Meta-Ethics

Question 1

What is Meta Ethics?

Answer 1

Whether right and wrong are real or just a matter of opinion/feeling, attempting to answer the question of what goodness actually is, including whether it even exists.

Question 2

What do normative ethical theories do?

Answer 2

Normative ethical theories attempt to devise a system for determining which actions are good and which are bad

Question 3

What do normative ethical theories require?

Answer 3

Normative theories typically require that goodness at least exists, though they argue over what it actually is.

Question 4

What do anti-realist theories suggest?

Answer 4

Claim that goodness does not actually exist.

Question 5

What is the metaphysical aspect of ‘what goodness is’?

Answer 5

Moral realism and moral anti realism.

Question 6

What is moral realism?

Answer 6

The view that moral properties (like goodness/badness) exist in reality.

Question 7

What is anti moral realism?

Answer 7

The view that moral properties (like goodness/badness) do not exist in reality.

Question 8

What is the linguistic aspect of ‘what goodness is’?

Answer 8

Cognitivism and non cognitivism.

Question 9

What is cognitivism?

Answer 9

Ethical language expresses beliefs about reality which can therefore be true or false.

Question 10

What is non cognitivism?

Answer 10

Ethical language expresses some non-cognition like an emotion, does not attempt to describe reality and therefore cannot be true or false.

Question 11

What is ethical naturalism?

Answer 11

Ethical naturalism is the view that goodness is something real in the natural world – typically a natural property. A natural property is a trait or feature of natural things.

Question 12

What is Aristotelian ethical naturalism?

Answer 12

Aristotle claims that goodness = eudaimonia (flourishing). Flourishing is a factual feature of natural organisms.

Question 13

How is Phillipa Foot an ethical naturalist?

Answer 13

Philippa Foot defends this view, pointing to the example of plants. There is a factual, natural difference between a plant that is flourishing and a plant that is not. The same is true for humans.

Question 14

What is utilitarian naturalism?

Answer 14

Bentham claims that goodness = pleasure. Pleasure is a natural property of natural creatures.

Question 15

What is a linguistic claim to ethical naturalism?

Answer 15

Naturalism is cognitive. It claims moral properties like goodness are natural properties.

Question 16

What does Hume’s in-ought gap criticise?

Answer 16

Hume’s is-ought gap (also called Hume’s law) criticises naturalism and cognitivism. Hume said philosophers talk about the way things are and then jump with no apparent justification to a claim about the way things ought to be. Put another way, you cannot deduce a value from a fact.

Question 17

Why does Hume criticise Utilitarianism?

Answer 17

The fact that it is human nature to find pleasure good, only means that it is human nature to find pleasure good. It doesn’t mean that pleasure is good and that we ought to maximise pleasure.

Question 18

How is pleasure dismissed through evolution?

Answer 18

Finding pleasure good is the result of evolution, in order to guide animals to evolutionary goals. So, we are not justified in regarding our nature finding pleasure good as evidence for pleasure actually being good since we have stronger evidence for it being the result of something else.

Question 19

What is Moore’s analogy of the colour yellow?

Answer 19

Goodness is like the color yellow. You can’t describe or define yellow, you just know it intuitively when you apprehend it. Similarly, we just know whether an action is good or bad through intuition.

Question 20

What is Moore’s intuitionism?

Answer 20

Intuitionism is the theory that we know what is good/bad right/wrong through intuition, without any process of reasoning.

Question 21

What is a strength to intuitionism?

Answer 21

Moore argues that when we observe or reflect on a moral action and its consequences, we intuitively know whether it was right or wrong.

Question 22

What is a strength to moore’s intuitionism through cross cultural moral agreement?

Answer 22

There are a set of core moral principles similar in all societies, such as prohibitions on stealing and murder. This shows there is some absolutist moral truth that all humans are somehow apprehending.

Question 23

What is Moore’s excuse for moral disagreement?

Answer 23

Moore argues this is due to people not articulating their moral views clearly.

Question 24

What did Pritchard add to Moore’s excuse to moral disagreement?

Answer 24

Disagreement is caused by people having different levels of practical knowledge about the world and levels of personal moral development.

Question 25

How does Mackie attack intuitionism from relativity?

Answer 25

He notes that there is cross-cultural moral disagreement. This does not prove that there are no objective moral properties.
Mackie argues the reason for moral disagreement is best explained by adherence to different forms of life.

Question 26

How can moral agreement be explained?

Answer 26

We could explain the moral agreement through evolution and the universal practical requirements for a society to exist. So, a core set of cross-cultural moral views exist because of practical necessity, not because of absolutist objective moral truths.

Question 27

What is Hume’s theory of motivation?

Answer 27

Moral judgements are joined with emotional approval or disapproval. We have positive or negative emotion towards an action and then judge it good or bad.
We have particular emotional associations and feelings due to our socially conditioned preferences and biases. Reason then provides rationalisations for our prejudices.

Question 28

Through Hume’s theory of motivation, what is the motivator of moral judgements?

Answer 28

Desire is the foundational motivator of moral judgements, not reason. Ethical language thus expresses non-cognitive desires.

Question 29

How does the divine command theory assert the naturalistic fallacy?

Answer 29

Claims that goodness = being commanded by God. But if God commands something, that only means that God commands something. It doesn’t mean that it is Good. What makes God’s commands good?

Question 30

What is Mackie’s explanation for intuitionism?

Answer 30

Better explained by social conditioning than intuition of non-natural properties.

Question 31

What is emotivism?

Answer 31

The origin of our moral judgements is our feelings. When we call something good or bad, we are expressing how we personally feel about it. We express non-cognitions, like emotional approval or disapproval.

Question 32

Why did Mackie believe the linguistic approach to meta-ethics was flawed?

Answer 32

Ayer’s verification principle and also Moore’s open question argument & naturalistic fallacy were overly focused on linguistic analysis of moral concepts. They thought linguistic analysis entitled them to draw metaphysical conclusions.

Question 33

What is Mackie’s ‘metaphysical queerness’?

Answer 33

There is a connection between moral judgments and motivation. If moral realism were true and moral judgements were somehow reflective of reality, there would have to be objective moral properties which motivate us.

Question 34

What is Mackie’s ‘epistemological queerness’?

Answer 34

Even if there were objective moral properties, how could we know them? Moore’s answer that we just have a mysterious faculty of intuition is arguably not an answer because it doesn’t explain how that faculty works.

Question 35

What do virtue ethicists claim about social conditioning?

Answer 35

Humans cultivate virtues and rational autonomy to indirectly control their emotional reactions. So, we are not solely led by social conditioning or adherence to a form of life. Our moral views can sometimes result from rationally cultivated virtuous habits.

Question 36

What is moral nihilism?

Answer 36

View that because there is no right or wrong, morality is pointless. Anti-realists like Ayer and Hare claim that there are no objective moral values. Many object that this view leads to the moral nihilist conclusion.

Question 37

What is an issue with anti realism?

Answer 37

Moral progress appears to occur. The concept of ‘progress’ relies on an objective standard towards which increasing gains can be made. If moral progress exists, then objective moral values exist. It seems it exists, so it seems objective values exist.

Question 38

How does anti realism suggest moral progress has not occured?

Answer 38

Anti-realists would deny that there is an objective moral standard and so they would deny that progress has occurred. Certainly moral change has occurred, but to call it progress begs the question regarding the truth of moral realism.