Peterdjones comments on A reply to Mark Linsenmayer about philosophy - Less Wrong
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I was responding to you claim:
"perfectly informed and perfectly rational"
You have shifted the ground from "perfect" to "better".
That's because you are still thinking of an "ought* as an instrumental rule for realising personal values, but in the context of the is-ought divide, it isn't that, it is ethical. You still haven't understood what the issue is about. There are cirrcumstances under which I ought not to do what I desire to do.
The better it gets, the closer it gets to perfect. Eventually, if science can tell us enough about rationality, there's no reason we can't understand the best form of it.
I'm a Moral Anti-Realist (probably something close to a PMR, a la Luke) so the is-ought problem reduces to either what you've been calling 'instrumental meaning' or to what I'll call 'terminal meaning', as in terminal values.
There's nothing more to it. If you think there is, prove it. I'm going with Mackie on this one.
Yes, like I've said. When your beliefs about the world are wrong, or your beliefs about how best to achieve your desires are wrong, or your beliefs about your values are misinformed or unreflective, then the resulting 'ought' will be wrong.