Meta Ethics Flashcards
Ethical naturalism: utilitarianism
Bentham:
Human lives revolve around maximising pleasure and minimising pain
“Man kind is placed under 2 sovereign masters: pleasure and pain”
Sole intrinsic good= happiness
General benevolence principle:
“Always act in a way that maximises pleasure and minimises pain for the greatest number”
Hedonic calculus:
Pain can be measured according to Bentham:
Eg:
Intensity and duration
All pleasure is the same: quantitive
And the pleasure of each individual should count equally
“Individual rights are nonsense on stilts”
John Stuart Mill:
Not all pleasure and pain are equal and therefore cannot be measured
Higher pleasures: intellectuals and aesthetic (eg art and music)
Lower pleasures: physical
“Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a satisfied swine”
Rule utilitarian
Harm principle:
“The state has no right to intervene with individuals unless it is to prevent direct harm to others”
Eg do not murder etc
Non naturalism
Cognitive:either objectively true or false
Moral values based on facts and so are open to objective assessment of their truth or falsehood
G.E. Moore intuitionism:
‘Good’ is an irreducible term
Therefore cannot be broken down or analysed but can be recognised and understood
Eg colour yellow
Cannot break down to explain further but once yellow objects are pointed out we understand what it is and recognise it
Human knowledge of right and wrong does not comes through logical deductions of the world or human experience but through moral intuition
Moral sense tells us what is right or wrong
W.D. Ross prima facie duties
Moore’s theory: people disagree about what is right or wrong
Intuitions point in different directions
Ross: In some situations there are conflicting duties and that it isn’t always obvious which should take precedence:
6 prima facie duties: Keeping promises Paying back harm done to others Not injuring others Not harming innocent people Look after parents Returning favours
Intuitionism is how they choose between conflicting duties
If no conflict in 6 duties practice them all= absolute
If conflict intuition will tell what takes priority
Naturalistic fallacy: GE Moore
Accused naturalistic theories of committing “naturalistic fallacy”
Fallacy to argue from facts to moral claims. ‘Ought’ cannot be derived from ‘is’
Divine Command Theory:
Cognitive theory
Objective right and wrong that can be shown as true or false
Commands come from god, religious ethics so non naturalist
The fall meant humans are totally reliant upon gods grace to have any understanding of what is right and wrong
Come in 2 ways:
> special revelation: through scripture which is infallible word of god
conscience: voice of god speaking directly to humans in prayer and enabling them to interpret scripture
Bible= absolute authority
What is right is what god says is right
Eg do not murder exodus 20
Calvin: flowing naturally from belief in absolute sovereignty of god
Barth: humanity’s obedience to god was the answer to all ethical questions
Plato: Euthyphro’s Dilemma
Is something right because says it’s right? God could command something immoral and it would have to be right
God command something because it is right? Morality therefore is independent of God so no longer omnipotent
