The Missing Ought and How It Leaves Things Empty

Because science and data are descriptive (and because they currently rule the world of truth and try to do so for meaning as well), we have forgotten the importance of the prescriptive. We look at what things are (how they appear to us especially through our experiments) and deal with them that way. Sometimes, especially in business, we take what is and try to make it into what we want (this is advertising and PR), but for the most part we are concerned with what is and what will come to be directly out of that. (Well, we do try to change things with science as well because after all that is what technology is for the most part.) Yet most of our time is spent being concerned with description: what is, the surfaces of things and actions. What we have lost sight of is what ought to be.

Now, ought is much bigger than want, especially what I want. This is why it is different from the making we do in business and with technology. We want something so we manipulate the surfaces to get them to appear and act as we want them. Ought has to do with the big picture and with what is good for more than just myself. It is more akin to values and meaning than to want and can.

We look at things through data and science and pay attention to what they are in that light and how we act in relationship to them and they to us.  We see things through the filter of simple cause and effect. We take that as the norm and proceed as if it were natural. The problem is that nothing is really natural, except maybe chaos. (More on that below.) Order, cause and effect, facts and data appear as natural because of the way we look at the world. Something akin to them is there to be found, but it will only be found if we look for it. The same is true for the ought; we will only see it if we look for it. That does not mean it is something we completely make up and force on the world, it isn't. It is however something we won't find unless we look for it. It is the same reason why no one found Newton's Laws of Motion before him; no one was looking carefully enough for them. The early discoveries of science (when it was still natural philosophy) were likely made when they were, and not earlier, because people before that were not looking almost exclusively at the surfaces of things and actions. People were looking mostly at the inside (essences really) at the outside was more incidental or accidental.

These days things easily look like they have no deeper meaning or purpose aside from the facts and the way they fit into the theories because that is often all we look for; it is the lens we look through. We need to also have an idea of what things ought to be: how should they be treated and thought of so as to achieve a greater good. This will not come from, but may be informed by, a description of things that comes from data or science. And the two don't have to be and shouldn't be mutually exclusive or fundamentally at odds with each other. We can develop oughts that fit with descriptions and if we value those oughts we will also find descriptions that fit with them without giving up accuracy of description. There is a tension, a give and take, but that does not mean it need be adversarial, polemic or seen as a winner takes all competition.

When I say that nothing is really natural but chaos, I am not being negative or pessimistic. Any order that the world may inherently have is not necessarily going to be in line with what we want it to be or what we think it ought to be, and it may not even be comprehensible to us. This is less of an assumption, and more of a realistic place to start from than saying things are naturally one way or another. If we start from a position that does not assume the world is, or even can be, ordered in a way we want it or can understand it, we are more open to the give and take that is necessary to strike balances between the descriptive and prescriptive. What we think ought to be becomes a goal that we try to achieve but are not sure we can. We need to see any order as an ought, a goal we have created, and not as something that is already there that we must find and follow. Saying something is natural is saying that it is and can't be changed, or changing it would be a perversion. That makes the natural the only valid goal. Seeing the ought as something we are responsible for avoids that almost fundamentalist mind set and approach. It is a bit like Sisyphus or even like trying to be a good Christian and being like Christ. It is unattainable (and not necessarily because it is not in line with what is natural, but because nothing is natural at all) but not unworthy of being worked towards.

What is and what will be according to some mechanical progression of what is, is not what ought to be. Those are dead statements of what appears and what will appear that leave the depths and possibilities unexplored.  Those are descriptions. What we want or what we can do according to those descriptions are merely surfaces: surfaces of things, actions and feelings. Ought is something that deals with what is under the surface. The difference is between description and prescription and it is a big difference. Without prescription things are left empty: missing meaning and value. At the same time, without description our values and meaning can become detached from the very real surfaces and become delusions. The key is to try and strike a balance at any time.