MetaEthics 2 Flashcards
Mind independent?
Y: anti-realist
N: realist
Map of meta ethics
Is the status of moral claims dependent on our beliefs about them
Anti-realist
Rejection of idea things=intrinsic value indep of human mind
Realist
Ethical concepts = value in themselves
Ethical facts exist = indep of human mind
Anti-realist:
Beliefs expressed true sometimes?
Y: beliefs made true by natural properties?
Y: moral naturalism (reductive/ non reductive)
N: moral non-naturalism–> intuitionism (Moore) or divine command theory
N: error theory
Realist: expresses beliefs?
Y: constructivism
N: non cognitivism (emotivism or prescriptivism)
Moral naturalism
Look at basis found in nature
Experiences/feelings
Derives ethics from sensory experiences (natural law)
Moral non naturalism
Moral statements not reducible to any set of non moral features
Constructivism
Moral truths exist and ethical statements can be verifies empirically =objective
Non-cognitivism
M truths matters of personal choice and don’t exist outside human experiences
Subjective
Emotivism def
Statements express emotions
Ayer
Prescriptivism def
M statements order all to act upon it
Imperatives
Hate
Emotivism
Ayer:
meaning of prop is its means of verification
True statement= verifiable (by experience/trivially true)
Moral statements only express speakers feelings
Ethical talk not trivially true
Boo-hooray theory
Prescriptivism: does our moral talk just refer to ourselves?
Hare: universal prescriptivism
- moral statements order everyone to follow (Don’t kill)
Prescriptivism and Kant
Kants categorical imperative bind all rational beings
Prescriptivism and consquentialism
Pettit concerned w universal prescription
= same if consq think max pleasure commands everything
Frege-Geach problem
By subscribing to expressivism, one must accept meaning of ‘it is wrong to tell lies’ is diff from that part in conditional “if it is wrong to tell lies, them it is wrong to get your little brother to lie”
Expressivism= inadequate explanation for moral language
Quasi-realism –> Simon Blackburn
Non cognitivists must either abandon basic reasoning about morality or find a way to use non cognitive moral vocab as if it was truth-functional
Human projectionism: hare: we project our attitudes about world onto our experience of it
- we see world as if it’s morally charged (drowning child=-ve emotions)
Why be a realist
Moral claims mean exactly what they seem to mean
Accounts for degree of agreement and convergence in moral attitudes
Inference to best explanation
-most plausible reason for success of our theories predictions
What kind of things are the objective moral values?
Natural objects and properties
-railton’s reductive naturalism
x is good for me if an ideally rational and fully informed version of me would want me to have it
We evolve towards favouring the objective good
Moral good is not from individual but social view
Problems with railton’s reductive naturalism
1) my ideal self is not myself-motivating?
2) free-riding- pursuit of individual good may encourage individuals to evolve away from social/moral goodness
-R’s solution: theory is about what is good not moral conduct
Divine command theories
An actions status is morally good is equivalent to whether it is commanded by God
-but DCT theories do t imply atheists can’t talk/believe in right/wrong
