[lbo-talk] Re: I'm not sorry

[C. G. Estabrook]

I don't think the so-called naturalistic fallacy (roughly, deriving
"ought" from "is") is a fallacy at all.  Where else do ethics come from?
Whim? Unmotivated taste?  Chomsky (who would not quite agree on abortion)
would reject such emotivism in favor of ethics as a sort of universal
grammar of human behavior. --CGE

On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, Shane Mage wrote:


> In this, as in everything else on the topic from Messrs. Estabrook and
> Campbell (not to mention all the other prohibitionists) is a glaring
> exhibition of what has aptly become known as the *naturalistic
> fallacy*, first analyzed by David Hume.  "...Hume maintains that no
> propositions about what ought to be can validly be deduced from
> premises stating quite neutrally what as a matter of fact actually
> did, or does, or will occur..." (Article *Philosophy* in Collier's
> Encyclopedia, vol.18, p.725)
>