Psychologically, facts and values are intertwined, but the feeling that something is a moral obligation doesn’t make it one.
The mind glues every is to an ought; yet a sense of moral duty is not proof of moral truth.
There is no way to show why this is the case - beyond reasonable doubt.
Many would say, "It is just and that is all there is to say."
David Hume famously emphasized — the so-called is–ought problem. Just because something is a certain way, it doesn’t logically follow that it ought to be that way. Our moral feelings can make an “ought” seem obvious, but that feeling doesn’t justify it on its own.
Not only is there the general human tendency to conflate is and ought, but also the first-person illusion that can occur within your own moral experience.
Let’s unpack that:
• Psychological fusion:
When you perceive something as being a certain way — especially in social or
emotional contexts — your mind often automatically appends an evaluative or
prescriptive stance. For instance, seeing someone act rudely might immediately
evoke the sense “they shouldn’t do that.” This “ought” feels built into
perception itself.
• The phenomenological illusion:
• It may feel to me like a moral ought, but that does not mean it is a moral
ought to me.
Here you’re distinguishing between:
• The felt sense of moral obligation — an internal impression of “this is wrong.”
• The reflective endorsement of that obligation — what you, upon reflection, actually recognize as your moral standard.
In other words, your mind can generate what feels like a moral imperative, but you might later judge that it was really just a socially conditioned reaction, an emotional bias, or an automatic norm you don’t actually endorse.
• Philosophical implications:
This distinction mirrors the difference between moral intuition and moral
reasoning.
• Intuitions (the felt “oughts”) are fast, automatic, and often inherited from culture or evolution.
• Reflected moral judgment (“what is a moral ought to me”) involves deliberation, coherence with one’s values, and possibly rejecting some intuitions.
This points to an important kind of moral phenomenology:
“It feels like obligation from the inside, but I might later see that it was only a psychological ‘ought’ — not a genuine moral one by my own lights.”