In his excellent books The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy and Realism with a Human Face, Hilary Putnam argues that the fact/value dichotomy is untenable. His argument takes the form of a reductio ad absurdum: if the fact/value dichotomy is true, then scientific objectivity is false; but giving up scientific objectivity is absurd, therefore the fact/value dichotomy must be false.
First, drawing on Quine, Putnam points out that scientific propositions are never empirically tested singly, in isolation, but always along with background assumptions, which are themselves open to revision. (For example, in testing the proposition that water boils at 100° Celsius, we assume that the liquid is actually water, that the thermometer is working, that the water is actually boiling, etc.) Hence no empirical test by itself can tell us whether what needs revision is the proposition being tested or one of the background assumptions. Making that decision requires judgments of simplicity, relative plausibility, and overall coherence.
Putnam argues that coherence, plausibility, and simplicity are values, i.e. epistemic values, and that these values are presupposed in scientific inquiry*.* But if the fact/value dichotomy is true, then along with ethical and aesthetic values, epistemic values too must be subjective and untestable. As Putnam writes, “every argument that has ever been offered for noncognitivism in ethics applies immediately and without the slightest change to these epistemological predicates” (Realism, p.138). Thus, the dichotomist is committed to regarding disagreements over epistemic values as merely personal and subjective. With the water boiling example, when people disagree on which revision is more plausible, the dichotomist must hold that each is just expressing their subjective preferences. In short, upholders of the fact/value dichotomy are committed to giving up scientific objectivity completely. Scientific objectivity and ethical objectivity stand or fall together.
But since abandoning scientific objectivity is absurd, we must conclude that the fact/value dichotomy is false. Values can be objective.
“Putnam argues that coherence, plausibility, and simplicity are values, i.e. epistemic values, and that these values are presupposed in scientific inquiry*.* But if the fact/value dichotomy is true, then along with ethical and aesthetic values, epistemic values too must be subjective and untestable. As Putnam writes, “every argument that has ever been offered for noncognitivism in ethics applies immediately and without the slightest change to these epistemological predicates” (Realism, p.138). Thus, the dichotomist is committed to regarding disagreements over epistemic values as merely personal and subjective. With the water boiling example, when people disagree on which revision is more plausible, the dichotomist must hold that each is just expressing their subjective preferences. In short, upholders of the fact/value dichotomy are committed to giving up scientific objectivity completely. Scientific objectivity and ethical objectivity stand or fall together.”
This analysis is true. Epistemology is value laden but not necessarily normative. Epistemological positions IE Occam’s Razor can be both descriptive and prescriptive. Putnam’s analysis is true in that universal prescriptivism in epistemology is incoherent, as it is in ethics.
Unfortunately, his reductio ad absurdum is not actually absurd. He is simply deriving a conclusion from a set of premises, seeing that the conclusion makes him uncomfortable or is incompatible with his current beliefs and thinks he has made a persuasive argument. I guess an obvious question would be ‘why is “abandoning” scientific objectivity absurd (and was it ever there in the first place)?’.
edit: Before I am misunderstood, I would not say that epistemic values are ‘merely preferences’; It would be more accurate to say that Occam priors describe how humans form beliefs and make decisions under conditions of uncertainty. I think that all humans share similar priors. I also think that almost all humans share certain fundamental moral beliefs. In neither case does this make the beliefs true in the sense Putnam wishes them to be.
Epistemic values are needed to prop up scientific objectivity, ethical values are not. So just because you have proven episty values from scientific objectivity, you have not proven ethical values.
Just because “every argument that has ever been offered for noncognitivism in ethics applies immediately and without the slightest change to these epistemological predicates”, that doesn’t mean they are both true or both false.
Frinstance, The evidence of my eyes tells me the world is flat. It also tells me that things drop from my hands to my feet when I let go of them. So the argument “the evidence of my eyes” applies to both of them. The world is not flat. So the evidence of my eyes is wrong there. Does that prove things fall up when I drop them?
To aid the reader, substitute an item from Column A with the corresponding one from Column B, and vice versa, to see my point.
Column A: Column B:
“every argument that has ever been offered” etc “the evidence of my eyes”
There are no episty values the world is flat
There are no ethical values things fall down, not up
The fact/value dichotomy does not make values, like scientific objectivity, “false.” It is a recognition that with regard to such values, as Mises put it, “there cannot be any question of truth and falsity.” (Mises, TH) Accepting the fact/value dichotomy does not mean “giving up” scientific objectivity, or any other value for that matter.
There is no such thing as a value-free action. Therefore, of course the very act of pursuing knowledge is value-laden. Therefore there is no such thing as a value-free scientist. That does not mean science itself cannot be value-free. Impelled by values, the scientist seeks out facts. That does not mean values are facts.
I’m hung-up on this proposition. What I’ve never been able to wrap my mind around is this possibly also means ‘that does not mean values are not facts’. I don’t see how that above proposition is universal.
Any individual-A that values X (in which X may represent any potential content), individual-A may consider that X is a fact even though individual-B does or doesn’t value X and does or does not consider X to be a fact.
Another way of putting this: values are factual as long as any one individual maintains that what they value is a fact of their existence or individual act of valuing. The individual is valuing X. It is a fact that the said individual values X. How so? By such an individual preferring X to Y.
This is where it gets shaky. How does any individual “express feelings, tastes, or preferences” - yet - at the same time these expressions are not a matter of fact of said individual, meaning, these expressions are not the reality of said individual? And this doesn’t necessarily default to the individual is lying because feelings are observable and if somebody is eating vanilla ice cream then they prefer vanilla to chocolate stated by their action.
This appears to be Mises agreeing with me. Yet in that first part quoted above, I stumble across a “gets shaky” aspect in which there is disagreement between Mises interpretation and mine. I’m not trying to argue against Mises though, more concerning what Lilburne had stated. Let’s explore more:
I don’t know why Mises is talking about “sentences communicating” being the delineation. He’s only referring to grammar which without further context appears to be a side note to the total writing of his in this section. He made a good comment.
I underlined where Mises states value is a fact, no dichotomy? If so, then wouldn’t that differ from Lilburne said in which I originally responded to? I underlined a small portion, but that only appears to be a decent summary of the rest of that paragraph so I’m in no way only pointing out those few words. I could have underlined nearly the whole paragraph here, except, for that seeming reference by Mises to grammar being delineated from the rest of his assertion here.
He is just referring to two different things. In one sense, it might be a fact that individual A prefers X to Y. But in the other sense, that fact, his preference, is not more “correct” than that of any other individual.
For example, economically this makes sense in reference to economic goods in the market, but again, this doesn’t hold exclusively.
What is logically impossible is not going to happen. Hypothetically what has falsified a given proposition today, doesn’t mean such a 'if…, then" proposition will be false tomorrow. For example, preferences in the market on what an individual buys or sells are not concerns of logical truths or falsities that generalize beyond said individual. If individual-A prefers X to Y, that doesn’t imply individual-B prefers X to Y. What an individual prefers isn’t a general proposition of a all individuals. Yet, of course if the subject is whether or not individual did in fact, meaning of truth, buy or sell X, then it would be correct to denote the exchange of X has in fact taken place due to individual-A preferring X. I only restated what you appear to be agreeing with.
I had stated already that Lilburne’s proposition, re-quoted below, isn’t universal. It is possible that values are facts, thus, the dichotomy only stands in the way of realizing this other possibility that you have noted too, “two different things”. The fact-value is thereby a false dichotomy.
The problem is that, between those two possibilities, we are using two different definitions of the word “fact”. When Lilburne said “[t]hat does not mean values are facts”, I am pretty sure that he is using a different definition than when you said “[i]t is possible that values are facts”.
To try to make this argument clear, I will provide a brief, poorly articulated overview of my (very tentative) position regarding it.
From where does truth originate? Well, if you were to walk into a room where a person were drawing a bunch of stuff on a chalkboard that looked like he were trying to solve a problem in physics and you were to notice that he made a “mistake”, you decide to try to explain that to him, but then he says that he is just drawing aimlessly to pass the time, he would, at once, silence your “criticism”. For your point that his work is “incorrect” depended entirely on the assumption that he was desiring to conform his markings to a certain system. Also, in the same way, it makes no sense to say that the orbit of a planet is “incorrect”. For the planet has no desires at all. What it does is just what it does, nothing more. Therefore, the foundation of truth is desire, intention, or whatever you want to call it.
(So in that sense, of course, truth is subjective. But that does not have any sorts of radical implications for science. For what unites the members of a certain science as scientists in that science is that they define certain terms in certain ways and desire to make their use of those terms conform to the real world. If one of them did not desire that, they would be a “counterfeit” or a liar in that science, nothing more.)
Now to build a system of praxeology, we need to assume that people have desires. But from where do these desires originate? When we try to explain the desires of a person, we generally invoke their other desires. For example, we might say that a person wants X because he believes that X produces Y and he wants Y. But if that were the only thing that we were to do, we would encounter an infinite regression. For if we were to want to explain every desire in that way, we would need an infinitely long chain. So how do we stifle this infinite regression? We assume that an “ultimate given” exists: that new information completely independent to the rest of the information enters our minds in the form of “primary” or “ultimate” desires, which, incidentally, Mises refers to as “judgements of value”. By the way, this “new information” is basically what people are referring to when they talk of “free will”, “free choice”, or whatever.
Now to call these ultimate desires either correct or incorrect from the perspective of the person having the desire, we have to point to a more fundamental desire. But because of the fact that we defined that desire as an ultimate desire, that more fundamental one does not exist. So it makes no sense to say that, from the perspective of the person having the ultimate desire, it is either “correct” or “incorrect”.
So in conclusion, ultimate desires, “judgements of value” are neither “correct” nor “incorrect”, they are just given. Our only other option is to drop the notion of desire and see “actors” as a compilation of interrelated parts entirely dependent on each other. But I am sure that no person here who understands what I mean when I say that will want to do that. For that would go against the Austrian School by trying to reduce people to simultaneous equations like those found in physics. (See Robert Murphy in his talk “Austrian vs. Neoclassical Analytics” for some talk about how Milton Friedman conceived economics in that way.)
So I think that I already addressed what we are trying to answer. But just to make it more clear, I will trace out some of the implications of it.
Now considering that “correctness” depends on the perspectives of individuals, not a natural, external, “objective” thing, if we encounter two perspectives which each have ultimate desires conflicting with the other, ultimate desires that, if one were satisfied, would preclude that the other were satisfied, is it possible to say whose perspective is more “correct”? Of course not. For I already established that ultimate desires are neither true nor false, they are just given. So this implies that people whose ultimate desires respect life, like most of us here, are not any more “correct” than people whose ultimate desires do not do so, like some psychopaths; they are just different. We are able to justify jailing them or killing them only by reference to our own self-interest. Incidentally, the only reason that society is able to exist is that most people are like us and therefore have the power to selfishly vanquish the people with conflicting desires.
(By the way, Ayn Rand, I think, recognized all of this. For I think that her attempt to make certain values “objective” was probably just one of trying to show that all people, simple in virtue of being people, had a certain part of their perspective be in a certain way. So if that is true, she tried to establish that certain things were true for all people simply because all people had certain desires, like the desire to live or to act. For even the act of committing suicide relies on living and acting. It is impossible to end your life without acting. So in that sense, you demonstrate that you value your ability to live, to use means (for example, poison, your mind, your body, et cetera) to achieve ends (for example, your death). I might not be making much sense here. Correct me if I am wrong. I do not know much about her work.)
So although it does not make sense to say that your ultimate desires are either “true” or “false”, it does make sense to say that it is true or false that you have certain ultimate desires, which is what I think that Mises was trying to say in the passages that I posted earlier, in this thread.
I’ve never read any of Ayn Rand’s work. So I don’t know.
I know what you are saying, but the axiom is human action not human desire. The ultimate given is the human action taken when object-A is preferred to object-B. What encompass action, ie. desires, judgments, and object-A, are attributes of the class: human action.
I will need to disagree on the point raised. What points you raised were more helpful, but I’m inclined, as of the moment, to disagree on the axiom (the “ultimate given”) that you introduced, ie. desire.
First, I am not sure that my argument rests on the assumption that our ultimate desires are the ultimate given of praxeology. For it is possible that more than one ultimate given exists. (In other words, I tried to prove that what I called our “ultimate desires” is the ultimate given of our desires, not of all of our action.)
Second, I am pretty sure that “the […] action taken when object-A is preferred to object-B” is the question that praxeology is trying to solve, not its ultimate foundation.
You might want to elaborate on your position here, though. I might be missing something.
I don’t know what that has to do with the false dichotomy: fact/value. Since you raised “ultimate desire” as a point of note it would entail that it is your point for whatever reason such a ‘raising’ would be deciphered by you.
You said that it is the ultimate given of praxeology, that “[t]he ultimate given is the human action taken when object-A is preferred to object-B”. But it is not; it is what it is trying to explain.
I really do not understand what you are saying at this point. I tried to prove that praxeology is not able to explain certain desires, that it just has to regard them as given in this sense:
but desiring is an act of a human, ie. human action. Unless you mean the desire wasn’t deliberate or realizable but that wouldn’t be determinable in any act that a human makes. One could only surmise that any given action is purposeful.
“ultimate given”, first principle, self-evident: I interpreted the “ultimate given” that you introduced to mean the latter two here. These latter two are the definitions of axioms back to Aristotle and ever since. Being that ‘human action’ is an axiom I was simply re-wording ‘axiom’ in it’s other names, ie. first principle, self-evident; that are common in the field of logic to describe that same word: axiom. And since I interpreted your concept “ultimate given” to be a first principle (axiom) I thereby used it as such.
I don’t know what you mean here. What is explained by any axiom is what it is. Maybe you meant something else.
All those quotes are what “first principles” mean. Mises is simply using another term, ie. ultimate given. So we are not in disagreement. And right here, this quote, what you bolded, are not only first principles but are categories.
Categories, as I stated, ‘preferring A to B’ is of the category human action. When a human acts it is self-evident that such a human is preferring A to B. Meaning the action involves choice and valuation - that’s human action.
What is implied by the category, ie. class, life and reality, in other words, what attributes are of life and reality involve logic. Life and reality are given, ie. self-evident, and are not logically deducted during a premise-conclusion event, but to name them in a class in which all that is implied by life - that inference involves logic. Notice the next sentence after the bolded one. “But logic is the only tool available to man for the comprehension of both”. To comprehend life and reality involves logical implications of all that fall into those two categories, ie. life and reality.