non-cognitive theories

ethical non-cognitivism: we cannot have moral knowledge. ethical statements cannot be proven true or false

  • non-cognitivists do make a distinction between facts n values:

  • fact: a statement that can be tested n verified

  • value: a principle or standard of behaviour

emotivism - ayer, stevenson

emotivism: ethical theories that hold that moral statements are not statements of fact but are either beliefs or emotions

ayer

  • verification principle: “we begin by admitting that the fundamental ethical concepts are unanalysable, inasmuch as there is no criterion by which one can test the validity of the judgements in which they occur.”

  • “the presence of an ethical symbol eg good/bad in a proposition adds nothing to its factual content”

  • “in adding that this action is wrong, I am not making any further statement about it. I am simply evincing my moral disapproval of it.”

  • essentially claims that ethical concepts eg good, bad, right, wrong, etc can’t be analysed to test the claim’s validity

    • adding the word ‘good’ to a sentence does not add to the factual content or meaning of the statement

    • it merely expresses personal approval or disapproval of an action

boo-hurrah

  • moral statements come from our emotional responses to situation:

    • when one says murder is wrong, they are saying “murder - booooo!”

    • when one says giving to charity is good, they are saying “charity - hurrah!”

    • therefore, ethical statements are expressions of approval/disapproval, not assertions

CL stevenson

  • 2 principle uses:

    • the descriptive use

    • the dynamic use

      • eg: “I am loaded down with work”

        • the descriptive use here states a fact, namely, to inform another of how busy one is

        • the dynamic use would take the statement n use it to provoke others to feel/behave certain way, such as informing others of misery, to get them to take some workload from them

  • moral statements are not an expression of emotion but are instead an expression of attitude or belief

  • we seek to persuade or influence others when we use moral statements in a dynamic sense

  • eg: “Jane had an abortion.”

    • 1. descriptive: states a fact about Jane undergoing a medical procedure

    • 2. dynamic: through tone of voice, intonation or delivery of phrase, this statement can reveal approval/disapproval of Jane and provoke others to agree

links to logical positivism n verification principle

  • any truth claim must be tested by sense experience

    • therefore, ethical statements → NOT genuine truth claims

  • the verification principle: a statement is only meaningful if there’s a conclusive procedure determining whether it is true/false

  • therefore, ‘God exists’ is a meaningless statement

  • types of meaningful statement:

    • analytic » true by definition

    • synthetic » true by evidence

  • according to emotivists »

    • “moral statements are simply expressions of preference, attitude or feeling”

evaluation of emotivism

strengths:

weaknesses:

using emotive language is effective in changing attitudes of others

it undermines all ethical theories that say right n wrong are derived from reason/logic. it seems ignorant to undermine reason n logic

we can clearly observe that ppl make decisions based on emotions. so, the theory describes the workings of the world accurately

emotivism makes morality meaningless. eg: we would not be able to make meaningful statements about the actions of the terrorists in 9/11. surely absurd?

just coz emotions are not verifiable it doesn’t mean they are worthless. emotivism still means that moral statements can have value

if all morality is emotion, whose emotions should we follow? our own? others? our leaders?

takes in to account more than just the facts of the situation

could lead to ‘pick n choose’ ethical culture

encourages other people to think more about their actions before committing them

ppl could be encouraged to empathise with things they previously were ignorant of

scholar criticisms

R.M. Hare

  • says that we are too complex to reduce morality to this

  • was against this reductionism

  • was too simplistic on analysis of language

  • morality involved the use of reason

  • he cannot accept that such terrible acts as the Holocaust can be reduced to “I believe that killing is…”

Peter Vardy

  • says it is moral ‘non-theory’ because it is not an ethical theory in the classical sense

James Rachels

  • argues that it was wrong to remove reason from moral judgements

  • statements like “I like coffee” need no reason, but moral judgements do, otherwise they become arbitrary

MacIntyre

  • said that it was a misconceived theory of ethics

  • this doctrine has obscured modern life which is characterised by social emotivism, in which all judgements are expression of opinion

  • it stops us from seeing the importance of human qualities n causes us to treat, “Others are always means, never ends.”

prescriptivism - hare

  • richard hare claimed that ethical statements are not just expressions of our feelings

  • moral language is also prescriptive, which also means that it tells us how we ought to behave

  • hare’s theory is called prescriptivism

  • it prescribes what a person should do

  • it’s like a doctor’s prescription, in that it will vary from person to person

  • when a person says “you shall not murder”, this isn’t just an expression of personal revulsion at the thought of killing, it also means everyone should follow this moral truth

“good”:

chocolate:

teacher:

person:

descriptive:

texture

flavour

snap-ability

enthusiastic

supportive

assertive

prescriptive:

//////////////

treating all ppl with respect (kind)

“ought” to spend time with a struggling student (supportive)

“ought” to address poor behaviour in the classroom

the universalisability principle

  • when an individual prefers one thing over something else, this implies that this preference would be good for anybody

  • eg: if Sharon prefers to care for her sick friend Tracy rather than going to the pub, this implies that were Sharon to be sick she’d want to Tracy to act in the same way towards her

prescriptivism origins

  • hare’s theory of the universal nature of morals was greatly influenced by events in his life

  • he served in the army during WW2 n spent 3 years as PofW in Changi prison and building the Burma-Thailand Railway

  • the brutality of the Japanese treatment of prisoners deeply affected his attitude to morality

  • this experience led him to develop a secular form of the Golden Rule

  • he didn’t believe that the abuse he received could ever be universalisable

4 basic ideas asserted by presc.

  1. that moral sentiment is not enough

    • the individual’s morality must involve doing what is morally required

  2. that ethical action has to be consistent

    • it is important in all situations to practise a consistent morality

  3. that moral belief must be kept in harmony with others

  4. that the moral agent cannot be hypocritical

evaluation of prescriptivism

strengths:

weaknesses:

Moral commands are universalised meaning they are applicable to all

JL mackie rejects universal morals - your preferences may be different from mine. so how do we explain these differences? and whose preferences are right?

we have good evidence that when we comment on a moral issue, we do often want others to share our own opinion

moral judgements are founded on prescriptions and have no claim to objective truth

this theory solves the problem of emotivism’s assertion that moral statements are meaningless (instead they are prescriptions)

prescriptivism doesn’t specify whose rules to follow