Metaethics Flashcards
cognitivism
Moral judgments are beliefs or are True/false
descriptivism
Moral statements describe or represent something, or are t/f
Subjectivism/relativism
depend on mind or culture
Reductionism:
Moral facts/properties reduce to or analyzable in terms of non-moral facts or natural facts/properties
Naturalist:
Moral facts/properties are natural facts/properties, empirically verifiable or posited to explain something verifiable
Motivationg/explanatory reasons
The factors that motivate or explain a person’s actions
will be a normative one when the factor that explains the agent’ action also justifies it
Normative/justifying reasons
the factors that justify, or count in favor of, a person’s actions
will be a motiviationg reason when the factor that justifies her action also motivates it
typically, an agent’s motivating reasons will be reasons that appear normative to her from her perspective
What are the four types of metaethical questions?
Metaphysical Questions:
rationality and motivation:
Epistemological Questions:
Semantic Questions
Metaphysical Questions
What is rightness? How do we know?
Epistemological Questions
Questions about knowledge of moral truths.
Semantic Questions
Questions about meaning in moral language.
What are the four central puzzles of metaethics?
- the motivaiton puzzle
- the relativist’s puzzle
- the epistemological puzzle
- the semantic puzzle
Motivation Puzzle
Moral judgments can’t be beliefs if they motivate.
Relativist’s Puzzle
Disagreement about morality suggests relative truths.
Epistemological Puzzle
If everything is relative, can we know anything?
Semantic Puzzle
How can we discuss morality without experience?
Be able to state each metaethical theory’s metaphysical theory, semantic theory, and theory of mind.
metaphysical theory = theory of realtiy
semantic theory = theory about language
theory of mind = theory of mental states
