Legal Commentary

... Or other island ecosystems where weird species thrive, isolated from predators that would otherwise exterminate them?

The thought occurs to me because I have encountered repeatedly in the law reviews the statement that it is a fallacy to derive an 'ought' sentence from an 'is' sentence -- citing (who else) David Hume. There is a post-Hume literature out there on the relationship between "is" and "ought" statements, and the notion that one can adequately establish that facts and norms are independent of each other by citing Hume's famous passage from the Treatise is almost as odd as the notion that one could establish that the universe is filled with ether by citing Isaac Newton.

But my perplexity vanishes when I realize that I live in an isolated eco-system where the invasive species of modern philosophy has made but modest inroads. So the local fauna can subsist on David Hume, blithely unaffected by contemporary literature (see, e.g., Hilary Putnam) suggesting that the alleged gulf between 'is' and 'ought' statements is nonsense. It is like dwelling on the Big Island before the mongoose arrived, surrounded by fat, happy Nene Geese waddling about, free from the anxiety of the faster, sharper predators dwelling a few hundred yards away across the campus.

Being a fat, happy Nene Goose myself, I am relieved and gratified by this idyllic existence. But surely our days are numbered?