cognitive approaches to meta-ethics

ethical naturalism (cognitive realism)

• view that goodness is something real in the natural (physical) world.

• morals can be defined or explained in these natural terms (empirical evidence), or supported through the observation of the world in science

• naturalists develop their ideas with non-moral evidence, e.g. aristotelian/ utilitarian naturalism

• naturalism is cognitive as it claims moral properties like goodness are natural properties → we can use ethical statements and say that they are accurate using empirical evidence.

aristotelian naturalism

• claims that goodness = eudaimonia

• flourishing is a factual feature of natural organism

  • Philippa foot defends this view, pointing to the eg of plants → there is a factual, natural difference between a plant that is flourishing and a plant that is not. The same is true for humans

utilitarian naturalism

• Bentham claims that goodness= pleasure

• pleasure is a natural property of natural creatures (at least if you don’t believe in a non-natural soul)

Hume’s is-ought gap

• attempts to show that moral judgements cannot be inferred from facts

• you cannot deduce a value from a fact, or an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’

• we cannot logically move from a statement about the way the world IS to a statement about how we OUGHT to act

• he makes a clear cut between facts and ethics.

• philosophers talk about the way things are and then jump w no apparent justification to a claim about the way things ought to be

how does hume’s is-ought gap/ hume’s guillotine criticise naturalism

• lets apply hume’s is-ought gap to bentham’s argument:

  • P1: it is human nature to find pleasure good (fact- ‘is’ statement)

  • C1: pleasure is good and we ought to maximise pleasure (value- ‘ought’ statement)

    • Hume’s point is that this is not a valid deduction. The conclusion does not follow, is not justified, bu that premise. The fact that it is human nature to find pleasure good, only means that it is human nature to find pleasure good. It does not mean that pleasure IS good and that we OUGHT to maximise pleasure

• Non-cognitivism: since our moral judgements could not have been inferred from facts, they must have a different origin.

• Hume proposes that ethical language comes from ‘the heart’ not ‘the understanding’. it expresses an ‘active feeling or sentiment’ → this makes the ‘is-ought gap’ an argument against cognitivism.

defence of naturalist realism RE: hume’s is-ought gap

• Patricia Churchland proposes that Hume’s argument only targets deductive reasoning from is to ought

• we could take b+m’s arguments for utilitarian naturalism as inductive

• mill especially seems to accept that he is making an inductive argument when he admits that his proof of Utilitarianism is the ‘only proof’ possible

• Pleasure being our natural end doesn’t deductively entail/ mean pleasure is good, but it is inductive evidence for pleasure being good. So, Hume’s critique doesn’t apply

• The utilitarian naturalist claim that goodness= happiness is not based on mere baseless assumption, then. It is based on evidence.

Criticism of naturalist realism: Moore’s naturalistic fallacy

• in Principa Ethica, Moore argued that it is a fallacy to assume that something being natural means that is good.

• a naturalistic fallacy is committed when a philosopher attempts to prove a claim about ethics through appealing to a definition of the word ‘good’ by using a natural property such as pleasing or desirable

• it is not acceptable to confuse good with natural or metaphysical property- there is nothing intrinsically good about happiness, fitness or health → they are only good if we define them as such.

• Naturalists seem to make that assumption; Bentham assumes that it being natural to desire pleasure means that pleasure is good.

criticism of naturalist realism: moore’s open question argument

• argued that if naturalism were true, the result would be illogical

  • IF: goodness = pleasure → informative

  • THEN: (goodness=)pleasure= pleasure → not informative (tautology)

• an informative statement cannot be equal in meaning to an uninformative tautological statement.

• so, goodness cannot = pleasure, or any other natural property and is therefore false

• a question is closed if it shows ignorance of the meanings of the terms involved to ask

• a question is open if it doesn’t display ignorance of those meanings to ask it

• since ‘goodness =X natural property’ for a naturalist would be synthetic, one could be acquainted with the subject (goodness), but not the predicate (X) and therefore would not necessarily be displaying ignorance of the terms involved to ask the question

• THEREFORE, it will always be an open question whether goodness is really X as we can always meaningfully and intelligibly ask the question ‘is goodness really X?’

Moore’s intuitionism

• moore concluded that we cannot define goodness

• we cannot say what goodness is because it is only itself- it is sui generis (unique).

• this explains why goodness cannot be equated in terms of anything else, as shown by the naturalistic fallacy and open q arguments

• goodness is like the colour yellow; you cannot describe/ define yellow, you just know it intuitively when you apprehend it

• similarly, we just know whether an action is good or bad through intuition

• i.e we know it without figuring it out through a process of reasoning

• when we observe/ reflect on a moral action and its consequences, we intuitively know whether it was right or wrong

Pritchard’s intuitionism

• argued that moral obligations form immediate apprehensions e.g. 1+1=2

• pritchard argued that our intuitions involve more than just goodness, but also a sense of obligation

• there is a gap between saying that something is good and saying that one ought to do it

• so, resolving a moral dilemma involves weighing up contrasting obligations and trying to work out which is most important

• the advantage of this is its positive view of human nature- people have genuine obligations and duties to fulfil.

• However, Pritchard’s idea of duty is very subjective; it’s not clear if there is a ‘right’ way to solve dilemmas.

W.D Ross’ intuitionism

• moral principles are not absolute or defined in natural terms.

• Ross developed the idea of prima facie duties (meaning, the duties we have at first sight). In any situation, we have duties which are apparent.

• We are bound by an important prima facie obligation unless there is some other compelling reason.

• Ross listed seven key prima facie duties: promise keeping, reparation for harm done, gratitude, justice, beneficence, self-improvement, and non-maleficence.

• Ross thought that we would choose between these on the basis of judgement; we do not have a logical system for working it out. In this sense, his theory is truly intuitive

Strength of Moore’s intuitionism: cross-cultural moral agreement

• There are a set of core moral principles similar in all societies however, such as prohibitions on stealing and murder.

• This shows there is some absolutist moral truth that all humans are somehow apprehending.

• While there is also moral disagreement, Moore argues this is due to people not articulating their moral views clearly.

• Pritchard further added that disagreement is caused by people having different levels of practical knowledge about the world and levels of personal moral development

Weakness of Moore’s intuitionism: Mackie’s argument from relativity

• Mackie attacks moral realism with an abductive argument.

• cross-cultural moral disagreement does not prove that there are no objective moral properties → people disagreeing about the shape of the earth doesn’t prove there is no objective shape of the earth.

• Mackie argues the reason for moral disagreement is best explained by adherence to different forms of life, i.e., social conditioning.

• Mackie accepts that he can’t prove that there isn’t some mysterious non-natural moral property influences our moral views.

• However, his point is we have no reason to think there is, especially when we have the better explanation for our moral views of social conditioning.

  People have moral intuitions, but they are better explained by social conditioning than intuition of non-natural properties.