Table Of ContentRevisiting Searle on
Deriving “Ought” from “Is”
Edited by Paolo Di Lucia · Edoardo Fittipaldi
Revisiting Searle on Deriving “Ought” from “Is”
·
Paolo Di Lucia Edoardo Fittipaldi
Editors
Revisiting Searle
on Deriving “Ought”
from “Is”
Editors
Paolo Di Lucia Edoardo Fittipaldi
University of Milan University of Milan
Milan, Italy Milan, Italy
ISBN 978-3-030-54115-6 ISBN 978-3-030-54116-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54116-3
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in memoriam
John Searle: From an Institutions-Based
Metaethics to a Language-Based Ethics
Paolo Di Lucia and Edoardo Fittipaldi
1 Introduction1
This volume collects a number of contributions that, from different
perspectives, comment on John Searle’s chapter, How to Derive “Ought”
from “Is” Revisited (Chapter 1) and on an interview he gave us
(Chapter 2). In Section 1 of Chapter 1, Searle reconstructs the philo-
sophical context in which his famous How to Derive “Ought” from “Is”
first appeared (1964), and in an exemplary fashion he summarizes and
clarifies the reasons why he still believes that that derivation is valid:
EverythingIhavesaid[inSection1],Icouldhavesaidinthemid-60sand
I probably did say that in the various responses to debates. (Chapter 1,
p. 10)
In Section 2 and the Conclusion of his chapter Searle undertakes
to “deepen the points” (ibid.) made in Section 1 by elaborating on
them in light of some developments in his thinking, chiefly: (i) his
twofold distinction between ontological/epistemic objectivity and onto-
logical/epistemic subjectivity, (ii) his concept of desire-independent
vii
viii P. Di Lucia and E. Fittipaldi
reasonsforaction,and(iii)hisconceptofdirectionoffit.Inthisway,he
comestotheconclusionthatanobjectiveethics—or,tousehiswords,“a
disciplinethatisepistemicallyobjective,butatthesametimenormative”
(15)—is “to a certain extent” (ibid.) possible.
InthisIntroduction,wewilltrytoclarifythemainargumentsoffered
by Searle in Section 1, as well as in Section 2 and the Conclusion. In
doing so, we will also draw on Chapter 2. Our goal will be to explain
these arguments in a way accessible to those who may not be conversant
with Searle’s philosophy, as well as to show why Searle’s new arguments
are of the utmost importance for philosophers of normativity (and law)
and social scientists alike.
The two main sections of this Introduction map onto the two main
sections into which Searle’s chapter is divided: thus Section 1 below is
devoted to clarifying Searle’s 1964 argument, while Section 2 looks at
thewaySearlereframesthatargumentwithinhissubsequentlydeveloped
social ontology and philosophy of action.
2 Why the 1964 Derivation Is Correct as It
Stands
In 1964, Searle argued that an “Ought” can be derived from an “Is,”
broadly understood to include descriptive verbs like “to utter.” The
derivation was as follows:
(1) Jones uttered the words “I hereby promise to pay you, Smith, five
dollars.”
(2) Jones promised to pay Smith five dollars.
(3)Jonesplacedhimselfunder(undertook)anobligationtopaySmith
five dollars.
(4) Jones is under an obligation to pay Smith five dollars.
(5) Jones ought to pay Smith five dollars.
Thecontextwherethisderivationwaspresentedwasthatof1950sand
’60s Anglo philosophy, which was focused almost entirely on language,
inwhathascometobeknownasthe“linguisticturn.”Asaresult,certain
John Searle: From an Institutions-Based Metaethics to a … ix
metaphysical distinctions were reframed as linguistic distinctions: in our
case,thedistinctionbetweenfactandvaluewasreframedasadistinction
between statements of fact and statements of value (the latter understood
to also include ought-statements).
Now,asSearleclarifiesinhischapter,his1964articlewasnotaboutfact
and value but about statements of fact and statements of value. Thus, his
goalwasnot toderivevaluesfromfacts,buttoderivestatementsofvalue
from statements of fact; or, to be more precise, statements of value from
statements of institutional fact. As for institutional facts, Searle under-
stood them as made possible by “systems of constitutive rules” (1964,
55)—his obvious example being “the constitutive rule that to make a
promise is to undertake an obligation” (1964, 56).2
This entails two corollaries: firstly, that words like promise refer to
institutional facts, and, such that by using them—whether we like it or
not—wenecessarilycommitourselvestotheirinstitutionalcomponents,
understoodasoverallsystemsofconstitutiverules.Secondly—andthisis
a corollary that we, the editors, draw—, it is a fallacy to assume that the
impossibility of deriving values from facts ipso facto translates into the
impossibility of deriving statements of value from statements of fact.
As Searle describes his endeavor, he simply “demanded that we take
language seriously,” and, since the meaning of many words has both a
descriptiveandanevaluativecomponent,onceweusewordslikepromise
(perhaps inducing others to rely on what was “promised”), we cannot
wash our hands of that encumbrance or dismiss what we did simply by
saying, “I never liked the institution of promising anyway.”3
Itisalsooftheutmostimportancetoobservethattheforegoingholds
not only for special speech acts like promises but also for less apparent
or noticeable ones, like statements.To be sure, it is not easy to imagine a
situation in which somebody should solemnly utter, “I hereby state that
it is raining” or even only, “I am stating that it is raining.” But as soon
as one has performed such a speech act—and this can be done without
expressly using the verb “to state”—one has already committed oneself to
the “criteria for its evaluation, such as truth, consistency, evidence, and
rationality”(Chapter1,p.7).Thisiswhy,ifitisnot rainingoutside,the
utterer could be blamed, say, for having said a lie or something wrong.
x P. Di Lucia and E. Fittipaldi
As can be seen, as early as 1964, Searle had already taken significant
stepstoovercometheanalyticself-confinementtometaethics,4 aswellas
thetabooagainstdevelopingafull-blownethics,5anddidsobyoutlining
sometightconnectionsbetweenconstitutiverules,institutionalfacts,and
ought-statements (1964, 56).6
That Searle reinterprets his 1964 article from an ethical perspective,
rather than from a metaethical one, is something that comes through
fullyattheendofSection1ofhischapter,whereheobservesthatought-
statements express reasons for action and that “[t]o say that somebody
ought to do something implies that there is a valid, good reason for his
doingit”(10,emphasesadded).Thus,atleastinlightofSearle’schapter,
the “ought” he derived from “is” in 1964 could not be farther removed
frombeingameremetaethicalconclusionconcerningthewaywordslike
ought are being used. The opposite is true: according to Searle, such
derivations play a major role in our everyday life.
Thus,thequestionarises:Howcantherebeobjectivestatementsabout
reasonsforactions,whereobjectivityisguaranteedbytheirbeingderived
from straightforward statements of fact (10ff.)? And this is precisely one
of the main questions Searle tackles in Section 2.
3 Toward an Objective Language-Based
Ethics
In order to cast further light on the 1964 derivation and argue for the
possibility of an objective ethics, Searle in his chapter introduces a few
concepts he developed after 1964.
IfinSection1,Searleobservesthat“[t]hedistinctionbetweendescrip-
tiveandevaluative[is]aspecialcaseof…thedistinctionbetweenobjec-
tive and subjective” (Chapter 1, p. 7), in Section 2 he qualifies that
observation by remarking that “the notions of objectivity and subjec-
tivityaresomeofthemostconfusednotionsincontemporaryintellectual
life” (ibid., p. 10). He thus goes on to sub-distinguish an ontological and
epistemic objectivity from an ontological and epistemic subjectivity.
Ontologically subjective are “those entities whose mode of existence
requires being experienced” (ibid.); ontologically objective are those
John Searle: From an Institutions-Based Metaethics to a … xi
whose mode of existence does not. Pains, tickles, and itches—to use
Searle’sexamples—existandceasetoexistonlyaslongastheyareexperi-
enced by someone. Mountains, molecules, tectonic plates, by contrast,
“do not give a damn about us” (ibid.): they exist no matter whether
anybodyexperiencesthem.Thisdistinctionisusedtoexplaintherelation
between values and (brute) facts: the former are ontologically subjective
whereas the latter are ontologically objective.
Ontological subjectivity and objectivity, though, should not be
conflated with epistemic subjectivity and objectivity. This latter distinc-
tion is one that Searle makes in terms of claims: epistemically objective
claims are those “that can be established as ‘objective matters of fact’”
(e.g., “Van Gogh died in France”), while epistemically subjective claims
are those that “are matters of subjective opinion” (e.g., “Van Gogh is a
much better painter than Gauguin”).
With this in the background, Searle argues that “the ontological
subjectivity of a domain does not preclude the epistemic objectivity
about that domain” (ibid.).
As far as pains, tickles, and itches are concerned, this may seem
obvious.Adentistmaystatetheepistemicallyobjectivetruthoftheonto-
logically subjective fact that his patient has a strong toothache (e.g., by
observing a dental abscess on a radiograph).
But among the chief developments of Searle’s philosophy since 1964
ishisreframingoftheconceptofaninstitutionalfact(alreadypresentin
1964), a concept he built into a general theory that in time gave rise to
an entire field of studies: social ontology.7
Searle discovered (or claimed, depending on whether one shares his
view) that institutional facts8 such as $20 bills are partly ontologically
subjective(cf.Chapter1,p.11)—theontologicallyobjectivecomponent
beingthepapersuchbillsaremadeof.9Whichistosaythatinorderfora
pieceofpaperto“countas”a$20bill,therealsoneedstobea(shared)10
ontologically subjective attitude toward that piece of paper. Searle uses
the expression “observer-relative phenomena” to refer to “phenomena
thathaveatleastanelementofontologicalsubjectivity”(ibid.).AsSearle
understands them, these are institutional phenomena. On his conceptu-
alization, institutional phenomena always involve “deontic” powers (i.e.,
