The denial of moral truth

Question 1

What is a moral judgement? Give an example.

Answer 1

A moral judgement is a statement that entails a normative ethical stance on an issue, for example the statement “murder is wrong”.

Question 2

What is moral cognitivism? What is moral non-cognitivism?

Answer 2

Moral cognitivism: a view of that entails moral statements contain a truth value to them, they can be either right or wrong. “murder is wrong” falls into this category, regardless if murder is wrong or not it can be contradicted without a logical problem.
Relativism and moral realism subscribe to this.

Moral non-cognitivsm: ethical statements contain no truth value, they can be neither true nor false. For example “boo muder” is a statement containing no truth value, there is not opposite to this statement.
Emotivism and prescriptivism subscribe to this.

Question 3

What is moral realism? What is moral anti-realism?

Answer 3

Moral realism is a cognitive view of morality that entails moral truths are objectively true, regardless of time, situation or personal judgment.

Moral anti-realism is any view of morality that does not entail an objective moral truth.

Question 4

What does it mean to say that a moral judgement is ‘objective’? And subjective?

Answer 4

An objective moral truth entails that morality is an absolute truth, independent of human existence or opinion. In any given situation there are right and wrong actions, Rorschach is an example of this.
A subjective moral truth is a moral truth that is determined by individuals, or by a culture, and is relative to those individuals or cultures. In this case everybody has their own ethical views, and all are right relative to themselves.

Question 5

What does it mean to say that moral judgements are ‘descriptive’? ‘Non-descriptive’?

Answer 5

Descriptive moral judgements relate to the function of the statement, they give a description of ethical judgments. What do people think is right?

Question 6

What is meta-ethics? How does it differ from normative ethics?

Answer 6

Meta ethics is the view that the truth or falsity of a moral judgement is relatively determined, according to either individuals or by a cultural framework. It studies what does right even mean?
Normative ethics studies how people should act.

Question 7

What is the ‘is/ought’ gap?

Answer 7

Saying you ought not to do something, such as murder, does not equate to “is”. The “is” facts are morally neutral, despite the opinion that you ought not to do it.

Question 8

How would an emotivist understand the moral judgement ‘murder is wrong’?

Answer 8

An emotivist would analytically reduce the statement murder is wrong to “boo muder”, or “eugh murder”. To an emotivist there is no loss of meaning in this reduction, as moral judgements are non-cognitive, they are merely an expression of our emotions.

Question 9

What observation does emotivism make about the verification of moral
judgements, and what conclusion do they draw from this?

Answer 9

Emotivism rose from logical positivism, and thus agrees with the principle of verification, which entails that if a statement is not verifiable it is not meaningful. Moral judgments are not verifiable, as they must either be analytically true, which they are not, or empirically verifiable, which they are not. Emotivists therefore make no truth claims about moral judgements.

Question 10

What point does Ayer make about the ‘three types’ of ethical statement, and what does it show?

Answer 10

Relation of ideas – propositions that define terms and unpack the meanings of words, for example cruel means wilfully causing pain to others by definition.
Matters of fact – Propositions about the phenomena of ethical experience, for example “this family believes that murder is wrong.”
Subjective emotional expression – Propositions of moral judgements, eg murder is wrong.

Question 11

What point does Hume make about the omniscient being, and what does it show?

Answer 11

Hume shows that there is no objective morality in the world, as an omniscient being (all knowing) would not find any evidence of any kind of ethical judgment, or anything that would logically imply such a judgement.

Question 12

Why is emotivism a ‘non-cognitive’ moral theory?

Answer 12

Emotivism is a non cognitive theory of morality as it does not assert any truth value. Emotivism analytically reduces any moral statement such as “murder is wrong” to “boo murder”. This claim has no truth value as it can be neither true nor false, it is merely an expression of feeling.

Question 13

Why is emotivism a rejection of moral realism?

Answer 13

Emotivism rejects moral realism as moral realism asserts that there is an objective moral truth, a moral truth that is independent of individual or cultural opinion, and is true at all times regardless of situation. Emotivism does not assert that there is either an objective or subjective moral truth, merely an expression of our emotions.

Question 14

Why does emotivism lead to ‘subjective’ moral judgements?

Answer 14

Moral judgements are now reduced to merely an expression of our own feelings, which are subjective. Although there is no moral truth, moral judgements are now a subjective matter, there is no reason why your emotions or moral judgement hold more weight than mine, or vice versa.

Question 15

Why is emotivism a ‘non-descriptive’ approach to morality?

Answer 15

Emotivism is a non-descriptive approach to morality as it posits that moral judgements do not contain any descriptive information about the ethical experience at the time. “Boo, murder!” contains no information about the nature of murder at all.

Question 16

Why does emotivism arguably resolve the problem of moral motivation for the moral agent quite convincingly?

Answer 16

Moral motivation becomes a matter of expression and emotion, which accounts for why we often feel so strongly about moral judgements. When I say “boo murder”, I have a deep emotional disgust for murder, and will do all that I can to convince others to agree with my point of view. It is convincingly as it is very applicable to how we view morality.

Question 17

What is descriptive ethical relativism?

Answer 17

Descriptive ethical relativism is the empirical observation that ethical judgements differ between cultures and individuals. It does not necessarily lead on to normative relativism.

Question 18

What is meta-ethical relativism?

Answer 18

Meta ethical relativism is the view that the truth or falsity of a moral judgement is determined relative to some kind of conceptual or cultural framework (conventionalism and subjectivism are the two branches of this.)

Question 19

What is meta-ethical conventionalism? Normative ethical conventionalism?

Answer 19

Meta ethical conventionalism is the view that moral judgements are justified or made true by their cultural acceptance. For example relative to America in 1920 rascism was morally justified.
Normative ethical conventionalism is the view that we should act by what is justified by the accepted cultural norm.

Question 20

How would a meta-ethical conventionalist understand the judgement ‘murder is wrong’?

Answer 20

They would understand it to be “murder is wrong in relation to this culture at this point in time.”

Question 21

What is meta-ethical subjectivism? Normative ethical subjectivism?

Answer 21

Meta ethical subjectivism is the view that moral judgements are justified or made true by virtue of an individual’s viewpoint. For example relative to Ted Bundy murder and rape was morally justified.
Normative ethical subjectivism is the view that we should act by what is justified by our own viewpoint.

Question 22

How would a meta-ethical subjectivist understand the judgement ‘murder is wrong’?

Answer 22

They would understand it to be “murder is wrong relative to this person at this point in time.”

Question 23

In what sense is ethical relativism a cognitive and descriptive approach to ethics?

Answer 23

It is cognitive as it asserts a truth value, although it is not objectively true or false, relative to the individual or culture it is possible to be right or wrong. For example “I believe murder is wrong” asserts a truth claim, it can be true or false that I believe that to be so.
It is descriptive as it recognises that ethical judgements do differ between cultures and individuals.

Question 24

In what sense is it not? (Distinguish between the ‘societal’ and the ‘global’ realms).

Answer 24

It can be described to not be a cognitive and descriptive account of ethics as a global community, there is no cultural norm, the vast numbers of conflicting subcultures and societies makes it hugely difficult to actually define the culture. This means that in fact one cannot maintain that it is cognitive, and it is not made true or false by one culture.

Question 25

Why is ethical relativism a denial of moral realism?

Answer 25

It is a denial of moral realism as moral realism asserts that there is an objective moral truth, however ethical relativism puts forward an idea of a subjective moral truth.

Question 26

Why is it a denial of emotivism?

Answer 26

Emotivism does not does assert any moral truth, it is non cognitive, however ethical relativism is a cognitive subjective approach to moral truth, thus they conflict.

Question 27

The specification asks you to know about the following ‘issues’:
‘The possibility of judging the abhorrent practices of other cultures/individuals’ – in what way is this a criticism of these theories?

Answer 27

If there is no objective moral truth, then how can we ever make a judgement on individuals or cultures that cause abhorrent harm to others, we can never correct others. This problem applies to meta ethical relativism, however Emotivism can reply that we still have motivation to act with moral judgements, however our views will be no more justified than anybody else’s.
However a rejecting of moral truth does not necessarily lead to tolerance towards others and their personal views on morality, particularly with emotivism, we are driven by our emotions to disagree with others, even though we may not be justified in doing so. Tolerance itself is a moral value, which you can choose to disagree with; we are not compelled to be tolerant just because we have a subjective view of morality.

Question 28

‘The possibility of moral progress and moral mistakes’ – in what way is this a criticism of these theories? We cannot make objective progress if we deny moral truth.

Answer 28

Although our collective views of morality have changed over time, we have no objective moral grounds for saying this is genuine progress, only progress with respect to our relative current views.
Although this is true, we have become more rational than in the past in our moral decision making. For example people were racist towards many groups of people, such as the Jews in Germany, because they were not seen as a person. So in context morality is now being based from facts more than in the past, moral progress can never mean being more “true”, only being less ignorant and more rational.

Question 29

‘The extent to which we can value what we like’ – in what way is this a criticism of these theories?

Answer 29

Moral judgements are now equal to a particular type of judgement, regardless as to whether or not it is necessarily a judgement we would consider a moral one. We can assign value to anything we choose. An example of this would be that imagine Hot Fuzz, where people believe in winning the village of the year award. If this is there centre for morality, they will do anything to achieve their goal, by murdering and deceiving etc. To them this is perfectly moral, “for the greater good” of the town.

Question 30

Give a criticism of emotivism.

Answer 30

One of the most commonly used is the claim that if no moral knowledge can be had, and so no rational agreement is possible, then there would be no point in having moral debates anymore, and that morality is reduced to the volume of one’s ‘boo!’ in a statement like “boo, murder!”.
Another notable criticism of emotivism is similar in that if emotivism is true, then morality simply becomes a matter of taste, and that we cannot meaningful (objectively) punish people for being ‘immoral’, prison sentences therefore only reflect the sentiment of the judge and jury at the time, and taking it to its logical conclusion, we can’t expect others to find value in our ethical judgements, so anything goes. On this basis, a judgement that holds no objective sway is one that isn’t worth making.

Question 31

Give a criticism of relativism.

Answer 31

It is incredibly difficult to actually define the culture that one is in, and therefore it isn’t practical to proportion one’s actions to the accepted cultural norm. For example, a radical cleric living in Britain may not be acting morally by encouraging terrorist acts according to the general opinion of the British population, but according to the radical cleric culture that they associate themselves with, they are actually morally right. The difficulty in categorising culture leads to a slippery slope of further subcultures until we have to take the slope to its logical conclusion – subjectivism.