Moral Philosophy/Cognitivism Flashcards
God independent transcendent
Forms (Plato): Highest Form = Good. Forms are in the intelligible realm, not the visible. Education moves the philosopher from the visible realm to the intelligible. Only the educated elites can have access to knowledge of moral truth.
Weakness of will:
Socrates - No such thing as WOW. No one knowingly does the wrong thing.
Aristotle - Someone who is weak-willed is not without moral knowledge, they just don’t fully grasp the significance of their knowledge.
Davidson - The weak-willed person does not convert their judge,net that x is best ‘all things considered’ into the judgement that x is best unconditionally.
Natural facts
Happiness: Mill - Happiness = Goodness. Happiness is our only end, the only good. We all want happiness.
Flourishing: Aristotle - We must act in such a way that we will ‘flourish’. ‘Living well’ is the ultimate aim of all human action.
Open Question: Moore - If goodness just is happiness, then it wouldn’t make sense to say ‘is it good to make people happy?’ Goodness can’t be equated to happiness. Naturalistic fallacy.
Is/Ought gap: Hume - We have to create man-made moral maxims to bridge the gap between the way the world ‘is’ and the way we think the world ‘ought’ to be. Morality is a human construction.
Relational properties
Reason rather than fact: Natural properties too simplistic. Relational properties works on the principle that something is right because of reasons. X is the objectively right thing to do because of these reasons. i.e. Why did the dinosaurs die? Mostly asteroids, partly disease, partly famine. All of these reasons contribute. There is a build up of factors.
It is right to help this child because…
I am happier
It affects my virtue ethics
The conscience.
Secondary qualities: Hume - Morality is like a secondary quality, it is only a ‘perception of the mind’. e.g. we see a table (it’s shape, size) then our minds add colour to it. We see the killing of a person then our minds add morality to it.
McDowell - Secondary qualities are objective. If we see a yellow table, the table has the objective quality of being yellow. It is yellow to every human being under normal circumstances and then it is subject to individual interpretation.
How is knowledge possible?
Virtue: Plato and Aristotle say that moral insight is not purely intellectual, it requires training and virtues of character as well. Only through developing the right moral character can we truly understand the correct moral path to take.
Self-evident: Obvious and not needing proof or explanation.
Reflective equilibrium: A state of balance around a set of beliefs (all one’s thoughts on a topic fit together).
Non-cognitive challenge (Nietzsche): All cognitive morality is wrong. We cannot define goodness because it has a history. All philosophy is a ‘personal confession of its author’.
Moral cognitivism definition
Morality is objective. Even if we don’t know what the right action to do in an ethical situation is, there is always a right one.
Possibility of agreement over moral truth
When there is a disagreement over fact, it can be solved because it is objective.
When people agree on all the facts, e.g. abortion, but still disagree whether it is right or wrong, then the dispute is over value, or reason. E.g. Is the reason that a foetus will become a human being a strong reason to not carry out abortions?
According to moral cognitivism, at least one of them must be wrong! It is either right or wrong objectively, not depending on the situation.
Hume: Moral judgements don’t pick out a fact, they express a feeling, which is why you can never reach a moral agreement by discussing just the facts.
How can it motivate/justify action?
To justify an action is to show how it is morally right or wrong . But, the reasons that justify an action may not cause a person to do anything about it. Justifying action and motivating action are different.
E.g. If a friend needed help revising for an exam, you are unlikely to be motivated by the thought that it’s the right thing to do, but by the love of your friend.
Moral judgements guide our behaviour, but they do not bring us to action. A truth, in itself does not bring us to action either.
E.g. The fact that it is raining outside doesn’t motivate me into picking up my umbrella before going outside unless I don’t want to get wet.
Ultimately, objective truth means nothing unless I care about it.
Hume: In order to act, we need beliefs (about how the world is and how to change it), and desire, in order to change it.
However, cognitivists argue that moral judgements are motivating. As long as we are rational, reasons will motivate us directly.
