2. An ‘Is’ Cannot Prove an ‘Ought’: Is Something Right Simply Because It Has Always Been So? 35 Lessons in Critical Thinking: Think Like a Debater

35 Lessons in Critical Thinking: Think Like a Debater

Pang Ying

Transcript

Hello, I’m Pang Ying.

A common saying claims that weakness invites attack. How should we understand it?

It may describe a fact: backwardness makes bullying more likely. Or it may assert a norm: bullying a backward person or nation is justified, even to the point of destruction. These readings correspond to the descriptive and the normative.The descriptive tells how reality is; the normative asks what ought to be good, right, and worth pursuing.Today we distinguish them.

He Should Not Kill vs. He Killed: What Is and What Ought Not Be

Begin with the simplest example.

“He should not kill” is normative because it judges right and wrong. “He killed someone” is descriptive: it reports an event. Police and judges determine facts; questions about killing, suicide rights, capital punishment, or legal abortion are normative.

Here the normative resembles legislation and the descriptive law enforcement. Asked whether euthanasia should be supported, someone may answer no because it is illegal. The question and answer occupy different levels:one asks whether reality should change; the other merely states present reality.。

The distinction is foundational across disciplines. Morality makes normative claims. Traditional economics assumes rational actors and predicts accordingly, but descriptively people may behave otherwise.

Behavioral economics recognizes that people often do not act as rationally as they ought.

Ask how long cycling from Boston to Florida takes versus Florida to Boston. The times should be similar, but experiments find people imagine traveling south much faster because downward movement intuitively seems easier. Normatively the answers match; descriptively human intuition is less clever.

Descriptive or Normative: Is Socially Matched Marriage Outdated?

Everyday language often leaves the level unclear, so discussions talk past one another.

Consider whether marrying someone of matching family status is an outdated view. Does “outdated” ask what is or what ought to be?

Descriptively, survey whether people still care. If most do not, the view is outdated.

Historical surveys showing concern declining over twenty years strengthen that conclusion.

Even without past data, age cohorts could reveal that older people care more and younger people less, supporting descriptive decline despite an overall majority still caring.

Normatively, however, we ask whether modern people should care regardless of what most actually do. Universal concern would not prove they should; universal indifference would not prove they should not. That is the distinction.

We might argue that separating lovers for status violates modern values; extended-family matching matters less today; personal choice deserves respect; and loving partners can work toward the life they want.Love may cross mountains and seas; mountains and seas can be leveled.We can cite unhappy people who sacrificed love for social compatibility.

We can even advocate a vision of good society.A good society should have enough mobility for lovers to overcome origins through effort and enough mutual respect for elders and others to support their choice of partner.

Normative argument can thus reach beyond present society, describe the society we desire, and call for change toward it.

What Is Cannot Prove What Ought to Be: Misreading “What Is Rational Is Actual”

This brings us to a frequently misused phrase: “what exists is reasonable.” People use descriptive existence to claim normative rightness.

They may say men have always worked outside while women managed homes, so the division must be justified.

That confuses logical levels and misreads the phrase.

Hegel’s original formulation was:what is rational is actual, and what is actual is rationalHere rational does not mean morally right. It means an occurrence has causes, can be attributed, and has a traceable history.

A traditional gender division may have had good reasons in hunting societies and therefore continued, but its historical cause does not prove it remains good today.

Imagine sheep taught to jump a fence. Once habituated, they continue jumping after the fence is removed. Their behavior really occurs and has historical and habitual causes, yet without the fence it is foolish and wrong.

When we ask whether something is good today, historical or evolutionary causes may be informative but do not answer the normative question. The levels differ.

Is “They Really Work Hard” a Compliment?

A fifth-season I Can I BB motion asked whether “They really work hard” is a compliment. Should it be interpreted descriptively or normatively? Each side wants a different level.

Those calling it an insult argue descriptively from actual context and conventional usage. For example:

“How did Zhang perform on this project?”

““He really worked hard.”。”

“How would you compare these students?”

“Wang is clever and excellent, whileZhang really works hard.”。”

Language means what social convention makes it mean. In practice, people often praise effort only when they can find no other merit, so the phrase becomes negative regardless of effort’s intrinsic value.

The other side argues normatively. Effort is a virtue, and even if speakers usually intend contempt, how ought the listener interpret it? As praise.

If others call me hardworking, I can happily continue. Their implication that I am stupid reflects their outdated belief that ability is fixed and innate. A growth mindset recognizes lifelong learning and improvement through effort; clever people who despise persistence may shine briefly but lack endurance. So I thank them for the compliment.

The descriptive side will insist on addressing ordinary meaning rather than wandering away.

The normative side replies that its interpretation offers more useful guidance.Many children are troubled by the phrase; teaching a positive response has greater value.An audience may prefer either side, but should first recognize their different levels and that each can be internally coherent.

Is Human Nature Good or Evil?

This was the 1993 International Varsity Debate final: National Taiwan University defended inherent goodness and Fudan University inherent evil. Both used factual and value arguments.

The affirmative’s theory wasgoodness is the root; evil the result. Buddhism says delusion leaves one ordinary while awakening makes one a Buddha. People can renounce violence and become good because human nature contains the beginnings of goodness and can be educated toward good conduct.

A bird learns flight because it has the capacity; no teaching makes a human fly. A watermelon grows only from its seed. Bad weather may rot some fruit, just as harsh environments may make people evil, without changing what seed was planted.

The opposition quoted Xunzi:human nature is evil; goodness is deliberate artifice. Evil is unrestrained instinct and desire. Ancient humans ate their own kind; children mock the short, fat, or stuttering. Natural humanity is evil, while civilization and morality are socially acquired.

The butcher’s knife in “lay down the knife and become a Buddha” represents innate selfishness and desire. We approach morality by relinquishing them. Goodness takes years to learn and evil days; despite immense moral education and legal supervision, wrongdoing persists because evil follows nature while goodness lies further away.

So far both sides argue descriptively.They seek to describe, debate, and summarize what human nature actually is.What are people like before social education or contamination? Are children more compassionate, or do adults learn mercy? Are good or evil acts more common? Without external restraint, do people run red lights or litter? Which is easier to learn? These are factual questions.

Both sides pursue truth, assuming a broadly uniform nature can be inferred from observations and data, much as evidence decides whether Earth is round or flat.

Normative argument asks how we should regard human nature. Each side claims its view produces a better world and the opponent’s a worse one.

The affirmative says belief in evil destroys trust in promises and altruism, treats kindness as performance and good deeds as vanity, makes morality impossible, and requires endless surveillance. It leaves onlya dog-eat-dog world, without friendship or trust and filled withendless prisoner’s dilemmas. We must reject a belief that worsens the world.

The opposition says belief in evil improves the world by encouraging moral education, legal institutions, guidance toward civilization, andvigilance toward our own desires, enablingself-examination and progress, and daily reflection.The night gave me dark eyes, but I use them to seek the light.。

At this point what human nature actually is seems less important than which definition and understanding helps create a better world. Perhaps no uniform nature exists.

Humanity is complex. Calling it good or evil may support different methods of realizing goodness; this is normative argument.

Normative Argument Offers More Guidance: Free Will and Delayed Justice

The same method applies where science has no current, or perhaps ever final, answer. We then ask how we ought to view the issue.

Science has not settled whether free will exists, so we debate what we should believe.

Supporters of belief in free will say it gives life meaning and agency to change ourselves and society.

Opponents say recognizing limits prevents successful people claiming all credit and blaming disadvantaged people for lacking willpower. Discipline and effort may reflect genes and objective conditions rather than full subjective control.

Sometimes the subject itself is not objectively fixed but a human concept.

Is delayed justice still justice? One might define three standards and factually test whether delayed justice meets them.

But justice is not physical matter whose properties we discover. Its definition and standards are human creations.

Normatively, the question becomes what benefits and harms follow from continuing to call delayed justice justice.

Supporting the label, I might say:justice should guide absolutely regardless of time. Clearing an innocent person after many years remains a direction that drives us to continue investigating.

If vindication after sixteen years earns only condemnation for being late, why would investigators persist in difficult, thankless work? To clear more victims, delayed justice should remain justice.

The other side can argue that the label removes incentives to investigate promptly and prevent wrongful convictions.

Sixteen years is an immense part of a life. Calling delayed justice justice cannot erase that suffering.

Much cannot be restored. Celebrating belated correction as justice may strip justice of its sanctity.

Leave “What Is” to Scientists and “What Ought to Be” to Us

The examples clarify the distinction: whether someone killed is descriptive; whether they should kill is normative. Two conclusions follow.

First, the normative asks how we should view something.Sometimes both levels can be argued. Sometimes science owns the descriptive question and leaves us only how to view it, as with free will. Sometimes the issue itself is a subjective concept, as with delayed justice.

Second, beware using existence to prove obligation. “What exists is reasonable” is a distortion.The descriptive is how things are; the normative how they should be. If we always accept reality, the world never advances toward what it ought to become.

Should we answer work messages after hours? Should we resist a 996 schedule? Even if I answer now or still work those hours, an imperfect reality and individual weakness should not alter our standards of right. Moral commands and enduring hopes for civilization and happiness guide us like the North Star.

Even if I cannot yet achieve it, I know who I am, who I want to become, and what ideal world I seek. The eight-hour workday arose because we maintained that people are ends, not means.When someone says it has always been so, ask: does that make it right?

I leave two questions.

A two-meter woman is clearly tall and a 1.3-meter woman perhaps clearly short, but is someone of 1.6 meters tall or short? What practical benefits and harms follow from either definition? If an adult woman is only one meter tall, is that merely shortness or disease, and how should disease be defined?

Second, can men empathize with women’s workplace anxiety? How would you argue it descriptively and normatively? How much understanding counts as empathy, and how does the standard shape your view?

Thank you. I’m Pang Ying.

This is Think Like a Debater. See you next time.

Episode editor: hyl、李兔

2021.09.07

Audio in Chinese