meta-ethics

meta ethics

• concerned with the meaning of ethical terms i.e. right and wrong

divine command theory

• morality is based on what God commands and this determines how we should behave

• guilt and shame before our creator

• human laws are relative to culture, society and time

• “The Good consists in always doing what God wills at any particular moment” (Emil Brunner)

the euthyphro dilemma

• Plato asks whether actions are good because God loves them, or if God loves them because they are good

william lane craig on dct

• some laws from God were culturally or time bound - how do we know which commands are eternal - jesus says that the law of Moses did not represent God’s ideal for marriage but was historically conditioned due to the moral callousness of the persons to whom it was given

counter to divine command theory

• makes moral commands arbitrary - if morality is based on the will of God, anything God said would have to be seen as acceptable historically

naturalism

• moral values can be described in terms of natural properties, relating to our observations of the world around us/human nature - from this we can deduce right and wrong

• ethical values are discovered not invented - ethical explorers not ethical authors

utilitarianism as a naturalist meta-ethical theory

• “nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure…it is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as determine what we shall do” - JB

• psychological and ethical hedonist

G.E Moore

• common sense’ thinking and is best known for his argument for ethical non-naturalism

• naturalistic fallacy - followed Hume in recognising the failed attempt to derive an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’ - the failed attempt to derive values from facts

Moore on defining good

• ‘good’ is a term that cannot be defined or explained in terms of anything more basic - a simple and unanalysable quality.

• moral values are still part of the world as we experience it, but are based on a moral sense that cannot be described literally but that we naturally recognise and understand

• we have a working sense of what goodness is

• “good is good, and that is the end of the matter.”

intuitionism

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

• ‘stand-alone’ beliefs - moral judgements are self-evident to those who hold them

trolley/runaway train problem by Phillipa Foot

• clash between utilitarian assessment and a deeply held intuition that killing the innocent is wrong

• BUT one problem with intuitionism is the extent of disagreement - how can it be true if there is so much disagreement about what is right and wrong

• BUT W.D. Ross argues that intuitionism is how people choose between conflicting duties - which is intuitively/clearly more important

Ross’s prima facie duties

• “at first glance”

• conditional duties which ought to be followed, and so become actual duties

• morality is objective, but not absolute or universal

• prima facie duties are flexible and change according to particular context

• non-maleficence, justice, gratitude, fidelity, self-improvement, reparation, beneficence

strengths of intuitionism

• as a form of non-naturalism, intuitionism is still a form of moral realism - statements can still be true or false, but is realistic in admitting that moral intuition is not perfect

• everyone has moral intuitions that tend to underpin moral arguments

weaknesses of intuitionsim

• may lead to ethical non-cognitivism e.g. Ayer’s emotivism, where ethical statements are an ‘emotional ejaculation’

• easy to be unconsciously influenced by prevailing social norms - society has normalised many horrifically immoral things BUT this is not true intuition, just following the actions and opinions of others

neo-naturalism

• virtue plays a key role in ethics

• Phillipa Foot - dispositions/virtues depend on certain biological and sociological facts about beings - the factual content of morality is human flourishing, or more broadly and interdependently, the flourishing of the biosphere as a whole (socio-biological fact)

• objectivist and cognitivist