meta ethics

what is meta ethics concerning

what good means

cognitive language

objectively true or false, can be falsified or verified using logic or evidence

non-cognitive language

not subject to being true or false e.g., expressing an opinion

absolutism

the nature of morality holds no exceptions

relativists

the nature of morality is relative to each individual

ethical naturalism

the decision about what’s right or wrong can be arrived through discovery of the natural world. moral properties are natural properties, and ethical statements are the same as non-ethical statements

3 problems with ethical naturalism and who founded them

• the is ought gap - Hume

• naturalistic fallacy - Moore

• open question argument - Moore

the is ought gap - Hume

confuse what is the case with how it ought to be, without explaining how they got from the former to the latter

you can’t go from an objective claim to a subjective conclusion

the naturalistic fallacy - Moore

any attempt to define the word good in terms of some natural quality cannot be correct

the open question argument - Moore

turning any definition of good into a question, e.g., is pleasure good. if the question is open, then the definition is not analytically identical

Moore quote

“good is good and that is the end of the matter”

non-naturalism

can make objective statements about things which aren’t part of the natural world

intuitionism (non-naturalism)

what’s good can be known and identified through our intuition. we can reflect on the truth of moral judgements through our rational intuition.

strength of intuitions

you are able to overcome the naturalistic fallacy whilst maintaining that good exists objectively.

weakness of naturalistic fallacy

it does not explain moral disagreements as we don’t know who gives the moral facts and who gives the moral falsehoods.

weakness of naturalistic fallacy

“enforced silences will not help us to understand good”

H A Pritchard on intuitionism

intuitions may vary as some people have developed moral thinking

emotivism

ethical statements express a person’s emotions.