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Constant comments on 'Is' and 'Ought' and Rationality - Less Wrong
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No. The distinction between those viral behaviors that tend to contribute to the virus replicating and those viral behaviors that do not contribute does issue from science. It is not a metaphor to call actions that detract from reproduction "mistakes" on the part of the virus, any more than it is a metaphor to call certain kinds of chemical reactions "exothermic". There is no 'open question' issue here - "mistake", like "exothermic", does not have any prior metaphysical meaning. We are free to define it as we wish, naturalistically.
So much for the practical ought, the version of ought for which ought not is called a mistake because it generates consequences contrary to the agent's interests. What about the moral ought, the version of ought for which ought not is called wrong? Can we also define this kind of ought naturalistically? I think that we can, because once again I deny that "wrong" has any prior metaphysical meaning. The trick is to make the new (by definition) meaning not clash too harshly with the existing metaphysical connotations.
How is this for a first attempt at a naturalistic definition of the moral ought as a subset of the practical ought? An agent morally ought not to do something iff it tends to generate consequences contrary to the agent's interests, those negative consequences arising from the reactions of disapproval coming from other agents.
In general, it is not difficult at all to define either kind of ought naturalistically, so long as one is not already metaphysically committed to the notion that the word 'ought' has a prior metaphysical meaning.
I'm having trouble with the word "metaphysical". In order for me to make sense of the claim that "mistake" and "exothermic" do not have prior metaphysical meanings, I would like to see some examples of words that do have prior metaphysical meanings, so that I can try to figure out from contrasting examples of having and not having prior metaphysical meanings what it means to have a prior metaphysical meaning. Because at the moment I don't know what you're talking about.
Hmmm. I may be using "metaphysical" inappropriately here. I confess that I am currently reading something that uses "metaphysical" as a general term of deprecation, so some of that may have worn off. :)
Let me try to answer your excellent question by analogy to geometry, without abandoning "metaphysical". As is well known, in geometry, many technical terms are given definitions, but it is impossible to define every technical term. Some terms (point, line, and on are examples) are left undefined, though their meanings is supplied implicitly by way of axioms. Undefined terms in mathematics correspond (in this analogy) to words with prior metaphysical meaning in philosophical discourse. You can't define them, because their meaning is somehow "built in".
To give a rather trivial example, when trying to generate a naturalistic definition of ought, we usually assume we have a prior metaphysical meaning for is.
Hope that helped.