Meta-Ethics

Question 1

Moral Realism

Answer 1

Points to the fact that most people hold that it is morally compelling to.
- Ethical principles have an objective foundation
- Should help those less fortunate than themselves, keep promises and act responsibly

‘Murder is wrong’ is just a fact much like how it’s a fact that ‘2 + 2 = 4’

Question 2

Critically Evaluating Moral Realism

Answer 2

If a fact has no room for disagreement or opinions then moral realism possibly can’t be the way to seek moral truths since there are different disagreements and opinions.

The is-ought problem ‘ought/should’ compares to ‘fact’
Facts are objective, but moral truths are values and therefore aren’t known to be true or false.

Question 3

Emotivism

Answer 3

Boo / Hooray Theory
- Moral judgements have no literal meaning and are only expressions of emotions
- Influenced by our emotions
- Our emotions are like intuition, great for advertisement as it appeals to our emotions and can easily change our mind on something.

Question 4

Critically Evaluating Emotivism

Answer 4

Doesn’t consider how the role of reason plays in our moral judgements, might be against violence but support your nation going to war.
- Many of our moral positions are conducted through the use of reasoned arguments and many contradicting to a persons emotional reactions.

Question 5

Classic Utilitarianism

Answer 5

“Something is right or wrong depending on whether it produces tangible (something you can measure) good or harm for the people involved”
- Ethics depends totally on the real-life consequences of actions —> pleasure goal of life depends on consequence of action

Question 6

Jeremy Bentham (Utilitarianism)

Answer 6

Greater happiness for the person or the group
Pleasure or pain, pleasure = happiness, pain = sadness, therefore an action should induce pleasure

Question 7

John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism)

Answer 7

Quality / Quantity
–> Learn from experiences
“If you want to learn about greed, lust, selfishness, you don’t ask someone who has lived so virtuously as to never have experienced these things”

Question 8

Problems with Utilitarianism

Answer 8

Utilitarianism can justify virtually anything providing it produces enough high-quality good
- An action deemed immoral today might be acceptable tomorrow, intentions changing
An ethical philosophy where one’s lack of complete knowledge makes it impossible to ever know if ones actions are moral

Question 9

Moral Relativism

Answer 9

Theories of cultural value
- View that moral statements are expressions of a particular cultures moral code
- All subjective since different cultures have different views, like one culture might consider eating bugs as right but other might consider it as wrong

Question 10

Problems with Moral Relativism

Answer 10

Moral relativism works to justify immoral acts like slavery or genocide simply by blaming it on the cultures values

Question 11

Preference Utilitarianism

Answer 11

Beings that have equal preferences should be treated equally.
For example animals and human beings can feel pain and have an equal preference not to suffer. Therefore our moral concern should include all beings that have an equal preference not to suffer

Suffering being the measure of morality

Question 12

Problems with Preference Utilitarianism

Answer 12

We can’t go around kicking dogs but we can go around stepping on ants. If we want to have equal rights to animals we need to consider all animals not just a select few.
- Plants have interests and they are essential