ETHICS (y13) - Meta-ethics

What is meta-ethics?

The meaning of right and wrong

Which 3 theories do we look at under meta-ethics?

• Divine Command Theory

• Naturalism

• Non-naturalism

What actually is meta-ethics?

• When we ask what one means by right and wrong that is a meta-ethical question

• Examines what moral language is about and how it can be justified

• We consider if moral lang is just expressing our preferences, if we can be certain we are right etc

What are the two types of meta-ethical questions?

1. What moral language means

2. How moral statements may be justified

What are the 3 ways in which we can define “good”?

1. Ethical naturalism

2. Ethical non-naturalism

3. Ethical non-cognitivism

What is Divine Command Theory?

• Right is what God commands and wrong is what God forbids

• God’s commands can be revealed through scripture or the church

What kind of theory is DCT?

Cognitive and non-naturalist

Explain religious and secular ethics

• Religious ethics derives morals from a divine being eg: dct

• Secular ethics argues that ethical theories are based on human faculties eg: logic and reason

• They could have similar rules but it is how they get there that changes it

• E.g: Murder is wrong according to both but for different reasons

What are some examples of secular ethics?

• Utilitarianism and Virtue Ethics

• These are applicable to ALL people

How do religious and secular ethics differ?

Their sources of authority is what separates them:

1. Belief that there is a God or gods whose wish is that people behave in certain ways e.g: Jesus’ response to the woman taken by adultery (John 7:53 - 8:11)

2. Particular moral commands found in religious scriptures

How does a religious believer decide what right and wrong is then?

• Obeying the will of God

• Belief in God or scriptural authority may be enough to warrant a moral choice in the eyes of a believer

• Therefore discussing morals will be restricted to only how God wills them to act

What are the issues with DCT?

• Leaves the question of how we know exactly what god commands/forbids

• Clashes between religions about what this means eg: meat eating

Which denomination does Christian Divine Command Theory mainly derive from

Protestant Christian Doctrine

What does Christian DCT say?

• God is the creator of all so there must be an organic link between creator and created

• Seen in Genesis 1:26-27 where says we are made “imago dei”

• Most take this to mean we look like God in character and we should always follow God’s commands

Where can God’s commands be found for Protestants?

If they believe in Sola Scriptura, God’s commands can be found specifically in scripture

What is Christian DCT based in?

Both in God’s moral character and commands including the 10 commandments, Sermon on the Mount etc

How did John Calvin use DCT?

Used it to justify his views on predestination

Give a quote by Calvin expressing his views on DCT

“the will of God is the supreme rule of righteousness”

What were John Calvin’s claims in regard to DCT?

• Essentially said what God wants is the most good because he is the most good and powerful being

• God cannot be caused to do something as he is the greatest being to exist

• For Calvin DCT is a natural result of God’s absolute power and sovereignty and to question it is to suggest there is one more powerful than Him

What was karl Barth’s view on Christian DCT ?

• He argues that knowing what “good” means is of no use to a Christian as our obedience to God is the answer to all questions

• God’s commands set Christians apart from general discussions of what is good as it totally over-rides fallible human debate

Give a quote from Barth summarising his view

Writes in Church Dogmatics “how can God be understood as Lord if it doesn’t involve human obedience?”

What are the strengths of DCT?

1. God knows what is right as he is all-knowing and all-loving

2. DCT works for all times and places; is universal

3. It is clear and straightforward

4. Those who obey are promised the after-life, there is an end goal to morality

5. God is a fair judge

What are the weaknesses of DCT?

1. Did God give the commands as they are? All the commands aren’t “originals” but interpretations

2. Bible gives immoral commands eg: Paul in NT says slaves “submit to their masters” and homosexuality is forbidden in Leviticus

3. Doesn’t allow for autonomy - choice isn’t morally good if not freely given

What is the Euthyphro Dilemma?

• Found in Plato’s dialogue Euthyphro

• “Is conduct right because the gods command it or do the gods command it because it is right?”

• If the 1st is true, then God is arbitrary and immoral

• If 2nd is true, God is not all-powerful and took morality from a greater source

What is ethical naturalism?

• The meta-ethical view that morality is defined by facts about nature/human nature

• Takes the view that moral values can be described by natural properties like love and happiness so that we can understand them

What do naturalist theories often have?

• common denominators e.g: VE and NML both emphasise value of virtues

• Follows a rule e.g: do most loving thing and if you comply this is considered “good”

How does DCT differ to naturalism?

Naturalism is realist as it’s grounded in facts about human nature while DCT is not realist as it is grounded in the commands of a transcendent God

What do naturalist theories often talk of?

“Intrinsic” good, holding that this good is self-evident

What is vitally important to ethical naturalists?

Holding that there are ethical facts about the world otherwise we cannot justify our actions

Define utilitarianism and who came up with it - what kind of theory is it?

• Jeremy Bentham said: Right is what causes pleasure, wrong is what causes pain

• It is a naturalist, cognitivist theory

What does Bentham argue?

• Identifies pain and pleasure determine our lives and it should be like that

• Argues a natural feature of life determines both descriptive and normative ethics

What are the two points Bentham uses to illustrate his belief?

1. Pleasure and pain rule us - we observe their relationship with action as a matter of their consequences but also that they lie behind all claims of what we “ought” to do

2. Pleasure is the one intrinsic good and pain is the one intrinsic evil

How does Bentham say we should act using Utilitarianism

• We use the observable facts of pleasure and pain to determine moral obligation

• It makes sense to do things that max pleasure as we constantly seek happiness and avoid sadness

• Therefore our moral obligation is to do things promoting this

What is the ultimate rule of utilitarianism?

Seek the greatest good for the greatest number, which therefore makes it teleological

What was Bentham’s “Hedonic calculus”?

• Was his way of objectively measuring pleasure and pain

• Can be done by considering the intensity of it, its duration and the extent of it among other factors

• There are 7 factors in total

What did John Stuart Mill add to utilitarianism?

1. Autonomy of the individual is as important as the majority (so we don’t abuse the minority)

2. Higher and lower pleasures - its better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied

How can we see Mill as an ethical naturalist?

• He describes goodness in terms of the quality not quantity of pleasure

• This is based off different human attributes: the physical, social, cultural and intellectual

• For him utilitarianism is all about fair distribution of those natural benefits

What else did Mill argue about morals

• Many developed naturally as for example not lying and not murdering has had a beneficial effect on society

• These principles were justified because they produce a balance of pleasure over pain

What are the strengths of naturalism?

1. Ethical propositions are true because they’re factual

2. Right and wrong are objective

3. Ethical propositions can give us solid guidelines and rules to follow

4. We can be judged by our compliance with the rules

5. Most people follow a naturalist theory without knowing it

What is the first weakness of naturalism?

• The claim that ethical propositions are factual doesn’t satisfy ethical non-cognitivists who argue morals aren’t factual

• AJ Ayer argues some think murder is wrong others don’t and this approach is called emotivism

• This means moral statements come down to staements of approval or disapproval

• Emotivists believe morality is subjective as it’s an internal feeling not something objective

• Rules are a matter of convention so if enough people agree murder is wrong, it will be forbidden

What is the second weakness of naturalism?

• The naturalistic fallacy

• This means it is wrong to define “good” in terms of natural properties e.g: “pleasant”

• Proposed by G.E Moore who disagreed with Bentham

• Said we cannot derive moral values from facts e.g: she is lonely and old therefore we ought to help her”

• This isn’t logical because we could equally say “we ought to euthanise her”

• If naturalism were right we shouldn’t be able to get two values from the same fact hence it fails for Moore

What is the 3rd weakness of naturalism?

• Moore argued instead that “good” is undefinable" using an open question argument

• Says if we ask a utilitarian if something is good if it maximises pleasure they will answer yes every time because there is no other answer for them hence it is a closed question

• However Moore argues these questions are open as we can always stand back and ask if it is “good” to maximise pleasure over pain

Give the strengths of utilitarianism

• Gives factual basis for morality

• Utilitarians have guidelines and rules e.g: Bentham’s pleasure (hedonic) calculus

• Gives us a way of measuring the moral worth of people

• It is practical

• Most will prefer happiness over pain

Give the weaknesses of utilitarianism

• “Happiness” varies between people so is impossible to define

• Some derive pleasure from inflicting pain - immoral?

• Requires us to second-guess future but we can’t be certain of consequences so any action may maximise pain instead

• Greatest good for greatest number fails as minorities may be right/ their rights neglected

• Moor’e objection to naturalism shows a flaw in all naturalist theories

How did G.E Moore argue for non-naturalism?

• Write in “Principia Ethica” 1903 that most ethical arguments start with fact then slip into speaking of moral values without saying they’d switched the bases of the argument = naturalistic fallacy

• To avoid this he said “good” can’t be defined in simpler terms

• Ethical non-naturalists believe moral values are a part of the world but based on moral sense that cannot be described literally

Explain the first example Moore gives to explain his view

• Uses the example of a horse

• It is analysable in terms of its tail, muzzle etc as it is a natural object

• Ethical naturalism argued “good” is the same as this horse but Moore argues “good” is non-natural so it is simple and not analysable

• Unlike horse, “good” can’t be broken down into its natural properties as “good” is just a quality something can possess, not something to be defined

Explain the second example Moore gives to explain his view

• Uses example of the colour Yellow

• You can say something is yellow but that doesn’t fully explain what yellow is

• We can compare it to other colours but can’t define it in simpler terms

• We can identify it once we see many yellow things, but this is done without defining it

• Similarly, Moore claims we can have a working sense of what “good” is even if it goes beyond any definition

Give a quote from Moore summarising his view on defining “good”

“If I am asked, “what is good?” my answer is that good is good and that is the end of the matter”

Define intuitionism

• A form of non-naturalism, and is the meta-ethical view that moral knowledge is a factual property known by intuition

• Moore rejected this.

How can we tell someone is using intuitionism?

• Phrases like “it seems reasonable to assume that”

• Here, an appeal is made to the listeners’ moral intuition

What kind of beliefs are intuition

• “stand-alone” beliefs, so moral judgements are self-evident to those who hold them

• They aren’t influenced by any other belief or reason

How is intuitionism a form of moral realism?

• Moral truths exist outside of people

• Therefore it is cognitive

Summarise W.D Ross’ beliefs

• One of the problems with intutionism is we disagree about what is right and wrong

• An answer is that we have a number of self-evident duties ie: duty to parents/ for the sick

• Ross developed this arguing intuitionism is how people choose between conflicting duties

• He wrote “The Right and the Good” 1930 saying we may have conflicting duties and be unclear as to which to prioritise

• He created a list of duties we instinctively feel we must do e.g: keep our promises called Prima Facie duties = on the face of it

Give the strengths of Intuitionism as a non-naturalist theory

1. Everyone has moral intuitions and uses them in argument consciously or not

2. It overcomes some of the problems of ethical naturalism

3. It is realistic in admitting that moral intuitionism isn’t perfect which explains conflicting moral intuitions

Give the weaknesses of Intuitionism

1. Doesn’t give satisfactory answer as to how our intuition came about

2. Intuitionism makes ethical discussions hard as there is no reasoned basis on which to argue

3. It is easy to be unconsciously influenced by prevailing social norms

4. Moore may have been wrong to dismiss ethical naturalism since some ethicists dismiss his “naturalisic fallacy”

What is neo-naturalism?

• Means “new naturalism” and is a powerful depiction of “good”

• Comes from philosophers like Phillipa Foot

• Holds that virtue (a naturalistic property) plays a key role in ethics and according to Foot virtues depend on biological and sociological factors

• Bio and socio can direct us to what is virtuous = human flourishing

How is neo-naturalism objectivist and cognitivist?

• Morality has a factual content, namelt the flourishing of human beings

• This content is not absolute but it is objective being really “in the natural world”

What other ethical problem does neo-naturalism solve?

• It fills the “is” to “ought to” gap

• Before it was “she is old” to “you ought to help her”

• Now it is “she is old” - the content of morality is the flourishing of humans - “not helping her doesn’t contribute to this” therefore you ought to help her

What are the problems with neo-naturalism?

• Still leaves room for ethical discussion, not always clear what leads to human flourishing e.g: abortion/ euthanasia

• No guarantee that the right facts will be appealed to

• Could argue “human flourishing” is too narrow to be factual contents of ethics as humans are just one species

• May be more accurate to say “good” is what contributes to flourishing of the biosphere