Fact-Value Distinction

The fact-value distinction is generally summarized as the distinction between what is, or descriptive claims (the realm of facts), and what ought to be, or normative/prescriptive claims (the realm of values). Even though the issue of the fact-value distinction is closely intertwined with the is-ought distinction—and often the two are conflated in discussions, arguments, or positions—they are not identical. It can be held, for example, that values are natural facts or that normative propositions are factual or that normative claims assert nothing about real values.

The issue of the fact-value distinction came to the forefront, during the Enlightenment, with David Hume's argument that normative claims about values or what ought to be cannot be derived from descriptive claims about facts or what is. Hume argued that there is a gap between facts and values or between what is and what ought to be. For example, the fact that you promised to repay me the money you borrowed does not imply the conclusion that you ought to do so unless there is added the nonfactual, moral premise that one ought to keep one's promises or that one ought to repay one's debts. Hume argues that ethical philosophers make an imperceptible switch from the realm of facts to the realm of values, with no explanation offered. The switch to the value realm of obligation introduces a new relation or affirmation that needs to be clarified and justified. However, since he can find no justification, Hume suggests such a derivation cannot be made.

This problem was reinforced in the 20th century with G. E. Moore's attack on the view that moral terms are completely definable in nonmoral terms. The view he attacked, held by many philosophers who were ethical naturalists, claimed that moral judgments are a subspecies of empirical judgments and that moral terms stand for purely natural characteristics. They held, for example, that moral goodness can be defined in terms of one or more natural properties that we already understand. An instance of this would be the hedonist standpoint that good means pleasure. But, Moore points out, we can always ask if pleasure is always good; for it is not a contradiction to say that some pleasures are not good. Moreover, this lack of contradiction holds for any empirical property or set of properties that can be offered. These are significant [Page 849]questions regardless of what properties are substituted. But, if the naturalists are right, asking these questions should mean only that the questioner does not understand the terms being used. It would be like asking if all sons are male.

Moore argued that a naturalistic fallacy is committed when one identifies value properties with natural or empirical properties. He held that the property of moral goodness is simple, indefinable, nonnatural, or nonempirical and must be immediately grasped by a nonnatural moral intuition. This is analogous to an empirical quality such as yellow. The meaning of yellow cannot be understood by any definition, such as wavelengths, or by knowing that ripe lemons are yellow. Rather, yellow must be immediately experienced by a sensible or natural apprehension, a natural intuition. He calls the fallacy involved the naturalistic fallacy in ethics because it involves confusing a natural property, such as pleasure, with the nonnatural property of goodness.

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