1.1 Meta Ethics - Ethical Naturalism

Question 1

Ethical Naturalism is the view that…

1. . Ethical language expresses ……..
2. . Ethical Proposition are ….or ……
3. . The ‘….. ……’ of ethical propositions is established by ….. and empirical features of the world, ……. of any human opinion.
4. . Ethical Propositions are ……..
5. . Ethical Langauge is …… using other language and reducible to a set of verifiable features
6. .

Answer 1

1. . Ethical language expresses propositions.
2. . Ethical Proposition are true or false.
3. . The ‘truth Value’ of ethical propositions is established by objective and empirical features of the world, independent of any human opinion.
4. . Ethical Propositions are epistemological
5. . Ethical Langauge is definable using other language and reducible to a set of verifiable features
6. . Cognitive

Question 2

Example of Ethical facts and non-ethical statements facts about world

Answer 2

✈Osama bin Laden leader of Al Qaeda ( Non-ethical fact)
✈ Osama was a bad man ( Ethical - fact, using evidence, conseq of actions, personal attributes)

===== ARE THE SAME - factual, absolute, observable = Osama was a ‘bad’ person cause there is sooo much evidence to back this up = objective features of the world; evidence from wrld.

Question 3

Explain David Hume criticisms of Ethical Naturalism and his law

Answer 3

🚩 Moral good + evil cannot be distinguished using reason - we cannot move from an objective factual statement based on observations of the world (facts) to a subjective moral statement (fallacy (bad logic)) = so Osama leader of Al-Qaeda and Osama is a bad person man = can’t be put together

🎳 Hume’s Law - you cannot go from an ‘is’ (a statement of fact) to an ‘ought’ (a
moral) = you can’t get an ought from an is.

–> ‘IS does not imply OUGHT’
is= Facts
Ought = Moral behaviour - ( Bascially prescribing behaviour does not mean its facts)

===So no amount of evidence/facts is ever sufficient to lead an ethical conclusion.

🎯 QUOTE ‘Tis the object of feeling not of reason. It lies in yourself, not in the object’

Question 4

why did G.E MOORE accuse Ethical Naturalism of The Naturalistic
Fallacy?

Answer 4

This is based on Hume’s ‘Is-Ought Gap’.
You cannot derive an ought (a value statement) from an is (fact).

argues that goodness is unanalysable and unnatural, and so cannot be defined by any reference to nature. Moore argues ‘You cannot derive an ought (value) from an is (fact)’ –it may be a fact that I have within me the natural inclination to care for others, but that does not mean that I ought to care for them.

^_* = RESPONSE: This is not a fallacy but a missing premise argument. It remains possible for an advocate of naturalism to supply the missing premise and explain the movement from a value statement to a factual statement.

Question 5

What is Phillip FOOT argument that makes them defenders of Ethical Naturalism

Answer 5

✅ Argued when we call a person a ‘just human’ we are referring to something - so some evidence backs this up

✅ Virtues observed by watching how a person acts = An honest person does honest things and honest things can be observed = thus, we can perceive moral absolute

Question 6

AO2 WEAKNESSES

Answer 6

❌ Right and wrong are subjective, not objective - need humans to exist to determine how we should live.
❌ Regardless of whether a situation may have evidence to support that it is right (Euthanasia) it may still break the law so =pointless
❌ Do Ethical moral situations have evidence\? Which evidence do we accept so (Osama liked animals Idk tbh lol but for example)
❌ MACKIE argues the rules themselves are not hard facts, they are accepted to varying degrees by all those inside the institution

Question 7

The linguistic claims of naturalism

Answer 7

are straightforwardly that ethical language is cognitive as it functions no differently to expression of any other type of belief about reality.

To describe the color of the table, I say ‘the table is brown’. This is a sentence expressing a belief about reality.

The ethical language ‘stealing from that bank is good’ is no different for the naturalist.

It is a sentence and a proposition about reality which will be either true or false depending on the sense in which that particular action of stealing involves whatever natural property the naturalist claims to be good.

Question 8

Bentham does think that certain is-statements entail ought-statements but and gives an argument for that

Answer 8

He do not simply ‘leap’ from is to ought without justification. Bentham’s justification that we ‘ought’ to do whatever maximises pleasure is that it ‘is’ our nature to find pleasure Good.

Question 9

However, Hume’s law arguably shows that Bentham is just making the assumption that it being our nature to find happiness good makes it good. That is trying to go from………

Answer 9

That is trying to go from a fact about our nature, to a value about what is good. It being our nature is to find pleasure good only means that pleasure is good. It doesn’t mean that pleasure is good. That is a different kind of statement, not entailed nor justified by the first.