Banyak Moral Nihilist mengatakan bahwa kita tidak bisa menarik kewajiban moral dari fakta empiris. Seperti yang di katakan Hume, "you can't derive an ought from an is". Atau "anda tidak bisa menarik 'keharusan' dari 'suatu keadaan'".
OUGHT: Kata 'outght' adalah kata yang preskriptif, atau menganjurkan anda untuk melakukan sesuatu. Sebuah anjuran dan ajakan.
IS: Adalah kata yang deskriptif, atau hanya menggambarkan suatu keadaan. Misalnya Africa is poor (Afrika itu miskin), Western Europe is rich (Eropa Barat itu kaya), The old man is sick (orang tua itu sakit), the cure is in the doctor's purse (obat ada di tas dokter).
Jadi memang kita tidak menarik sebuah anjuran atau ajakan yang bersifat preskriptif dari deskripsi keadaan. Misalnya fakta bahwa The old man is sick (orang tua itu sakit), dan the cure is in the doctor's purse (obat ada di tas dokter), adalah dua fakta yang independent dan secara empiris tidak akan bisa di temukan korelasi preskriptif bahwa si dokter harus memberikan obat kepada orang tua tersebut, juga tidak ada anjuran atau keharusan untuk orang tua tersebut mengambil obat dari si dokter. Ought tidak ada di dalam fakta empiris, karena secara empiris kita hanya bisa mendeskripsikan keadaan tidak mempersktiptifkan menganjurkan atau mewajibkan tindakan tertentu. Fakta empiris hanya berupa deskripsi dan rumus-rumus matematis yang tidak menganjurkan anda untuk mengambil tindakan ini atau itu. Misalnya rumus E=mc2 mendeskripsikan reaksi nuklir tetapi itu tidak akan pernah mampu menganjurkan anda untuk membuat atau tidak membuat bom atom, atau apakah anda harus meledakkan atau tidak meledakkan bom atom di kota Nagasaki. Jadi saya harap sampai di sini anda faham apa yang saya maksud sebagai perbedaan deskriptif (IS/ADALAH) dan preskriptif (OUGHT/HARUS).
Sebenarnya kata kata 'Ought' itu mengandung 'Is' di dalamnya. Sebagaimana di jelaskan Sam Harris di paragraf berikut ini.
"What do we mean by “should” and “ought”?
I also disagree with the distinction Ryan draws between “descriptive”
and “prescriptive” enterprises. Ethics is prescriptive only because we
tend to talk about it that way—and I believe this emphasis comes, in
large part, from the stultifying influence of Abrahamic religion. We
could just as well think about ethics descriptively. Certain
experiences, relationships, social institutions, and technological
developments are possible—and there are more or less direct ways to
arrive at them. Again, we have a navigation problem. To say we “should”
follow some of these paths and avoid others is just a way of saying that
some lead to happiness and others to misery. “You shouldn’t lie”
(prescriptive) is synonymous with “Lying needlessly complicates people’s
lives, destroys reputations, and undermines trust” (descriptive). “We
should defend democracy from totalitarianism” (prescriptive) is another
way of saying “Democracy is far more conducive to human flourishing than
the alternatives are” (descriptive). In my view, moralizing notions
like “should” and “ought” are just ways of indicating that certain
experiences and states of being are better than others."
[.....]
"As I argue in my book, we may think merely about what is—specifically
about the possibilities of experience in this universe—and realize that
this set of facts captures all that can be valued, along with every form
of consciousness that could possibly value it. Either a change in the
universe can affect the experience of someone, somewhere, or it can’t. I
claim that only those changes that can have such effects can be
coherently cared about. And if there is a credible exception to this
claim, I have yet to encounter it. There is only what IS (which includes
all that is possible). If you can’t find your oughts here, I can’t see
any other place to look for them. "
- Sam Harris (Clarifying the Moral Landscape A Response to Ryan Born)
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