Ethics 1D WR- Naturalism and Challenges

Key scholar

F.H. Bradley

Wrote “My Station and its Duties”

Writings are considered polemical because they contain strong criticisms of other ehticla theories

Ideas in “My Station and its Duties” 

We need to learn from family, community, adopt the values of our society, know our station and its duties. The good of society is about hard work and obedience. Once your position in life is decided, you have a duty to perfor the function of that station

Two theories Bradley amed to improve

Hedonism- liked a posteriori and empirical nature but disliked pleasure as telos because it is too individualistic and provides no self undertsanding

Kant’s idea of duty- didn’t like that it’s not based on the natural world and doesn’t guide us into morality or give human staisfaction but liked the idea of duty

Overview

View that goodness is real and is some property of the natural world, meaning that moral statements can be understood empirically by analysing the natural world. This makes ehtical language a cognitive expression of belief about reality that can be true or false

Meta-ethical

It explores the meaning and use of ethical language, asks questions about the foundations of morality which in this case is considered the natural world

Normative

Tells people how they should act and how they make moral choices

Naturalism claims actions have objective moral properties 

morality is objective and actions ahve objective moral properties because they have a relationshp with something real and does not depend on feelings, preferences or situations

Ethical staements are cognitivist and based on empirical evidence 

Ehtical/ moral statements can be known and proven like facts e.g. “it is wrong to steal” is a practical statement and therefore can be proven 

Ethical statements are meaningful propostitions

They have a meaningful declaration of a fact about ethics 

Realist

Depends on a relationship with the real world which exists

Moral truths are facts like numbers or chemical properties 

Claims that goodness is something that exists and can be described/ defined- ethical statements can be defiened in terms of a non-ethical one

Murder example 

Using empirical evidence we can see how someone was killed and we can observe that people find it scary and it ruins families, therefore it is wrong 

Bentham and Mill’s utilitarianism as a form of naturalism

They claim goodness is pleasure/happiness, which is a natural feature of natural creatures (humans)- for them, moral statements express objective cognitive beliefs about whether actions maximise happiness 

Bowie Stalin example

Would say the statements “Stalin helped defeat Nazi Germany” and “STalin was an evil man” are both facts because they are both based on empirical evidence. 

James Rachels’ development

Doesn’t define ‘wrong’ in terms of pleasure and pain but instead defines it in terms of interests- closer to the form of ethical naturalism called preference utilitarianism

Challenge- “Is ought” problem (Hume)

Criticused ehtical naturalism because he says it makes a false leap from descriptive staements about the natural world (is statements) to prescriptive statements about how we “ought” to behave (our moral obligation). This is a mistake because it misses out moral motivation which Hume believes is our feelings and desires (sentiments) e.g. hitting me hurts, I don’t like pain, therefore hitting people is bad 

Rachels’ response to ought is problem

If you make a promise to someone, that is what is, then you ought to fulfil that promise

Challenge- Naturalistci Fallacy (Moore)

Moore believes Ethical Naturalism makes a mistake because it tries to define what “good” is. He compares good to the colour yellow, it is simple and can’t be broken down or defined as a natural property 

Challenge- Open Question Argument (Moore)

When a naturalist tries to define what good is they raise an open question argument which can’t be answered with a simple yes or no. 

E.g. a non utilitain might ask a utilitarian what good is, to which they would respond happiness. But then the person could go on to ask so many more questions like “what happiness is” or “if happiness is the same for everyone”