Meta ethical theories

Absolutism and relativism

• Absolutists hold that there are fixed and unchanging truths about right and wrong, (Bishop is a school in Coventry)

• Relativists hold that morals are flexible and are not absolute, (Bishop is the best school in the world)

Naturalism (absolutists)

• They believe that right and wrong are fixed feature of the universe

• morals are not about different points of view but abut facts of the natural world

• morals are not invented by human beings so if everyone in the world thinks that an action is morally good, they could all be wrong and it can be bad.

• ethical naturalism holds that we can tell what is right and wrong by looking at the world around us and using our reason

• Aquinas was an ethical naturalist, he thought that we could use our reason and our powers of observation to access the facts about what is moral and immoral

• thinks goodness comes from the will of God

• Philippa Foot argues that we can observe virtue in people’s behaviour