Topics Philosophers

Question Hume stated that there is a gap between "is" and "ought." What about hypothetical imperatives? For example, it seems that, given a certain state of the material world, if I want to arrive on time for a certain meeting, then I ought to leave the house before, say, 8 AM. Did Hume's statement make room for such constructions, or does he not believe that the premises of hypothetical imperatives justify their normative conclusions?

Accepted:
February 29, 2012

Comments

A bit more information would help me in answering your question. The "gap" you mention between what is and what ought to be the case seems to permeate practical philosophy down to the ancients. Are you citing a particular passage in Hume? As for hypothetical imperatives Kant comes to mind; he suggests that the term "ought" in this sense is not normative language at all but addresses our freedom to let desire have a role in choices (hence the hypothetical part). The moral sense of "ought" for Kant is categorical, and he is well aware of the gap between the is and the ought. So I guess I'm needing to have a text - or a Hume expert to reply - before I can get the gist of your question.

The usual place people look in Hume forthe 'ought'/ 'is' problem is the end of the first section of ATreatise of Human Nature. Essentially, Hume wants to demonstratethat moral conclusions are founded only upon emotional reactions.This means, among other things, that a moral conclusion concerningsome event or object outside of me cannot be derived rationally froma consideration of the facts concerning that event or object. Or,more simply put, a moral 'ought' cannot be discovered in anythingthat 'is' the case. So far so good. However, Hume admits upfront thatthe emotional feeling I have is itself a 'fact'. Strictly speaking,therefore, an ought (you ought not to do that) not only comes frombut is practically identical with an 'is' (because I feel that it iswrong). This means Hume has to distinguish between two senses of'fact': a fact concerning an object of reason, which is a feature ofan idea or of the relations between ideas, and a fact concerning anobject of feeling, which is the way in which I have that idea.

How does this pertain to your question?As Professor Manter writes, the basic discussion of hypotheticaloughts is to be found in Kant. Given that I have a certain desire D,then I ought to do act A in order to fulfil D. This ought is builtout of two 'is's. First, it is the case that acts such as A tend tolead to objects that fulfil D; second, it is the case that I have D.Neither of these facts is in itself a moral fact. This is not justbecause Kant distinguishes moral acts from ones that involve emotionsand desires, but also because the hypothetical ought is just astraight-forward cause and effect relation in disguise (it is notnormative). Consider the following statement: 'If that fence is goingto stay up, it really needs some of those trees around it cut down'.The statement is already odd since we don't normally think of fencesas having 'needs', but we certainly wouldn't express this as astatement about what the fence 'ought' to do (e.g. '...the fencereally ought to cut down some of the trees around it''). However, inevery other way, the statement is identical with a hypotheticalimperative. We are creatures that make choices, and therefore we usethe language of 'ought' to describe a case where a particular choiceneeds to be made in order for some outcome to be achieved. Despitethat use of language, then, for Kant thehypothetical ought therefore is not essentially different from 'ifthe trees are cut down, then the fence will stay up.' InHume's language, it is a relation between two facts rather than amoral feeling.