Ethical Language: Meta ethics (Chapter 8)

Question 1

What is meta-ethics?

Answer 1

Study of the meaning and justification of moral ideas

Question 2

What is normative ethics?

Answer 2

Theories of ethics that give guidance on how we should behave and/or the character traits we should develop.

Question 3

What is naturalism?

Answer 3

The belief that values can be defined in terms of some natural property in the world

Question 4

What is intuitionism?

Answer 4

The belief that basic moral truths are indefinable but self-evident

developed by W.D Ross and H.A Pritchard

Question 5

What is emotivism?

Answer 5

The belief that ethical terms evince approval or disapproval

aj ayer

Question 6

What is the is/ought problem?

Answer 6

David Hume

Problem of finding any logical justification of ethical judgements from the facts of the world.

The is/ought problem is based on the principle that any factual proposition is reducible to involving the verb ‘to be’

Question 7

Give an example of the is/ought problem?

Answer 7

(i) all men are mortal (major premise)
(ii) socrates is a man (minor premise)
(iii) therefore socrates is mortal (conclusion)

it is illegitamate to put into the conclusion anything not stated in the premise e.g. socrates likes the olympic games could not be discovered from the premise

Question 8

how does plato’s form of the good respond to hume is/ought

Answer 8

There is something factual about goodness

Plato attempts to fix the meaning of good by taking it as a singular spiritual being

the form of the good argued to have even greater reality than the objects of our perception

such a form for plato exists as it is necessary to make sense both of our ability to describe and our perceptions of reality

Question 9

what is hedonism?

Answer 9

belief that pleasure is the good and nothing is the good. ‘pleasure’ and ‘good’ are interchangeable terms

bentham

epicurus

form of naturalism

aristotle says pleasure accompanies good activities like ‘the bloom on the cheek of youth’

Question 10

what is absolutism?

Answer 10

view that there are some things which are always obligatory. Examples include utilitariaism and kantian ethics

some claim that if naturalism is adopted as an ethical theory we commit to absolutism because if the nature of good is fixed then it might seem we should always pursue that fixed good

Question 11

what is the naturalist fallacy?

Answer 11

Offered by british philosopher ge moore, defence of non-naturalism (criticism of naturalism)

is the error of assuming that the good is identical with some natural quality, such as pleasure. Moore’s argument makes use of the open question argument

Question 12

what is the open question argument?

Answer 12

• X is pleasant but is it good?
• following version of sentence, bear-baiting is pleasant but is it good?
• But, hedonists claim that pleasure is the good (and nothing else) meaning ‘pleasure’ and ‘good’ are synonomous
• so, the sentence can be re-written as “bear baiting is good, but is it good?
• this makes no sense so naturalism is wrong as good cannot be a natural quality

Question 13

what is the underlying idea of intuitionism?

Answer 13

we know the good - it is a simple perception of non-natural but simple property rather ‘like yellow’ (moore)

Question 14

what is mores yellow idea?

Answer 14

moore was influenced by german Francz Brentano who developed the idea of internationality (that our minds are never neutral observers of the world

we see at once that something is yellow, we know it with great certainty , yet there is no one thing that is yellow. But when we see yellow it is undeniable such as how we know good with intuitionism

Question 15

what is intuitionists problem with the term intuition?

Answer 15

according to moore this view is not subjective, things are not right or wrong as i say so its how its perceived by the mind

moore said “when i call such propositions intuitions i mean merely to assert they are incapable of proof”

what moore means here is the mind is able to reason whether a proposition is true but cannot prove so.

Question 16

what was gj warlocks criticism of intuitionism?

Answer 16

“simply a sense of bewilderment got up to like like a theory”

e.g. if we simply know something is good how can we discuss our views, if you think snowdon is taller than everest it can be resolved by measurement but as both moore and bertrand russell admit is not resolvable in that way

Question 17

how would empiricism criticise intutitionism

Answer 17

empiricists such as hume would say that all knowledge is obtained by sense experience but moore is claiming we are able to recognise non-natural qualities, how could we do this if our senses are not attuned to non-natural good properties

Question 18

how does russell defend against empiricism?

Answer 18

russell argues this perception is a priori (knowledge not dependent on experience)

Question 19

how does ayer describe emotivism?

Answer 19

“if i say stealing money is wrong i produce a sentence with no factual meaning”

such statements express a feeling and so we know they’re wrong (feeling not felt in all cases)

although, ayer denied this and says he may say something is right even though i do not feel it and argues that as ethical judgements have no factual meaning there can be arguments between say what is the right ethical conclusion

Question 20

what is the killing boo theory?

Answer 20

links to ayer saying statements have no factual meaning so no debate can be had

winston barnes

as words such as right or wrong are not meaningful they are meaningless e.g. if someone shouts boo because he doesn’t like something he is offering nothing to discuss

Question 21

how did peter vardy criticise emotivism?

Answer 21

“it is hot air and nothing else”

Question 22

how does james rachels criticise emotivism?

Answer 22

argues that emotivism wrongly compares stubbing one’s toe to making moral statements, and called moral feelings convictions

Question 23

how does mel thompson criticise emotivism?

Answer 23

“You cannot reduce morality to a set of cheers and boos.”