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The Rhetoric of Ought
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The Rhetoric of Ought

cortes
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Posted 05/09/08 - 05:39 AM: Subject: The Rhetoric of Ought	#1
I must say that I've always been fascinated by "ought" and its sisters "should", "must", and "shall". (Did I forget any?) Clearly these are not descriptive and hence they tend to be barred from use in the sciences. Try putting an "ought" claim under the microscope. Some try to study "ought" as a human inclination (natural morality) but I think this is misdirection. And yet, they are clearly meaningful words. We use them all the time and we know what they mean, intuitiely at least. The claim I want to put forward here is that the "ought" family of words are rhetorical devices. I'm mostly but not entirely convinced of this but I will defend this view here until it is shown to be wrong. By a rhetorical device, I mean a non-logical argument designed to persuade. Most typically we employ "ought" to influence the behavior of another person ("you ought to be honest with me") though we often use it on ourselves ("I ought to exercise more"). There is no point in trying to examine the logical truth of the statement logically, there is no logic to it. Rather, "ought" is a symbol that represents a number of implicit, but illogical, persuasive devices. Sometimes these implicit devices are clear from the context but sometimes they are just left onsaid. For example, when a parent says to a child, "you must eat your vegetables" she is making an implicit appeal to authority. The test of a rhetorical claim is not its truth but its effectiveness. The popularity of the "ought' family of words demonstrates of the ubiquity of rhetoric in our daily lives. Even people who believe that they should limit themselves to scientific truth and logical argument can't resist uttering phrases like "you ought to believe in science" or "you must not use fallacies in argument" or even "you should limit yourself to scientific truth and logical argument." What this implies is that morality is, fundamentally, rhetorical. If you want to scientifically study morality, you must examine not moral claims themselves but the use of the claims between people in persuasive communication.
Copyright (c) 2008 Hernan Cortes, Sociedad de los Conquistadores. cortes@conquistador.org http://www.conquistador.org

Cuthbert
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Posted 05/09/08 - 06:04 AM:	#2
On the other hand, 'ought' statements can apparently feature in valid inferences. (You oughtn't to break promises; defaulting on your debt is breaking a promise; so you oughtn't to default on your debt.) So there seems to be some logic to them. Then one could claim that for a statement to feature in a valid inference it must have a truth value. That's not so simple, however, because commands can also arguably be used in valid inferences. (Don't touch anything on the switchboard. The red button's on the switchboard. So don't touch the red button.) Conversely, statements of fact can be used rhetorically as persuasive devices. E.g. ad hom comments and other diversionary tactics. You might be right that moral exhortation is rhetorical, in the sense of 'designed to persuade'. But so are many other kinds of utterance. Nor do I think it would follow that, because it's rhetorical, it's merely empty rhetoric and therefore fit only to be ignored. But you've made an interesting point.

keda
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Posted 05/09/08 - 06:26 AM:	#3
An ought claim is no more inherently rhetorical than a truth claim is, even though the former is often used in a rhetorical manner. It all depends how it is used. If you want someone to behave in a certain manner, it is usually not enough that you say you ought to behave in that manner, but there must be some form of threat or incentive to push and pull for it to work. In persuasion using ought claims you use that power to condition the person to behave in that manner. The ought claim then is reduced to a truth claim "If you don't do X, then Y will happen to you" combined with the oughtlcaim "You should not let Y happen to you". The persuasion can then be shifted between or rest on both the truth and the ought claim.
All about making money Free Europe Now How to fix your country The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. -Benjamin Franklin If my sons did not want wars, there would be none - Gutle Rothschild It's not the people who vote that count, it's the people who count the votes - Josef Stalin

cortes
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Posted 05/09/08 - 07:08 AM:	#4
Cuthbert wrote: On the other hand, 'ought' statements can apparently feature in valid inferences. (You oughtn't to break promises; defaulting on your debt is breaking a promise; so you oughtn't to default on your debt.) So there seems to be some logic to them. ...Conversely, statements of fact can be used rhetorically as persuasive devices. E.g. ad hom comments and other diversionary tactics. True enough. But even false or nonsensical statements can have logic to them. There is a certain logic to Alice in Wonderland for example. Cuthbert wrote: Then one could claim that for a statement to feature in a valid inference it must have a truth value. That's not so simple, however, because commands can also arguably be used in valid inferences. (Don't touch anything on the switchboard. The red button's on the switchboard. So don't touch the red button.) It's funny you should mention this because thinking further we have, in language, a distinction between declarative statements and imperative statements. The "ought" family of words are rhetorical devices designed to dress up imperative statements as descriptive statements. They look like statements the truth of which could be tested (e.g. they appear falsifiable) but in fact that are not and their function is the same as a straight imperative statement. If I say "you ought to be honest" what I mean is "be honest". But we know that imperative statements are not very effective in general so we dress up imperative statements in rhetoric. Cuthbert wrote: You might be right that moral exhortation is rhetorical, in the sense of 'designed to persuade'. But so are many other kinds of utterance. Nor do I think it would follow that, because it's rhetorical, it's merely empty rhetoric and therefore fit only to be ignored. But you've made an interesting point. Note that I'm not suggesting that rhetorical statements ought to be ignored. In fact, the assertion that rhetorical statements ought to be ignored is quite obviously rhetorical and therefore ought to be ignored. However, it does suggest that the "ought" family of words can be treated as rhetoric with no loss of meaning.
Copyright (c) 2008 Hernan Cortes, Sociedad de los Conquistadores. cortes@conquistador.org http://www.conquistador.org

unenlightened
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Posted 05/09/08 - 07:18 AM:	#5
cortes wrote: If you want to scientifically study morality, you must examine not moral claims themselves but the use of the claims between people in persuasive communication. Somehow, I am not persuaded by your rhetoric. Why on earth should anyone want to scientifically study morality in the first place?
The observer is the observed. J Krishnamurti "Philosophy, to the Philistine, is an evolutionary process, watched over by some sort of brisk dynamic Providence, and culminating in the supreme insight of modern thought." John Cowper Powys

cortes
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Posted 05/09/08 - 07:24 AM:	#6
keda wrote: If you want someone to behave in a certain manner, it is usually not enough that you say you ought to behave in that manner, but there must be some form of threat or incentive to push and pull for it to work In persuasion using ought claims you use that power to condition the person to behave in that manner. The ought claim then is reduced to a truth claim "If you don't do X, then Y will happen to you" combined with the oughtlcaim "You should not let Y happen to you". The persuasion can then be shifted between or rest on both the truth and the ought claim. I think you are referring here to implied or explicit consequences. This is the idea that an ought claim is a claim about consequences and thus can be empirically tested as such. "You ought to eat your vegetables" means if you don't you'll be unhealthy. But I think this is not the main meaning, it is at best a tangential function. As Cuthbert correclty noted, rhetoric can include logic, it simply doesn't limit itself to logic nor focus on being descriptive. People who say "you ought to eat your vegetables" are not going to be satisfied if you reply that you don't care about your health. A mother who says to her child "you ought to eat your vegetables" is pursuing her own objective, a healthy child, and using rhetoric toward that end irrespective of the child's opinion on the virtue of good health. The primary funciton of the ought family is rhetorical and persuasive. That doesn't mean that descriptive or logical claims cannot be enlisted in their support. The law is the best example of coupling ought with consequences but even there people tend to be appalled at those who abide by the "letter of the law" while violating the "spirit of the law". This is one reason lawyers are held in low repute. The judicial consequence of laws are designed to reinforce their spirit. The spirit is the thing itself. Incidently, the most common consequence is good/bad. Push anyone who is making a rhetorical claim and you will most often find an appeal to "goodness" at the base of it. "You ought to be honest" means "a good person is honest" and it is supposed to be self-evident that people ought to be good. But goodness is not an objectively descriptive quality. It's meaning does not depend on other things. It is axiomatic that you ought to be good and even people who are diametrically opposed as to what "good" means will still urge each other to be good.
Copyright (c) 2008 Hernan Cortes, Sociedad de los Conquistadores. cortes@conquistador.org http://www.conquistador.org

cortes
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Posted 05/09/08 - 07:26 AM:	#7
unenlightened wrote: cortes wrote: If you want to scientifically study morality, you must examine not moral claims themselves but the use of the claims between people in persuasive communication. Somehow, I am not persuaded by your rhetoric. Why on earth should anyone want to scientifically study morality in the first place? Its amusing, and indeed telling, how difficult it is to avoid rhetoric in human discourse.
Copyright (c) 2008 Hernan Cortes, Sociedad de los Conquistadores. cortes@conquistador.org http://www.conquistador.org

cortes
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Posted 05/09/08 - 07:34 AM:	#8
keda wrote: The ought claim then is reduced to a truth claim "If you don't do X, then Y will happen to you" combined with the oughtlcaim "You should not let Y happen to you". The persuasion can then be shifted between or rest on both the truth and the ought claim. A further thought: Your mistake here is in beliving that communication consists primiarly of communicating descriptive truth. That tends to be the case in science but not in life generally. In the general case, communication is a device for persuasion. It is a means of affecting people and changing their behavior. To say that ought is merely the communication of information about consequences is to mistake the intent of the communication. The speaker is seeking to impose his will on the listener. Any facts communicated or logic employed are simply means to that end.
Copyright (c) 2008 Hernan Cortes, Sociedad de los Conquistadores. cortes@conquistador.org http://www.conquistador.org

keda
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Posted 05/09/08 - 07:54 AM:	#9
I think there are non persuasive ought claims, such that persuasion defeats its purpose. Such is expressing the interest in moral goodness of ones actions, which if are persuaded destroys the moral value in them. You raise a child to become independent, not to become an obedient slave. In doing so you try to teach him the virtue of doing good things not because you or anyone says to do it, but because he knows its the right thing to do. It is comparable to that of teaching mathematics. First you let your child practice with multiplication tables and teach them how to use formulas, giving them the raw material, but to understand it, their mathematical truth, he must take the decicisve step himself, and we can only provide all the means to do it. It is the same thing when you try to teach your child morals; you have to first teach them what is right and wrong in the same manner you enumerate multiplication tables, and hope your child will grasp the underlying moral law, the principle out of which you derive the examples.
All about making money Free Europe Now How to fix your country The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. -Benjamin Franklin If my sons did not want wars, there would be none - Gutle Rothschild It's not the people who vote that count, it's the people who count the votes - Josef Stalin

Reformed Nihilist
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Posted 05/09/08 - 08:20 AM:	#10
Ought may be either (and perhaps both) rhetoric and descriptive. It describes the mores of a person or (more commonly) a culture in relation to an act the one ought or oughtn't do. This gives it rhetorical power beyond just "I would prefer is you didn't...".
Nobody ever became a famous philosopher by being a champion of ecumenical hybridism Daniel Dennett Freedom Evolves

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