Meta Ethics

Ethical Naturalism
1. Moral facts are natural facts, they translate without loss of meaning
  1. Natural facts are anything you can observe in the world
2. Type of ethical cognitivism- ethical language presents facts about reality
  1. Express ethical views about how the world is
  2. As it aims to describe the world it can be true or false
  3. Direction of fit- Anscombe- desires try to make the world match the idea so the direction of fit is world to word. Beliefs try to match the idea to the world so the direction of fit is word to world
  4. Arguments for
    1. We think we can make mistakes about morality
    2. Morality feels like a demand from the outside
    3. Many people believe in moral progress
3. Moral realism- there are objective moral facts and properties
  1. Things are right or wrong independent of our opinion
4. E.g. Utilitarianism, Virtue Ethics
5. F H Bradley
  1. Universal good
  2. Rejects the individualism of utilitarianisms
  3. Society is central to ethics
    1. We learn our moral obligations from our community and o duty is derived from that soceity
    2. We become moral be identifying and conforming to the norms of our society
    3. If you stand against, or question society you are immoral!
    4. Stations and duties
      1. become one with the good will by accepting your stations and duties
    5. The individual mind acts according to the will of the infinite mind
      1. Personal freedoms are sacrificed for the collective good will
  4. "To be moral is to live in accordance with the moral tradition of ones country"
6. Arguments Against
  1. The is/ought gap
    1. There is a gap between facts and values
    2. E.g. a child is sad so we ought to give her a lollypop. But why? Its implying we care that she is sad but we are not morally obliged to
  2. G.E.Moore, The Naturalistic Fallacy
    1. A theory that translates ethical statements into non ethical statements commits the naturalistic fallacy
    2. Moral facts exist but they are not natural
  3. G.E.Moore, The Open Question Argument
    1. Used to prove that facts don't = values
    2. You can agree all the facts but still meaningfully ask is it good
    3. BUT does it just show what more thinks is not good by leaving an open question?
      1. Masked man argument
Ethical Non- Naturalism
1. Moral properties can't be natural properties
2. goodness is an analysable property
  1. E.g. you can give a definition of a horse because it has many different proprieties and qualities all of which you can enumerate
    1. When you have reduced a horse to its simplest term you can no longer define that term
  2. Good doesn't have a definition because it is simple and has no parts
  3. "good is incapable of any definition"
  4. E.g. like colours, you can't explain it to someone who hasn't seen it but colours are natural property whereas good is a non natural property
  5. Good isn't part of science its part of reality
  6. The property of something isn't the effect
3. G.E.Moore
4. Good can't be meaningless because then there wouldn't be such a thing as ethics which is unrealistic
5. You can use the open question argument to dispute the fact that good is a complex term about which there is disagreement
6. Intuitionism
  1. Moral intuitions are not infallable
    1. We have to work out between true and false intuitions
  2. Intuitionist about the ends we seek not the means by which we reach them
  3. BUT
    1. Doesn't explain peoples differing intuitions
    2. Cultural influence
  4. We know what is right thorough intuition not observation

Next up

Description

Resource summary

Similar

	Created by Sophie Fuller over 6 years ago