Key Terms

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 aren’t fixed and aren’t 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

Vienna Circle?

Answer 5

A group of philosophers known as logical positivist who rejected claims that moral truth can be verified as objectively true.

Question 6

Emotivism?

Answer 6

Ethical theories that hold that moral statements aren’t statements of fact but are either beliefs or emotions.

Question 7

Hume’s Law?

Answer 7

You can’t go from an “is” (a statement of fact) to an “ought” (a moral).

Question 8

Naturalistic Fallacy?

Answer 8

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