1D - Meta-Ethical Approaches - Naturalism

What is Naturalism heavily linked to?

⇨ Empiricism

What epistemological position does empiricism take?

⇨ All knowledge = derived from senses

What did Hume advocate?

• That we are born in a state of tabula rasa (a clean slate) with an absence of preconceptions or predetermined views
⇨ Everything we know has its origins in the world of sense experience
⇨ He affirms the peripatetic axiom of ancient Greek philosophy

Explain how objective moral laws exist independently of human beings.

⇨ As the source of all knowledge = empirical, natural world, there is nothing outside our senses that can be studied to help us understand language (no supernatural authority)

⇨ An underlying assumption of cognitivism is that the world around us is objective/real; it exists independently of our minds ∴ can be used to est. truth (realism)

⇨ Judgements about moral behaviour are 'real' ∵ they directly relate to objective facts of existence

⇨ An empirical, cognitive, realist approach recognises that the world can provide answers to our philosophical questions + that we do not need to go beyond the realm of the senses for an explanation

Explain how moral terms can be understood by analysing the natural world.

⇨ We can know something is good/bad or right/wrong by deference to the world around us ∵ ethical terms are natural properties located in the natural world

⇨ Ethical language can be understood by analysing the natural world; e.g. to experience the kindness of another is a 'good' experience, and to experience cruelty is a 'bad' experience

What is Modern Naturalism?

⇨ A rise in evolutionary ethics has led to a resurgence in Naturalism
⇨ Evolutionary ethics = theory that humanity's ethical beliefs = purely based on our evolutionary development
⇨ Scientists like Dawkins believe that these evolutionary ethics can be empirically studied like any other aspect of our evolution

Explain how ethical statements are cognitivist and can be verified or falsified.

⇨ Our experiences have meaning therefore we can verify, from our experiences, that kind acts = 'good' + cruel acts = 'bad' ∵ of the happiness/suffering they produce

⇨ When a Naturalist states that 'x = good', what they mean is that 'x = good ∵ it can be verified with empirical evidence'

⇨ An ethical proposition = expressing factual knowledge in the same way as a non-ethical proposition e.g. a scientific/historical fact (both can be verified with empirical evidence)

Give an example of the difference between ethical and non-ethical propositions.

1) Hitler was the leader of Germany from 1933-1945 (non-ethical)

2) Hitler was a bad person (ethical)

⇨ Ethical Naturalists would argue that both = facts because they can be verified using empirical evidence
⇨ 2 can be verified by looking at empirical evidence to see that he was cruel, deceitful etc.
⇨ When I state that 'Hitler was a bad person', what I mean = 'I can empirically verify that 'Hitler was a bad person'

What do ethical Naturalists accept?

⇨ That some propositions cannot be verified using empirical evidence and ∴ not all use of ethical language = meaningful

Explain how verified moral statements are objective truths and universal.

⇨ If the ethical propositions about our world = meaningful for everyone, then they are objective truths and universal

⇨ If the world = objective, then it can be used to establish knowledge + truth ∴ we can discuss ethics meaningfully ∵ our experience of the world verifies propositions

What are the links between Naturalism and Mill's Rule Utilitarianism?

• Mill's Rule Utilitarianism = classical example of Ethical Naturalism

⇨ It applies ethical reasoning from the basis of the experience of happiness

⇨ Mill's most important contribution = universalisability

⇨ Moral terms can be understood by analysing the natural world in relation to the effects of our actions

⇨ Eth. statements = cognitivist and can be verified/falsified in relation to what we know about our actions/their consequences from the empirical world, namely the amount of happiness they create

⇨ Verified moral statements = objective truths/universal ∴ we can establish that everyone ought to aim at the happiness of everyone (universalisability)

⇨ The objective features of the world, namely the impact of acts that create happiness / suffering, make our ethical propositions about the nature of such an action true/false

What can you conclude about Naturalism?

⇨ As there is a link between an objective, external existence (realism) and that a cognitive approach can verify/establish validity of what we experience (empiricism), then it logically follows that what we know about what we experience makes our ethical statements objective∴ we can recognise objective moral laws that exist independently of humans as they are located in the world around us

Give an introduction to the contribution of F.H.Bradley to Naturalism

⇨ Inspired by Hegel's dialectical method (but he did not consider himself a Hegelian philosopher)

⇨ Following Hegel's methodology, he attempted to present a more developed form of Naturalism by combining it with Kant's philosophy of duty

⇨ He was not a Naturalist philosopher, but presents a refined form of Naturalism

⇨ Through dialectical synthesis, he combines the empirical basis of Naturalism with the idea of universal obligation evident in Kant's idealistic ethical theory

Why does Bradley reject utilitarianism and Kantian ethics?

⇨ Utilitarian: too much emphasis on community than individual
⇨ Kant: opposite

How does Bradley try and bring together Utilitarianism and Kantian ethics?

⇨ By taking them, with all their imperfections / inadequacies and attempting to unify them without deficiencies

In which essay did Bradley develop his naturalistic philosophy?

⇨ 'My Stations and its Duties'

What issue Bradley have with his naturalistic philosophy?

⇨ He saw this philosophical position as deficient due to the incompleteness of its metaphysical end (self-realisation)

How does Bradley show that ethical sentences express propositions?

⇨ They are cognitive (verifiable) + meaningful ∵ they relate to this world and are not part of some abstract, intuitive conscience

⇨ Ethical sentences depict interactions with our world + recognise that we = part of a whole
An agent's 'station' and 'duty' are to be found within the empirical realm

⇨ With the duty element, Bradley clearly sees beyond the Kantian notion of a priori knowledge, but firmly grounded in experience of the real world

According to Bradley, what is our goal?

⇨ Realise our true self - self-realisation

⇨ We learn this through observation in the family and community, and adapt the values of our society

⇨ Interaction with the world allows the self to discover its ethical

What does 'concrete universal' mean, as described by Hegel and Bradley?

⇨ The self is not isolated
⇨ Derived from dialectical interactions with the world

Explain how, according to Bradley, objective features of the world make propositions true or false.

⇨ Our knowledge of society around us can assert, confirm, or deny the claims of ethical propositions in relation to realising / finding one's station in life in accord with the process of self-realisation

⇨ "Morality exists all around us"
Ethical language = a part of the natural world that can be empirically studied

⇨ "To be a 'good' person, we must know our station and its duties. Once your position in life is decided, you have to perform the function of that station."

Explain how, according to Bradley, ethical statements can be seen in scientific terms.

⇨ An ethical judgement of value can be made within the parameters of the empirical world without any appeal beyond this

⇨ Charles Darwin: "An American monkey, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus is much wiser than most men."
- If animals can make decisions based upon experiences of what is pleasure and pain, then in light of Naturalism, this begs the question 'what can we learn from other species about the nature of ethics?'

⇨ Evolutionary ethics tries to demonstrate that ethics can be explained through empirical means
- E.g. Dawkins' explanation of 'memes'

Give a conclusion to Bradley's contribution.

⇨ A person's moral acts are judged over a period of time and as part of their actions overall - morality becomes an act of self-assertion or self-expression
- This view = general, at best - the ultimate aim of morality = to bring any sense of separateness to an end

⇨ Through realising stations/duties, we realise how to behave ethically

How do some people contextualise 'my station and its duties' as related to the Victorian period?

⇨ Tight emphasis on social structure (a Lord acts as a Lord, the working class act as the working class, etc)

⇨ However, not fair as Bradley did not mention passive acceptance relating to morality - finding one's station ≠ constrained by society

Explain the challenge to Naturalism: Hume's Law (the is-ought problem).

⇨ In maintaining that ethical propositions can be identified from natural phenomena, this reduces ethical propositions to observational / descriptive meaning/mere explanation

⇨ What IS happening does not logically lead to what OUGHT to happen
⇨ Is = a fact
⇨ Ought = a value judgement

⇨ E.g. A person gives to someone less fortunate
- To conclude that 'it is good for the more fortunate to give to the less fortunate' has nothing to do with the actions

⇨ You cannot draw out from the argument an element that was not included in the first place.
- E.g. 'John IS dead ∵ he IS murdered' ∴ you OUGHT not to murder ∵ it is bad
- These are two different types of prop.; one cannot lead to the other

Briefly explain Hume's fork.

⇨ Two prongs on the fork:
- Relation of ideas (a priori, analytic, deductive, necessary)
- Matters of fact (a posteriori, synthetic, inductive, contingent)

⇨ Just as the prongs on a fork cannot converge, neither can the types of knowledge

⇨ Some think that Hume was stating that ethical propositions can never be considered as empirically valid, while others think he was simply pointing out the inconsistent logic

How did professor Philip Stratton-Lake elaborate on Hume's Law?

⇨ "if science told us that a lobster's neurological system is sufficiently advanced for it to feel pain, we'd revise our view about the permissibility of boiling them alive. But [...] science does not inform us that boiling them alive is wrong. That [...] cannot be known empirically"

Explain the challenge to Naturalism: Moore's Naturalistic Fallacy (moral language is indefinable).

⇨ It is a logical error to explain that which is good reductively in terms of natural properties such as 'pleasant'

⇨ "What is good?" - he was concerned with the "intrinsic value" of good as an end in itself; it is a peculiar use of the word that differentiates it from good/right actions

⇨ "good is a simple notion, just as yellow is a simple notion"
- Definitions which describe the real nature [...] are only possible when the object/notion is something complex"

⇨ A particular quality that is good cannot be used to define 'good' - tautology
- We cannot empirically break down 'good' ∴ we cannot identify a single property/quality that explains what goodness is - "good cannot be defined"

⇨ You cannot define goodness through nature/experience - good = simply good

⇨ Things, like horses, are often described in relation to their constituent parts, e.g. four legs
- Good has no constituent parts ∴ "it is incapable of any definition, in the most important sense of that word"

Why did Moore attack utilitarianism?

⇨ ∵ it equated the definition of good with pleasure
- In setting to find out what one 'ought' to do from identifying the meaning of good with pleasure, one only arrives at the end of what we already do, not a normative proposition

Explain the challenge to naturalism: Moore's open question argument (moral facts cannot be reduced to natural properties).

⇨ All attempts to define 'good' within the parameters of empiricism will fail ∵ they leave an unanswered question about 'good'

⇨ Closed questions = definitive answers reduced to psychological, biological, sociological facts
- E.g. 'Is the sum of 2 plus 2 equal to 4?' - simple answer

⇨ In attempting to define 'good' by natural properties, we are pending an open question
- If 'good' = defined as pleasure, we can still ask 'is pleasure good?'
- If we had succeeded in defining good, we would not need to ask this ∵ it would be illogical

⇨ E.g. if pleasure = good, whatever promotes pleasure = good
- But, this is equivalent to stating whatever promotes pleasure promotes pleasure
- Pleasure = a complex notion, not a simple notion
- ∴ good cannot be identified/defined by natural, complex notions