Is it Always Fallacious to Derive Values From Facts?

Argumentation 9 (4):553-562 (1995)
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Abstract

Charles Pigden has argued for a logical Is/Ought gap on the grounds of the conservativeness of logic. I offer a counter-example which shows that Pigden’s argument is unsound and that there need be no logical gap between Is-premises and an Ought-conclusion. My counter-example is an argument which is logically valid, has only Is-premises and an Ought-conclusion, does not purport to violate the conservativeness of logic, and does not rely on controversial assumptions about Aristotelian biology or 'institutional facts.'

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Mark T. Nelson
Westmont College

Citations of this work

How to Prove Hume’s Law.Gillian Russell - 2021 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 51 (3):603-632.
More bad news for the logical autonomy of ethics.Mark T. Nelson - 2007 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 37 (2):203-216.
More Bad News For The Logical Autonomy of Ethics.Mark T. Nelson - 2007 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 37 (2):203-216.

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References found in this work

The nature of morality: an introduction to ethics.Gilbert Harman - 1977 - New York: Oxford University Press.
A treatise of human nature.David Hume - 2007 - In Elizabeth Schmidt Radcliffe, Richard McCarty, Fritz Allhoff & Anand Vaidya (eds.), Late modern philosophy: essential readings with commentary. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
How to derive "ought" from "is".John R. Searle - 1964 - Philosophical Review 73 (1):43-58.

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