Bridging the Is-Ought Gap

Commands as the Ground of Ethics

Esotericist recently wrote an article called The Folkish Minimum where he sets out four basic propositions that one needs to assent to in order to be folkish.¹ The article is very short and worth a read, and so is his blog in general—it easily ranks in my top 3 Substacks.

But I was struck as I read these propositions that they are prescriptive more than descriptive. Each of them is a moral proposition; there’s a “must” in each of them, whether overt or implied. And all four of these propositions can be reformulated as commands, which has an interesting effect, moving ethics out of the realm of discourse and into something that can’t be evaluated in terms of true/false.

A good portion of the right considers teleology the only serious ethical paradigm, and if you think ethics is something fundamentally propositional this might make sense. But if we stop thinking of ethics in terms of propositions and start thinking in terms of imperatives, much in it that is otherwise mysterious becomes clear, and many problems dissolve.

In this article we’ll unpack the idea of commands as the ground of ethics,² and offer an alternative to both teleology and liberal ethics. I am going to give you the punchline right up front: we will discover that ethics is non-universal, that folkhood is its basis, and that unlike with teleology, we can bridge Hume’s is-ought gap without losing ethics in the process.

Let’s start by looking at what these words actually mean. What is an imperative? The word imperative derives from a Latin root pareo, meaning “to obey” but also “to be seen, apparent”. This in turn derives from a PIE root *peh₂- meaning “to protect”, as in one (the protector) who watches over, and therefore one who is to be obeyed. This root also gives us the word father, literally the peh-tor or protect-or. Long term readers of this blog will immediately see the significance in the father being the paradigmatic imperator, the one who is to be obeyed. Similarly, the word “command” ultimately derives from the Latin manus or “hand”, the same term used to describe the absolute power of the paterfamilias.

There’s more. Looked at conceptually rather than etymologically, the imperative is the transference of will from one to another. We have an idiom that illustrates this: your wish is my command. When you command me to do something, you have essentially deputized me to carry out your will. This is apparent in that the Latin volo (“to will”) lacks an imperative form—to command is to deny the will of the one commanded, and so one naturally cannot be commanded to will. Above all, and this is the essential fact of the command, it demands action. This is precisely the same essential feature of morality: it governs our conduct, our actions.

How about in the Greek? The Greek ἐντέλλω derives from the familiar τέλος whence teleology. This term is much less straightforward, being a kind of Greek kenning meaning “turning, result, completion”, but cognate via the PIE with Latin colo which gives us “cultivate”, and which has the same sense, along with “to protect”, much as we found with imperative. Just as with pater, the command is issued by one who cultivates, nurtures, and protects the one commanded.

On the Germanic side of the ledger, we have bid. This derives from a Proto-Germanic root *bedō (“prayer”), and in turn from PIE *bʰedʰ- (“bend, bow”), with cognate formulae in Sanskrit jñu-bā́dha, Old English cnēow-ġebed, and Old Saxon kneo-beda, all meaning “bending the knee”. Although the sense has been softened to “prayer”, the supplicative force remains, and significantly, the command or “bidding” has a theological dimension—the ultimate judge is a god.

So much for the nature of the command. Let us look at morality itself.

The word morality derives from Latin mos (“custom”), which is radical enough on its own—consider the implications of morality being at bottom conventional. The Latin term also has the sense of “practice”, suggesting an emphasis on orthopraxy (right conduct) as opposed to orthodoxy (right belief). And reinforcing our derivation of imperative from will, mos traces back to PIE *meh₁- (“to intend, to be of strong will”). Morality, like the imperative, ultimately depends on a will. Also, and very interestingly, mos has an archaic sense of “will” as in the auxiliary verb of the future tense “will do this, will happen, etc.” When Plautus says mos tibi geretur,³ we get “I will obey you”. Mos, and morality, is something oriented toward the future, just as the command is oriented toward the immediate future, since the imperative grammatical mood naturally lacks a past tense.

Old English had two terms for morality, but which have no modern reflexes: wuna and sidu, both meaning “custom, practice, rite”. Again, we get the orthopraxic sense, and in the case of wuna, a PIE ancestor *wenh₁- meaning “to be satisfied, to will, desire”. The intimate connection between will, morality, and command is coming into focus. Old English sidu is cognate both with Old Norse siðr (“custom, religion”) and the much more familiar Greek ἔθος, whence our ethics. This term has an interesting PIE etymology, from two roots: *swé (“self, one’s own, particular”) and *dʰeh₁- (“to do”). As is by now familiar, the primitive sense of ethics connotes practical action, with belief apparently nowhere to be found, but also in the Greek we get the sense of ethics as something particular and agent-relative, an injunction directed toward one but not all.

So, we already have, with just a clear understanding of the terms themselves, an ethical framework in embryo. Commands are something given by the protector-father, inseparable from his will, and finally judged by a god, implying the equivalence of the father with the god. Ethics is a demand for action, also dependent on will and intention, and future-oriented like a command. We may perhaps also add that ethics is particular to the agent themselves, as per the Greek. Given the striking parallels between commands and ethics, it’s hard to see how the two can fail to be related.

But are ethics really reducible to commands? Aren’t ethical statements usually propositions, like Esotericist’s “we must work to remove these elites”? Let’s find out.