Meta Ethics - Intuitionism Flashcards
What did Moore say about Ethical Naturalism?
Naturalistic Fallacy. He claimed that the Naturalists were wrong to assume that we can take terms like “good” and “evil” and try to define them in a non-moral way. Moore claimed that you cannot prove these terms in this way.
What type of thinker was Moore?
An Ethical non naturalists
What did Moore say about “goodness”?
It is a simple term and beyond any further analysis. It is different to the term horse which can be defined. You can’t define goodness.
What did Moore liken “goodness” to?
Likened it to yellow. Yellow is also a simple term and beyond further analysis. It exists as an absolute truth but it is indefinable.
How does Moore say we know what Good is?
We know what it is intuitively but we cannot define it
What example does Clements give to support Moore?
We know intuitively that Mother Theresa is good and yet we could not define Good just as we know that a ball is yellow but we cannot define yellow.
What type of statement is “goodness”?
It is not an analytic statement and does not contain the definition within itself. Instead you can keep asking - “Is stealing good?” This is because you can’t define Good. It is an open term
How do we know if actions are good or bad according to Moore?
If they aim towards these ends:
The enjoyment of beautiful objects
The pleasures of human intercourse
Moore was a teleologist
In what way was Moore an intuitionist?
The moral judgements were incapable of being proved - he did not mean that the origin of moral judgements lay in human intuitions.
What was Moore’s stance on intuitionism and what problems did this raise?
He explicitly rejected the idea that moral intuitions were infallible and this raises the problem of how true and false intuitions are to be differentiated which is necessary if moral intuitions are to be more than mere matters of opinions.
What was Prichard’s approach to intuitionism?
Reason collected together the facts concerned and intuition determined which course to follow.
Apply Prichard’s approach to abortion.
We use our reason to collect all the data on the nature of abortion - the people concerned and the various possible outcomes - and then intuition determines what we should do - weigh up the obligation to the unborn human with that owed to the mother.
What is Ross’ theory on intuition?
Our intuition identifies our prima facie duties, although our actual action isn’t self-evident. Our choice of action is down to judgement, which is improved through our experience of knowledge of making moral decisions.
What are prima facie duties?
A moral obligation that binds us to follow it unless there’s an overriding obligation.
How is Ross Neo-Kantian?
His higher order of duties are similar to Kant’s - the highest duty is the preservation of life.
