Relativism

Question 1

Define a truism

Answer 1

a statement that is obviously true

Question 2

Wittgenstein’s view

Answer 2

• says that although truisms can’t be questioned it does not make them absolutely true
• language games: moral truth is subjective to culture and language, judgements cannot be absolutely true as “truth is beyond the limits of philosophy”

Question 3

Hinman’s view

Answer 3

• saw relativism as controversial as it only ever agrees to disagree
• self-defeating (do what the Romans do…)
• relativism claims it is tolerant to other cultures, yet what if one culture was intolerant, do we accept it?

Question 4

Moore’s view

Answer 4

believed that analysing banal statements (“this is a chair”) wouldn’t achieve anything + cannot be doubted

Question 5

Ayer’s view

Answer 5

• logical positivist, meaningfulness of a statement have to be verified through experience
• ethical language cannot be verified
• all ethical statements do is express an emotional attitude (emotivism) and in different societies there are different attitudes to moral situations and these reflect their moralities
• CP: even if ethical language is meaningless it still has value in driving an action

Question 6

Hume’s form of emotivism

Answer 6

• cannot find a factual reason for why murder is wrong; we only have a “sentiment of disapprobation”

Question 7

Criticisms of emotivism

Answer 7

• not a helpful ethical theory as it merely is a method for establishing what ethical language is
• if ethical language is about shaping people’s views, does it become a manipulation
• surely moral judgements do have reasons behind them otherwise they become arbitrary
• Post-Modern worldview is that opinion is accepted as valid