Moral anti-realism

Question 1

explain moral anti-realism

Answer 1

• anti realism says that there are no moral facts or properties that exist independently of the mind
• moral terms refer to something else, e.g. the expression of an emotion
• often overlaps with non-cognitivism (moral judgements are not statements that refer truly or falsely to the world)

Question 2

explain error theory (cognitivist) - Mackie

Answer 2

• Mackie is an anti-realist who is also a cognitivist (moral statements can be true or false)
  mackie’s error theory begins with his ontological claim
• Mackie says that there are no objective moral values
• something is objective if it is true or false, describes the world, describes something that is mind-independent
• moral judgements cannot be objective in any of these ways because moral properties do not exist out in the world
• this is an ‘ontological claim’ because it is an argument about what does/doesn’t exist
• his conclusion that there are no moral properties is based on his arguments from relativity and from queerness

mackie’s semantic claim
- Mackie says that all of our ethical judgements include a claim to objectivity, which is an error
- it is an error based on our belief in objective, independent, moral properties that literally do not exist
- this error arises from the way we are brought up in society
- we ‘objectify’ the social arrangements that we’ve learnt (don’t do this, you must do that) into moral codes
- whenever we are making a moral judgement we are making a claim about the world that is false
- this permanent error that we fall into when we make moral judgements gives Mackie’s theory its name: error theory

Question 3

explain emotivism (non-cognitivist) - Ayer

Answer 3

moral judgements are neither true nor false
- ayer’s VP says that a meaningful proposition is either
1) an analytic statement (true by definition, tautology)
2) a synthetic statement (empirical hypothesis, tells us what the world is like, can be verified via experience)
- when the VP is applied to moral statements it shows that:
1) moral judgements are not true by definition
2) moral judgements cannot be verified, or falsified as there are no facts/properties they refer to
- ayer is a non-cognitivist and anti-realist about moral language
- moral judgements have no factual significance
- moral claims like ‘stealing money is wrong’ are not genuine propositions

moral judgements are expressions of emotions
- ayer says moral terms are expressions of emotions, like saying ‘hooray’ at something we like, or attitudes (pro-attitudes and con-attitudes)
- ayers theory is a form of emotivism
- they are expressive, not descriptive
- they don’t point us to facts, but influence our behaviour by conveying strong feelings of approval/dissaproval
- moral judgements motivate us because they appeal to emotion

Question 4

explain prescriptivism (non-cognitivism) - Richard Hare)

Answer 4

moral judgements are not descriptive
- hare thinks that Moore’s open question argument is correct in demonstrating that natural terms like ‘good’ cannot be defined in naturalistic terms
- hare thinks Moore is wrong that moral terms describe a non-natural, special moral property
- he thinks they have another use in language; they commend something; they prescribe a course of action

moral judgements are prescriptive, universalisable, and rational
- hare thinks that moral judgements are not factual, they do not refer to anything ‘out there’ and they cannot be derived from factual premises (non-cognitivist and anti-realist)
- prescriptivists like hare argue that moral judgements guide action
- terms like ‘good’ or ‘right’ are used to recommend and guide action
- moral judgements contain prescriptions that are universalisable, the prescription must be consistently applied to me by everyone in the same situation, including myself in the future
- moral judgements are rational because we can seek and answer questions about moral conduct, look for facts that support our moral judgements, aim for consistency, highlight logical contradictions

Question 5

explain the issue for moral anti-realism: whether anti-realism can account for how we use moral language

Answer 5

• we use moral language every day - it plays a crucial role in our personal relationships, communities, education system, businesses, legal processes, government policies
• these uses include decision-making, commanding, guiding, disagreeing and agreeing, persuading and influencing action
• anti-realists and non-cognitivists cannot account for these uses
• emotivism gives a narrow account for uses of moral jdugements: it only account for the use of moral judgements to persuade and influence
• it does not explain moral reasoning, commanding, or disagreeing
• and we do not always use moral language to influence e.g. when talking to people who already share our views
• prescriptivism gives a broader account of the uses as rational, universal, prescriptions but it is still too narrow as morality is not always concerned with prescribing, it also involved confessing, resolving

Question 6

explain the issue for moral anti-realism: the problem of accounting for moral progress

Answer 6

• our moral values have changed over time
• slavery, racism, misogyny etc used to be acceptable
• now we have laws in place to prevent these things and to ensure that we treat people equally and fairly and value diversity
• it seems as though our ancestors had a ‘moral blind spot’ which prevented them from seeing that their practises were cruel
• we have developed ‘progressive’ moral codes over the past few hundred years such as rights to women, abolition of slavery,
• our societies have improved and there has been genuine moral progress
• moral anti-realists cannot account for this ‘moral progress’ because there is no objective standard we can use to assess whether our moral code is an improvement our ancestors’ codes

Question 7

explain the issue for moral anti-realism: whether anti-realism becomes moral nihilism

Answer 7

• Nihilism is the rejection of a particular set of beliefs, the view that no action is inherently wrong
• like moral anti-realists, nihilists argue that there are no moral facts or truth and moral knowledge is not possible
• nihilists say that as there are no objective moral values, then we should abandon our ethical practises and live a life free from the pretence of moral codes
• there’s nothing true about moral statements such as ‘killing is wrong’ so why should anyone bother at all
• moral anti-realism can lead to the consequence of nihilism
• there are no objective moral facts
• so there is nothing that is morally wrong
• so we can do anything we like