1.1.2 H/W (add back after notes on slides)

Question 1

Defining morality: why is this important?

Answer 1

before moralists can begin to attempt to establish what constitutes good or bad moral or ethical behaviour, they need to consider whether we can define what morality is

Question 2

State the three different kinds of moral statement (otherwise known as the concerns of meta-ethics)

Answer 2

1. Meaningful (regarding terms & judgements): this is concerned with defining ‘good’, or describing ‘X’ as ‘good’/‘Good’ is ‘X’
2. Describing a type of moral judgement: this is concerned with establishing what is going on when we say ‘X is good’. Is it meant as functionally or morally good? Is it being recommended as an action or command? Furthermore, the statement could be evaluating the moral judgement as objective or subjective, as well as deciding whether it is a relative (parallel) or absolute (outright) judgement.
3. Discussing how judgements may be supported or defended: this is concerned with establishing the grounds on which ethical claims are made - whether it is supported by factual evidence or whether it has been shared by others (in this, it may also be discussed why a judgement has been widely shared: either via a universal opinion or a special circumstance). Additionally, it will assess whether we have the capacity to know either whether or when an action is right or wrong.

Question 3

How are statements and judgements separate from each other?

Answer 3

• the answer to a statement would be a normative ethical claim
• specifically, normative ethics is concerned with answering questions about what is good, right, wrong, moral or immoral, not with analysing the meaning and status of such statements
• hence, whilst the statements are meta-ethical, the answers are not

Question 4

What has to be considered whilst discussing meta-ethics?

Answer 4

• a primary consideration of meta-ethics is whether ethical language can be said to have any meaning
• particularly, if we are unclear as to the meaning of basic ethical terms, how can we begin to make authoritative claims about the morality of particular actions?
• for example, the statement ‘Killing is wrong’ is regarded as complicated: we are faced with a vast range of situations. If the statement struggles to even define ‘wrong’ in this context, the ethical debate is already fraught with difficulties. Furthermore, this juggles between relative & absolute: if ‘Killing is wrong’ is an absolute statement, there would be no initial moral debate about when this statement could or could not be applicable to a situation. But, since we know that there is debate about when it was applicable & when not, it appears to be a relative statement

Question 5

How can we define the difference between an ethical issue & a moral issue?

Answer 5

• by thinking of a moral issue as one which is concerned with relationships, life & death (homosexuality, euthanasia, stealing, transplantation of organs, etc)
• all these issues have implications for man in relationship with fellow men, although some are clearly more direct than others
• an ethical issue, however may be one which deals with our perception of what is acceptable in a social sense
• for example, most schools would consider it unethical for a teacher to invite a student to their home, however well meaning the reason
• ethical issues such as the one above have less to do with the universals of life & death, but are still important in terms of establishing order, decency & a structured society

Question 6

How are normative-ethical & meta-ethical questions different to each other?

Answer 6

a normative ethical question asks ‘What should we do?’ whilst a meta-ethical question asks ‘What is moral goodness?’