PHIL 27 Midterm 1 Terms - Professor Brandt

Objectivism

There are facts

Objective Morality

the idea that right and wrong exist factually, without any importance of opinion

Skepticism

There are no facts
- There are no moral facts
questioning objective morality
"Uhh I don't know about these facts"

Moral Nihilism

No objective moral truths
- there are no moral facts
-"There is no god" "no... etc"

Error Theory

All our claims about morality are false
- It doesn't matter what so and so is, it's false

Non-cognitivism

moral claims aren't the kind of speech that can be true or false

Moral Relativism

The idea that right or wrong can be derived from society and culture
- There's a wrong for this group of people at this time from their practices
- Always relative to some group or other

Moral Subjectivism

Like relativism, but instead of a group- it's the individual
- The person would decide what's wrong or right, not the group

Moral Equivalence

forced into accepting that moral views are on par with each other
Each nothing is equivalent to the next nothing
- Things are morally equivalent
- Society X w/ helping the poor is right on with Society Y view on enslaving minorities is right

Moral Progress

We're slowly entering our way into an ideal time- of moral outlooks
- Slowly over time, we've brought ourselves into conformity with our moral facts

Moral Regress

Opposite of progress
- Can go from having a just society to an unjust one
- Ex: tyrant comes into power

Dogmatism

the tendency to lay down principles as incontrovertibly true, without consideration of evidence or the opinions of others.
- This practice is better than another one

Epistemic skepticism

denies that we have reliable access to moral truths
- Remains neutral if moral truths in fact exist

Skepticism about absolute morality

Denies that objective morality exists at all

Occam's razor

adopt the simplest set of entities necessary to explain the phenomena at hand- the best answer is the simplest

Scientism

something we can discover of prove through science and experiment

Hume's claim (human skeptics)

moral evaluation are our projections on events. They come from us, not the world.

Utilitarianism

what makes an action right is that is tends to promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people