Quotation
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“I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not.”
David Hume · Empiricism · Enlightenment · 1740
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What does it mean?
The usual reading takes the paragraph as a demand that the slide be explained: authors move from what is the case to what ought to be done, and they do not show the deduction. He is not, in the text, banning ethics. A rival reading treats any fact inside a moral argument as a fallacy, which is cruder than the surprise he records. The passage sits in the section arguing that moral distinctions are not derived from reason alone; The new relation expressed by ought needs to be observed and explained.
Did David Hume really say this?
The library’s label is Well attested. Hume's own English in the Treatise, book three, part 1, section 1. He notes a slide from is to ought that the authors do not explain. The wording is secure. Later writers call the point Hume's law.
Where it comes from
A Treatise of Human Nature III.1.1
Approximate date: 1740.
How to use it
A leaflet in a Glasgow close that starts from a fact about the bins and ends at a duty to shame the neighbours has made the move he flags. The leaflet may still be a good one if the missing step can be supplied. The surprise is a request for the connection, not an automatic refutation; Pointing at the bins is not yet an ought; Pretending the ought was already in the bins is the habit he notices.
A mindset reading
The passage has been hardened into a rule that facts are morally silent and values are mere pushes. He does tie moral judgement to sentiment, and he also describes those sentiments with care through book three. Using the surprise to end every moral conversation ignores the book in which it appears; The demand is for a step that has not been written, not for silence.
Understand the philosophy
The key term, in later jargon, is the is-ought gap, though he does not use that name. Ought, he says, expresses a new relation that needs remarking and explaining rather than smuggling. The section's larger thesis is that morality is not a conclusion of reason alone. The English is his, from 1740; The paragraph is one observation inside that argument, and it has had a life far beyond the section.
- ethics
- knowledge
- mind
FAQ
What does it mean?
The usual reading takes the paragraph as a demand that the slide be explained: authors move from what is the case to what ought to be done, and they do not show the deduction. He is not, in the text, banning ethics. A rival reading treats any fact inside a moral argument as a fallacy, which is cruder than the surprise he records. The passage sits in the section arguing that moral distinctions are not derived from reason alone; The new relation expressed by ought needs to be observed and explained.
Did David Hume really say this?
Well attested. Hume's own English in the Treatise, book three, part 1, section 1. He notes a slide from is to ought that the authors do not explain. The wording is secure. Later writers call the point Hume's law.
Which work is it in?
A Treatise of Human Nature III.1.1 Approximate date: 1740.