Bogart on Hume
Lawyer and philosopher John Bogart writes with respect to Hume on the move from is to ought:
- The interpretation of Hume’s distinction described in your blog is widespread but erroneous. It is quite unlikely that Hume thought you could not derive ought from is because it would make Book Three more or less nonsensical. It may be wrong, but I do not think it is nonsensical. His theories of ethics and justice depend crucially on natural features of human psychology, which must inevitably lead into a deduction of the sort supposedly barred. I think a better account of what Hume was up to in the passage is a critique on the absence of reasoning from historical patterns of conduct or nature to the ‘ought’, i.e., the ‘ought’ often is simply ipse dixit.
My prior posts on this topic are: Metaethical Prejudice: More Remarks on Ethical Naturalism and Naturalistic Ethics.