naturalism

ethical naturalism:

strengths

empiricism: provides a scientific, accessible basis for ethical n moral statements
moral standard: if there’s no objective right n wrong, there’s no moral standard

is-ought problem: hume argued one can’t go from a descriptive premise of what “is,” to a prescriptive conclusion, “ought” statement
- no matter how closely you empirically examine a situation, the rightness/wrongness will not be objectively clear
naturalistic fallacy: g.e. moore argues moral properties may be correlated w natural properties, but moral properties aren’t identical to natural properties
- eg: a moral act such as giving to charity might make me happy, but the morality of the act merely gives way to the happiness, and isn’t the happiness in itself » inflicting pain for a sadist is pleasurable, but is it good?
open question argument: if goodness n pleasure were the same thing, it would not make sense to ask “is pleasure good?” coz it would be like asking “is pleasure pleasure?”
- as the former question does make sense, clearly good is distinct from pleasure/any other natural property
- moral properties can’t be reduced to anything simple eg plain or pleasure, as moral properties are basic
relativist naturalism: many different forms n types of goodness, cannot be defined as one thing

ethical naturalism:

theological naturalism:

what is good can be known through rational thinking
what is good is objectively true through Divine Law
all humans have the natural capacity to know n understand what is good through contemplating the teachings of God

moral evil is ‘a kind of natural defect’
- if a person is evil they are lacking in goodness
when we call a person a ‘just man’ or ‘honest woman’, we are referring to ‘something
- eg an honest women may keep her promises to others = observable behaviour
a moral person has qualities which are the reasons they carry out a certain action » also observable
these observations are the moral absolutes that empiricists argue we cannot measure
foot uses aristotle’s model of the qualities that humans need to survive eg behaving morally is in our best interests
- helps us to survive n flourish ∴we can see naturally the goodness we need to thrive
‘oaks need to have deep sturdy roots: there is something wrong with them if they do not’
- humans need to behave morally: there is something wrong with them if they do not

Hume’s Law: you cannot go from an ‘is’ (a statement of fact) to an ‘ought’ (a moral)

argued that moral claims are not derived from reason, but rather from sentiment
in ‘A Treatise of Human Nature (1738)’, he rejected the idea that moral good/evil can be distinguished using reason
suggests that morals excite passions n produce/prevent actions, but reason is impotent in matters of morality
believed that when we something that we think is wrong, the ‘wrongness’ comes from our sentiment, not from our observations

found difficulty with absolute/natural approaches to morality
believed ethical language was cognitive because ppl talk of good/bas as though the y existed objectively
- eg: If we were to ask a random person of the street whether they thought it was wrong to kill people they would likely say yes. Imagine if we asked if they believed that was a fact of reality. Mackie thinks they would likely say yes. He concludes that objectivism about values has ‘a firm basis’ in ordinary thought.