If there is such a thing as morality, it is not merely an issue of effective means; it is also--and more fundamentally--a matter of proper ends. The concept of "morality" logically presupposes a proper end; without such an end, morality cannot exist. So the question is: What is a proper end?
Then, from part II:
The is--ought gap is the secular subjectivists' technical retreat. It serves as their linguistic asylum from the imposition of any moral standards. It is their ticket to "get away" with whatever they (or their group) feel like doing. And it is why no one can answer them when they say: "There are no moral absolutes" or "Morality is not black and white" or "Who's to say what's right?"
People who make such claims are counting on our inability to name a fact-based, logically provable, objective standard of moral value. Consciously or not, they are relying on the is--ought dichotomy to defend moral subjectivism. And, consciously or not, they are supported by the likes of David Hume and the legions of subjectivist college professors who each year teach another batch of future intellectuals that moral principles cannot be derived from the facts of reality.
What do Hume and company propose as an alternative? How, in their view, are people supposed to determine what is morally right and wrong? How are we to distinguish virtue from vice? Their answer: By reference to a "moral sense," which they also call "sentiments of pleasure and uneasiness" and, you guessed it: "feelings."
The problem is not: "If there is no God, anything goes." The problem is: If there is no objective standard of value, anything goes. If there is no rationally provable standard of value, there is no way to defend with moral certainty what is right or to condemn with moral certainty what is wrong. The alternative is not religion versus subjectivism, but reason versus subjectivism--and the secular subjectivists know it.
And, from part III:
The is--ought gap represents a moral abyss. If we care about human life and happiness, we need to bridge it. We need to ground morality in reality; we need to discover a rationally provable ultimate end--a standard of value derived from observation and logic.
Fortunately, the problem has been solved; the gap has been bridged; morality has been tied to reality. An objective standard of value has been rationally proved...
And I don't have to dig out my copy to verify my summary, it's the title of the book: Loving Life, i.e. live in such a way that you love living. Interestingly, there's a pretty good explanation of what that means in Andrew Bernstein's series Villainy: An Analysis of the Nature of Evil. (That's part I, there are links to the rest on the right. Part IV is due on Saturday.)
You may have noticed that I made little effort to defend Ayn Rand a few posts back. The fact is that I when I examined Kant and his most faithful intellectual descendants I had to say that it looked to me like she had mischaracterized him. Without doubt the most famous philosophers post-Kant promptly shoved their heads up their asses, but Jakob Fries actually advanced the philosophy and some others have as well. Schopenhauer wasn't a complete loser.
Having said that, I still think Rand and her descendants are more correct with regard to "Practical Reason" than Kant was. But I'm a lot closer to being an expert on Objectivism than anything else.
Rand, Bernstein... Yaron Brooke, Craig Biddle, Tara Smith... do a lot better job of defending Objectivism than I could. I've come to realize that my strength is doing more than... well, I think well, but I don't have confidence in my debating abilities.
That's why I've decided to do capitalism, rather than just talk about it. I'll keep you apprised of the results.
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