Clarification: No AI was used in the making of this page.

Editer:AJ Johnson

Introduction

    Hume’s Guillotine is a concept introduced by David Hume. The definition of Hume’s Guillotine is an Is-Ought Problem. However, the reality of it is so much bigger than that. Hume’s Guillotine is the crystallization of so much of societal presumptions about life. It is the idea of “what should be” put to words. That is at the core of Hume’s Guillotine. But to understand it deeper, we must understand more about its conception.

 Who was David Hume?

    David Hume, the guy who created Hume’s Guillotine(who would’ve known?) was a Scotsman who lived in the 18th Century. He lived during a time of great questioning in the world. First was the Protestant Reformation 2 centuries before which challenged religious thinking throughout the Western World. Then came the Age of Enlightenment where the average man could become learned and the traditions held on to throughout time previously were questioned and analyzed by those great philosophers such as John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. These two movements helped shape the world David Hume lived in. So he was able to spend much time pondering and learning about how the world worked. 

    David Hume believed mankind was subject to emotion rather than reason. He reasoned that “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of passions.” He came to this conclusion when witnessing humans choosing belief over reason, faith over facts. He even professed to be a man of belief as well, furthering his evidence that passion rules humans. As he pondered this he came to certain conclusions, such as Hume’s Guillotine. 

He concluded there is a difference between thinking and feeling. You can think something but not feel it and feel something but not think it. You can feel love for someone without knowing or thinking you do. You can think you have something in the bag but not really feel that you’re succeeding. This is at the core of Hume’s Guillotine. 

What is the Guillotine?

  You feel that something should be a way and it simply isn’t. So you say something should be when it is not. Some examples of statements someone might make if they’re experiencing Hume’s Guillotine would be “Teachers are very important, so we should pay them more.” or “Students are stupid, so we should give them less work.” Both of these statements would be considered normative, or in layman’s terms, what could be considered the normal experience for that person. However, the Guillotine kicks in because there is no evidence provided to show for that statement. Thus it’s knocked out of relevance before it even gets off the ground. The statements provided are emotion based, not reason based.

  Statements that follow a more positivist outlook, or once again in layman’s terms, a reason based approach wouldn’t fall under the Guillotine and instead speak things like “According to research, we should give students less homework because it stresses them out too much” or “Teachers should be paid more because this research says they’ll work harder with students and build more efficacy when they do.” 

Conclusion
  Hume's Guillotine is a theory made by Scottish Philosopher David Hume, who believed that the world revolved around facts and emotion. He believed that human beings were creatures of flawed perspective, following belief and emotion over facts and logic. In a way, he's right. We do follow our emotions often. But that's what makes us unique. That's what makes us human. Now don't go wild and think "Oh system 1 must be superior than system 2(check out dual processing theory)" because they both serve unique beneficial roles in our lives. Don't fall under the Guillotine though and make sure your opinions are well supported by fact before you present them. 

Definitions

Hume's Guillotine-The idea of normative and positive statements, or rather, emotion based reasoning versus fact based reasoning

Normative-What a standard person perceives as normal

Postive- an objective fact based version of what is reality

David Hume-Scottish Philospher guy. I hope you read the page because that tells you who he is. 

Sources

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem 

https://www.adamsmithworks.org/documents/hume-s-guillotine