Characteristics of the Relationship between Descriptive Sentences and Normative Statements
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Keywords

naturalistic fallacy
„is” and „ought”
descriptive sentences
normative sentences

How to Cite

Jastrzębski, A. (2012). Characteristics of the Relationship between Descriptive Sentences and Normative Statements. Filozofia Chrześcijańska, 9, 113–124. https://doi.org/10.14746/fc.2012.09.07

Abstract

he philosophical problem that is the focus of this article was polemically coined by David Hume and expressed in a Latin phrase: ab esse ad obligare non valet illatio. Thanks to George Moore, this statement entered into the history of philosophy as the naturalistic fallacy. Hume ques- tioned the possibility of deriving ethics from natural law. He was convinced that moral obligation has its roots rather in human emotions. Subsequently both Immanuel Kant in his categorical imper- ative, and Max Scheler in his material ethics of values, disputed Hume’s  statement. In the present article we will try to address the issue of the naturalistic fallacy, which denies the possibility of deriving an „ought” from an „is”, first of all in the field of formal logic. After- wards, we will analyze the relationship of descriptive and normative statements philosophically, psychologically and, in the end, neuroscientifically – all this in order to answer the question whether there is any possible link between those two types of statements.
https://doi.org/10.14746/fc.2012.09.07
PDF (Język Polski)

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