Telling Right From Wrong
James Ryerson,
New York Times,
Jan 04, 2011
Sitting here today trying to write a short essay on critical literacies, I am sympathetic with the view that the writing of a book ought to proceed slowly. Thus I am publishing at the same rate as Philippa Foot, who released her first and only at the age of 80. It's hard to say some things just right. What Philippa Foot said was that you can indeed derive an 'ought' from an 'is'. But this is going to depend a lot on which 'ought', which 'is', and even on what you mean by 'derive'. Foot developed a theory of 'natural goodness" to the effect that that vice is a defect in humans in the same way that poor roots are a defect in an oak tree or poor vision a defect in an owl. I would want to be careful with my wording, but it's the same sort of reasoning to say that an improperly constructed network is 'wrong', that it leads to 'poor' (if not knowably false) conclusions. Via Leiter.
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