Moral anti-realism Flashcards
What is moral antirealism
Moral antirealism is the theory that there are no moral facts or properties that exist independently of our minds.
Explain Mackie’s error theory
The status which Mackie’s error theory claims is that moral judgements are cognitive (can be true or false) but is anti-realist (they don’t refer to some mind independent moral property. His argument can be formalised as such:
1) moral realism sates that our moral judgements are based on mind independent moral properties in the external world
2) There are no mind independent moral properties (ontological claim)
3) therefore whenever we make moral judgements we are making making claims about the world which are false
4) Therefore we are in systematic error when making moral judgements
The second premise is supposed by Mackie’s ontological claim: the Argument From Relativity that states mind independent moral properties likely do not exist as it is the best explanation for widespread moral disagreement, and the Argument From Queerness which counts moral properties to be absurd as it would be motivating and require some faculty within us to detect them.
Explain Ayer’s emotivism for an anti realist and non-cognitive approach to ethical language
Emotivism is a non-cognitivist theory as it claims that ethical language does not try to describe the world and thus cannot be true or false. Moral judgements do not express beliefs, but rather express the feeling or attitude of approval or disapproval. E.g., to say that ‘Murder is wrong’ is to express one’s disapproval of murder. Ethical language is ‘emotive’.
A. J. Ayer argued for emotivism based on his verification principle, which claims that a sentence is cognitively meaningful if and only if it is analytically true or empirically verifiable. Ayer argued that moral judgments do not make claims that are true or false as they are neither analytic nor can they be verified empirically. To deny a moral statement is not self-contradictory; and Moore’s Open Question Argument shows that moral statements are not about natural properties and thus cannot be empirically verified.
Therefore, moral statements do not express beliefs and are not truth-apt. They are simply expressions of approval or disapproval.
Explain Hare’s prescriptivism for an anti realist and non cognitivist approach to ethical language
Hare’s prescriptivism is a form of non-cognitive moral anti-realism that claims that moral judgements are not cognitively meaningful, being neither true nor false. □ This is because, according to Hare, moral judgements function as imperatives that prescribe courses of action, telling someone what to do in a given situation. Therefore Hare believed that it wasn’t just expressions of aproval and disapproval as emotivism suggests, but rather a guide for action.
For example, the judgement ‘murder is wrong’ is identical to the imperative ‘don’t murder!’
Nevertheless, Hare maintains the rational nature of moral discourse and are not simply expressive. Moral prescriptions should be universalisable and therefore moral prescriptions are critizable and can be questioned (if they are inconsistent).
Explain the issue that moral anti-realism cannot account for how we use moral language
We use out moral language everyday in society in ways such as reasoning, guiding, disagreeing, and persuading. A moral realist who is also a moral cognitivist has an easy time accounting for these uses as when we are disagreeing or reasoning we are referring to some moral fact we are basing on. Contrastingly, moral antirealists who are non-cognitivists such as ayer’s emotivism and Hare’s prescriptivism struggle to account for them.
Emotivism and moral disagreement:
For instance, emotivism cannot account for moral disagreement as our judgements are simply non-rational signs of approval/disapproval. They are based on emotions and we are each entitled to have that view. E.g., its like ‘I like chocolate ice cream, you like vanilla’
Prescriptivism and moral disagreement:
The consistency and universalisability of a perception may lead to some disagreement such as ‘I universalise eating meat is wrong’ and you do the opposite. However it still doesn’t explain why this disagreement can be had. There are no grounds for the disagreement because it’s not referring to anything like realists do.
Therefore, even is moral antirealism can have discourse that involves arguments, they still cannot explain why.
The issue that moral antirealism cannot account for moral progress
As a human race we seemed to have developed moral progress since our ancestors. Our ancestors believed in racism, sexism, and human sacrifice. Contrastingly, we seemed to have made progress to illuminate these views, our views have become a lot more inclusive - our moral codes have gotten better.
For the moral realist, this seems to be easy to explain - simply that our understanding of moral facts have becomes clearer over time - just like scientific advancement.
However, Moral antirealists do not believe in moral facts that are independent of the mind. Therefore it seems like the moral antirealist cannot admit that there has been moral progress as they don’t believe in an objective moral standard we could be getting closer to. The moral antirealist can only speak of change in moral code.
However, this seems counterintuitive as it seems clear that we have made improvements and many would admit so.
explain the issue that moral antirealism becomes moral nihilism
Moral nihilist is the rejection of morality and its views. Moral antirealists, like moral nihilism, believe that there are no mind-indpedent moral facts in the external world. However, Moral nihilism states that therefore morality doesn’t have any set of foundation and therefore can be discarded. We can essentially live either our moral codes because they are not built from anything.
Therefore, moral antirealist theories such as emotivism and prescriptivism and easily cause the questioning of why moral code is need to be followed at all. This is shows that moral anti-realism seems to be a flawed theory as it risks the upheaval of the moral conduct that our society is built on, potentially risking anarchy.
