Topic summary
Normative statement
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Fact–value distinction.
David Hume's skepticism
In A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), David Hume discusses the problems in grounding normative statements in positive statements; that is, in deriving ought from is. It is generally regarded that Hume considered such derivations untenable, and his 'is–ought' problem is considered a principal question of moral philosophy.