Meta-ethics Flashcards
Define moral realism
morality exists in relaity seperate from human opinion
Define anti-realism
morality does not exist in reality
Define cognitivist
Ethical statements express beliefs which can be deemed as true or false
Define non-cognitivist
Ethical statements express emotions which do not explain reality and therefore cannot be true or false
Define naturalism
moral properties like goodness are natural properties that exist in the world
Define intuitionism
moral truths are self-evident and found within ourselves
Define emotivism
morality is just an expression of emotions
Define prescriptivism
moral statements describe how people ought to act they are not just observations
Naturalism
Aristotle
Goodness comes from eudeimonia
factural natural property in organisms
Naturalism
Phillipa foot
Backs up aristotelian meta-ethics by saying how a plant needs water to flourish humans need goodness
Naturalism
Bentham and Mill
Goodness comes from maximising pleasure or happiness
morality is based on real-world events such as the amount of pleasure it brings
Naturalism
F.H Bradley
morality comes from fulfilling roles within society
ethical statements are factual claims about what it is like to live a good life
Naturalism
Aquinas
Something is morally right if it alligns with our god-given telos
whether something is good or bad is a fact of whether it alligns with natural law
Is-Ought to gap
Hume’s criticism of Naturalism
just because it is human nature to find pleasure good does not mean that pleasure is good and that we should maximise it
Intuitionism
G.E. Moore
morality comes from our intuition
our moral duties are self-evident
how do we know something is yellow? we just do
same as if something is good or bad
Intuitionism
H.A. Prichard
we dont need to prove something is wrong or right through moral reasoning we just know that it is
Intuitionism
W.D. Ross
prima facie duties such as honesty and justice can conflict with one another so we must use intuition to do the right thing
Emotivism
A.J Ayer
morality is just an expression of emotion it is not factual
verifacation principle - empirically or analytically verifiable
Emotivism
C.L Stevenson
moral statements express emotion whilsts also pursuading others to share the same moral stance
Prescriptivism
R.M Hare
Moral statements are also commands
‘murder is wrong’ expresses moral stance but also intructs the other person to not commit murder
