Moral anti-realism

Question 1

what are the 3 anti-realist metaethical theories

Answer 1

1. error theory
2. emotivism
3. prescriptism

Question 2

what is error theory

Answer 2

says that moral judgements are beliefs that are intended to be true or false (cognitivism). However, error theory also says that moral properties don’t exist (anti-realism) and so these moral judgements are all false.
Since moral properties don’t exist according to error theory, it claims that **all moral propositions – e.g. “murder is wrong” – are false. So, not only is “murder is wrong” false but “murder is good” is also false **because ‘goodness’ doesn’t exist either.

Question 3

mackie’s args for cognitivism

Answer 3

Moral philosophy, he argues, has tended to assume objective moral values (e.g. Plato and Kant) – i.e. that moral judgements are objectively true or false.

Not only that, ordinary language assumes cognitivism as well. To illustrate this, Mackie uses the example of someone facing the moral dilemma of whether to engage in research related to bacteriological warfare. In trying to resolve this dilemma,** you don’t ask how you feel about it – you ask whether such action is wrong in itself.**

Having established that moral judgements are cognitive and thus aim to be true or false, Mackie next turns his attention to the nature of moral properties. Mackie argues that such moral properties do not exist (i.e. he argues for moral anti-realism).

Question 4

what are mackie’s args for anti-realism

Answer 4

1. arg from relativity
2. arg from queerness

Question 5

what is the arg from relativity

Answer 5

Cultures that are independent of each other tend to form completely different moral practices and beliefs. We can explain this disagreement in one of two ways:

1. One culture has, for some reason, discovered objective moral reality while the other hasn’t
2. Each culture has different conditions and a different way of life and has developed their own moral beliefs in response to that

Mackie’s argument is that the** second option is the more plausible account**. If moral realism were true, you wouldn’t expect to see such divergent moral beliefs.

Question 6

what are the 3 problems for error theory

Answer 6

1. args for non-cognitivism
2. moral nihilism
3. moral progress

Question 7

what are the two aspects to the arg from queerness

Answer 7

1. epistemically queer
2. metaphysically queer

Question 8

arg from queerness

epistemically queer

Answer 8

If mind-independent moral properties exist, then it is a total mystery how we would acquire knowledge of them. Whereas natural knowledge can be explained naturally, moral knowledge can’t be explained in the same way and instead requires spooky hypotheses such as Moore’s intuitionism

Question 9

arg from queerness

metaphysically queer

Answer 9

If mind-independent moral properties exist, they must be metaphysically unlike anything else we have experience of. For example, ‘good’ things would need to somehow have to-be-doneness built into them and ‘bad’ things would have not-to-be-doneness built into them. Like, the act of stealing itself would have to have the property of ‘don’t do this!’ built into it, which doesn’t make sense. It’s not possible for objective, physical, objects to relate to human motivations in this way (scientifically, metaphysically, or otherwise).