Meta-Ethics

Divine Command Theory - basic premise

• right = what God commands

• wrong = what God forbids

• God sets the moral standard

Examples of frameworks that rely on Divine Command theory

• NML - it is deontological, God makes it clear in nature what He commands and forbids

• Religious legalism - believe that all laws in scripture should be followed, this is clear divine from God

deontological rules that fundamentalist theists may follow (DCT)

• laws in Leviticus

• 10 commandments

• ‘love thy neighbour’

• Jesus’ ordinances

Euthyphro dilemma scholar

Plato

questions posed by Plato in the Euthyphro dilemma (DCT)

• is being moral loved by the gods?

• are they pleased because the moral act is good IN ITSELF or because you have followed THEIR ORDERS
  basically: does morality exist independently or come from a divine source?

how Euthyphro is a criticism of Divine Command Theory

DCT states that good is what God commands

BUT if good comes from God, how can atheists understand good w/o believing?

BUT if good exists outside of God, this implies there is something greater/more powerful than him, going against teachings of classical theism

BOTH OPTIONS = logically inconsistent

William of Ockham’s view of Euthyphro

Ockham: God wills what is morally right. God has the power to do what is logically impossible

Robert Adams view on Euthyphro

Adams: what God wills needs to be consistent with scripture and the life of Jesus

If it seems like god is commanding you to do something inconsistent with God’s teachings, this cannot be God

Peter Geach’s view on Euthyphro

Geach: morality exists outside of God and therefore makes God irrelevant. Whether God tells you to do something does not make your obedience moral

strengths of Divine Command Theory

• Occam’s Razor

• gives a clear deontological moral code

• natural law - God’s divine commands can be discerned by all

• morally absolute

weaknesses of Divine Command theory

• an outdated theory - cannot apply to modern moral issues eg, scripture as a historical document

• Euthyphro dilemma

• biblical contradictions eg, teachings from OT and NT clash

• varied interpretations of the bible

ethical naturalism basic premise

good = what humans naturally want to happen to them

• right = causes pleasure

• wrong = causes pain

there are objective moral facts that are naturally occuring - goodness does not come from God

ethical naturalism explained

• ethical naturalists define good as what humans want to happen to them - to feel pleasure

• this is hedonistic

• good is a naturally occuring property, not from God

JS Mill stance on utilitarianism

agreed with Bentham’s act utilitarianism, BUT believed it should be qualitative, not quantitative

• the wellbeing of an individual should not be ignored for the pleasure for a greater number

• worried that utilitarianism would be about pleasure-seeking, not noble/moral acts

Rule utilitarianism scholar

J. S. Mill

rule utilitarianism explained

• higher pleasures = pleasures of the mind

• lower pleasures = pleasures of the body

• higher pleasures are quantitively better - hierarchical view of different types of happiness

strengths of naturalism

• uses empiricism - pleasure and pain are observable

• majority of society operates this way (democracy)

• humans naturally weigh up consequences - so this is a natural way of making moral decisions

• objective nature of right and wrong (tied to pleasure and pain) enables easy application

• rule utilitarianism removes undesirable hedonism

weaknesses of naturalism

• impossible to predict consequences

• focus on majority outcome can lead to a slave culture

• ethical non-cognitivists reject the basis of moral judgements in fact

• pleasure + pain can be subjective - no moral absolutes then

• intuitionism - good is undefinable

G. E. Moore criticism of ethical naturalism

it commits the ‘naturalistic fallacy’ - you cannot use nature to gain this knowledge

‘is does not lead to ought’ - the patterns in nature cannot provide rules on morality

Intuitionism premise

• there are objective moral truths that exist independent of humans

• they are fundamental truths that cannot be broken into parts/defined

• good=good, bad=bad

• humans can discover these truths by using their minds in a particular intuitive way

How does naturalism and intuitionism differ

intuitionism = apriori - moral truths can be found through logic only

naturalism = aposteriori - moral truths are observable in the natural world and tied to pleasure and pain (sensory)

Hume is an….

ethical intuitivist

Hume’s faculty of sympathy

all humans intuitively know the moral truth that they should help others

helping others = a good thing = objectively true in all circumstances

our natural desire to help others shows intuition encourages good

G. E. Moore on comparing good

good cannot be explained in comparison to positive things that naturally occur in the world

‘good’ is not synonymous with pleasantness or desirability or pleasure

Good is self-evident, it simply is

G. E. Moore on defining good

Moore argues that just as you cannot define ‘yellow’, you cannot define ‘good’

ethical values are self-evident, undefinable and uncomparable to anything else

deontological view - moral truths are either self-evidently right or wrong

Pritchard view on intuitionism

if someone shows us kindness, we know through intuition that the right action is to show kindness back to them - this is a moral intuition

• like knowing that a shape with 3 sides must be a triangle

Ross - view on intuitionism

‘prima facie duties’ (at first sight duties) - the duty you feel is most urgent in a moral dilemma.

That we know automatically that certain rules are morally important eg, saving someone’s life, proves intuitionism

strengths of intuitionism

• moral realism - objective moral values identified

• allows for duties/obligations = moral absolutist

• in line with the idea of conscience as a moral guide

• points to the existence of a considerable common consensus on moral issues eg, dont kill

• explains why it is difficult to justify why some actions are morally wrong eg, murder. it just is/self-evident

weaknesses of intuitionism

• people do intuit/reason to different conclusions - no obvious way to solve differences

• intuition = non verifiable - meaningless?

• how can we be sure that our intuitions are correct

• Hume admits that we have motivations for acting in certain ways - but to an intuitionist ths would come from an innate desire beyond reason