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Articles

Thoughts on Oughts

Stephen Anderson reflects on responses to Hume’s argument that we can’t derive moral duties from facts.

It’s Christmas season again. Among the many charms of the holiday season is the proliferation of advertisements for various kinds of charitable causes. Sometimes these requests are framed gently, as requests to extend the joy of the holiday season to less fortunate others, and sometimes they’re more impassioned pleas to ‘share our bounty’ with the local needy. In a few cases, the solicitations may degenerate into a kind of poverty porn, bombarding us with pictures of the war-maimed or fly-covered faces of starving orphans. Guilt, it seems, can be good advertising.

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