Is Hume's Law a valid argument against empirical bioethics?

Abstract

If "no ought from is," how can bioethics be empirical? Despite the widespread recognition that we can integrate empirical and normative, Hume's Law is still often claimed to pose logical limitations to empirical bioethics. Is Hume's Law a valid argument against empirical bioethics? I argue that we have reasons to answer no. First, I outline and reject two unverified assumptions: that Hume' s Law, the fact-value distinction, and the naturalistic fallacy are roughly the same thing, and that Hume's Law is an undisputed meta-ethical principle which dictates how to formulate normative statements. I then show how the interpretation of Hume's Law as establishing a logical gulf between facts and morality-rather than as clarifying the logical rules of normative argumentation-is dependent upon a non-cognitivist interpretation of the Is-Ought problem. I argue that the version of Hume's Law that stems from ethical non-cognitivism is what is problematic for empirical bioethics. However, other interpretations are possible. We have two reasons to reject the thesis that Hume's Law is an argument against empirical bioethics. First, conflating meta-ethics and applied ethics is problematic. Second, a non-cognitivist interpretation of Hume's Law is likely to constitute an argument not only against empirical bioethics, but against all bioethics that claims to be situated within ethical cognitivism, be it empirical or philosophical. Lastly, I present two meta-ethical postulates shared by empirical and philosophical bioethics. I call them: (1) the "bridge" postulate and (2) the "ethical cognitivism" postulate.