2.2.1 - meta-ethical theories

Question 1

normative ethics

Answer 1

utilitarianism, situation ethics, etc - measuring, balancing, reasoning, and identifying the rightness or wrongness of actions

Question 2

meta-ethics

Answer 2

• going above or beyond normative approaches to confront the language and meaning of words that we use when making normative statements
• ultimately a form of epistemology (study of knowledge)
• It is a web of different types of ideas about the issue of meaning when it comes to moral language
• Moral Cognitivism, Moral Non-Cognitivism

Question 3

what is moral non-cognitivism?

Answer 3

• a variety of irrealism about ethics
• non-cognitivists believe that there are no moral properties or moral facts
• Rather than thinking that this makes moral statements false, non-cognitivists claim that moral statements are not in the business of predicating (describing or attaching) properties or making statements which could be true or false in any substantial sense
• Roughly put, non-cognitivists think that moral statements have no substantial truth conditions.
• Furthermore, according to non-cognitivists, when people utter moral sentences they are not typically expressing states of mind which are beliefs or which are cognitive in the way that beliefs are. Rather they are expressing non-cognitive attitudes more similar to desires, approval, or disapproval.

Question 4

what does it mean to say non-cognitivism is a variety of irrealism about ethics?

Answer 4

thinks ethics is not real, good doesn’t exist, nor does bad

Question 5

what do non-cognitivists mean when they say there are no moral properties or moral facts

Answer 5

A table can have the property of being grey but you couldn’t say ‘charity is good’ because ‘good’ cannot be used as a property. Equally ‘murder is bad’ is not a fact in the same way that ‘the table is grey’ is.

Question 6

what do non-cognitivists mean when they say that moral statements are not in the business of predicating properties?

Answer 6

moral statements are not in the business of describing or attaching properties to actions or making statements that can be true or false in a substantial sense (so moral statements do not have substantial truth conditions)

Question 7

what do non-cognitivists think people are doing when they say moral sentences?

Answer 7

when people utter moral sentences they are not typically expressing states of mind which are beliefs or which are cognitive in the way that beliefs are. Rather they are expressing non-cognitive attitudes (which cannot be true or false) more similar to desires, approval, or disapproval.

Question 8

desires vs statements according to non-cognitivists

Answer 8

desires cannot be cognitive but statements can, even if they cover the same topics eg. whether you like leonardo dicaprio or not cannot be true or false, it just is, but the statement ‘I like Leonardo DiCaprio’ can be true or false

Question 9

what do cognitivists and non-cognitivists believe?

Answer 9

• cognitivists believe that moral statements are cognitive (can be true or false) . Cognitive statements are truth-apt (a statement to which truth can be applied).
• Non-cognitivists believe that moral statements are non-cognitive - have no substantial truth conditions (like commands or expressions)

Question 10

how to determine whether something has truth conditions or not

Answer 10

• it doesn’t matter whether it can be proved or not it matters whether it can be true or false. Can you say “No, you’re wrong.”?

Question 11

what is a truth-apt statement?

Answer 11

a statement to which truth can be applied, cognitive statements

Question 12

what are cognitive statements?

Answer 12

A cognitive statements is a statement that has truth conditions and can be considered to be true or false (truth-apt)

Question 13

what would a moral non-cognitivist claim?

Answer 13

A moral non-cognitivist would claim that moral statements are non-cognitive and do not have moral properties – ‘good’ and ‘bad’ do not describe actions. Equally, words like ‘good’ and ‘bad’ don’t exist and have no real meaning (moral irrealism). However, words like ‘good’ can instead express desires. A cognitivist would say that ‘It is wrong to leave the door open’ would be a moral statement but a non-cognitivist would view it as an expression of desire.

Question 14

evaluation of cognitivism

Answer 14

+ allows things to be right/wrong which works in society and allows us to establish order
- it is looking for something that doesn’t exist (futile, misguided pursuit)

Question 15

evaluation of non-cognitivism

Answer 15

+ explains the problem of different people interpreting moral rules in different ways, we can now see where the conflict came from
- leads to moral chaos in which we do not know what to do or not do
- it seems to deny the truth of obvious claims like ‘the holocaust was bad’
- morality as subjective, undoes normative ethics

Question 16

moral naturalism

Answer 16

• the idea that goodness and badness are present in the natural world.
• a cognitive approach
• moral properties like good exist and are testable/verifiable - it is a form of moral realism
• we can find out what ‘good’ is by observation (testing) of the natural world and that once we establish that something is ‘good’ it can be objectively verified.
• Eg. utilitarians use the hedonic calculus to measure pleasure which can prove whether something like euthanasia is a morally good action. - Moral naturalism is the default position for most people - which may be because ethical statements look like facts that we’re very used to: ‘stealing is bad’ looks like ‘the table is grey’. In other words, they appear to be propositional.

Question 17

propositions

Answer 17

claims, always truth-apt.

Question 18

evaluation of moral naturalism

Answer 18

+ ethical statements look like the facts we’re used to eg. ‘charity is good’ looks like ‘the table is grey’
+ rules and laws can be put in place/we can build society on naturalism and moral facts
- none of the tests we have seem to be reliable in every circumstance: either we’ve not found the correct tests or there is no correct test and it simply isn’t testable
- moral disagreement
- THE NATURALISTIC FALLACY

Question 19

the naturalistic fallacy

Answer 19

The naturalistic fallacy is about the way moral naturalists reduce goodness down into some other natural property:
G. E. Moore disliked moral naturalism because he did not agree that ‘good’ is a natural property or a product of natural properties, eg. the tastiness of a cake is not the same as the goodness of a cake

Question 20

the open question argument

Answer 20

(articulates the naturalistic fallacy)
1. good has the same meaning as the natural property N (eg. pleasure)
- ethical term ‘good’ defined with the natural property ‘pleasure’
2. If the action X is the same as N then X is good
3. If X is N, ‘Is X good?’ would be a meaningless question and would portray a conceptual conclusion (closed question)
4. However, asking “Is X good?” is a meaningful question
so X is not the same as good
so N is not the same as good
5. naturalist moral realism is false

In philosophy a closed question is a question that does not require an answer.
Moore is saying that naturalists are asserting that N is the same as good, which is incorrect, hence why we feel asking ‘Is X good?’ is meaningful.

Question 21

explanation of the open question argument

Answer 21

Moore claims moral naturalism is guilty of the naturalistic fallacy; that they cannot say ‘N is the same as good’. He uses the ‘open question argument’ to demonstrate this. He points out that if we can say a natural property (N) is the same as good, for example pleasure is the same as good, and X (an action) is the same as N, then the question “Is X good?” would be meaningless. However, we do not find that questions in the form “Is X good?” are meaningless. For example, if pleasure is good, and euthanasia will produce more pleasure, we still do not feel that “Is euthanasia good?” is meaningless. Therefore, the action (X) is not the same as good and - given X is the same as the natural property (N) - N is not the same as good either. Based on this, good cannot be known through a natural property (N) such as pleasure, and moral naturalism is wrong to assert that it can.
Eg. the repugnant conclusion in utilitarianism shows that pleasure is not the same as ‘good’ because it feels wrong to kill that person or in the axe murderer situation, Kantian ethics would tell us to tell the murderer our family is upstairs - which feels wrong.

Question 22

nuance of the open question argument

Answer 22

• why does Moore claim ‘Is X good?’ to be an open question? If you believe that N is good then it is not a meaningful question once you have determined that N is good to ask ‘Is X good?’. He assumes that it is not true that N is the same as good.
• Even if you are a moral naturalist, you can feel the need to ask ‘Is X good?’ and explain that by you following a different type of moral naturalism to the person proposing that X is the same as N.
• Could the open question argument simply demonstrate that we do not have proof that N is the same as good, and therefore ‘Is X good?’ is meaningful purely because we have to question it until we have proof.

Question 23

yellow and good comparison

Answer 23

(Moore - intuitionism)
Yellow is indefinable and incommunicable, unlike a horse for example. It doesn’t have any component parts. Moore likens goodness to yellow: he argues that ‘good is good, and that is the end of the matter’. Both yellow and good are known through intuition. We simply know what it is and don’t/can’t explain it in terms of something else. It follows that we have an intuitive sense of right and wrong and simply recognise it as we recognise yellow.

Question 24

‘good is…’

Answer 24

‘good is good, and that is the end of the matter’
Good is a ‘simple and indefinable quality’.- G. E. Moore

Question 25

moral naturalists vs intuitionists

Answer 25

• Moral naturalists believe good is testable and verifiable, they would do some testing of a natural property within an action and believe that that helps us to understand the goodness or lack thereof of an action. A moral naturalist tries to explain ‘good’ in terms of natural properties (N) which is what Moore argues we cannot do - good is not something that makes people happy, an action simply happens to make people happy and is good.
  For a naturalist: charity > pleasurable > good
  For an intuitionist: good > charity < pleasurable

Question 26

what is moral intuitionism?

Answer 26

• the belief that we simply know what good is and can’t explain it in terms of natural properties
• comparison of our intuitive sense of ‘yellow’ to our intuitive sense of ‘right’
• a moral intuitionist thinks actions are right or wrong, but that there is no test for it
• Good is a ‘simple and indefinable quality’.
• could be compared to Aquinas’ synderesis - the idea that humans can grasp goodness through non-rational means.
• we don’t instinctively know the answer to moral dilemmas however, we have to consider and reflect

Question 27

explanation of moral disagreement (intuitionism)

Answer 27

• Moore doesn’t believe we instinctively know the answers to moral dilemmas, they require consideration and reflection - we are simply born with the natural ability to reach the conclusions
• Moore compares it to maths, we don’t automatically know that 2x+2y = 2(y+x) but we can work it out, and once we have it becomes apparent that it is true
• he would use differences in knowledge and consideration to explain moral disagreement
• Eg. asking someone on the pavement what colour jumper the driver of a fast car was wearing vs the passenger - the passenger has had more time to contemplate and notice the driver’s clothes.

Question 28

what can Moore’s intuitionism be compared to

Answer 28

Aquinas’ synderesis - the idea that humans can grasp goodness through non-rational means.

Question 29

evaluation of intuitionism

Answer 29

+ avoids the naturalistic fallacy whilst being realist
+ attempts to define good seem to ignore that good is always more than how they define it
- can’t explain why an action is good/bad without transitioning to moral naturalism - you can never convince someone else that they are wrong
- historical changes in ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ such as slavery - it seems a stretch to say our intuition changed exactly at the point of emancipation
- Nietzsche referred to intuitionism as ‘ethical colourblindness’ - you can never know who is colourblind (you can never know who is right and who is wrong) because there is no way to check.
- It can also be argued that there is no such thing as intuition - if this is the case then the discussion on intuitionism is pointless anyway.

Question 30

‘It is worth mentioning that… They are calculated also to… Indeed some of them are…’

Answer 30

‘It is worth mentioning that ethical terms do not serve only to express feeling. They are calculated also to arouse feeling, and so to stimulate action. Indeed some of them are used in such a way as to give the sentences in which they occur the effect of commands.’ - AJ Ayer - Language, truth and logic

Question 31

‘We can now see why it is impossible to…’

Answer 31

‘We can now see why it is impossible to find a criterion for determining the validity of ethical judgements […] they have no objective validity whatsoever.’ - AJ Ayer - Language, truth and logic

Question 32

‘If a sentence makes no statement at all, there is obviously… And we have seen that sentences… and as such do not…’

Answer 32

‘If a sentence makes no statement at all, there is obviously no sense in asking whether what it says is true or false. And we have seen that sentences which simply express moral judgements do not say anything. They are expressions of feeling and as such do not come under the category of truth and falsehood.’ - AJ Ayer - language, truth and logic

Question 33

‘They are unverifiable for the…’

Answer 33

‘They are unverifiable for the same reason as a cry of pain or a word of command are unverifiable - because they do not express genuine propositions.’ - AJ Ayer - language, truth and logic

Question 34

AJ Ayer’s emotivism

Answer 34

• not interested in the meaning of moral statements as he believes they don’t have any meaning, instead interested in what they do and what their function is
  > ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are pseudo-concepts - they don’t refer to anything real
• he believes that ethical language does two things:
  
  1. expresses emotion - equivalent to “boo murder” or “hooray charity”
  2. seeks to compel other to behave in a certain way - quasi-imperative

Question 35

quasi-imperative

Answer 35

used by Stevenson (another emotivist), compels others to behave in a particular way, intensifies emotions of others

Question 36

Ayer’s explanation of different types of ethical language

Answer 36

• they have different levels of power/intensity
• subjective (personal experience, matters to one person) vs objective (matter and apply to all of us)
  > objective language like ‘it is your duty’ and ‘you ought to’ are more persuasive
  > if you can pretend that there is some objective moral truth you will be more successful in stimulating action

Question 37

what is moral realism/irrealism about?

Answer 37

about goodness (irrealists believe it doesn’t exist, pseudo-concepts)

Question 38

what is moral non-/cognitivism about?

Answer 38

about moral statements (their meaningfulness, non-cognitivists believe they are non-propositional)

Question 39

Pritchard’s view of intuitionism

Answer 39

Our intuitions go further than simply understanding ‘good’ but we can even go so far as to understand moral obligation. It’s one thing to know what is good, it’s another to know what we ought to do. This has a very positive view of human nature (we have real obligations to fulfil). However, it’s very subjective in many cases whether there is no clear ‘right’ way of acting.

Question 40

‘It is not self-contradictory to say that some…’

Answer 40

‘It is not self-contradictory to say that some pleasant things are not good, or that some bad things are desired’ - Ayer
- goodness is not the same as pleasure (a natural property)
eg. Nozick’s experience machine

Question 41

MacIntyre, Foot, Anscombe criticisms of Ayer’s theory

Answer 41

• MacIntyre said that emotivism puts child-carers and child-abusers on the same level.
  Anscombe, Foot:
• we are left with a world where we have to except the holocaust was neither good or bad, this doesn’t feel useful. We need a world where we can make objective statements and have objective discussion about ethics.
• as virtue ethicists, like MacIntyre, they called for a return to when we understood ethics - early systems of virtue ethics.
• Foot saw the atrocities of the Holocaust and felt that they were undeniably evil (based on Ayer’s theory, calling death camps evil would be to express opinion

Question 42

evaluation of emotivism

Answer 42

+ it promotes a tolerant, accepting attitude towards moral diversity - social harmony
+ it overcomes the problem of verifiability because it is based on personal beliefs
- MacIntyre said that emotivism puts child-carers and child-abusers on the same level because since no one can be right or wrong and condemnation of child abuse is purely expression of disgust
- it seems absurd to reduce morals down to emotions, equally emotions and morals are not always in sync
- not useful, we need a world where we can make objective statements and have objective discussion about ethics - it seems absurd to say that the holocaust was neither good or bad (Anscombe and Foot)

Question 43

what is prescriptivism?

Answer 43

• RM Hare (non-cognitivist), The Language of Moral (1952)
• a non-cognitivist theory that claims moral language has the function of prescribing a course of action
• Prescribing is about making a suggestion, conditional, it’s about advice-giving - “it would be best if…” or “if you want X then you should Y” (hypothetical imperatives)

Question 44

Hare’s rejection of emotivism

Answer 44

• Hare stated that there are no such things as “moral feelings”, we don’t just “feel” a certain way about an action, eg. euthanasia.
• we are so good at moralising that it appears as though we don’t think about them. If you are introduced to a new situation, you don’t just have a feeling of what to do, you simply quickly process and evaluate/moralise. This contradicts Ayer’s emotivism.
• eg. laying off a member of staff

Question 45

Hume’s is-ought gap

Answer 45

• a criticism of naturalism:
• fact/value statements (eg. ‘it is a lovely day’ vs ‘you ought to go for a walk’)
• Hume says that facts can be derived from facts and values can only be derived from values. So there has to be a value statement within the premises.
• Hume’s criticism of naturalism is that they take facts and draw values which he argues is incorrect.

Question 46

what are fact statements? Value statements?

Answer 46

EG.
fact - ‘It is a lovely day.’ - a fact about the world, about the way things ARE (it could be an incorrect fact but it is still a matter of fact)
value - ‘I ought to go for a walk.’ - it is about the way things OUGHT to be, also relates to importance (in ‘I ought to go for a walk’ there is a suggested degree of importance given to going for a walk)

Question 47

how does the is-ought gap relate to prescriptivism?

Answer 47

If you are a prescriptivist, you believe that when you make moral statements, you are prescribing a course of action (‘You ought to…’). If you are prescribing an action you should not base this on a fact statement but on a value statement. Hare notices that the values we express come as a process of reasoning and can only be reasoned from other values and argues that the values we hold have to be chosen (they can’t be objective).

Question 48

what key criticism of emotivism does prescriptivism avoid?

Answer 48

Emotivism argues that we feel something, this doesn’t allow for discourse because you feel one thing, someone else feels another. However, because prescriptivism considers the processes, you can consider where the feeling comes from, therefore there can be a conversation discusses values and how they are applied. In prescriptivism, you can challenge the consistent application of someone’s values and the process of reasoning they use to make conclusions.

Question 49

‘It is the effects which…’

Answer 49

‘It is the effects which determine what I should be doing’ - Hare, The Language of Morals

Question 50

‘generally speaking people….’

Answer 50

‘generally speaking people act on the principles without thinking’ - Hare, The Language of Morals
- gives example of ‘first generation’ and ‘second generation’ where the principles worked for the first but not for the second however they had not learnt to make decisions and ‘their morality has no roots, and becomes completely unstable’

Question 51

‘their morality has…’

Answer 51

‘their morality has no roots, and becomes completely unstable’ - Hare, The Language of Morals
- in reference to a ‘second generation’ who do not learn to evaluate or decision-make

Question 52

what does Hare think we have to learn to do?

Answer 52

‘to examine, and even modify to suit particular types of cases, the principles which are being taught’ - Hare, The Language of Morals

Question 53

‘To make a value…’

Answer 53

‘To make a value judgement is to make a decision of principle’ - Hare, The Language of Morals

Question 54

key ideas from The Language of Morals (with quotation)

Answer 54

• when making a decision you way up the effects of both/all options: ‘It is the effects which determine what I should be doing’
  > eg. deciding whether or not to fire your clerk
  > how you value these effects will depend on your experiences and chosen values
  > Both a prescriptivist and a moral naturalist think about consequences, but where naturalists think that their decisions are facts where prescriptivists sees them as merely prescribed actions.
• principles become so set in our nature that ‘generally speaking people act on the principles without thinking’ however this is bad because we lose the ability to decision-make and evaluate
  > as the world changes we have to avoid just accepting previous principles
  > he references a ‘first generation’ and ‘second generation’ where the principles worked for the first but not for the second however they had not learnt to make decisions and ‘their morality has no roots, and becomes completely unstable’
• you are a ‘lesser man’ if you just follow and copy your fathers, you have to evaluate and make your own decisions
  > he wants us to teach our children how ‘to examine, and even modify to suit particular types of cases, the principles which are being taught’
  > morality is not a list of truths, it is a skill set
  > eg. a driver
• ‘To make a value judgement is to make a decision of principle’
• need good reasons for our decisions, likes Kant’s process (but without the definitive answer), considering what the world would be like if X happened is a good method of evaluation