Yeah go ahead, I'd love any insight
Well, it's just that looking at it a bit more, the focus seems to be that this issue comes into play when you are jumping from
is to
ought rather than how based in fact an
ought statement is. In other words, you can't look at what
is and logically jump to what
ought to be done about it. There's never a completely logical explanation for it. When justifying an
ought statement, you always ultimately have to fall back on saying something like "that's just the way it is," or "because it's the right thing to do." Now the big thing with this concept is that it's apparently still being heavily debated. There are people from multiple fields of study who either agree or disagree with this.
I was wrong earlier. The Is-Ought problem comes into play when you're trying to create a call to action based on present facts. Here's the best sort of example I was able to come up with.
You're sitting in a room with a politician and he's discussing his revolutionary new foreign policy that will promote trade between nations and end all wars. Sounds pretty good, right? Let's test his thought process.
"Why do we need this?" you ask.
"Because there will be no more war and there will be cooperation between all nations," he says.
"Why is that important?" you press further.
"Because with less war, fewer people die." he says with confidence.
"and why is that something we should want?"
Here is where he hits a brick wall. The only real answer he could muster up would be something along the lines of "because people dying is bad." Maybe he'll say "well, you don't want to die, do you?" which is avoiding the question. There's a certain point where the logic involved with taking action, or claiming what
ought to be done, can only rely on what our society brands as morally correct or worth striving for.