15 Questions and Issues

To wrap up this Module, we need also to broaden our focus just a little and recognize that the fact-value distinction is useful for framing how we think about questions and issues.

If, for example, I ask, “is it going to rain tomorrow?” I am raising a question about tomorrow’s weather. That question can be answered by a claim (“it is going to rain tomorrow,” or “it is not going to rain tomorrow”).

The issue is what I am asking about when I ask a question.  Any question can be turned into an issue, and vice versa. The question “is X?” becomes “whether X.”

So, in the example here, the question is, “is it going to rain tomorrow?” And the issue is whether it’s going to rain tomorrow.

Different claims can then be made which represent different perspectives on the question or issue: it is going to rain tomorrow, it’s not going to rain tomorrow, it might rain tomorrow.

Like their associated claims, issues and questions can be evaluative or non-evaluative. The issue and question in this example are non-evaluative, because they are about the facts pertaining to how the world will be, regardless of what we want it to be or think it would be good to be.

By contrast, if I ask, “should I take an umbrella when I go out tomorrow?”, the issue — what I am asking about — is whether I should do something. That’s an issue about the proper course of action I should follow. The issue and question here are evaluative ones — they are about what should (or should not) be done.

As a step towards thinking about what is involved in reasoning that involves values (ethical or otherwise), note that the answer to the second, evaluative question about whether I should take an umbrella will depend on the answer to the first, non-evaluative one, but it won’t be completely determined by it. If I value staying dry, then the fact of rain will lead me to think I should take an umbrella. If I value getting soaked in a nice summer shower, then the likelihood of rain will not imply I should take an umbrella.

To anticipate where we’re going with all of this, think of the evaluative claim as the claim I am providing reasons for. We can represent the possible ways of reasoning like this:

In each case we have a pair of claims, one non-evaluative (N) and one evaluative (E) which together provide reasons for another evaluative claim. These are examples of arguments. The claims that go with “therefore” are the conclusions of each argument, and the claims that provide reasons for those conclusions are the premises.

The key point here is that the very same N claim can be used in support of two different E conclusions, depending on what E premises are used to evaluative the situation expressed by the N claim.

Take another example: suppose I am dealing with low-back pain. I go to the doctor, and I ask “what can I do to alleviate this pain?” While motivated by a value — my desire not to be in pain — the question itself is non-evaluative. It’s just asking what will produce a particular outcome. The doctor might then give me a number of answers: “you can take a painkiller,” or “you can have surgery,” or “you can try yoga,” or “you can adjust your work environment so your body isn’t stressed in the same ways,” etc. All of these are non-evaluative claims. They just say, if you do X, you will (likely) get result Y. None of them yet says what I should do. For that, I have to ask further evaluative questions about what is important to me: is avoiding the possibility of addiction more important than the convenience of a pill? Do I want to try to readjust my ingrained habits and familiar work environment? Once I am clear on what I value, then which of the doctor’s suggestions I should do follows from that.

So, as you can see from these examples, while facts are often relevant to our evaluations, but they are not sufficient to determine them. Or, more succinctly put, facts don’t determine values.

One really important thing that follows from this is that science can’t by itself tell us what we ought to do. It can provide essential information for helping us decide, but decisions depend also on our values. And science doesn’t tell us what we ought to value. As in the example above, science can tell us if it is likely to rain tomorrow, but not whether we ought to prefer staying dry to getting wet.

This is, I should emphasize, in no way a criticism of science or a justification of the many anti-scientific views that are so common these days. Values don’t determine the facts any more than facts determine values, so rejecting science because the facts it provides don’t square with your view of what is good is never justified. But, scientists often implicitly assume that their scientific expertise transfers to their evaluative perspectives, and that’s also not justified. We need to science when it is in a good position to inform us about the world beyond what we non-experts can know. But we also need to be able to have conversations about what is of value and what we ought to do that tells us what information we need from science.

This is a set of issues you’ll explore in some of the work you have ahead of you.

One last point: as should hopefully be clear, we can also ask definitional questions, which are about definitional issues. If I ask “what is yoga?” or “what is an umbrella?”, I am asking definitional questions. I can also ask “what is an ethical outlook?” or “what are core values?” In those cases, though I am asking about concepts related to evaluative matters, I am still asking definitional questions.