Ought, Is, and What Is

No ought from is, say the philosophers. Says who? says Clifford Geertz ( The Interpretation Of Cultures (Basic Books Classics) ). Not, he points out, most people in most cultures most of the time. For them, ethos and ontology are inseparable:

“Like bees who fly despite theories of aeronautics which deny them the right to do so, probably the overwhelming majority of mankind are continually drawing normative conclusions from actual premises . . . despite refined, and in their own terms impeccable, reflections by professional philosophers on the ‘naturalistic fallacy.’”

He doesn’t intend to replace normative moral philosophy with descriptive ethics but rather to provide “moral philosophy with an empirical base and a conceptual framework which is somewhat advanced over that available to Aristotle, Spinoza, and G.E. Moore” (141).