The Is-Ought Problem: An Investigation in Philosophical Logic

This title is printed to order. This book may have been self-published. If so, we cannot guarantee the quality of the content. In the main most books will have gone through the editing process however some may not. We therefore suggest that you be aware of this before ordering this book. If in doubt check either the author or publisher’s details as we are unable to accept any returns unless they are faulty. Please contact us if you have any questions.

Can ought be derived from is ? This text presents a systematic investigation of this time-honoured philosophical problem by means of modern alethic-deontic predicate logic. Two comprehensive introductory chapters into the philosophical and logical foundations make the text understandable for non-logicians, ethicists, social scientists and students of philosophy. New in this study are two topics: relevance and metalogical generality. It turns out that is-ought inferences indeed exist, but they are all irrelevant in a precise logical sense. New proof techniques allow the establishment of this result for very broad classes of logics. A profound philosophical investigation of the question of analytical or strongly intersubjective is-ought bridge principles supplements the logical study. The final results imply incisive limitations for the justifiability of ethics as opposed to empirical science.