Concept

Is–ought problem

Overview

philosophical problem articulated by David Hume in 1739 about how one can deduce prescriptive statements (what ought to be) from descriptive statements (what is)

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Philosophers who discussed Is–ought problem

• Philippa Foot
• John Finnis
• Ayn Rand
• David Hume
• Roy Bhaskar
• Science of morality
• Gustav Radbruch

Related ideas

• Self-evidence
• G. E. Moore
• Harvard University Press
• Argument
• Philippa Foot
• Synthese
• Philosophy (journal)
• Non-cognitivism
• Aesthetics
• Naturalistic fallacy
• Natural law
• Normative ethics
• Moral skepticism
• Evolutionary ethics
• A Treatise of Human Nature
• Arthur Prior
• Inference
• Utilitarianism
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Category mistake
• Morality
• The Philosophical Review
• Oxford University Press
• Property (philosophy)

Place in the tradition

Part of Absurdism.

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