Moral realism Flashcards
explain moral realism
- there are mind-independent moral facts/properties
explain moral naturalism (cognitivist)
- says that moral properties/facts are natural properties of the world
- moral naturalism leads to a cognitivist view of moral language, since our ethical judgements are either true or false as they correctly or incorrectly refer to the natural properties of the world
explain moral naturalism: utilitarianism (including Bentham) and of virtue ethics
Utilitarianism
- Benthem argued that all humans aim to secure pleasure and avoid pain
- these are psychological, hence natural, properties
- he draws a prescriptive conclusion, that “we ought to maximise pleasure and minimise pain”
- Mill begins his ‘proof’ of utilitarianism with a natural fact, that happiness is what each person desires
- he then concludes that happiness is ‘the good’ because each person’s happiness is desirable
Virtue ethics
- Aristotles theory is naturalist to an extent
- for Aristotle, ‘the good’ is the thing most humans value and we can determine this by looking at what most people strive for; to live the best possible life (Eudaimonia)
- this is a natural fact about human behaviour
- to live the good life for a human you need to live as a good human
- to be a good human means fulfilling your function well
- our function is a natural fact about us - it is our distinctive activity
- being guided by reason is natural
explain moral non-naturalism (cognitivist)
- says that there are moral properties/facts in the world but these aren’t natural properties
- they are special, non-natural properties
- properties that are not part of the physical world
- non-naturalism leads to a cognitive view of moral language, as our ethical judgements refer (true or falsely) to these non-natural properties
explain moral non-naturalism: intuitionism, Moore’s open question argument and the naturalistic fallacy
intuitionism:
- Moore argued that we cannot sense moral properties
- he maintained ‘the autonomy of ethics’ - that ethical judgements are unique and cannot be analysed in natural terms
- moral properties are not natural
- moral truths, such as ‘killing is wrong’ are grasped as self-evident intuitions - intuitionalism
- Moore believes he can show naturalism to be flawed through the open question argument and naturalistic fallacy
open question argument
- Moore says that terms are either definable or indefinable
- we can double-check a definition with further questioning
- if the double-check leads to a closed question (one you can only answer with yes or no) then it is a genuine definition
- if our double-check leads to an open question we have not found a genuine definition
- e.g. ‘a bachelor is a married man’ –> is an unmarried man really a bachelor –> yes (closed question)
-e.g. ‘good is maximising utility’ –> is maximising utility really good? (open question)
- if we could genuinely define good, then it would be a closed question
- because it is an open question it means that ‘good’ is indefinable and that meta-ethical theories like naturalism are wrong
naturalistic fallacy
- a fallacy occurs when we attempt to define a term that is indefinable - it is fallacious
- when Moore applies general fallacy to naturalism is becomes the naturalistic fallacy
- a naturalistic fallacy is a fallacy committed by moral naturalists
- Moore says that good is indefinable
- utilitarians (+ other moral naturalists) attempt to define good in natural terms
- so utilitarianism is guilty of the naturalistic fallacy
explain the issue for moral realism: Hume’s fork
- Hume’s fork splits up knowledge/truths about the world into relations of ideas and matters of fact
- relations of ideas are a priori (know them by thinking about the concepts alone), they are true by definition (tautologies or analytical truths), and to deny them would be a contradiction
- matters of fact are observations/claims about the way the world is, they are a posteriori (known by experience) and they are true because of the way the world is, it is conceivable to deny them
- moral realists are cognitivists and believe moral judgements can be true or false
- moral judgements are not relations of ideas: they are not tautologies, they are not certain as we can deny them without contradiction
- moral judgements are not matters of fact: we cannot ‘see’ that killing is wrong (know it from experience)
- so moral judgements are neither true nor false
- hume sees moral judgements as referring to out feelings of approval or disapproval when we see virtuous or vicious actions
explain the issue for moral realism: AJ ayers verification principle
- Ayer was concerned with meaning
- ayer distinguished meaningful statements from non-meaningful statements using the verification principle which said:
- a statement is meaningful is
1) It is true by definition (tautology) or
2) it is verifiable through sense experience - all moral judgements fail the principle
e.g. ‘stealing is wrong’ is not true by definition and it cannot be verified by any empirical investigation (we cannot ‘see’ wrongness) - ayer says that moral judgements have no meaning at all because they do not meet the principle
- his theory of emotivism views moral judgements as expressions of our feelings of approval/disapproval
- moral judgements are neither true or false (cognitivism is wrong) and they don’t refer to mind-independent properties/facts (moral realism is wrong)
explain the issue for moral realism: Hume’s argument that moral judgements are not beliefs since beliefs alone could not motivate us
- hume says that moral judgements, such as ‘it is good to help other people’ motivate us to act virtuously
- but beliefs and reason can never motivate us to act (known as the human theory of motivation)
- therefore, moral judgements cannot be beliefs
- if moral judgements are founded on beliefs or reason, then we would be motivated by relations of ideas or matters of fact
- but relations of ideas don’t motivate us - understanding mathematical/logical relationships doesn’t drive us to act
- and matters of fact don’t motivate us - knowing what is true or false about the world is helpful but it doesn’t make us take action by itself
- what is needed for action is desire (as hume calls it, ‘affections’ and ‘passions’)
- e.g. knowing that there is marmalade at the back of the fridge doesn’t lead to action, it is the desire of really wanting a marmalade sandwich which leads to actions
- likewise, moral realists say that moral judgements are simply objective facts, which means they cannot motivate us to act
- hume says it is our passions, not our reasons, that drive actions
- if hume is right then moral judgements cannot be true or false (as they are not beliefs) and so cognitivist theories of language are incorrect
- moral judgements have their source inside of us (desires, passion) and so do not represent something independent to us, so moral realism is incorrect
- moral judgements motivate us to act through our feelings of approval and dissaproval and the sympathy that arises from being virtuous
explain the issue for moral realism: Hume’s is-ought gap
- Hume says that judgements of reason describe what IS the case
- and that judgements of value describe what OUGHT TO BE the case
- they are entirely different from each other - there is a gap between ‘is’ and ‘ought’
- so we cannot draw conclusions about value (‘ought’) based on premises/facts about reason (‘is’), you can’t derive an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’
- hume says that moral theories break this law
- e.g. utilitarians start by making observations about the world (everyone desires happiness) and conclude with moral rules (happiness ought to be desired)
- cognitivists claim that moral judgements are true/false
- if cognitivism is correct, then it would be possible to infer moral judgements from descriptive statements
- but it is not possible to infer moral judgements from descriptive statements as we cannot draw ‘ought’ conclusions from premises about reason
- therefore moral judgements are not true or false
- so cognitivism cannot be correct
- WE CANNOT GET CONCLUSIONS ABOUT WHAT OUGHT TO BE THE CASE FROM FACTS ABOUT WHAT IS THE CASE
explain the issue for moral realism: Mackie’s argument from relativity
argument from relativity
- an adductive argument (seeks simplest explanation)
- mackie points out that there are two types of disagreements in society
- disagreements may occur either because a)there is an objective truth, but some people’s perceptions of it are distorted or b)because there is no objective truth
- similarly, moral disagreements may occur between people because a)there are objective moral values, but some people’s perception of them are incorrect or b)there are no objective moral values, they are just reflections of different ways of living
- b) is the best explanation of moral disagreements
- so moral realism is incorrect
explain the issue for moral realism: Mackie’s argument from queerness
- if moral realism is correct then the world must contain two peculiar features
1) metaphysical queerness - Mackie believed that moral values provide a motivation to action
- if moral realism is correct, then it is committed to the belief in the strange objective moral properties in the world and that these moral properties are able to generate a motivation for action
- how can facts in the world motivate/influence us to do things
- Mackie says that this absurd position is a good indication that moral realism is wrong and that it is our desires that motivate us, not bits of the world ‘out there’
2) epistemological queerness
- Mackie says that moral realists are also committed to believing that we have a mysterious faculty which enables us to detect these peculiar moral properties
- Moore and others talk about ‘intuition’ and this strange ‘moral sense’ which we have which no one can name
- Mackie calls this ‘lame’ as it is an inadequate explanation
- Mackie concludes a far simpler explanation - that there are no objective moral properties
