ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews David Hume’s is/ought-dichotomy in its historical theoretical context. It aims to locate both the is/ought dichotomy and the naturalistic fallacy in their respective historical contexts. The chapter argues that the much more general problem of the transition from is to ought in practical moral reasoning actually has an easy solution within the ethical system of Hume, the first to pose the problem. As Anthony Flew has pointed out, Hume’s ethics “might almost seem to demand an evolutionary background.” Hume’s is/ought dichotomy, however, is much more general in scope and application, and is therefore a much more formidable problem for environmental ethics, as it is for any ethic whose conceptual foundations rest in part upon empirical and theoretical claims about the world as well as upon strictly valuative and deontic statements. The mystery dissolves, on Hume’s own grounds, when the missing premise referring to passion, feeling, or sentiment is explicitly included in the argument.
