Meta-Ethics

Question 1

What is meta-ethics?

Answer 1

The area of ethics that seeks to explore and discover the meaning of words used in ethical systems

Question 2

What are cognitive statements?

Answer 2

Factual assertations that can be proved true or false

Question 3

What are the two categories of meta-ethical theories?

Answer 3

Cognitive and non-cognitive

Question 4

What are the two categories of cognitive theories?

Answer 4

Naturalism and non-naturalism

Question 5

What theory is ethical naturalist?

Answer 5

Utilitarianism

Question 6

Which theories are non-naturalist?

Answer 6

Intuitionism and Divine Command theory

Question 7

Which theories are non-cognitive?

Answer 7

Emotivism and prescriptivism

Question 8

Who were the Vienna Circle?

Answer 8

A group of scholars from the University of Vienna in the 1920s-30s who discussed language from a scientific perspective

Question 9

What is the verification principle?

Answer 9

The idea that a statement is meaningful only if it is either empirically verifiable or a truth of logic

Question 10

Who are the key scholars of Divine Command Theory?

Answer 10

John Calvin and Karl Barth

Question 11

What does DCT argue about the meaning of ‘good’ and ‘bad’?

Answer 11

That whatever God commands is good and whatever God forbids is bad

Question 12

What is an example of God’s commands?

Answer 12

God detailing some of the commandments in Exodus 20

Question 13

What is the name of the dilemma that contradicts DCT

Answer 13

The Euthyphron Dilemma - “Is what is good, good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is good?”

Question 14

Who is the key scholar of utilitarianism?

Answer 14

Jeremy Bentham

Question 15

What is Naturalism?

Answer 15

The belief that moral truths are facts and can be demonstrated using the methods of natural science. (All ethical statements can be translated into non-ethical ones)

Question 16

What is non-naturalism

Answer 16

The belief that morality is cognitive/factual but cannot be defined

Question 17

What does utilitarianism argue about the meanings of ‘good’ and ‘bad’

Answer 17

It argues that ‘pleasure = good’ and ‘pain = bad’

Question 18

What issue occurs in act utilitarianism?

Answer 18

The naturalistic fallacy - if ‘pleasure = good’ then hurting someone could be ‘good’

Question 19

What issue occurs in rule utilitarianism?

Answer 19

Higher and Lower pleasures are subjective, returns to intuitionism

Question 20

What quote best summaries the utilitarianist view of ethical language?

Answer 20

“It is for them alone [pain and pleasure] to point out what we ought to do as well as determine what we shall do. On the one hand, the statement of right and wrong, on the other, the chain of cause and effect, are fastened to their throne”

Question 21

Who are the key scholars of intuitionism?

Answer 21

G.E.Moore and Ross

Question 22

What is the name of G.E.Moore’s text?

Answer 22

Principia Ethica (1903)

Question 23

What did G.E.Moore famously argue about the meaning of ‘good’?

Answer 23

That ‘good’ can be defined no more successfully than ‘yellow’

Question 24

What did Ross introduce to Moore’s thesis?

Answer 24

Prima facie duties