hume's guillotine

English - English

Definition of hume's guillotine in English English dictionary

The is–ought problem (Hume's Law or Hume's Guillotine) in meta-ethics as articulated by Scottish philosopher and historian David Hume (1711–76) is that many writers make claims about what ought to be on the basis of statements about what is. However, Hume found that there seems to be a significant difference between descriptive statements (about what is) and prescriptive or normative statements (about what ought to be), and it is not obvious how we can get from making descriptive statements to prescriptive

Hyphenation

hume's guil·lo·tine