Ethical Naturalism

What is an analytical statement?

A statement that is true in and of itself

What is a cognitive statement?

A statement that expresses a belief or proposition that can be true or false based on empirical evidence.

What is the view of Ethical Naturalism?

It is the belief that ethical statements can be derived from natural properties and facts, asserting that moral truths exist and can be understood through observation and reason e.g with the 5 senses.

Give an example of a statement that naturalists would say could be proved right or wrong based on our experiences?

‘Stalin was wrong’ - we can use evidence such as his purging millions of people indicate that he was a bad person.

How is Utilitarianism an example of Naturalism?

In Rule Utilitarianism, we can make statements like it is wrong to torture because we know that this causes suffering and we want to avoid pain. The wrongness of torture is independent of opinion because it is based on fact. ‘Torture is wrong’ is therefore an ethical proposition.

What was the name of Bradley’s Book and how was it written?

“Ethical Studies in 1876” - written in a dialectic style combining the thesis and the antithesis.

What was Bradley’s view on ethical statements?

He believed that they were ethical statements that could be proven true or false. That morality relied on certain facts about them ourselves.

What did Bradley think the meaning of life is?

That we are an individual within a community - we have to develop ourselves in a community. We have to empirically study our family and community.

What are the two ways we can study ourselves according to Bradley?

1. We should adopt the values of our community. Our understanding of good and bad comes from empirical observations around us?
   
   2. Empirical observations help us find out what our key role is and develop ourselves by fulfilling that role. It becomes a ‘good’ thing to fulfill that role

What is Hume’s Criticism quote?

‘I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not.’

What is Hume’s argument? Is'/ought problem

1. That we miss the premise. People move to fast from a descriptive statement ‘this is causing me pain’ to a normative statement ‘this is wrong.’

2. Our feeling and desires cause us to explain our ought statement.The missing premise is ‘I dont want to be hurt, therefore pain is morally wrong.’

What is G.E Moore’s criticism?

Moral Statement’s cannot be verified as true or false. Good cannot be defined - like the color yellow. '“If I’m asked what is good, my answer is that good is good.”

Why does Moore say good is undefinable?

Complex ideas and simple ideas. Yellow is a simple one and Horses are complex.

What does Moore say about moral premises?

You can’t use moral premises to establish a moral conclusion, you can’t go from observing pleasure to saying goodness is pleasure. ‘Everything is what it is and not another thing’