meta ethics

Question 1

what is absolutism

Answer 1

morals are fixed, unchanging truths that everyone should follow

Question 2

what is relativism

Answer 2

morals are not fixed, what is right changes according to the situation, culture, time and place

Question 3

what is naturalism

Answer 3

ethical theories that suggest that morals are part of the natural world and can be recognised or observed in some way

Question 4

FH Bradley claims about morals

Answer 4

morals are observable as part of the concrete world. Bradley says your social order and your position in that social order determines your moral duties.

Question 5

should we accept the social order as a fixed fact? (criticism of FH Bradley)

Answer 5

20th century radical changes in western countries, where roles of men and women changed and hierarchal social roles came under pressure. Bradleys idea of a fixed moral social order is highly questionable. Bradley does not accommodate the idea of social mobility.

Question 6

Phillipa Foot’s naturalism

Answer 6

morals are observable through virtues. A moral person has virtues which can be observed. Eg an honest person does honest things and these can be observed, therefore we can perceive moral absolutes.

Question 7

ANALYSIS OF NATURALISM
What is Hume’s ‘is-ought problem’?

Answer 7

we cannot move from an objective factual statement about the world based on observations to a subjective moral statement.
writers on morality often move from ‘is’ statements (statements of fact) to ‘ought’ statements (prescribing what should be done)
Hume argues this creates an illogical leap.
eg a person tells a lie and moral philosophers say ‘you ought not to lie’
Example:
1. breastfeeding is the natural way to feed children
2. mothers ought to breastfeed their children
(Naturalists do this)

Question 8

What is GE Moore’s naturalistic fallacy?

Answer 8

Moore thought that attempts to define good in terms of something else is the naturalistic fallacy.
For example, if we try to define good by saying it is pleasure, we have broken good down into something else. This is not possible because good is a simple thing and cannot be broken down into constituent parts.

Good is simple just as yellow is simple - you know it when you see it but you cant break it down.
Whereas a horse is a complex notion and can be broken down into different qualities.

Question 9

Moore: “the good is…”

Answer 9

“the good is the good and that is the end of the matter”

Question 10

what is the open question argument

Answer 10

The question “is pleasure good” (used by naturalists) is an open question because it leads to further questions and requires more information
Any word put in place of pleasure leads to an open question. But the question “is good good?” is a closed question as it leads to no further questions. Good is good by definition (an analytic statement)

Question 11

Attfield response to Moore’s naturalistic fallacy/ open question argument

Answer 11

Perhaps we havent found the right definition of good yet

Question 12

Neo-naturalism of Foot and Warnock - insterting ‘human flourishing’

Answer 12

Foot and Warnock potentially solve the naturalistic fallacy
There are certain socio-biological facts that lead us to see what is best for human flourishing. This helps fill the ‘is-ought’ gap:
1. she is old and lonely
2. helping her contributes to the flourishing of human beings
3. therefore you ought to help her

1. breastfeeding is the natural way to feed your child
2. breastfeeding a child with help them flourish
3. therefore a mother ought to breastfeed her child

This proves there is something naturalistic about morality as we can refer to human flourishing in moral statements

Question 13

other response to moore - the good is an abstract noun….

Answer 13

the good is an abstract noun, eg love. You cannot make the good a special case because there is a complex meaning that is difficult to define similar to any other abstract noun.

Question 14

what is intuitionism?

Answer 14

ethical theories that hold that moral knowledge is received in a different way from science and logic.
Morals cant be reduced to facts about the world as in naturalism but that we can instinctively know what is right and wrong

Question 15

HA Pritchard intuitionism

Answer 15

Held that the sense of moral obligation was the direct result of our intuition.
He believed that reason collected the facts and intuition made judgements about them

Question 16

HA Pritchard “this apprehension is immediate…

Answer 16

“this apprehension is immediate in precisely the same way in which a mathematical apprehension is immediate”

Question 17

WD Ross intuitionism

Answer 17

thought intuitionism is at the heart of moral decision making. For him, there are certain ‘prima facie’ duties (a duty that is obligatory) such as gratitude and justice. If there is a conflict between them, an intuitive judgement is made.

Question 18

Strengths of intuitionism

Answer 18

• there is something commonsensical about saying that everyone has an intuitive sense of right and wrong
• avoids the naturalistic fallacy of defining something the good as something it is not
• god is not required

Question 19

weaknesses of intuitionism

Answer 19

• intuition is a social construct - it is formed from your environment
• Ross and moore dont even agree with each other
• intuitions may ultimately be the result of social conditioning
• Hare argues that it is essentially irrational to say that you are using intuition

Question 20

what is emotivism

Answer 20

ethical theories that hold that morals are beliefs or emotions.

Question 21

how and when did emotivism form

Answer 21

the vienna circle in the 1920s and 30s were a group of philosophers who developed the idea of logical positivism
They accepted David Humes idea that you cannot go from an is to an ought statement and that all morality was sentiment, and nothing more

Question 22

what do logical positivists think. are they absolutists or relativists.

Answer 22

you should reject the existence of things that cannot be known through science.Logical positivists are relativists

Question 23

Aj