Meta-ethics Flashcards
explain the origins of moral principles: reason, emotion/attitudes or society
reason
- e.g. social contract theories
- hobbes
- in a ‘state of nature’ we all suffer as everyone pursues selfish interests, many through violence
- in order to escape this, the rational thing for us to do is cooperate
- we agree to give up some power and freedom by submitting to social rules enforced by the government
- so moral rules (don’t kill, don’t steal) originate as a rational choice
- if we are each less selfish then we will each benefit
emotions/attitudes
- e.g. moral sense theories
- hume
- morality comes from our feelings of sympathy towards others
- we get pleasure from actions which bring about pleasure in someone else, or diminish their pain
- from these feelings of sympathy and the pleasure it brings to us we develop virtues, habitual actions that help others and ourselves
society
- e.g. moral relativism
- Marx
- moral systems are an ‘ideology’, a set of normative beliefs constructed by those in power
- in the case of morality these rules may vary over time and place, but in society these rules ensure that the powerful maintain their position of power
explain the distinction between cognitivists and non-cognitivists about language
cognitivists: believe ethical language such as ‘killing is wrong’ can be true or false
- sentences like these express beliefs and so are propositions which are ‘truth apt’ (have truth value)
non-cognitivists: moral sentences are not propositions, neither true or false, they act as prescriptive commands
- they express some other mental state, like ‘ouch!’
