Meta ethical theories

Question 1

What is meta ethics?

Answer 1

It means ‘beyond ethics’ and is the study of ethical language, of whether we can define words such as good, evil, right and wrong

Question 2

What is ethical naturalism?

Answer 2

The idea that ethical statements can be proven by examining evidence, as science does.
- Statements can be defined using non moral terms
- They are cognitivists, believing that language can be defined using empirical evidence
- Ethical language is like maths and science - it is verifiable and factually based

Question 3

How does Aquinas (EN) define good?

Answer 3

What is good is in line with CHN and CHP - goodness is linked to the will of God as seen in nature

Question 4

How does Kant (EN) define good?

Answer 4

Good is doing one’s duty, based on evidence of humans having reason

Question 5

How does Bentham (EN) define good?

Answer 5

goodness is a fact of pleasure or happiness

Question 6

How does Bradley (EN) define good?

Answer 6

to do good is to observe one’s place in society and to do what your community wants you to do

Question 7

Strengths of ethical naturalism (4)

Answer 7

• defines words such as good/evil etc meaning there can be objective morality
• means we can make judgements on what is right and wrong
• treats ethics like maths and science so it is a logical approach to ethics
• consequences indicate what is good/evil so there is evidence to base the ideas on

Question 8

Weaknesses of ethical naturalism (3)

Answer 8

• little agreement on definitions of good etc so it is impossible to know what good/evil means
• it is wrong to treat ethics like maths and science because ethics and morality is grounded in emotion and intuition
• good/evil may exist but may be indefinable

Question 9

Why did scholars disapprove of ethical naturalism?

Answer 9

It is difficult to define what is meant by the term Good. This means that we often perceive Good differently and this leads to relativism e.g So I can say that Mother Theresa is good and you can say that Mother Theresa is evil and we would both be right! Therefore, we can not make a moral judgement, nobody can be right or wrong.

Question 10

What did Philippa Foot (EN) believe?

Answer 10

Influenced by Aristotle, Foot claimed that morals and traits are absolute and can be observed. Life shows excellence and defect and this is linked to the purpose of living things
- E.g., a tree with sturdy roots is an excellent tree, and in the same way humans can be excellent or defective
- humans can have ‘good dispositions of the will’ - we can observe an honest person doing honest things

Question 11

What was Foot’s example of Maklay?

Answer 11

Macklay was an anthropologist who had with him a native who had entered his service on the express condition of never being photographed. The natives, as everyone knows, consider that something is taken out of them when their likeness is taken by photography. One day when the native was asleep, Maklay, who was collecting anthropological materials, confessed that he was awfully tempted to photograph his native, the more so as he was a typical representative of his tribe and would never have known that he was being photographed. But he remembered his agreement and refrained.
- For Foot, trust matters in human communities Trust and justice are connected to human happiness and humans have developed ways of living together and have developed rules to help them do this. Such rules are natural (are part of our purpose/telos and either we keep them and we are good or we don’t and we are defective)and absolute and they can be observed

Question 12

How did Moore object to ethical naturalism?

Answer 12

Naturalistic fallacy - Naturalists were wrong to assume that we can take terms like “good” and “evil and try to define them in a non-moral way e.g by looking at evidence and then concluding that Good means happiness/duty etc. Moore claimed that you can not prove these terms in this way. He is an Ethical non naturalist.

Question 13

What does Moore believe about goodness?

Answer 13

Goodness is a simple term beyond any further analysis. It cannot be defined. He likened it to yellow - yellow is a simple term beyond further analysis, an absolute but indefinable truth
- We intuitively know what good is but cannot define it

Question 14

What two ends did Moore believe good actions aim towards?

Answer 14

1. the enjoyment of beautiful objects
2. the pleasures of human intercourse

Question 15

Why was Moore not a straight forward intuitionist?

Answer 15

Straight forward intuition is the idea that the origin of moral judgements comes from human intuitions. He rejects the idea that moral intuitions are infallible. Moral judgements are incapable of being proved, and cannot be found from intuition, because they can be wrong.

Question 16

What did Prichard believe on intuitionism?

Answer 16

Humans have reason, which collects facts, then our intuition determines the course to follow

Question 17

What did Ross believe on intuitionism?

Answer 17

• In a moral dilemma, the various duties or obligations that we have are apparent. A prima facie duty is a moral obligation that binds us to follow it unless there’s an overriding obligation.
• Duties are important in moral decision making, but ultimately choosing is a matter of judgement. In making a moral decision, out intuition identifies our prima facie duties. Our judgement chooses our course of action, which is improved through out experience or knowledge of making moral decisions.
• Is a neo-kantian - duty would be protection of life over all others

Question 18

What 7 prima facie duties did Ross set out?

Answer 18

• promise keeping
• reparation for harm done
• gratitude
• justice
• beneficence
• self improvement
• non maleficence

Question 19

Strengths of Moore

Answer 19

• recognises that you can’t jump from an is to an ought
• observes that good and yellow are simple terms that cannot be analysed - which is true to a large extent
• uses logic to show that good is not an analytic statement

Question 20

weaknesses of moore

Answer 20

• we can use observation to define ethical terms
• we might all disagree on the things towards which Good aims that we know through intuition
• Intuition is based on experience and experience suggests that we are basing our conclusions on observations of the world we live in and yet he dismisses the naturalists claim that we can define terms through empiricism

Question 21

Strengths of Prichard and Ross

Answer 21

• absolute cultural values support the idea of intuition of the good (Rachels)
• intuition is universal
• we often agree on what is good, because we intuit good

Question 22

Weaknesses of Prichard and Ross

Answer 22

• why should our intuition be trusted?
• we may not all agree on the prima facie duties, and Ross himself realised he may have missed some
• Mackie - we might intuit how we ought to behave but intuition doesn’t tell us how we must behave and what we should do. Observation of cultural values suggest that ethics is relative to culture and this doesn’t support the idea that we can intuit the Good.
• Warnock - Intuition leaves us confused as to our moral obligations some say we intuit duties and some that we intuit the ends towards which Good aims

Question 23

What is emotivism?

Answer 23

The idea that good cannot be defined, and does not even exist

Question 24

What did Hume believe about ethical statements?

Answer 24

• ethical statements are nothing but sentiment/emotion.
• ethical terms are meaningless and convey no knowledge, and cannot be verified empirically.

Question 25

What is Hume’s dead body example?

Answer 25

We may observe a knife thrust into a torso, a brightly lit room, a table with a pool of blood nearby, but where do we observe the wrongness of the act? The wrongness of an action is not an observable fact, it does not lie in an object but in us, as a result of feelings aroused by certain actions.

Question 26

What did Ayer (EM) say?

Answer 26

• Ethical statements are meaningless and are simply expressions of feelings as they cannot be verified or falsified
• ethical statements are nothing more than feelings of approval and disapproval

Question 27

What is Ayer’s Hurrah/Boo theory?

Answer 27

If I say Abortion is wrong then I am simply expressing my feelings about abortion and saying Boo to abortion. If I think that warfare is moral then I am expressing my feeling about warfare and saying hurray to warfare.
- Ethical statements express our feelings about something or somebody. Such statements are like grunts, screams or cheers, to arouse feelings or express pain. Hence, this is called the ‘hurrah/boo’ theory.

Question 28

What did Stevenson (EM) say?

Answer 28

• ethical statements are meaningless and cannot be verified empirically
• an ethical opinion is supported by a belief system based upon our own experience
• moral terms have a persuasive/emotive force to them - we choose words which try to persuade others to see the error of their ways
• beliefs are meaningless as they are non-cognitive and non-verifiable, but are meaningful to the believer

Question 29

How did Stevenson and Ayer differ?

Answer 29

S considered moral statements to express deep rooted beliefs - A did not

Question 30

Strengths of emotivism

Answer 30

• it approaches language scientifically by breaking it down into analytic, synthetic and meaningless statements
• recognises that it is impossible to observe rightness/wrongness in acts themselves
• supported by relativism - Protagoras, Mackie, Sumner, Boas

Question 31

Weaknesses of emotivism

Answer 31

• Vardy - emotivism reduces ethics to nothing more than ‘hot air’
• emotivism reduces morality down to a matter of feelings which is oversimplified. Rachels argued that moral judgements require reasoning or else they are too arbitrary
• After the second world war even Ayer changed his mind about emotivism when he saw the devastating consequences of Hitler’s ethical views which were simply his expression of approval of killing!
• Many philosophers claim ethics is based on an absolute good
• Macintyre claimed that the problem with emotivism is it leads to the conclusion that we can use people as a means to an end
• You can make no moral judgements on other people

Question 32

Which theories are cognitive?

Answer 32

Cognitive: Ethical Naturalism
Non cognitive: Emotivism

Intuitionism is cognitive in that ends can be intuited but non cognitive in how good cannot be defined using evidence

Question 33

Which theories are meaningful?

Answer 33

Meaningful: Ethical Naturalism
Meaningless: Intuitionism, Emotivism*

*Stevenson - can be meaningful to believer

Question 34

Which theories are objective?

Answer 34

Objective: Ethical Naturalism, Intuitionism
Non objective: Emotivism