meta ethics 3 and 5

Moral realism

Realism believes that moral properties, such as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ exist independently of the mind, we can discover these to be true or false

Moral anti-realism

• Anti-realism denies that objects exist mid- independently

• Claims that there are no moral concepts existing independently of the mind

• Moral concepts reflect attitudes feelings

Moral cognitivism

• Cognitivism claims that ethical language expresses ethical beliefs about how the world is

• Ethical language aims to describe how the world is, can be true or false

Moral non-cognitivism

• Moral judgements do not aim to describe the world, so ethical statements are neither true nor false

• Ethical statements express attitudes towards the world

Explain the difference between moral cognitivism and moral non-cognitivism approach to ethical language

• Moral cognitivists= claim that ethical language expresses ethical beliefs about how the world is, aims to describe how the world is, can be true or false

• Non- cognitivists disagree- argue that moral judgements do not aim to describe the world, ethical statements are neither true or false, they express attitudes towards the world

• Cognitivism= beliefs

• Non-cognitivism= attitudes

Moral naturalism

• As moral realists- state that moral properties exist mind-independent and can be understood as natural properties

• Ethical naturalism/ moral naturalism= reductivist theory, reduce moral properties down to natural properties- stating that moral properties is the same as natural properties

Why moral naturalism is also a reductivist theory

Reduces moral properties like ‘good’ and ‘bad’ down to natural properties only.

Example- utility says that goodness is the same as the natural property of pleasure or badness is the same as pain

Why virtue is considered a non-reductivist theory according to Annas

• Morality in virtue is based on natural facts about human nature- for example, good is essentially to fulfil your function well

• However, as functions vary according to many factors- there are as many goods as there are times

• Thus, you could argue that good cannot be reduced down to one thing

Naturalistic fallacy

Moore’s attempt to equate goodness to any natural property

Moral non- naturalism

• Belief that moral properties cant be reduced to natural properties or defined

• Moral properties instead are non-natural properties that exist in their own special category mind-independently

Moore’s intuitionism

• Form of ethical non-naturalism that claims that some of our moral judgements are synthetic yet self-evident

• Moral properties can’ t be discovered through natural means (e.g. science) but they do exist

• Example- colour yellow, can’t define it yet with know it exists and can evince through natural intuition

Moore’s open question argument against moral naturalism

• Uses argument to show that we cannot define moral properties as natural properties.

• Test any definition of good by asking an open question (example- good is pleasure= we ask, is good really pleasure ?)

• No debate= closed question, has been successfully defined, illogical to contradict

• Whenever we ask- is good x?= will always be an open question as it will always cause debate

• Moore does this to show that good can’t be defined as any definition of good won’t be accepted universally, thus concludes it is indefinable but know-able

Explain G.E Moore’s ethical non-naturalist position on moral language

Moore’s non-naturalist position claims that moral properties are not equivalent to natural properties.

Instead goodness is a simple and unanalysable property and moral claims are known through intuition - we cannot prove them but we know them to be true or false by rational intuition

Cannot be investigated by empirical means- it is real but not part of the natural world, the world of science

Claims we know claims abut what is good to be ‘true or false’ by considering the claim itself intuitions are ‘self-evident’ propositions of what produces the most goof (he is an ideal utilitarian)

Two criticisms of Moore’s non- naturalism

• Confuses concepts and properties -

  Open question argument against moral naturalism- Moore confuses concepts and properties. If you compare two concepts together they won’t be analytically identical (e.g. happiness is good technically isn’t analytically true). However, two concepts (happiness and goodness), can refer to the same property in the world- like water and H2O

  All Moore has done is prove that they’re not analytically true

• Criticism 2- definition of good is unprovable

  Moore recognises this himself- says goodness is self-evident, a form of synthetic a priori knowledge, yet it fails to explain how two people can perceive the same event yet view it in different ways

  One may view it as good or bad? Moore fails to explain hoe or why intuitions clash

• Explain the verification principle and its view on moral language

• AJ Ayer takes a non cognitivist and anti-realist position on ethical language

• There are no moral facts

• Argues for a statement to e meaningful it needs to be either empirically (refer to the world, synthetic and testable through senses) or analytically verifiable

• Ethical statements are neither empirically nor analytically verifiable- so are meaningless since it is neither true nor false

• Moral terms are pseudo concepts- because they do not refer to anything at all

• Cannot detect right, wrong, good or bad with our senses or scientifically.

• Example- abortion is wrong is meaningless as it is neither analytically verifiable as abortion does not mean wrong or empirically verifiable, wrongness of abortion cannot be picked u by the senses or tested.

Explain Hume’s argument that moral judgements are not beliefs as beliefs alone could not motivate us

• Moral judgements are not beliefs as beliefs alone could not motivate us

• Hume’s argument from motivation rejects cognitivism on the grounds that moral judgements are clearly motivating and it is only our desires and emotions that motivate us to act- so moral judgements must be concerned with feelings rather than expressing beliefs

• Emotions are not psychological states- have a ‘world to mind’ direction of fit’

• Reasons/ facts cannot motivate action because they are concerned with simply presenting the truth as it is (describing what is the case) which in itself is not motivating

• Standard form

  P1) moral judgements can motivate actions

  P2) Reasons (facts) cannot motivate actions

  C1)thus moral judgements are not judgements of reason

Briefly explain the is-ought gap as an argument moral realism

• No matter how much factual information I can provide you with, I cannot conclude on factual grounds what ought to be done.

• Moral judgements are completely different from all other sorts of judgements (autonomy of ethics)

• It is impossible to reason from the way things ought to be - cannot jump from ought to is

• A valid conclusion must be based solely on what is in the preceding premises and values do not exist in the descriptive (is) statements= this means morality itself does not exist in the world

• Hume concludes this is because moral properties do not exist mind-independent- he believes in the autonomy of ethics

Briefly explain why Hume’s fork rejects ethical language as an example of truth

One can argue that since moral judgements are neither relations of ideas or matters of fact, moral judgements are not concerned with knowledge

Moral judgements are concerned with ‘oughts’ and this cannot be deduced from relation of ideas nor matters of facts

Moral judgements= neither relation of ideas nor matters of fact= moral judgements no concerned with knowledge

Outline mackie’s error theory

• Despite being cognitivist- mackie’s error theory is an anti-realist position

• Our use of moral terms makes them look like they are genuine statements (express beliefs) and gives us the illusion that they refer to something ‘real’ in the world independent of us.

• But there are no such properties or facts

• All moral statements are false and made in error as we think wrongly that it refers to something real here in fact these mind-independent properties do not exist

• He concludes that there are no objective ethical values

Mackie’s argument from relativity

• Criticism of moral realism

• States that if objective moral values existed then they would be universally agreed upon

• However, moral values are not universally agreed upon and vary all across the world (cultural difference)

• Because of this Mackie believes objective moral values is a result of culture

• He argues that it is much more likely that certain moral values happen to develop in one’s culture but not in another for whatever cultural reasons

• Not the case that one culture is superior to the other or right, just that different moral values are right in each culture- they are relative

• Proves moral facts are made up by culture

Briefly outline Mackie’s argument from queerness

• Argument from epistemological queerness, states moral values do not exist in normal ways which other other properties exist in- this immediately makes them odd

• None of our usual methods of gaining knowledge (sense experience) work for moral knowledge so we are forced to refer to some kind of ‘special faculties’ to grasp these truths

• This explanation seems to weak to be true

• If moral properties did exist, they would be very odd as moral judgments are motivating

• This our demand that simply knowing what is good night to compel us to cat accordingly like it has some kind of magnetic property

• How can a property itself be intrinsically motivating- independent of our desires- seems illogical

• For example- knowing people pursue happiness somehow compels us to maximise happiness but how and why?

Explain why A J Ayer argues that all moral language is meaningless

• Argues language is only meaningful if it passes his verification principle

• Verification principle states language is only meaningful if it can be verified empirically (synthetic, through senses) or analytically.

• Moral language is neither empirically verifiable (you can’t perceive physical properties of goodness/ badness) nor analytically verifiable (fails Moore’s open question argument)

• As it is neither all moral language is meaningless so moral cognitivism is false

Outline key features of Ayer and Stevensons emotivism

• Believe ethical language doesn’t refer to anything real but is instead an expression of one’s emotions/ attitudes of approval/ disapproval

• Moral language is reactionary and shallow as its in the moment and we use it to aim to arouse feelings in others

• Since ethics is centred entirely around our feelings, emotivism is an anti-realist theory as there’s no existing moral properties mind-independently

Outline key features of prescriptivism

• Prescriptivism is the belief that there are no mind-independent moral properties and so cognitivism is false

• Instead when we make moral judgements we are prescribing how someone should act

• This is rational as we use our Brains to convince others but moral judgements are not based on facts not values