“Basic moral truths are self-evident” – Discuss

basic moral truths self evident refer to intutionism + ge moore who argues that goodness cannot be any further explored than it already currently is

disagree → ethica naturalists and emotivists

arg → self evident but not universally to everyone, we all understand goodness and have different notions and opinons of it we can see this through the emotivism response which highlights individuality and the different interpreatations which we all take towards ethics

PARA 1 = fits with human experinece of knowing good

  • goodness ulimtately is an indefinable, we cannot break it down nor do we consciously attempt to through normative ethics

  • GE moore famously highlights how goodness cannot be broken down anymore than the colour yellow

  • HOWEVER → JL makcie is critical of the citeria which GE moore has for believing that our human pysche functions like this

  • he argues that he cannot dismiss that we do not have an intutive sense but rather we have no rational need to believe in it, essentially and ockhams razor argument

  • he ultiatmely assumes that there is something more to the human mind than our normal perceptions which is something that we cannot say unless we have actual sciencetific belief to back it up

  • OVERALL → therefore critques the reasoning and methdology behind basic moral truths being self evident as ulitamtely there isnt really any support to suggest that this is the case, it cannot fit with our human experience if it does not work with the actual functioning of our human pysche

PARA 2 = it aviods a naturalistic fallacy (vs naturalism)

  • we cannot simply observe something and then make a statement as to what goodness actually is

  • GE moore ulimtately is not trying to explain what goodness is rather just states that it does exist and that is as far as we can really comprehend it rather than trying to explain the ineffiable

  • HOWEVER → ethical naturalists who commit the naturalistic fallact would argue differently - they see goodness in the world then say this is how we can know what goodness is

  • arguably at least ethical naturalists and trying to add something to the meta ethical debate and try and answer the question

  • intutionism can also be attributed to commiting the is ought gap

PARA 3 = there are cross cultural moral similarities which help to support (emotivism)