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title: "Fact–value distinction"
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source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact–value_distinction"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:31:22.389309+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

=== Moralistic fallacy ===

The fact–value distinction is also closely related to the moralistic fallacy, an invalid inference of factual conclusions from purely evaluative premises. For example, the invalid inference "Unfaithfulness is immoral, and so it is unnatural to feel desire for others when in a monogamous relationship" is an instance of the moralistic fallacy. Where the naturalistic fallacy attempts to move from an "is" to an "ought" statement, the moralistic fallacy attempts to move from an "ought" to an "is" statement.

== Criticisms ==
Virtually all modern philosophers affirm some sort of fact–value distinction, insofar as they distinguish between science and "valued" disciplines such as ethics, aesthetics, or the fine arts. However, philosophers such as Hilary Putnam argue that the distinction between fact and value is not as absolute as Hume envisioned. Philosophical pragmatists, for instance, believe that true propositions are those that are useful or effective in predicting future (empirical) states of affairs. Far from being value-free, the pragmatists' conception of truth or facts directly relates to an end (namely, empirical predictability) that human beings regard as normatively desirable. Other thinkers, such as N. R. Hanson among others, talk of theory-ladenness, and reject an absolutist fact–value distinction by contending that our senses are imbued with prior conceptualizations, making it impossible to have any observation that is totally value-free, which is how Hume and the later positivists conceived of facts.

=== Functionalist counterexamples ===
Several counterexamples have been offered by philosophers claiming to show that there are cases when an evaluative statement does indeed logically follow from a factual statement. A. N. Prior argues, from the statement "He is a sea captain," that it logically follows, "He ought to do what a sea captain ought to do." Alasdair MacIntyre argues, from the statement "This watch is grossly inaccurate and irregular in time-keeping and too heavy to carry about comfortably," that the evaluative conclusion validly follows, "This is a bad watch." John Searle argues, from the statement "Jones promised to pay Smith five dollars," that it logically follows that "Jones ought to pay Smith five dollars", such that the act of promising by definition places the promiser under obligation.

=== Moral realism ===
Philippa Foot adopts a moral realist position, criticizing the idea that when evaluation is superposed on fact there has been a "committal in a new dimension".  She introduces, by analogy, the practical implications of using the word "injury". Not just anything counts as an injury. There must be some impairment. When we suppose a man wants the things the injury prevents him from obtaining, haven’t we fallen into the old naturalist fallacy?

It may seem that the only way to make a necessary connection between 'injury' and the things that are to be avoided, is to say that it is only used in an 'action-guiding sense' when applied to something the speaker intends to avoid. But we should look carefully at the crucial move in that argument, and query the suggestion that someone might happen not to want anything for which he would need the use of hands or eyes. Hands and eyes, like ears and legs, play a part in so many operations that a man could only be said not to need them if he had no wants at all.
Foot argues that the virtues, like hands and eyes in the analogy, play so large a part in so many operations that it is implausible to suppose that a committal in a non-naturalist dimension is necessary to demonstrate their goodness.

Philosophers who have supposed that actual action was required if 'good' were to be used in a sincere evaluation have got into difficulties over weakness of will, and they should surely agree that enough has been done if we can show that any man has reason to aim at virtue and avoid vice. But is this impossibly difficult if we consider the kinds of things that count as virtue and vice? Consider, for instance, the cardinal virtues, prudence, temperance, courage and justice. Obviously any man needs prudence, but does he not also need to resist the temptation of pleasure when there is harm involved? And how could it be argued that he would never need to face what was fearful for the sake of some good? It is not obvious what someone would mean if he said that temperance or courage were not good qualities, and this not because of the 'praising' sense of these words, but because of the things that courage and temperance are.

=== Of Weber ===
Philosopher Leo Strauss criticizes Weber for attempting to isolate reason completely from opinion. Strauss acknowledges the philosophical trouble of deriving "ought" from "is", but argues that what Weber has done in his framing of this puzzle is in fact deny altogether that the "ought" is within reach of human reason. Strauss worries that if Weber is right, we are left with a world in which the knowable truth is a truth that cannot be evaluated according to ethical standards. This conflict between ethics and politics would mean that there can be no grounding for any valuation of the good, and without reference to values, facts lose their meaning.

== See also ==

Baden School – Revival of Immanuel Kant's philosophyPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
Empiricism – Idea that knowledge comes only/mainly from sensory experience
Is–ought problem – Philosophical problem articulated by David Hume
Non-overlapping magisteria – Concept created by Stephen Jay Gould
Value-freedom – Max Weber's methodological position
Positive and normative economics – Study of economics facts and values
Relativism – Philosophical view rejecting objectivity
Social science – Branch of science that studies society and its relationships

== References ==

== Bibliography ==
Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature. 1739–1740
Hume, David. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. 1748
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. 1883–1891. Translated by R.J. Hollingdale. New York: Penguin, 1969
Weber, Max (1946). "Science as a Vocation". In Gerth, H. H.; Mills, C. Wright (eds.). From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (PDF). Translated by Gerth, H. H.; Mills, C. Wright. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 129–156. Archived (PDF) from the original on 14 June 2025. Retrieved 28 July 2025.
Putnam, Hilary (2002). The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy and Other Essays. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0674009059.
Silvestri P. (ed.), L. Einaudi, On Abstract and Historical Hypotheses and on Value judgments in Economic Sciences, Critical edition with an Introduction and Afterword by Paolo Silvestri, Routledge, London & New York, 2017.