That's not true, though. It's not meaningless at all, you understand very well what is meant by the statement "children ought to be happy". If you're talking down the street and a stranger stops you and says "you ought to sign this petition", are you telling me you wouldn't understand what he meant?
Of course not. You understand exactly what the stranger meant: he thinks you should sign some petition to legalize pot or whatever. Now you might ask questions like "Why?" or "Well, what is the petition for?". But you're not asking what the words he uttered meant - you're asking questions to try to ascertain whether you agree with his statement - whether you think it's true that it is in fact a petition you ought to sign.
I never said I didn't
understand the statement "children ought to be happy". I just said that the statement is meaningless [unless there was some reason to value the statement]. Instead of talking about children and torturing them, which is so obvious it can be difficult to ponder it objectively, let's take your example.
If I say to you, "you ought sign my petition". There is no grounds for you to believe this is true unless there is something that you value that will come of it by doing so. Clearly there are cases where signing would be "good" and others where signing would be "bad"
Now perhaps we are talking about two different things and I'm simply failing to grasp your point, but if you'll be patient and explain what you mean perhaps we can find out where the disconnect lay.
Moving on....
If I said, here is my petition I want you to sign, how do you decide what to do?
Even if I said I would shoot you if you didn't doesn't allow us to derive any sort of ought from these circumstances. Would you agree?
If you have terminal cancer and are suffering horribly, you may value death more than life, therefore you ought not sign and let me shoot you, but if you do value your life and signing the petition doesn't violate any values you feel outweigh the value of your life, then you ought sign.
So jumping back to the example using children, while I agree that one ought not torture children, it is because I value the life of children (more on this below).
Paraphrasing Sam Harris, values can be reduced to facts about the experiences of sentient creatures. Humans generally desire to be happy, healthy, productive people and given those values there are objectively right and wrong ways in which to proceed.
Now, perhaps this cannot be put into (modal?) logic. If that's the case, do you think that my statements form an untenable philosophical position?
I'm afraid not, though. Here are your premises.
1) I value happy children.
2) If I torture children they will not be happy.
These are your premises - statements you simply assert to be true. And I agree that they are true. Now, explain how - by which rules of logic - you can conclude the following given premises 1 and 2? Why does 3 necessarily have to be true given 1 and 2?
3) I ought not torture children.
It's a rhetorical question, the fact of the matter is that there are no rules of logic that allow you do so. 3 does not follow from 1 and 2. The only logical conclusion that can be deduced from 1 and 2 is "I do not value torturing children." That is different than "I ought not torture children". Those statements have different meanings. For example, a nihilist would have no problem admitting the former to be true (people can hold values), but he would dispute the latter.
It's because if you apply the rules of logic to a "want-statement" (in this case, "I want happy children") you will always get a conclusion in the form of another "want-statement" (in this case, the conclusion would be "I do not want to torture children"). There is no rule of logic that will take a "want-statement" and transform it into an "ought-statement". Taking a want-statement and "concluding" an ought-statement is faulty logic. 3 is
not necessarily true given premises 1 and 2. It does
not follow.
This, essentially, is the
is-ought problem. No one knows how - or even if - ought statements can be derived from is-statements (and it's a problem for me too).
After writing the first half of my response (which I've decided to leave in) I went back, did some reading and thought on it for a while. If what you're saying is that, from a purely sterile point of view, that is, a position devoid of any sort of wants, desires and values, that one cannot elevate any position as superior to another, I am inclined to agree....
But so what? Show me someone, anyone capable of rational thought that does not hold values. It's like saying that birds have no ground upon which to choose flight over walking. I mean, using the logic you've employed, that's true. Yet birds that can fly do because there is value in flying that cannot be achieved by walking. In many cases failure to fly would cause a specie to go extinct. Similarly, falure to hold certain values might cause our species to go extinct.
Regardless of the culture you are from, not eating babies is a good idea. I mean failure to hold this value as a society is so detrimental as to guarantee their own extinction.
Can one say "we ought not go extinct"?
Again I will say that the vast majority of humans wish to be happy, healthy and cooperative and flourish. All societies hold these values as well, and clearly there are objectively right, and objectively wrong ways to accomplish and fail to accomplish these goals.
Thus the is-ought distinction isn't a problem once you can agree that all humans hold values. That healthy people by-and-large would rather be happy, and at the very least not suffer (at least by the unwanted actions of others).
I try to make as few basal assumptions as possible when formulating my ideas.
So far I have 2....
They are:
At least sometimes my senses are true.
Healthy people, at the very least, would rather not suffer (at the very least, without their consent), and the vast majority prefer to be happy.