Editing Fact–value distinction (section)

==David Hume's skepticism==
{{Main|Is–ought problem}}
In ''[[A Treatise of Human Nature]]'' (1739), [[David Hume]] discusses the problems in grounding normative statements in positive statements; that is, in deriving [[is–ought problem|''ought'' from ''is'']]. It is generally regarded that Hume considered such derivations untenable, and his 'is–ought' problem is considered a principal question of [[moral philosophy]].<ref>{{Cite book |first=Stephen |last=Priest |title=The British Empiricists |url=https://archive.org/details/britishempiricis00prie |url-access=limited |pages=[https://archive.org/details/britishempiricis00prie/page/n193 177]–178 |publisher=Routledge |year=2007 |isbn=978-0415357234}}</ref>

Hume shared a political viewpoint with early Enlightenment [[philosophers]] such as [[Thomas Hobbes]] (1588–1679) and [[John Locke]] (1632–1704). Specifically, Hume, at least to some extent, argued that religious and national hostilities that divided European society were based on unfounded beliefs. In effect, Hume contended that such hostilities are not found in [[nature]], but are a human creation, depending on a particular time and place, and thus unworthy of mortal conflict.

Prior to Hume, [[Aristotelianism|Aristotelian]] philosophy maintained that all actions and [[Four Causes#End|causes]] were to be interpreted [[teleology|teleologically]]. This rendered all facts about human action examinable under a [[normative]] framework defined by [[cardinal virtues]] and [[capital vices]]. "Fact" in this sense was not value-free, and the fact-value distinction was an alien concept. The decline of Aristotelianism in the 16th century set the framework in which those theories of knowledge could be revised.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=MacIntyre |first1=Alasdair |authorlink=Alasdair MacIntyre |title=After Virtue |url=https://archive.org/details/aftervirtuestudy00alas |url-access=limited |date=2007 |publisher=[[University of Notre Dame Press]] |location=Notre Dame |page=[https://archive.org/details/aftervirtuestudy00alas/page/81 81–84] |isbn=978-0268035044 |edition=3rd}}</ref>