Yes, but only on the surface. They’d further assert that this is fundamentally the only way to think about ethics because they claim there are no moral facts. I am saying something different, which is that whether or not there are moral facts is unknowable, so we must understand ethics ignorant of them.
This position seems compatible with existentialism. The existentialist could just say: “Your game theory and evolution explains why other people believe what they believe. It neither proves nor suggests that they are right. I choose to view ethics like this...”
(I am not sure whether your claim is compatible with nihilism. I am not an expert on nihilism.)
Sure. Living things generally have purposes like survive and reproduce. Tea kettles have purposes like heating whatever is inside them. Thermostats have purposes like keeping the thermometer reading the desired temperature.
As far as I can see, this fails to cross the is-ought divide. The existentialist would agree that living beings have been shaped by evolution, and that this could in some sense be called a “purpose”, but each of us still can and must choose our own purpose.
(The topic of the purposes of man-made tools seems to me irrelevant to the question. Chapman also brings that up, and there I also failed to understand what that has to do with the topic of the book.)
(I am not sure whether your claim is compatible with nihilism. I am not an expert on nihilism.)
I think it should be, though a nihilist probably doesn’t care because it doesn’t mean anything anyway.
As far as I can see, this fails to cross the is-ought divide. The existentialist would agree that living beings have been shaped by evolution, and that this could in some sense be called a “purpose”, but each of us still can and must choose our own purpose.
Can you say more? I personally dissolved my original is-ought confusion a while ago and I’m not sure sure what you mean by failing to cross the divide.
My guess is you’re talking about the metaphysical kind of divide many people put between is and ought, treating them as fundamentally different things? If so, I’d just say we don’t know. What I know is that I know is from what I observe, and I know ought from what I expect, and these are both known through beliefs, which are all one kind of thing, and the only divide is in how I relate to certain beliefs as observations vs. expectations.
This position seems compatible with existentialism. The existentialist could just say: “Your game theory and evolution explains why other people believe what they believe. It neither proves nor suggests that they are right. I choose to view ethics like this...”
(I am not sure whether your claim is compatible with nihilism. I am not an expert on nihilism.)
As far as I can see, this fails to cross the is-ought divide. The existentialist would agree that living beings have been shaped by evolution, and that this could in some sense be called a “purpose”, but each of us still can and must choose our own purpose.
(The topic of the purposes of man-made tools seems to me irrelevant to the question. Chapman also brings that up, and there I also failed to understand what that has to do with the topic of the book.)
I think it should be, though a nihilist probably doesn’t care because it doesn’t mean anything anyway.
Can you say more? I personally dissolved my original is-ought confusion a while ago and I’m not sure sure what you mean by failing to cross the divide.
My guess is you’re talking about the metaphysical kind of divide many people put between is and ought, treating them as fundamentally different things? If so, I’d just say we don’t know. What I know is that I know is from what I observe, and I know ought from what I expect, and these are both known through beliefs, which are all one kind of thing, and the only divide is in how I relate to certain beliefs as observations vs. expectations.