Meta Ethics

Question 1

What is Meta-Ethics?

Answer 1

Meta-ethics is the field of philosophy that seeks to answer the question of what goodness is.

Question 2

How does Meta-Ethics differ from Normative Ethics?

Answer 2

Normative ethics establishes what goodness is and guides action, while meta-ethics focuses exclusively on the nature and meaning of goodness.

Question 3

What is the central question of Moral Realism vs. Anti-Realism?

Answer 3

Whether goodness exists in reality. Realism claims goodness is real, while anti-realism denies its existence in reality.

Question 4

Define Cognitivism in Meta-Ethics.

Answer 4

Cognitivism is the view that ethical language expresses beliefs that can be true or false.

Question 5

Define Non-Cognitivism in Meta-Ethics.

Answer 5

Non-cognitivism argues that ethical language expresses non-beliefs, like emotions, which cannot be true or false.

Question 6

What is Naturalism in Meta-Ethics?

Answer 6

Naturalism is the view that goodness is a natural property, such as pleasure, which is a feature of the physical world (realist & cognitivist).

Question 7

What is Aristotelian Naturalism in Meta-Ethics?

Answer 7

Aristotelian naturalism claims that goodness equals eudaimonia (flourishing), which is a factual feature of natural organisms, including humans.

Question 8

How does Philippa Foot defend Aristotelian Naturalism?

Answer 8

Foot uses the example of plants to show that there is a factual difference between a flourishing and a non-flourishing organism, and the same is true for humans.

Question 9

What is Utilitarian Naturalism according to Bentham?

Answer 9

Bentham claims that goodness equals pleasure, which is a natural property of natural creatures. Since pleasure is real, it follows that goodness is real

Question 10

What does the Linguistic Claim of Naturalism assert?

Answer 10

Naturalism is cognitive, meaning it claims that moral properties like goodness are natural properties, and ethical language expresses beliefs that can be true or false.

Question 11

How did Aristotle argue for Naturalism?

Answer 11

Aristotle argued that eudaimonia (flourishing) is the telos (purpose) of human life, as all human actions aim at achieving a good life.

Question 12

How do Bentham and Mill adapt Aristotle’s argument for Naturalism?

Answer 12

They replaced eudaimonia with pleasure (Bentham) or happiness (Mill), claiming that human nature seeks to maximize pleasure and avoid pain, which determines morality.

Question 13

What is the core idea of Bentham’s Utilitarianism?

Answer 13

Bentham argues that pain and pleasure are the “sovereign masters” that determine what humans ought to do, so morality is based on maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain.

Question 14

What is Hume’s Is-Ought Gap?

Answer 14

Hume argues that you cannot deduce a value (ought-statement) from a fact (is-statement). Moral judgments, like “we ought to maximize pleasure,” cannot be inferred from factual statements.

Question 15

How does Hume’s Is-Ought Gap critique Bentham’s Naturalism?

Answer 15

Hume criticizes Bentham’s argument by saying that just because humans naturally find pleasure good (a fact), it doesn’t mean that pleasure is good or that we ought to maximize it (a value).

Question 16

How does Patricia Churchland defend Naturalism against Hume’s critique?

Answer 16

Churchland argues that Hume’s Is-Ought Gap only applies to deductive reasoning, while Bentham and Mill’s arguments for naturalism are inductive and based on evidence that pleasure is good.

Question 17

What is Moore’s Open Question Argument?

Answer 17

Moore argues that naturalism is false because if goodness equals any natural property (like pleasure), it would be a tautology. However, asking “Is goodness pleasure?” is an open and meaningful question, proving they are not the same.

Question 18

What is Moore’s Naturalistic Fallacy?

Answer 18

Moore’s Naturalistic Fallacy is the error of assuming that something being natural (like pleasure) automatically means it is good. Naturalists make this assumption without justification.

Question 19

How does Moore apply the Naturalistic Fallacy to non-natural theories like Divine Command Theory?

Answer 19

Moore extends the Naturalistic Fallacy to theories like Divine Command Theory, arguing that just because God commands something doesn’t mean it is good; it only means God commands it.

Question 20

What is Moore’s conclusion about the nature of goodness?

Answer 20

Moore concludes that goodness is sui generis (unique) and cannot be defined in terms of anything else. Like the color yellow, we recognize goodness intuitively, without needing to define it.

Question 21

How does Moore’s view differ from Hume’s non-cognitivism?

Answer 21

Unlike Hume, who believes moral judgments come from feelings, Moore argues that goodness is real but non-natural, and we know it through intuition.

Question 22

What is G.E. Moore’s view of goodness in relation to natural properties?

Answer 22

Moore argues that goodness is a real, objective property, but it is non-natural and cannot be reduced to natural facts like pleasure or happiness.

Question 23

What is Moore’s Open Question Argument?

Answer 23

Moore’s Open Question Argument claims that if goodness = any natural property (e.g., pleasure), it would be a tautology. However, since we can meaningfully ask “Is pleasure good?”, this shows goodness is not reducible to natural properties.

Question 24

What is Moore’s Intuitionism?

Answer 24

Intuitionism is the view that we can intuitively know what is good or bad, right or wrong, without needing to engage in reasoning or deduction.

Question 25

What is Mackie’s Argument from Relativity?

Answer 25

Mackie argues that moral disagreement across cultures is best explained by social conditioning rather than by the existence of objective moral truths.

Question 26

What is Hume’s Non-Cognitivism?

Answer 26

Hume’s Non-Cognitivism states that moral judgments are based on emotions and desires, not reason. Moral statements express feelings rather than objective facts.

Question 27

What is Ayer’s Boo/Hurrah Theory in Emotivism?

Answer 27

Ayer’s Emotivism argues that moral statements like “X is good” or “X is wrong” are expressions of emotion rather than factual claims—saying “X is wrong” is like saying “Boo to X!” and “X is good” is like saying “Hurrah to X!”

Question 28

What is Hume’s Theory of Motivation?

Answer 28

Hume claims that reason cannot motivate actions; only desires and emotions can. Moral judgments, therefore, are motivated by feelings, not rational deliberation.

Question 29

What is Haidt’s metaphor about reason and emotion?

Answer 29

Haidt compares reason to a rider and emotion to an elephant. The rider can guide the elephant over time, but emotion (the elephant) usually has more immediate control over our actions.

Question 30

What are the two types of judgments of reason according to Hume’s Fork?

Answer 30

A: 1. Analytic judgments (true by definition, known a priori), and 2. Synthetic judgments (known through experience, a posteriori).

Question 31

According to Hume’s Fork, why can’t moral judgments be judgments of reason?

Answer 31

Moral judgments are neither analytic (they can be denied without contradiction) nor synthetic (moral properties like “goodness” or “badness” aren’t empirically observable).

Question 32

What is Ayer’s Verification Principle?

Answer 32

A statement is only meaningful if it is either analytic (true by definition) or empirically verifiable (can be tested by experience). Moral statements fail this test and are therefore meaningless as cognitive claims.

Question 33

How does Ayer’s Emotivism describe moral statements?

Answer 33

Moral statements are expressions of emotion (e.g., “stealing is wrong” expresses disapproval of stealing, like saying “Boo to stealing!”) and are not factual or truth-apt.

Question 34

What is the main counter-argument against Ayer’s verification principle and Hume’s Fork?

Answer 34

Both the verification principle and Hume’s Fork fail their own test for meaningfulness because they are neither analytic nor empirically verifiable.

Question 35

How do virtue ethicists respond to Hume’s and Mackie’s critiques of moral realism?

Answer 35

Virtue ethicists argue that morality is about flourishing and is grounded in human nature and reasoning about ends, which are inherent in social practices. Asking why flourishing is good misunderstands the nature of human life.

Question 36

How does Philippa Foot argue that an “ought” can be derived from an “is”?

Answer 36

Foot argues that “ought” can be understood in terms of needs. For example, because it is a fact that children need help from adults to flourish, we can derive the claim that adults “ought” to help children.

Question 37

What is the difference between cognitive and non-cognitive views of ethical language?

Answer 37

Cognitivists believe that ethical statements express beliefs about objective facts, while non-cognitivists (like Ayer) believe that ethical statements express non-cognitive states like emotions or prescriptions, not truth-apt beliefs.

Question 38

What is moral nihilism?

Answer 38

Moral nihilism is the view that because there is no right or wrong, morality is pointless.

Question 39

What is the main concern regarding moral nihilism and society?

Answer 39

The concern is that if people stop believing in objective morality, they might not act morally, potentially leading to social disorder.

Question 40

How does Philippa Foot critique anti-realism?

Answer 40

Foot argues that anti-realism’s separation of facts from values is a foundational mistake, and witnessing the Holocaust illustrates the failure of emotivism and anti-realism to account for moral wrongness.

Question 41

What does Ayer’s emotivism claim about moral judgments?

Answer 41

Ayer’s emotivism claims that moral judgments are expressions of emotions, not factual statements, and cannot be true or false.

Question 42

What is Aquinas’ theological naturalism?

Answer 42

Aquinas, a theological naturalist and cognitivist, believes that moral goodness is linked to the fulfillment of purpose (telos) based on a God-given natural order. Right and wrong are determined by whether actions help humans achieve their telos.

Question 43

How does Aquinas view reproduction and abortion in his natural law theory?

Answer 43

Reproduction is good because it fulfills the primary precept of reproducing life, while abortion is bad as it violates the precept of protecting innocent life and reproduction.

Question 44

What is Moore’s Open Question Argument?

Answer 44

Moore’s Open Question Argument states that even if something has a natural quality (e.g., pleasure), we can still ask whether it is good. This shows that goodness cannot be reduced to any natural property.

Question 45

How does Moore define “good” in Principia Ethica?

Answer 45

In Principia Ethica, Moore states that “good is good” and cannot be defined by any other natural properties. Goodness is known through moral intuition.

Question 46

What is the main difference between ethical naturalism and ethical intuitionism?

Answer 46

Ethical naturalism claims that moral values can be discovered through natural properties (like purpose or pleasure), while ethical intuitionism, like Moore’s theory, claims that moral truths are self-evident and known through intuition, not reducible to natural properties.