meta-ethics Flashcards
what is a moral cognitivist?
people who hold the belief that there are moral truths
what is a non-cognitivist?
we cannot know morality
what do moral naturalists believe?
morals are fixed
Goodness is inherent in nature - an observable quality
goodness has its own properties and values
we can treat morality as we treat the observable world
what do theological naturalists believe?
we can know right and wrong through observing Gods order in the world
God has put goodness into the world that we can know
David Humes argument against moral naturalism
morals are not absolute
morals are a result of human sentiment and passion; reason is impotent when making rules on morality.
what is emotivism?
suggests that when we state weather something is good or bad it is just a result of our emotion
morality is entirely relative
what is a logical positivist?
rejects the existence of the things that cannot be known through science
who were the Vienna circle?
group of philosophers who met between 1924 and 1936 they were logical positivists
what are the parts of the verification principle?
synthetic
analytical statements
what is a synthetic statement?
can be proven via expeirence
who put forward the verification principle?
ayer
what is the verification principle?
it is a fundamental doctrine for logical positivists which holds a set of criteria that determines what constitutes meaningful language.
what is a logical statement?
analytical - things that are fixed such as maths
what is a moral judgement?
an expression of human emotion such as abortion is wrong
Example of emotivists?
Ayer
stevenson
Hare
what theories go under moral cognitivism?
ethical naturalism
theological naturalism
what theories go under non-cognitivism?
Emotivism
prescriptivism
what is prescriptivism?
the idea that our expression of morality is just us prescribing how we think other people should behave. We aim to change their behaviour.
what is intuitionism?
we cannot define morality but we can know it through our intuition. We can still know good even though it cannot be defined?
who developed intuitionism?
Moore
who developed prescriptivism?
Stevenson and Hare
what does Moore assimilate goodness to?
The color yellow, much like we cannot define yellow but we know it when we see it. This is the same for goodness.
who postulated theological naturalism?
Aquinas
what is humes is-ought Gap?
- criticises ethical naturalism
- its a fallacy to go from fact to value or is to ought or from a description of how things are to how things should be
- there is a gap between these things
- for example we cannot go from, stealing it taking peoples stuff without a permission (a fact) to this is wring and you ought not to steal.
- therefore our morals are not fact or objective they are values described by our emotion
what is naturallistic fallacy?
assuing that something natural is good
ethical naturalists
bradley and foot
ethical naturalist view
- moral-cognitvists
- there are fixed truths and laws
- goodness and badness can be known
- we can define them
- when we express values we are expressing reality
- a rock is hard
- stealing is bad
these are the same
what did bradley argue?
- ethical statements include propositions that can be empirically verified
- therefore involve reality
- morality rests on certain facts about ourselves,
- our place in society provide us with a measurable
observable basis for a satisfying life. Our goal is to realise our true self, which we learn through observation. - We can know objectively and test
empirically the proposition that ‘honesty is good’ as this means, ‘honesty helps realise
my potential and my place in society’.
what is theological naturalism?
we can know right or wrong because of Gods natural order in the world (aquinas)
what is prescriptivism?
- stevenson
- prescribes beliefs to others
what is verificationism also called
boo hurrah theory
what is the open question argument
If goodness = pleasure
pleasure should be goodness but it is not pleasure is a tautology, true by definition. Wether goodness is something is an open question. Goodness cant be any property. Because we can always question Goodness and change it therefore it cannot be true in nature.
what is intuitionism?
- from open closed argument we see goodness cannt be defined
- good doesnt equal anything
- goodness is only itself, sui generis
- much like the colour yellow
- therefore we know good via the faculty of intuitionism
- humans have noi choice to question moral dilemmas
- we apprehend no natural properties
- this is a cognitvist approach
is intutionism cognitive
yes
