The (un)bridgeable gap between facts and values: an approach from Thomas Scanlon’s cognitive-realism

Abstract

Over the past three centuries developed into ethics a dichotomy between facts and values ​​whose influence still generates discussions. In this occasion, the intention of this article is to propose, from the cognitive-realism Scanlon, an alternative reading about this established dichotomy between facts and values. In general, much of this problem is due to the reason that the claims of the normative domain are often evaluated from the perspective of science (non-normative field), that is, the scientific world view. But as I will seek support, we need the regulatory domain is evaluated from the standards of his own domain whose basic element is the relationship be one reason (the reason for being). Normative truths can not be reduced to the extent that is determined by certain response patterns within a specific domain itself, which in the legal field is carried out by the idea of ​​pure normative claims. Thus, starting from the assumption that normative truths are irreducible and in this case, can be true or false, the best way to understand them is from the relationship R (p, x, c, a), where p a fact, x an agent, c a set of conditions and circumstances and to an action or attitude. From this standard constituted within the normative domain, the relation R states that p is a reason for an agent x perform an action or attitude a to the set of conditions and circumstances c. Therefore, at least in normative terms, the gap between fact/value seems to be transposed.