Hume challenged the notion that 'ought' implies 'can,' by stating that we cannot derive an 'ought' from an 'is.' This is known as the 'is'-'ought' fallacy.
He claimed that we cannot move from a descriptive statement about the universe, such as, 'there is a bookcase in my living room,' to a prescriptive statement or normative claim, like the bookcase having a moral status.
Hume challenges the notion that 'ought' implies 'can', which is integral to Kant's moral argument, by stating that it is a leap of logic to move from descriptive statement to a moral one.
Hume believed that morality was nothing more than an emotional response from the individual observing the world around them.
If this were the case, then Kant's argument would fail in two ways; firstly the logic of the argument would break down, so much so that we would no longer have an obligation to achieve the Summum Bonum, as 'ought' does not imply 'can', and secondly the source of human morality would be derived from emotional responses to environmental stimuli. In essence, for humans there is no universal, objective moral law.

	Created by Summer Pearce over 8 years ago

AS - Level (Year 1) Philosophy (4d) Traditional Arguments for the Existence of God - Moral) Slide Set on Criticisms of the Moral Argument, created by Summer Pearce on 15/05/2016.