David Hume deserves all the credit for addressing the trouble with the “oughts” and “ought nots” in human society but let’s have another go at it…
Ethics is not a tangible entity in any human society. And what goes for one group may be appalled by another, so what determines the ought or ought not for any particular society or group of people? From where does this ought factor arise? How can any one (society) look at a thing or situation (the it) and determine whether or not this real factorial thing ought or ought not be good or bad? There isn’t Any ought in the it.
How do we move from the it to the ought? There isn’t any real cause and effect. In fact, there isn’t anything real at all except a feeling and from this emotional response we develop the ought about the it. The it or thing in question is real and truly exists in the world but the ought is not. The ought is nothing more than another metaphysical conundrum of the intangible and unproveable.
Ethics is a big bag of “oughts & ought nots” and every different society has a unique and intrinsic set of its own oughts and obviously, one would think what ought to be good for one group ought to good for another but this tends to quite frequently not be the case.
So, it becomes apparent that there is no “ought this” or “ought not” about anything. Ought is an imaginary and possibly arbitrary judgement attached to a thing and this judgement is nothing more than an emotional feeling derived from the human mind; it’s a biological hardwiring. -“If it feels good you ought to do it; if it feels bad you ought not.”
This all begs the question, if it feels good to harm another or even oneself then ought it be good to do so and bad to ought not? It’s a slippery slope this ought stuff, “I tell ya”.
Where do they get the ought from?
theaflys 