Fact-Value Voters

I have always despised the term "values voters" to describe social conservatives. The purpose of the term is to draw an implicit contrast with those on the other side, that is, those who care about the needy, think that discrimination is a bad thing, and want to end needless killing -- you know, those who apparently don't vote on the basis of moral values. Note to the media -- hating gay people does not make you virtuous. I teach ethics for a living, you can ask me about it.

But philosophers often refer to what we call the fact/value distinction. The claim is that there is a difference between those propositions that describe how the world is and those that prescribe how the world ought to be. Not many folks buy into the idea of a strict fact/value distinction anymore, but it does furnish a handy new label that could be attached to a new way of framing issues in the upcoming election. Progressives should deem ourselves the "fact-value voters."

Our positions are certainly based on the values like compassion and fairness, but at the same time the application of these values requires acceptance of facts about the world around us. There are many kinds of facts and we take them all seriously. There are medical facts of the sort that Republicans were more than happy to ignore in the case of Terri Schaivo. There are meteorological facts like warnings from the hurricane center that the administration failed to heed. There are geophysical facts like those concerning global warming. Biological facts about speciation and evolution that some want to pretend aren't really there in terms of public school curricula. Sociological facts about the lack of success of abstinence only sex ed. Facts about the likelihood of an insurgency not treating us like liberators if we go in with too small of a force into a war that was started because of claims about weapons of mass destruction that weren't, wait for it, facts.

The nice thing about facts is that you can't argue with them...they're facts. In case after case, the Republicans have buried themselves because they refused to face facts. We can reasonably disagree about what ends we ought to pursue and what means would be the most efficient ways of getting to those aims. But you can't argue with facts...at least, not without looking like an idiot.

And that, my friends is why we need to be the fact-value voters. Because we care about facts, and if you are not a fact-value voter you're an idiot.

But caring about facts does not mean you are Mr. Spock on steroids. No, one can be a fact voter and still be a values voter. We take our values very seriously, we just realize that we need to be realistic about the world we live in when trying to act according to those values. It's pragmatism, people, a good ol' American value. This appeals to the supposedly vast middle (should it still exist) that wants things done and don't want to be confused with those global-warming deniers at their creationist museum. Those are wacko fringe characters and need to be shown to be such. Oh yeah, they are also the power base of the Republican party.

So, I hereby declare myself a fact-value voter. Anyone with me?

Cross-posted at Philosophers' Playground

•  Get Up, Stand Up

  Stand up for your rights and our contemporary best understanding about the way natural systems function...damn, just screws up the beat doesn't it.

  by SteveG on Tue Jun 12, 2007 at 05:14:27 AM PDT

•  Not quite sure I follow.

  I see values as a type of fact -- a subcategory, maybe.  As far as peoples' interests go, every fact implies an value or value judgment, doesn't it?  Or else the fact should be irrelevant.

  So I don't see a fact/value dichotomy in the first place.

  by dov12348 on Tue Jun 12, 2007 at 05:30:04 AM PDT

•  Fact-Value Thinking

  I have not thought about such a label before, but I will argue that is how we basically make all decisions.  We weigh the facts and decide what is the best course of action to take.  In this formulation of fact-value, best is more or less equivalent to what you call moral values.  I would expand it to include anything we desire to do. People who share our morals desire to do the same sort of things.  People who want to build things expect they will get a working whatever through the same process.  And when the light changes, we consider our current speed, crossing traffic, pedestrians, weather, car performance and more while deciding if we accelerate or brake.  

  I do not subscribe to this value concept just because it seems right.  It can be shown mathematically that the optimal solution is derived by not only considering the facts (and how reliable they might be) but in the cost function associated with the possible course of action.  That is, when you automate a decision process, this is fact-value method is the optimal solution on how to do it.  And it is not unreasonable to assume that is actually how we think even if we don’t consciously run the associated integrals in our heads.

  by fog1949 on Tue Jun 12, 2007 at 05:34:24 AM PDT

•  Quibble...

  I'm not sure you can get away with a fact/value distinction formulated this way:

  But philosophers often refer to what we call the fact/value distinction. The claim is that there is a difference between those propositions that describe how the world is and those that prescribe how the world ought to be.

  If you formulate that way, you pretty much instantly run into epistemological problems: How do you, in fact, know that your propositions describe reality?

  I suspect the best you can really do is say that there is a difference between those propositions that claim to describe reality and those propositions that prescribe how the world ought to be.

  Of course, if that's accepted, then this can't be the case:

  The nice thing about facts is that you can't argue with them...

  Of course you can, you can argue that those propositions that you claim describe reality do not in fact do so, and that some other propositions do.

  In short, I think that the fact/values distinction is less about a description of reality vs. the way reality ought to be (not that they have to be in competition), but between the (always somewhat arbitrary) construction of the world that one accepts as true and the construction of the world that one would like to accept as true.

  by ecclesioleft on Tue Jun 12, 2007 at 05:47:23 AM PDT