David Hume's Dichotomy
David Hume gave a famous interpretation of the fact-value distinction in his Treatise: you can’t derive an “ought” from an “is”. No set of statements of facts by themselves entails any statement of value. In other words, no set of descriptive statements can entail an evaluative statement without the addition of at least one evaluative or normative premise.1
But the philosophical position that facts and values are two different things has been challenged by several critics that consider it deluded. I will only consider two pf those criticisms to this dichotomy.
Firstly, Hilary Putnam's critic who, in a seminal essay, argued that the distinction between fact and value is not as absolute as Hume envisioned. For him facts and values are entangled
in “thick ethical concepts” often used in scientific descriptions2.
Thin ethical concepts are moral judgments expressed in basic words like “good”, ”bad”, ”right” or ”wrong”. They express a basic moral attitude either in favor or in contrary. Thick ethical concepts include both a moral evaluative component and a considerable descriptive one. Examples of the latter are: “courageous” and “kindly”.
Putnam analyses the word “cruel” considering it as a counterexample to the fact-value dichotomy. The statement “Susan is a cruel teacher” entails a descriptive content about Susan's behavior for instance giving unnecessarily low grades to her students. But it also expresses a moral disapproval of Susan's behavior therefore it has also normative content. Putnam argued that (a) the normative content of thick ethical terms is impossible to remove; and (b) thick ethical concepts cannot be divided into descriptive and normative components because they are entangled.
I consider that Putnam's argument does not prove that Hume's thesis is wrong. It just shows that ordinary language is unclear and apparently in an incorrigible way. But this is not enough to postulate that facts and values are inextricably entangled. A simple solution is to avoid the ordinary language and express scientific theories in a value-free manner, i.e. avoiding the use of thick ethical terms.
But the philosophical position that facts and values are two different things has been challenged by several critics that consider it deluded. I will only consider two pf those criticisms to this dichotomy.
Firstly, Hilary Putnam's critic who, in a seminal essay, argued that the distinction between fact and value is not as absolute as Hume envisioned. For him facts and values are entangled
in “thick ethical concepts” often used in scientific descriptions2.
Thin ethical concepts are moral judgments expressed in basic words like “good”, ”bad”, ”right” or ”wrong”. They express a basic moral attitude either in favor or in contrary. Thick ethical concepts include both a moral evaluative component and a considerable descriptive one. Examples of the latter are: “courageous” and “kindly”.
Putnam analyses the word “cruel” considering it as a counterexample to the fact-value dichotomy. The statement “Susan is a cruel teacher” entails a descriptive content about Susan's behavior for instance giving unnecessarily low grades to her students. But it also expresses a moral disapproval of Susan's behavior therefore it has also normative content. Putnam argued that (a) the normative content of thick ethical terms is impossible to remove; and (b) thick ethical concepts cannot be divided into descriptive and normative components because they are entangled.
I consider that Putnam's argument does not prove that Hume's thesis is wrong. It just shows that ordinary language is unclear and apparently in an incorrigible way. But this is not enough to postulate that facts and values are inextricably entangled. A simple solution is to avoid the ordinary language and express scientific theories in a value-free manner, i.e. avoiding the use of thick ethical terms.