Metaethical GE Moore

Question 1

Facts

GM (GE MOORE) (ANYMORE IM KILLING MYSELF)

Answer 1

Things that we can prove are true about the world.
E.g: Theres a coffee cup on my table

Question 2

Values

GM

Answer 2

Are our opinions and beliefs about the world
eg; we should all be nice

Question 3

Realism

GM

Answer 3

Is the belief that there are moral facts.

Question 4

Anti-Realism

GM

Answer 4

Is the belief that there are no moral facts.

Question 5

Natrualism

GM

Answer 5

Means that you believe that ethical words (like good) can be explained by using facts which we can check.

P: We can check if people are happy.
C: So happiness is what we call a natural property.

Question 6

Nonnatrualism

GM

Answer 6

Nonnaturalists do not think that you can explain the word good using any other ideas.

Question 7

Cognitivism

GM

Answer 7

Means that you believe moral statements (like lying is wrong) can be true or false.

So we could prove that the statement `lying is wrong‘ is either true or false.

Question 8

Noncognitivism

GM

Answer 8

Moral statements can’t be true or false.

Noncognitivists believe that saying something like don’t lie is only your own opinion about lying, there is nothing true or false about it.

Question 9

Moore’s belief #1

GM

Answer 9

He believes that you cannot get a value from a fact. You can’t say people are starving in Birmingham (fact) so we should feed them (value).

Question 10

Moores belief #2

GM

Answer 10

He is a nonnaturalist. In other words he does not think that good can be defined using other ideas.

Question 11

Moores belief #3

GM

Answer 11

He is a cognitivist. In other words he thinks that moral statements (like don’t lie) can be true for everybody and can be judged right or wrong.

Question 12

Moores belief #4

GM

Answer 12

He believed that we discover moral truths by using our intuition. In others words if we just think enough we can work out moral truths which are true for everyone.

Question 13

Moore’s open question Argument

GM

Answer 13

Let’s say we explain good as meaning happy.

1. JJ is happy. Then we can say:
2. JJ is happy but is he good? This makes sense as a sentence. But if we say:
3. JJ is happy but is he happy? This does not make any sense because happy and happy are the same.

Question 14

Moores OQA explained

GM

Answer 14

Moore says that if good and happy meant exactly the same thing then sentence 2 wouldn’t make sense either. But it does make sense so there’s something wrong with the definition.

You can explain or define good however you like and you will always have this problem.

Question 15

What does the OQA mean

Answer 15

Moore said it showed one of two things, either:
Good doesn’t mean anything at all and all ethics is totally pointless, or: Good is a simple concept which we can’t analyse.

Question 16

So what is good?

Answer 16

The only way that we can find out what good is, is to use our intuition.

Moore did not believe that we use our intuition to work out every rule.

He thought that we should use our intuition to decide the general things that are good for us.

But remember Moore believed that there were moral truths that were true for all of us, meaning that there are moral truths for all of us.

Question 17

What about when people disagree?

Answer 17

Moore said that some people were better than other at working out morality and that they should decide arguments.