After MacIntyre: On Deriving 'Ought' from 'Is'

Are there any (non-trivial*) valid arguments that satisfy the following conditions: (i) The premises are all purely factual in the sense of purporting to state only what is the case; (ii) the conclusion is normative/evaluative? Alasdair MacIntyre gives the following example (After Virtue, U. of Notre Dame Press, 1981, p. 55):

1. This watch is inaccurate.

Therefore

2. This is a bad watch.

MacIntyre claims that the premise is factual, the conclusion evaluative, and the argument valid. Now the argument is not formally valid as it stands since it is an enthymeme with an unstated premise, namely, ‘Every inaccurate watch is a bad watch.’ But with the addition of the tacit premise, the argument is formally valid. The question, however, is whether the argument establishes a normative conclusion from purely factual premises. MacIntyre says it does; I doubt that it does. I conclude in good old Platonic style, aporetically.

The correctness of the argument is supposed to hinge on the functional character of the concept watch. A watch is an artifact created by an artificer for a specific purpose: to tell time accurately. It therefore has a proper function, one assigned by the artificer. (Serving as a paperweight would be an example of an improper function.) A good watch does its job, serves its purpose, fulfills its proper function. MacIntyre tells us that “the concept of a watch cannot be defined independently of the concept of a good watch . . .” and that “the criterion of something’s being a watch and something’s being a good watch . . . are not independent of each other.” (ibid.) MacIntyre goes on to say that both criteria are factual and that for this reason arguments like the one above validly move from a factual premise to an evaluative conclusion.

Speaking as someone who has been more influenced by the moderns than by the ancients, I don’t see it. It is not the case that “the concept of a watch cannot be defined independently of the concept of a good watch . . . .” A watch is “a portable timepiece designed to be worn (as on the wrist) or carried in the pocket.” (Merriam-Webster) This standard definition allows, as it should, for both good and bad watches. Note that if chronometric goodness, i.e., accuracy, were built into the definition of ‘watch,’ then no watch would ever need repair. Indeed, no watch could be repaired. For a watch needing repair would then not be a watch. No one denies that a good watch is an accurate watch. The question in dispute is whether the normative property of accuracy enters into the definition of ‘watch.’

MacIntyre is playing the following game, to put it somewhat uncharitably.

He smuggles the evaluative attribute good into his definition of ‘watch,’ and forgets that he has done so, thereby generating the illusion that his definition is purely factual, and then pulls the evaluative rabbit out of the hat in his conclusion. It is sleight of hand since the rabbit was already there in the premise. In other words, both (1) and (2) are evaluative. So, while the argument is valid, it is not a valid argument from a purely factual premise to an evaluative conclusion.

So if the precise question is whether one can validly move from a purely factual or descriptive premise to an evaluative conclusion, then MacIntyre’s example fails to show that this is possible.

What MacIntyre needs is the idea that some statements are both factual and evaluative. If (1) is both, then (2) — This is a bad watch — follows and MacIntyre gets what he wants. But if (1) is both, then (1) is not purely factual. The question, however, was whether there is a valid inference from the purely factual to the normative/evaluative. The answer to that, pace MacIntyre, is in the negative.

Is Man a Functional Concept?

Whether or not the inference from fact to value is logically kosher is highly relevant to ethics, the normative study of human action. If the inference is valid, and functional concepts do indeed embed criteria of evaluation, and human being is a functional concept, then an Aristotelian approach gains credibility. Aristotle maintains as much: man qua man has a proper function, a proper role, a proper ‘work’ (ergon). This proper function is one he has essentially, by his very nature, regardless of whatever contingent roles a particular human may instantiate, wife, father, sea captain. Thus, “ ‘man’ stands to ‘good man’ as ‘watch’ stands to ‘good watch’ . . . .” (56) Now if man qua man has a proper and essential function, then to say of a particular man that he is good or bad is to imply that he has a proper and essential function. But then to call a man good is also to make a factual statement. (57)

The idea is that being human is a role that includes certain norms, a role that each of us necessarily instantiates whether we like it or not. There is a sort of coalescence of factual individual and norm in the case of each human being just as, in Aristotle’s metaphysics, there is a sort of coalescence of individual and nature in each primary substance.

But does man qua man have a proper role or function? The moderns fight shy of this notion. They tend to think of all roles, jobs, and functions of humans as either freely adopted by the individual or externally assigned by other people, and either way as contingent. Modern man likes to think of himself as a free and autonomous individual who exists prior to and apart from all roles. This is what Jean-Paul Sartre means when he says that existence precedes essence. Man qua man has no pre-assigned nature or essence or proper function: man as existing individual makes himself whatever he becomes. Man is not God’s artifact, hence has no function other than ones he freely adopts. Push this idea far enough and you end up with the contemporary absurdity, widespread on the Left, that the sex of a neonate is assigned at birth as opposed to a natural, biologically grounded feature of the neonate, present pre-natally, and unchangeable thereafter. Leftists package this absurdity, and smuggle it into sleepy heads, by means of the conflation of sex with gender, as I explain elsewhere.

Although Aristotle did not believe in a creator God, it is an important question whether an Aristotle-style healing of the fact-value rift requires classical theism as underpinning. MacIntyre seems to think so. (Cf. p. 57) Philippa Foot demurs. She too holds that there are norms in nature, but is an atheist.

Aporetic Conclusion

If the precise question is whether one can validly (but non-trivially) move from a purely factual or descriptive premise to an evaluative conclusion, I have yet to see a clear example of this. But one could question the strict bifurcation of fact and value that I appear to be presupposing. The failure of entailment from (1) to (2) is perhaps no surprise given the bifurcation. Am I begging the question against Aristotle and MacIntyre? If I am, then so are they against me, and what have here is mutual question-begging and a standoff.

I grant, however, that the Aristotelian view, despite its murkiness, remains a contender. But to be a contender is not to be a winner. The Aristotelian view is murky because it seems to imply that a bad man is not a man, and a bad watch is not a watch. If it is built into the concept watch that it tell time accurately, then a watch that is either slow or fast is not a watch, which is plainly false if not absurd, implying as it does that no watch could ever need repair. Clearly, there is nothing in the concept watch to require that a watch be accurate. There are good watches and bad watches. If, on the other hand, you admit that some watches need repair, then you would have to admit that the norm of chronometric accuracy cannot be essential to a watch’s being a watch.

Similarly, there are good men and bad men, morally, medically, and in other ways. If to be a man is to exercise the proper function of a man, then there would be no need for correctional institutions or hospitals.

If you respond that a perfect watch needs no repair, and a perfect man no correction, moral or medical, then I will of course agree. But then particular watches, of which there are many, cannot share a self-same essence or nature that embeds a norm. For even if some are perfect, not all are, without prejudice to their being watches. And the same goes for human beings. There are many human beings. None are perfect; all fall short of perfection except perhaps for one, the God-Man, fully human and fully divine. In him, normative essence and individual are one. In us, however, there is a gap between what we ought to be and what we are.

We want norms to be objective and not subject to fluctuating evaluations that vary from person to person and from time to time. One way for them to be objective is by being grounded in the natures of the things that are supposed to satisfy the norms. Another way for them to be objective is by being grounded in the divine will. Neither way is viable. Given that subjectivism/relativism is also untenable, we are at an impasse.

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*A trivial argument from ‘is’ to ‘ought’ exploits the explosion principle, i.e., ex contradictione quodlibet. If anything follows from a contradiction, then from a contradictory premise set of factual claims any normative claim follows.