1.6 Meta Ethics - Key Thinkers

Question 1

Absolutism

Answer 1

the view that morals are fixed, unchanging truths that everyone should always follow

Question 2

Relativism

Answer 2

the view that moral truths are not fixed and are not absolute. What is right changes according to the individual, the situation, the culture, the time and the place

Question 3

Naturalism

Answer 3

ethical theories that hold that morals are part of the natural world and can be recognised or observed in some way

Question 4

Intuitionism

Answer 4

ethical theories that hold that moral knowledge is received in a different way from science and logic

Question 5

Emotivism

Answer 5

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

Question 6

Hume’s Law

Answer 6

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

Question 7

Naturalistic fallacy

Answer 7

G.E. Moore’s argument that it is a mistake to define moral terms with reference to other properties (a mistake to break Hume’s law)

Question 8

Philippa Foot

Question 9

C.L. Stevenson

Question 10

H.A. Pritchard

Question 11

W.D. Ross

Question 12

A.J. Ayer

Question 13

G.E. Moore

Question 14

Cognitivism

Answer 14

ethical language expresses beliefs about reality which can therefore be true or false.

Question 15

non- congnitivism

Answer 15

thical language expresses some non-cognition like an emotion, does not attempt to describe reality and therefore cannot be true or false.

Question 16

Realism

Answer 16

The view that moral properties exist in reality.

Question 17

Anti-realism

Answer 17

The view that moral properties do not exist in reality. = Mackie