Hello,

I am new to this message board, and VERY new to philosophy and humanism.

I am working my way through the book Sophie's World with the help of Philosophy for Dummies. (Has this book been discussed here?)

One concept that I just can't grasp is Hume's IS/Ought idea. Here is an excerpt:

"...draw a conclusion from a descriptive sentence - "That person want's to live too" - to what we call a normative sentence: "Therefore you ought not to kill them." From the point of view of reason this is nonsense. You might just as well say "There are lots of people who cheat on their taxes, therefore I ought to cheat on my taxes too." Hume said you can never draw conclusions from is sentences to ought sentences. Nevertheless it is exceedingly common, not least in newspapers articles, political party programs, and speeches."

Can someone please explain this to me?

Thanks in advance! Jales4

Welcome to the forum, Jales. Incidentally, this topic would have fit in just fine in the forum marked "Philosophy, Religion and the Arts". If you want to give your thread maximum exposure to people who are interested in a topic as specific as philosophy, your best bet is to make sure it ends up in the appropriately labelled forum. I hope that doesn't come off as snide -- just trying to offer some friendly advice.

It might help you understand Hume's is/ought dichomotomy to draw a medical analogy. Think about the difference between description and prescription. A doctor describes your condition in certain terms -- that's analogous to Hume's "Is". But when a doctor prescribes a course of action -- say, taking a particular medication -- that's prescriptive, something you "ought" to do if you want your condition to change.

Hume's "is" serves as a description of a condition that is more or less objective; "ought" is an expression of what you might do to change that condition. So when Hume says that you can never derive an ought from an is alone, what he means is that the condition of things as they are do not, in themselves, recommend a course of behavior.

To give an example, if we say that there is a population of people who can't afford healthcare, that premise in itself is not enough to take us to the conclusion that we ought to reform our healthcare system. Some other term is needed, mainly some reason for wanting more people to have healthcare. That "something else" is usually some sort of ideal or value that is not, on its own, a description of the objective situation: for example, a belief in equality and a corresponding belief that people can only achieve other forms of equality if they aren't constantly beset with financial worries related to healthcare. To give it a more logically diagrammatic form, we might say:

premise 1: Not everyone has healthcare.
p2: Equality is good.
p3: Access to healthcare makes people more equal.
ergo: We ought to reform healthcare.

Whereas a more direct jump, like:

p1: Not everyone has healthcare;
ergo: We ough to reform healthcare;

leaves out all of the intermediate statements that logically connect p1 to the conclusion.

(Incidentally, to tie this in to another discussion we're having on BookTalk, the same objection applies to any attempt to justify moral systems on the basis of so-called evolutionary psychology. That we have evolved to behave in ways that can be described as moral does not imply that we ought to continue to behave in those ways. One does not logically follow the other.)

Hi MadArchitech,

Thanks for the welcome, and the advice.

I am much clearer on the concept now. I'll start watching for examples in the media. The prescription example was great.

I'll wander over to the philosophy forum soon to ask some more questions.

Thanks, Jales4

I know this seems like common sense, but I never thought to get the Philosophy for dummies book. I struggle with philosophy, but am trying hard to grasp it. Thanks for the indirect advice.

MadArchitect wrote: (Incidentally, to tie this in to another discussion we're having on BookTalk, the same objection applies to any attempt to justify moral systems on the basis of so-called evolutionary psychology.

Slightly off topic, but hopefully you can clear this up quickly: Why so-called?

Hi Kataveryk,

If you haven't read Sophie's World by Jostein Gaardner, I highly recommend it. It is a "Novel About the History of Philosophy", and has fairly simple explanations of many of history's philosophies.

Since it only touches on each for a chapter, I found the Philosophy for Dummies interesting for more detail - but at a level that I can understand.

Jales4

Niall001 wrote:Slightly off topic, but hopefully you can clear this up quickly: Why so-called?

Because I don't really think it qualifies as psychology. It doesn't particularly differ from any other sort of evolutionary biological abstraction -- it's statistical, dealing with populations rather than individuals, and that, to my mind, makes it a stronger candidate for the title "sociology" rather than "psychology." Not only that, but it owes a great deal to Richard Dawkins' "selfish gene" theory, which begins by drawing attention away from consciously determinant agents and resettling it on the automatic processes of the gene. That "evolutionary psycholgists" can self-apply the term "psychology" with a straight face probably has a lot to do with Dawkins' tendency to anthropomorphize his "basic unit of evolution". Evolutionary psychologists aren't really talking about psychology, they're talking about behavioral inclinations that are inherited and visible on a statistical -- not individual -- level.

Psychology, for that matter, is a bit of a distortion, if you take the word literally. After all, it no longer claims to deal with anything resembling a psyche, and probably isn't that far off from being absorbed into the discipline of neurology.

Insult my children why don't ye!

Psychology, for that matter, is a bit of a distortion, if you take the word literally. After all, it no longer claims to deal with anything resembling a psyche, and probably isn't that far off from being absorbed into the discipline of neurology.

Well the psyche in psychology is certainly not the soul. It's about the mind. But you're well off track if you think that it's anywhere near being absorbed into any other discipline, let alone neurology. Neuropsychology is incapable of investigating any complex forms of thought like problem solving or reasoning, and even for something as simple as audio processing, any halfway decent brain image requires the use of a theoretical model. Many of the new practical developments have come from behaviourist research which rarely utilised neuroimaging. Likewise, social psychology rarely uses brain imaging of any form.

Because I don't really think it qualifies as psychology. It doesn't particularly differ from any other sort of evolutionary biological abstraction -- it's statistical, dealing with populations rather than individuals, and that, to my mind, makes it a stronger candidate for the title "sociology" rather than "psychology." Not only that, but it owes a great deal to Richard Dawkins' "selfish gene" theory, which begins by drawing attention away from consciously determinant agents and resettling it on the automatic processes of the gene. That "evolutionary psycholgists" can self-apply the term "psychology" with a straight face probably has a lot to do with Dawkins' tendency to anthropomorphize his "basic unit of evolution".

I suspect that your perception of evolutionary psychology is based largely on the popular works of the Dawkinites, and if that's the case, your misperception is forgivable. Of course, I may be wrong.

And to nitpick, the "selfish gene" theory did not have its origin in Dawkins. Dawkins merely came up with a metaphor that helped people understand an existing theory. It's not particularly relevant, but it always annoys me that he gets the credit for it. Dawkins is not one of the leading figures within evolutionary psychology. Of those who have written popular works on the subject, Pinker is probably the closest to a leading theorist, though he tends to focus on language. In the past, E.O. Wilson was also very important.

Evolutionary psychologists aren't really talking about psychology, they're talking about behavioral inclinations that are inherited and visible on a statistical -- not individual -- level.

I'm not certain if I understand you. It has been common practice within psychology to study people in large groups, using questionaires etc.

At any rate, this is not the sole, or even the primary method used within evolutionary psychology. More commonly, the theorists develop experiments capable of testing theories which come about as a result of considering our evolutionary environment, or they attempt to explain empirically established phenomena by referring to what we know about human evolutionary development. The example most often cited is that of the Wason selection task, where it was observed that individuals performed better on a logical task when it was placed within a social context. Using our understanding of our evolutionary history, Cosmides and Tooby then formulated an explanation as to why this might be the case, and designed and implemented certain experimental procedures to test if this might be the case, and to rule out other possible explanations.

It proceeds using the standard tools that traditional cognitive or behavioural psychologists endorse, it just interprets them within the light of evolutionary theory, and uses evolutionary theory to formulate new testable theories about how the mind is structured.

I'm going to post an excerpt from a chapter in a book about EP in a separate thread, as it explains how it is that evolutionary psychology differs from the traditional approach. If you read it, it should also become plain that evolutionary psychologists use many techniques and do not simply perform statistical analysis. You'll also notice if you follow the link to the original article, that Richard Dawkins is cited once, in an overview of EP's history.

Edit: By the way, since I'm effectively door-stepped you, please do not feel obligated to reply to this post or to comment on the new thread.

http://www.booktalk.org/sb-evolutionary ... t3838.html

Niall wrote:Well the psyche in psychology is certainly not the soul. It's about the mind. But you're well off track if you think that it's anywhere near being absorbed into any other discipline, let alone neurology. Neuropsychology is incapable of...

Which is kind of my points. Psychology as a discipline has already abandoned its old motives and has essentially been assimilated to a paradigm represented by biology. Consequently, it makes sense to examine what's left as a function of evolution, evolutionary theory being the organizing principle of all modern biology. Bt before that could happen, psychology had to stop concerning itself with the problems that originally motivated the field, had to stop addressing itself to the individual "psyche" in favor of the mental make-up of the species -- which were the terms under which it was originally named. Most historians of psychology talk about this in terms of the break from classical psychology to modern, and in some respects what it represents is the adoption of a whole new paradigm. The more psychology settles itself in biological terminology -- and evolutionary psychology certainly represents a further level of commitment -- the less it resembles its early preoccupations. A further indication of this is the gradual abandonment of process techniques of treatment in favor of chemical and medical treatment. What is unclear to me is the question of why it retains its nominal connection with the older discipline represented by James, Fred, Jung, etc., particularly if, as the article you posted in another thread suggests, all psychology will eventually be evolutionary psychology.

I suspect that your perception of evolutionary psychology is based largely on the popular works of the Dawkinites, and if that's the case, your misperception is forgivable. Of course, I may be wrong.

Well, that's largely what people on BookTalk mean when they talk about evolutionary psychology, so that's typically what I address my comments towards. But yes, I am aware that the field is broader than that. The assocation is misleading, but I think it's an easy one to make given that the popular perception of psychology as a discipline is still informed by classical psychology, which was very much preoccupied with moral norms, as is most popular literature about evo. psych.

More commonly, the theorists develop experiments capable of testing theories which come about as a result of considering our evolutionary environment, or they attempt to explain empirically established phenomena by referring to what we know about human evolutionary development.

Just about any excursion into describing the evolutionary development of a species requires a great deal of statistical abstraction. Even simply talking about "human evolutionary development" as though it were a single, unified thread is a matter of statistical abstraction.

If you read it, it should also become plain that evolutionary psychologists use many techniques and do not simply perform statistical analysis.

I didn't mean to suggest that statistical analysis was the only technique involved. What I meant was that statistical analysis is crucial to the mode of interpretation, as it practically must be any time a discipline begins to generalize about the way populations behave or have developed, rather than addressing the individual level. I'm not sure I've seen a form of evo.psych. that was possible without statistical abstraction at least implicit in its form of interpreting data.

MadArchitect wrote:
Which is kind of my points. Psychology as a discipline has already abandoned its old motives and has essentially been assimilated to a paradigm represented by biology. Consequently, it makes sense to examine what's left as a function of evolution, evolutionary theory being the organizing principle of all modern biology. Bt before that could happen, psychology had to stop concerning itself with the problems that originally motivated the field, had to stop addressing itself to the individual "psyche" in favor of the mental make-up of the species -- which were the terms under which it was originally named. Most historians of psychology talk about this in terms of the break from classical psychology to modern, and in some respects what it represents is the adoption of a whole new paradigm. The more psychology settles itself in biological terminology -- and evolutionary psychology certainly represents a further level of commitment -- the less it resembles its early preoccupations. A further indication of this is the gradual abandonment of process techniques of treatment in favor of chemical and medical treatment. What is unclear to me is the question of why it retains its nominal connection with the older discipline represented by James, Fred, Jung, etc., particularly if, as the article you posted in another thread suggests, all psychology will eventually be evolutionary psychology..

Well the thing to remember is that contrary to popular perception, Freudians have always been a minority. The experimental tradition predates Freud and co, and it also outlived that approach. As for James, he was probably one of the first evolutionary psychologists. He talked often talked of instinct theory in Principles and Varieties.

And on another point, for many different reasons, psychologists have relatively little interest in chemical and medical treatments. Psychiatrists have a major bias toward such treatments, but psycholgists don't even have the ability to hand out drugs to their clients. Most treatments that psychologists develop are behaviourist, or cognitive behaviourist in nature. Behaviourists have traditionally had little interest in the biology of the brain - Skinner described it as a Black Box we need not concern ourselves with.

The real benefit that EP offers to cognitive investigations of the brain is not to be found in talk of neurotransmitters or chemicals, but in allowing us to understand the nature of cognitive mechanisms. The traditional approaches based on the blank slate view of the mind attempted to draw up models that were based on certain principles. They imagined separate systems designed for emotion, cognition, reasoning etc. that functioned in the same way cross-situationally and as a result, their models were inaccurate. These models also tended to assume that rational thought was the goal of things like reasoning, or that accurate memories were what our memory systems were designed to do, but when the EP approach is taken, it becomes clear that these assumptions are unfounded. By identifying a possible goal of a cognitive system or sub-system, we can generate a hypothesis and design a procedure for testing it.