meta ethics

what is a naturalist

believe that you conclude something to be right or wrong through observation and analysis

some naturalist ideas

• observe morality through the natural world

• become moral facts

• empiricism

what does F.R Bradley argue

• moral truths are determined from self realisation and our position and dueties in society

• we adopt values of society to be a good person

G.E Moore and the naturalistic fallacy

• derive facts = straightforward facts

• harder with ethical questions

• based on intitution not naturalism

• intutively know what to do

• good is its own property (like yellow, cannot define)

H.A Pritchard - intuitionism

• intuition drives

• use reason and intuition

• improved by experience

• must reason with our intuition

W.D Ross on intuition

• no absolute moral facts

• tells us the right and wrong

Hume - is ought gap

• fact value gap

• can you derive only from facts and value

• jump from is to ought

• (eg. abortion kills, ban abortion)

• must not jump, use reasoning, observation and experience

What does A.J Ayer think about emotivism

• ethical statementsd are meaningless

• expressions of emotions

• cannot be empircally test

• ‘hurrah’ ‘boo’

what does C.L Stevenson think about emotivism

• two qualities = persasiveness, and deep rooted

• personal used of emotive language

• emotive language tries to persuade

• more based on belief systems

• depths to moral judgements

criticisms of emotivism

• overlooks moral depths

• make judgements based on factual infomation

what is perscriptivism

• morality informs actions

• elements of perscriptivism

• expressions of emotion

• reason plays a role in moral statements