META-ETHICS Flashcards
META ETHICS
- Analyses the reasoning behind ethical LANGUAGE and moral terms such as ‘GOOD’ AND ‘RIGHT”
- COGNITIVISM - moral truths exist INDEPENDENTLY of our mind. MORAL JUDGEMENTS can be True or false terms such as right and wrong which correspond to facts in the world
- NON-COGNIVITISM - NO moral truths in world; what we call moral facts = SUBJECTIVE, EMOTIONAL RESPONSES
Fact-Value distinction
- Relationship between facts and values:
- FACT = STATEMENT that can be TRUE or FALSE, e.g: ‘there are 2 people in a room’
- VALUE = BELIEF, judgement or attitude e.g ‘Killing is always wrong’
- COGNITIVISTS = MORAL REALISTS argue factually, certain actions = RIGHT or WRONG.
Moral judgements are OBJECTIVE moral facts –> Based on what the world IS, independent of our minds. - NON-COGNITIVISTS = moral anti-realists: argue that moral facts do NOT exist. Person making a moral judgement is not describing the way the world is but expressing a VALUE, which = SUBJECTIVE and mind-dependent.
IS-OUGHT GAP
- In TREATISE OF HUMAN NATURE, Hume argued that deriving what ought to be done from what IS the case = example of FALSE DEDUCTION.
- Non-cognitivists argue that we cannot reason from statements of FACT to statements of VALUE.
- E.g = fact that a foetus feels pain doesn’t dictate that women should or shouldn’t have an abortion; other factors are relevant.
- Values ae not in the world; they = emotional response to the world
- What we call ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ = not properties of objects or events in the world but the values that WE ascribe to them.
- However, if moral judgements are NOT factual –> Non-cognitivism cannot claim something like rape or genocide = INHERENTLY WRONG –> cannot account for MORAL PROGRESS
- COGNIVISTS –> bridge the gap between ‘is’ and ‘ought’ –> argue that morality is attached to certain facts and ideas that ALL people share. We can discover MORAL TRUTHS through: reason, experience or intuition.
- COGNIVITISTS = better moral truth and moral progress because there is MORAL KNOWLEDGE; possible to say slavery, rape..etc is wrong.
- HOWEVER.. cognitivists not always successful in accounting for moral motivation. –> Might know stealing is wrong and do it anyway.
COGNITIVISM: ethical naturalism
- Naturalism = view that there are moral properties in the world.
- Cognitivist and REALIST.
- Ethical Naturalism = empiricist in nature
- Our moral judgements = derived from our experience of the world; moral term ‘good’ understood in NATURAL terms, which means we can EXPLAIN what the term ‘good’ means with reference to things = NOT MORAL.
ETHICAL NATURALISM POINTERS: J.S MILL
- The Good is a natural property of the world.
- A natural property can be a physical or psychological feature
- We can infer from those properties what the GOOD actually is.
Utilitarianism argues for PSYCHOLOGICAL PROPERTIES
- J.S Mill = utilitarian understanding of HUMAN NATURE & HUMAN MOTIVATION = Origin of Morality:
P1) The aim of our desires is HAPPINESS
P2) Things = desirable along as people DESIRE them; in the same way as sounds are audible as long as people hear them
P3) Personal happiness = GOOD TO EACH PERSON
P4) Society = SUM of individual interests, general happiness = good for this sum of interests (principle of UTILITY)
Therefore, GOOD = HAPPINESS.
- “Pleasure and freedom from pain are the only things that are desirable”
- Mill BRIDGES fact- value distinction; makes fundamental assumption that pleasure and happiness are the Good and doesn’t prove it; requires no evidence as it = SELF-EVIDENT
- When MILL = REFERRING TO THE GOOD –> refers to MORALITY as a whole. Good = not something transcendent which we can only work out through REASON; something derrived from our very nature as animals.
J.S MILL ETHICAL NATURALISM STRENGTHS AND PROBLEMS
Strengths:
1) Accounts for our moral feelings when we feel outraged by clear INJUSTICE; gives us PAIN, which makes us UNHAPPY –> naturally = MORALLY WRONG
2) Naturalism also accounts for MORAL DISAGREEMENTS. Thinking about consequences of our actions in terms of whether they produce PLEASURE, or PAIN, we can decide what is morally right or wrong.
3) NATURALISM = effective cognitive theory –> explains how we use moral language. When we make moral judgements, we state them as facts and imply that they represent something about NATURE OF REALITY.
4) NATURALISM = In line with how most people understand morality. We all value pleasure over pain, so it makes sense to argue that GOOD is pleasure.
Problems:
1) GUILTY OF REDUCTIONISM –> reduces moral judgements to natural facts about the world. Fact that we SEEK happiness does not = MORALITY should be reduced to seeking pleasure.
2) Main problem = doesn’t distinguish between facts and values: implies that an ‘ought’ can be derived from an ‘is’ i.e the fact that something NATURALLY is the case means we OUGHT to do it
. –> PHILOSOPHY evil and suffering within the world –> See within nature = NATURAL = “The things men would be hung for a natural occurrence within nature”
MOORE CRITICISES NATURALISM
- G. E Moore takes a cognitivist position but argues that the Good cannot be REDUCED to a NATURAL PROPERTY OF THE WORLD
- PRINCIPA ETHICA, Moore criticises Mill’s naturalism: open question argument and naturalistic fallacy.
THE OPEN QUESTION ARGUMENT (G.E.MOORE)
- Moore argues If the GOOD = PLEASURE, as Mill suggests, the answer to the question “IS THE GOOD PLEASURE?” = OBVIOUS that it would just require a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ = CLOSED QUESTION.
- We know that any attempt to define the GOOD = NOT AS SIMPLE AS THIS. Fact that we have to think about it means it is an OPEN QUESTION. Therefore –> GOOD CANNOT be understood NATURALLY AS PLEASURE.
P1 ) According to NATURALISM (MILL) –> GOOD = PLEASURE
P2 ) If GOOD = PLEASURE, then the question –> ‘IS THE GOOD PLEASURE?” = equivalent to saying: “Is the GOOD, GOOD?”
P3) However, when I think about whether the GOOD is pleasure, I have to reflect on this and my intuition is that it is not a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer.
THEREFORE, GOOD = NOT PLEASURE. CIRCULAR ARGUMENT
Naturalistic FALLACY
- Moore argues = ANY ATTEMPT TO DEFINE GOODNESS –> Naturalistic Fallacy
- Mistake made by normative philosophers who attempt to define the Good.
- Naturalistic fallacy = committed when a non-natural object is given NATURAL PROPERTIES. Natural Properties can be PHYSICAL properties I.e shapes/colours, but also responses like pleasure and pain.
- When people associate the GOOD with natural terms, they reduce key moral term to natural properties.
- For Moore, goodness and pleasure = 2 different things
- Goodness is not a natural property like colour not something that has the potential to give pleasure.
- Self-interest, pleasure and happiness are not moral terms, it is a MISTAKE for morality to be defined by them and reduced to them.
COGNITIVISM: ETHICAL NON-NATURALISM (INTUITIONISM)
Moore argues that we know what is GOOD through INTUITION
we intuitively know what the Good is.
In the same way we can’t describe ‘yellowness’ without pointing to or talking about a yellow object, we cannot describe goodness because it is a simple or BASIC concept that has NO properties we can break down and analyse.
- COGNITIVISTS –> because for Moore, moral properties exist and are real even though they are not NATURAL properties. Our moral intuitions must be about something and the LANGUAGE we use when we describe our moral intuitions implies they are OBJECTIVE.
PROBLEMS =
- Moore accuses Mill = CIRCULAR ARGUMENT but commits same fallacy in OWN argument. If the Good is an intuition and intuitions are moral, he is saying the Good = MORAL or the Good is Good.
- Moore argues that we know what is good, but we can’t explain why, it is self evident. What if intuitions conflict? A Nazi solider may have felt that killing other human beings was wrong, but felt an INHERENT sense of duty. Do some intuitions come first?
MACKIE CRITICIZES MILL & MOORE: Moral Values are RELATIVE
- “There are no objective values” - J.L MACKIE
- In ethics: inventing right and wrong: J.L Mackie argues that moral values are RELATIVE rather than ABSOLUTE. Values, whether moral or aesthetic: “are not part of the fabric of the world”
He argues that THERE IS A DIFFERENCE between KIND and CRUEL actions, between acts of courage and cowardice
- It is possible to describe such acts and outline differences, so acts of COURAGE/COWARDICE are part of the fabric of the world
- However… The values we ascribe to such acts are NOT in the world: we can describe acts of cruelty but the value that they are wrong = NOT AN OBJECTIVE FACT
- Mackie = critical of MORAL REALISM and views that there are moral properties in the world, whether they are natural properties (MILL) or intuitions (MOORE). He argues that moral properties = NOT ABSOLUTE, because they are CULTURALLY relative.
- Vary from culture to culture, from society to society and from INDIVIDUAL to INDIVIDUAL e.g polygamy OK in some cultures but NOT in others.
A.J. Ayer = LANGUAGE = SYMBOLIC
- Ayer agrees with Mackie, nothing FACTUAL about ethical language
- Argues ethical language is SYMBOLIC, just like religious language.
- E.g when we think about CHRISTIAN CROSS, we think about Jesus’s sacrifice, and the importance of redemption and atonement in CHRISTIANITY. Cross represents the Christian faith and is understood by a community of believers; cross = RELIGIOUS SYMBOL.
- Similarly, ethical symbols represent something about how HUMAN beings interact within the world. MORAL RULES ARE SYMBOLS –> ESTABLISH CONVENTIONS ON HOW TO LIVE.
- SOCIETY understands the ethical convention that killing = wrong. BUT…for AYER, this is not derived from a factual truth that KILLING = WRONG, but from emotions. –> EMOTIONAL RESPONSE TO THE WORLD.
- THUS, Ayer argues ethical assertions may be symbolic in that they express moral judgements, but in NO way are they facts: do not describe anything about the world and thus are meaningless.
- Presence of an ETHICAL SYMBOL in a proposition adds nothing to FACTUAL content.
- Thus…If I say to someone “YOU ACTED WRONGLY IN STEALING THAT MONEY”. I am not stating anything more than if I had simply said “YOU STOLE THAT MONEY”.
- In adding that this action is wrong, I am not making any further statement about it. Simply evincing my moral disapproval. It is as if I had said “YOU STOLE THAT MONEY” in a peculiar tone of horror.
NON-COGNITIVISM: EMOTIVISM
- Non-cognitive views of MORALITY mostly inspired by Hume –> argues that we cannot derive moral judgements from what we perceive through our senses. Moral statements do not refer to moral properties in the world, either natural or non-natural (intuitions).
- Moral statements are neither TRUE nor FALSE. There are no moral truths or facts in the world, therefore there is no possibility of MORAL KNOWLEDGE.
- 2 main non-cognitive ethical theories are EMOTIVISM and prescriptivism
- Hume = moral judgements are EMOTIONAL responses to the external world. We don’t see wrongness of a robbery, we see the events of the robbery; wrongness comes from our EMOTIONAL REACTION FROM IT. Values cannot logically be derived from fact.
- There could be OBJECTIVE MORALITY; humans have SIMILAR PREFERENCES, and experience pleasure and pain in the same way. E.g - we feel pity for others and we don’t like to witness suffering.
MODERN EMOTIVISM A.J.Ayer (NON-COGNITIVISM)
A.J Ayer = LOGICAL POSITIVIST, adapted Hume’s verison
Ayer supported VERIFICATION PRINCIPLE : focus is not whether a statement is true, but whether it is meaningful.
- For Ayer, when we make a moral judgement, we are merely expressing PERSONAL feelings and emotions.
- Moral judgements simply allow us to SHARE our emotions with others.
- Moral values and judgements are not based on sense-experience and thus do not correspond to any physical properties in the world, therefore, they are neither true nor FALSE.
PROBLEM WITH AYER’S EMOTIVISM
- According to AYER, rightness and wrongness = emotional ‘add-ons’ that do not affect the FACTUAL CLAIM. What this means = can never really morally disagree in the way we disagree about facts.
- Ayer’s response to this is that if we TRY to clarify the fact, the moral disagreement is solved. If it is a fact that animals don’t feel pain, then research performed on them would not affect them emotionally and is thus morally justifiable. For Ayer such dilemmas = NOT MORAL IN NATURE –> PURELY EMPIRICAL
- However… people who defend animal rights would argue that most animals are sentient and even those that are NOT, should still have rights.
- We cannot detach facts from moral considerations. VIEW THAT MORAL JUDGEMENTS COULD OR SHOULD BE DETACHED FROM FACTS doesn’t mean that they were meaningless as Ayer suggests.
- CRITICS of Ayer’s emotivism to call it “boo-hurrah” ethical theory –> as far as he reduces moral judgements and moral language to feelings of PLEASURE, DISPLEASURE or PAIN. But moral judgements involve more complex emotions, thoughts and feelings than just ‘approval’ or ‘disapproval’.
