Meta-ethical theories

meta-ethics

meta-ethics

From the Greek meta meaning above and beyond. The study of the meaning of ethical concepts

naturalistic fallacy

The idea that it is a mistake to define moral terms with reference to other non-moral or natural terms

F.H. Bradley on naturalism

It is possible to understand our moral duties by observing our position or station in life. Although this can be seen as rather outdated, roles such as: mother, father, nurse and teacher do seem to have their own moral duties and values attached

Hume on naturalism

An objection- he suggests that no matter how closely we examine the situation itself we will not be able to empirically see or hear the “wrongness” of the action

Moore on intuitionism

He recognises the naturalistic fallacy as the key error which naturalism makes. For example to the question “Is pleasure really good?” we can answer no, which suggests that pleasure (and other natural properties) are not the same as good.

He says that we don’t recognise goodness through empirical facts, the ‘good’ is self-evident to our intuition.

Moore’s analogy

Using the analogy of attempting to explain what yellow is, we may look to yellow objects and use them to help describe what yellow is. We are similarly able to recognise goodness, it cannot be defined but it can be shown and known.

Moral realism

The view that moral properties exist in reality

Moral anti-realism

The view that moral properties do not exist in reality

Cognitivism

Ethical language expresses beliefs about reality which therefore can be true or false

Non-cognitivism

ethical language expresses some non-cognition (such as emotions) and does not attempt to describe reality and cannot be true or false

Naturalism

-cognitive realism

this is the view that ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ can be discovered empirically within the natural world as a natural property

Intuitionism

-cognitive realism

-’good’, ‘bad’, ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ exist but cannot be seen or discovered in in the same way as other facts

-Moral truths are self-evident and are known through intuition

Emotivism

-Non-cognitive anti-realism

-’good’, ‘bad’, ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ do not exist and when we make moral statements we are simply showing our opinions and feelings

Aquinas’ version of Naturalism

It can be observed and reasoned that the world has a God-given natural order

Everything (including ourselves) has a telos/ purpose and we can observe how good something is by asking whether it fulfils its telos/ purpose

John Stuart Mill’s version of Naturalism

Based on the theory of utilitarianism, when we observe the world we see that certain actions lead to pleasure and certain actions lead to pain- from this we are able to discover what is right and wrong.

Human beings desire certain pleasures and goods meaning that it is a fact that these things are desirable and good in themselves

Naturalism is right to say that moral values are a feature of the world because:

-Mill argues that we are able to know what is good or desirable as these things are the things that people actually want and the fact that people all want happiness is enough to show that happiness is a good thing

-Naturalists may also argue that there is significant agreement on moral values throughout the world and the fact that we largely agree on what is right and wrong suggests that this is a factual matter

-Naturalists also worry that reducing morality to a matter of taste or opinion reduces the significance of ethical debates

Naturalism is wrong to say that moral values are a feature of the world because:

-Hume rejects that right and wrong can be observed. He is concerned that we move too quickly from factual statements (‘is’ and ‘is not’) to moral statements (‘ought’ and ‘ought not’). Also, when we consider an action to be wrong, we cannot empirically detect the vice or wrongness

-Naturalism commits the naturalistic fallacy, this claims that if something is natural then it must be good

-G.E. Moore criticises Mill’s version of naturalism in his open question argument. Pleasure cannot be the same thing as goodness as we are unable to ask if the pleasure is truly good.

-Aquinas makes the assumption that there is a telos for humans but philosophers (including Satre) would reject these assumptions because if there is no definite purpose, there cannot be any definite ideas on goodness

G.E. Moore and his open question argument

-G.E. Moore accepts Hume’s idea that there appears to be a gap between facts and values hence why naturalism is wrong to suggest that moral values can be discovered

-Within his open ended argument it states that you can ask open or closed questions which helps to support that naturalism is wrong because if John Stuart Mill is right that pleasure= good than it ought to be asked with a closed question. But this is actually asked through an open question and this problem arises whenever we try to define what is good in terms of something that is observable in the world

Intuitionism is right to say that moral values are indefinable and self-evident because:

-Unlike naturalism, intuitionism takes the fact-value problem seriously and does not attempt to find moral values through observation of the world

-Intuitionism recognises that there is considerable moral agreement in the world

-Unlike emotivism, intuitionism is able to establish moral facts and ensure that ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are not just a matter of taste or opinion

Intuitionism is wrong to say that moral values are indefinable and self-evident because:

-There is a significant amount of disagreements on many moral issues which is a particularly difficult challenge for intuitionists who argue that truths are self-evident to all

-Intuitionism seems unscientific and even a little far-fetched thus evolutionary explanations of morality (Dawkins) and psychological explanations (Frued) may be better accounts of morality

Pritchard defending Intutitionism

Despite there being many disagreements morally throughout the world, this is permissible because some people have better intuitions than others

Hume on the two types of knowledge that philosophers can gain

Relation of ideas

Matters of fact

Relation of ideas

A priori knowledge of how ideas relate to each other ( 2 added to 3 makes 5)

Matters of fact

A posteriori knowledge of things we can observe in the world (water boils at 100 degrees)

Hume’ fork

Relation of ideas and matters of fact are the two prongs of Hume’s fork and he famously argued that any books that do not contain either of the above- they should be ‘committed to the flames’

The Vienna Circle on moral truths

-Influenced by the work of Wittgenstein and shared the aim of philosophy was the analysis of language to determine what was ‘sense’ and what was ‘nonsense’

-They suggested that statements are only meaningful if they could be verified (shown to be true) by the senses