impossible. This, however, has no relevanee here, even admitting its ~ truth fully, since .a-hat I wish to show is that " " s ~ u l d ' statemnents are inderaieal, that they refer to ran assumed god; I do not aam here t o get hvoHved in the moral issue of the p o u n d s on which one is entitled to attribute to another goals (or even to recomnhend goals lo another), The analysis of ""shoufd" statements, however, is not restricted to these particular brand of "normative statements"'. Consider d8.
#8* John: I have promised Aunt Bertha to visit her today. Mother: So you ought to go and visit her.

This discussion, when its context is brought fully to light, dlnminates the nature of "oughtv' statements. An "ought" statement is true i f it follows a p a m i s e (or more strongly a contractual csmsaitment), By promising, you mnake your intention to act in a speesic manner (usuauy deskable from the poilgt of view o f your kterlmutor) known t o your interlocutor. The concept of ""ougM"'--which expresses an obkigation--isusable in a context s f suck a prsn~ise, Each and every "ought'~erives from a promise, To say $0A that he ought to

36

REASON PAPERS NO. 2

do something is to refer to a past promise he made. This, h itself, has nothing to do with the Objectivist analysis of the reasons why one shsuM keep promises. These reasons, which pertain to one" own Me as an ultimate god (one which is requked by the principle of non-contradietiorn) and relate to one's speczic nature as a rational animal with a volitional ~onsciousness'~, point out that keephg promises is a means requked by this goal. But even 8, per impossible, these reasons would not exist, it would still be true that what one ought to do is what one promised to do--simply due to the eontextual nature and meanhg of the word "ought"--which refers to an act of promising. But such ""thought ezrperhents'kan~ot reaUy be made--they assume something requking demonstsation, namely the andytic-synthetic diehstomy.16 Consider now #9.
W 9 . John: Mr.

X tried to kill me, pretending that he was my defender. George: It is totany permissible for you to take severe retaEatory actions against Mr. X.

Clearly, the "permissible" here is, as the ""slaaldd"and "ought" before, contextual. I t means, when explicitly elaborated, that _ Lne action considered is consistent with the totality of John's goals (values). Thus you can oppose a ""prmissibility" claim by bdicathg a goal of yours which w2l be viobted by carrying out the ""germis~ible'~action. But in any ease, the issue is faetud. Both "permissible" and "ought", just as ""soulald", refute the doctrine of the naturaEstic faUacy. It is not fdlacbus to a r m e as in either BO or in 1 1 :
LL

W10. I p r o d s e d John to visit him tdw. Hence, I ought to visit him today.

# l a . I do not mind whether the eat will Eve or not. Hence, it is perdssible for me to k i l l the cat, provMed P have w t h ing better to do.

Both $dB0and #I1 commit the "naturaEstic fallacy9". Their vdidity shows, therefore, that it is not a fallacy. Consider, finally, the most Irmportant word--that of value.
#12. A good ear is a great value.

Under what conditions can #I2 be assegted to true? Clearly, when the person to whom you t a k is assumed to wish to be

FACTS & VALUES: IS THERE A NATURALISTIC FALLACY?

37

capable of easy, convenient, and swZt locomotion, and that it is very important for his further aims to possess one. Thus, the concept of vabe serves as an hdexical concept to refer to what a person wants. The preference of one value over another is the preference of one wish or deske over another. The objectivity of the Objectivist ethics folllows from the fact that it managed to formulate consistency criteria to demarcate consistent from inconsistent value systems. But this success depends on the previous seaKzation that a vdue is what somebody wants to achieve and/or mahtain!' So, sentences formulated by means of locutions such as ""sould", "ought", ""prmitted'99 "value" identgy facts. They dgfer from more stdghtforward "factual" formuBations only in the fact that they involve idexicad ezmessioazs--expressions which refer directly to the context of communication: to the purposes of one's interlocuter, to that person's prior actions, etc, But this dzference is not fundamental: any sentence which involves personal pronouns, tenses, etc., presupposes context in the same fashion, and to the same depee. Consequentlygr, the truth or faEsty of "normative" hrmulations, as t h a h f any other formulation, depends on nothharg else but the facts. SpecSicaUy on the fact that human beings act for a purpose, and that their actions are directed by their knowledge of the means required by the achievement of @ven purposes-and on the additional fact that one cannot act in order to achieve inconsistent goals and be successful, since contradictions do not exist.'$
V. Summary

A c a d e ~ philosophers, c by and large, hold the principle that "ought" statements do not follow from ""is ""statements, They labell inferences from ""dscriptive premises'2o "normative conclusions" cases of the 'haturaKstic fallacys9. This conception foPBows from ignoring the fact that entailment relhions never hold between sentences as suck but between sentences as used in spec* contexts--in v a u e of the fact that all use of lanmage is contextual. Therefore, it is impossible to state either principles of hference as principles of won-hference by reference to the I h a i s tic structure of sentences alone.

38

PtEASOTC PAPERS KO.2

Moreover, a3 '6n~ol.malive lwu&iorms""--specifi~a1l.~ 6'sho~~jd''9 L~ermissi$he" and ""va"beae9'--here s-xaaained (the resr, being Heft as an exercise readers might want to carry out) were found to be i?dezicaL erpressi~ns.They all serve to direct the a"Gtenticon s f the hearer to some eontextua% infor~ia#tion--which completes the hformatio11 explicitly copkkah~edin the sentence--in order to identify the fact to which the uzteranee of the sentence refers, So, the only way in which one can use rationaUg normative bcutions (namely, either assert statements by means s f them or deny statements thus asserted) is by p a h t i ~ g O U relevant ~ fmks. It is not only permissible to derive ""ought" from "is", There is no lather way,
'Ayn Rand, m e E e u e of Selkhness {New York: Signet* I%$),p, 3.72The usual source given by Emistorians of ghnnsophy is David Hurne* A Reatise 0fHum.n Natur~e (Guden City, N, "% .:Dolphin Books, 9961), p. 423. FOPone speczic relierenee to Rume as the source of this tradition see J. Hint&ka, Modekfor MoWities (Dor-rdrecht:Hihrzd: '6). Reidel, 1 % 9 ) , p, 21% "his i n Rant is reflected in his stress that "theoretied reason" and "'practical reason" a a s t o t d y sepmate, and in his stress that apapl, from '"hypothetical imperatives'%hieh are means-end imperatives, there is a ""eal;gsrical imperative" which states n "&odd'" which has no ulterior purpose, as well ss in his metaphysicd separation of reality into two wor1ds:seen but unreal (phenomena) and unseen but r e d (noumenaj, where Bcts concern phe~omersa but imperatives concern man as a "noumerna" since they assume that man is free while a s a phenomena be isUobvicsusBy" detea~nistie. Cf., I, Kant, C d i que of P ~ w t i c dR e a m (Indianapolis, Ind.: Lihseral Arts Press, 99561, e;Pou&~iiork of the d"vi~iapkg~ks orJrXwr& (New York: Harper Torchbmks,
19&i0

Tf., A. 6 . Graham, Eke P ~ o b k m of V ' u e (London: Butchison University Press, l%l), especidly pp, 15-19. 5Cf., Charles L. Stevenson, "The Emotive Meaning of Ethical Terms" in A. J. Ayer (eel.) Logii@dPo&pivGm (New York: The Free Press, 1959), pp. 264-281. 6KarI Popper, The Ope%S o k i y and i t s Enemf#s (%ondon".outledge i% Regan Paul, 19451, Vol. I, pp. 60-61, 234-5, Chapter 5, Sec. HII, pmsirn. The term "'meta-ethics" ususally refers to the study of tho meaning, function, and logical relations of etlaical statements--as against the study of actual principles of ethics. Objectivism does not accept this dichotomy (which reflects the analfiic-synthetic dichotomy, actudiy, althotlgh 1 will not here demonstrate this). 1 m&e use of the term since academic phnosophess by and large assume that meta-ethics precedes ethics arrd the Objectivism is to be ruled out an preii&ary, "aneta-ethicaj" grounds. 8Ayn Rand, For the New I n t e g e c t d (New York: Signet, I96%),pa 55. 9 ~ Bar-HiUei, . Aspects of Langmge (Jerusalem: Magxless press, 194%)), esp., Chapters 5,7,IO, 16, 4$,21,24, m d 3%* and my "Bar-Eaei, Generative Semantics and Generative Prapnatics" Letgiqt~ti: et AW"yzel 65-66 (19741, p.

FACTS & VALUES: IS THERE A NATURALISTIC FALLACY?

39

3-60. 1 no longer fully adhere to the views expressed in this paper, having written it prior to my understmding of Objectivism. 'OThe term isti tic act" or "speech act" is from the J. L. Austin tradition and has been stressed particulaly by 9.Searle in "'What is a Speech Act?" in J. Searle (ed.) The Phibsaphy ofLangzkage (New Uork: Oxford University Press, 1971), Chapter TII. l 'This obviously excludes pure reflex action which is iffrelevant here. 12Cf., H. P. Grice, 'Weaning" in D. D. Steinberg & E. A. Jakobovits (eds.) Semantics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), pp. 53-60. 13Cf., my "Logic, Language and Formaihation" Logigue e t A d y z e 67-68 ('1974).Again, I no longer adhere to most of the points made in this paper. 146f., note 13, 15Cf., Ayn Rand, Atlas Shmgged (New York: Signet, 119571, p. 939. 16For a discussion of the invalidity of this philosophical idea see Leonard Pe&off, " 'T h e Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy" The 0bjectic.iSt Val, 6 (1967), Nos. 5-9. 170p. cit., Rand, The Vi&ue of Selfishness, Chapter 1. 1 8 0 ~ sit., . Rand, A t h Shmgged, p. 315.

REASON PAPERS NO. 2