Meta-Ethics Flashcards
The three kinds of moral statements (the concerns of meta-ethics)
• what is the meaning of moral terms of judgments:what it means to define something as good, or to say that something is good or that good is something
• what is the nature of moral judgements: what happens when we say something is good. do we mean it is functionally or morally good? are we recommending or commanding an action? are moral judgements objective or subjective? are they relative or absolute?
• how may moral judgements be supported or defended: the grounds on which ethical claims are made - whether they can be supported by factual evidence or whether they are shared by others, either universally or in special circumstances. how can we know whether and when an action is right or wrong
What is meant by good?
• saying ‘i have a good job’ is descriptive because it is factually based
• saying ‘giving to charity is good’ is realist because it can be empirically tested
• saying ‘a good train service’ is functional because it fulfils a purpose
• saying ‘running makes me feel good’ is non-realist because it cannot be empirically verified
• Aristotle identified ‘good’ by claiming that something was good if it fulfilled its telos or purpose
Meta-ethics
from Greek ‘meta’ (meaning beyond) and ‘ethikos’ (meaning character or custom). Meta ethics s the study of underlying ethical ideas or ethical language. Can be contrasted with normative ethics (the attempt to workout which actions are right/wrong) and descriptive ethics (the attempt to compare and describe moral behaviours). In summary, meta-ethics is concerned with the question of what is the meaning of goodness.
Instead of asking, “is stealing wrong?”, the meta-ethical philosopher asks: “what is meant by saying stealing is wrong?”. so a theory of meta ethics is a theory of meaning.
Is morality subjective or objective?
• if a moral opinion is independent of external facts then it is essentially internal, and is to do with how we feel about an ethical issue. It is therefore subjective.
-however, such a view negates ethical debate, since everything becomes a ‘matter of opinion’ in its hard form it denies the validity of ethical arguments and theories.
• an objective fact is related to how things actually are in the real world. This is true irrespective of how I feel about it, or even whether I exist at all, and is true for everyone. If moral values are objective then they are similarly true for everyone.
-however, objective moral judgements are often criticised as being illusory (not real). Empiricists argue hat there is no objective authority- there is nothing that can be tested or experimented on.
Cognitivism
if morality is objective, then it is cognitive or realist and its language deals with making claims about things that can be known and can be held to be true or false.
In other words, it suggests the possible existence of moral knowledge that can be discovered/known. This suggests an ultimate moral truth exists.
Statements of opinion are based on observations or experience
Cognitivist theories include naturalism and intuitionism
Realism/Naturalism (under cognitivism)
sense perceptions and logical faculty are what we use to find moral truths
moral truths are facts deductible from non-moral premises (observation and analysis)
moral facts are never opinions and there is an absolutist moral code which is a fact of the natural world
ethical statements can be verified (for example, ‘murder is wrong’ is verifiable by the fact that someone has died and the negative impacts of their death)
links to natural moral law
Non-cognitivism
if morality is subjective, then it is non-cognitive or anti-realist and deals with matters that cannot be empirically proved to be true or false. This is a non-propositional view, which holds that there are no objective values. This view comes in different forms.
emotivism is a non-cognitivist theory, as it holds that ethical statements express feelings/opinions
Descriptive and Nominative statements
• stealing hurts people
• stealing is wrong
• you ought not to steal
first is a description, we could test whether it’s true or false by asking how it feels to have something stolen. This is a naturalistic statement, as it describes a natural feature of stealing, that it causes pain.
second and third are normative rather than descriptive, as they have a value judgement. the third statement is also a prescriptive statement, prescribing or advising a course of action
the second is just an expression of a strong feeling A.J. Ayer suggests, equivalent to grunting in disproval
Strengths of Cognitivism
• no room for confusion
• humans have a natural instinct for good, corresponding with Christian belief
• Divine command ethics: points to someone (God) who commands what is right
• argues morality to be too important to be a matter of personal opinion
• makes morality objective rather than subjective Morals must be approved by society and people to whom it applies
• asserts that these moral truths can be tested by human reason and logic. Human beings do not simply observe the universe; their minds test their experiences
• Non-cognitivists state their own theory is flexible but cognitivist would argue that this flexibility could be chaotic in reality in which truths do not exist and moral absolute change from day to day
Strengths of Non-cognitivism
• is difficult to object to
• has no burden of proof
• these subjective opinions are still valuable
• cognitivist strengths are a misunderstanding of ethics, to deny the difference between facts and opinions is a fundamental flaw
• Non-cognitivist go on to argue that this flaw undermines the other supposed strengths of cognitivism, opinions can not be tested or subject to empirical research they are simply matters of personal choice, the non-cognitivists argue that this down not devalue moral statements but recognises that they are valuable opinions
• non-cognitivists argue that their primary strength is that it accepts the world as it is, morality is a matter f personal choice which society then formulates into laws for the advancement of the majority’s personal references
• it is not a rigid code but allows for moral flexibility as opinions develop and change
Naturalism
the view that morals can be defined or explained in natural terns, or supported through the observation of the world in science. Naturalists develop their ideas with non-moral evidence. If we define goodness as pleasure, we may look at evidence of pleasure and pain in actions. If we say that goodness is whatever God desires, we will look for evidence of God’s purpose in the natural world.
• good is something that can defined and has al existence
• good is something that is provable, using empirical evidence
• e.g. this pen is good because it fulfils its purpose by writing properly
• we can use ethical statements and say that they are accurate using empirical evidence
“Tony Blair as once the Prime Minister of the UK” —> This can be proved using empirical data
“Genetic research is right” —> This statement is just as valid because you can use evidence to support or criticise it. Genetic research saves lives by curing disease, therefore it is right.
Ethical naturalism (under cognitivism)
good is a natural property in the world that can be discovered empirically. Concerned with the value of facts rather than the evaluation, their significance rather than imposing opinions on facts. A cognitive and realist argument, is empiricist in nature
• Good is a natural property of the world. A natural property can be physical or psychological. We can infer from those properties what the good is
• Our moral judgements derived from or experience of the world; a moral term, such as ‘good’ can be understood in natural terms, which means we can explain what the term ‘good means with reference to things that are not moral
Empiricism
the theory that all knowledge is based on sense-experience
Theological Naturalism
our sense of morality comes from God, influenced by biblical teaching
Strengths of Ethical Naturalism
•Scientific approach
-favours scientific investigation of moral questions
-people use observations and science to depict and establish whether something is good or bad
-an example might be coming to a judgement based on the effects an action had on someone’s emotions
• support of philosophers
-Aristotle, Bentham and Mill provided arguments grounding goodness in natural ends like eudaimonia or pleasure/happiness toward which human nature aims
-it avoids the is-ought gap by grounding moral conclusions in empirical premises of human nature and what we observe people aiming toward (pleasure, flourishing etc)
• accounts for our moral feelings
• accounts for disagreements
• acceptable to most people
Weaknesses of Ethical Naturalism 1
• Moore’s naturalistic fallacy: you cannot jump from a natural property to them deeming that you should do it. E.g. charity is good because it helps other people then we ought to do charitable works.
-we can’t impose moral obligation to partake in charitable works
-implications which may not seem prevalent, e.g. is everyone deserving of charitable works/ if someone does a charitable work once do they have to again
• reductionism: reduces good to a natural property
• The is-ought problem- David Hume
-hard to move from facts to ethical statements because you cannot compare something that ‘is’ to something that you ‘ought’ to do. you cannot move from a factual statement like ‘he stole’ to ‘you ought not to steal’
-Hume proposed two types of factual statements: synthetic (factual experience), analytical (self evident from the definition)
Weaknesses of Ethical Naturalism 2
• X is good- R.B Perry
-suggests that “good” means “being an object of favourable interest” and “right” means “being conducive to harmonious happiness”
-x being good means that is the object of desire while y being right means it is conducive to harmonious happiness
-it is all from a human perspective
• Moral Disagreement
-Ethical naturalism does not allow for moral dispute
-if ‘mother Teresa was good’ simply refers to how the majority feels, then the judgement cannot be wrong or disputed by another person
-we might change our opinion
-but it is still correct as the statement is an expression of differing attitudes at a particular time
• Not significant outside religion
-Bradley’s suggestion that morals were a feature of the concrete universe no longer carries much weight outside of religious groups
-doesn’t stand in light of scientific development
-quantum physics challenges traditional mechanistic approaches to the universe, for example, by chaos theory
