Meta-Ethics

Question 1

What are the 4 types of Meta-Ethics?

Answer 1

• Naturalism
• Intuitionism
• Emotivism
  ——– not on syllabus
• Prescriptivism

Question 2

What is Meta-Ethics?

Answer 2

Discussing the nature and validity of ethical statements

Question 3

Cognitive Vs. Non-Cognitive

Answer 3

Cognitive
- Objective - not influenced by personal feelings e.g. ‘murder is wrong’ - be deduced by effects of action
- Moral statements describing the world
- Naturalism + Intuitionism

Non-Cognitive
- Subjective
- Not true or false - expression of a feeling

Question 4

What did David Hume think about Meta-Ethics

Answer 4

• Hume –> Empiricist
  – >only real/ meaningful things are those that can be verified by 5 senses
• is-ought fallacy - problem people make when they try to make statements about what ‘ought’ to be from what ‘is’

+ Hume’s two pronged fork
- Synthetic - empiricism - a priori - necessarily
- Analytic - rationalism - a posteriori - contingently true

Question 5

What is Hume’s fork?

Answer 5

David Hume

Two prongs
- Synthetic - empiricism - a priori - necessarily
- Analytic - rationalism - a posteriori - contingently true

Question 6

Who are the main Scholars for Naturalist approach? (Ethical Naturalism)

Answer 6

• Philippa Foot, F.H. Bradley
  criticism
• G.E. Moore

Question 7

What does Philippa Foot say about Meta-Ethics?

Answer 7

• Modern Day virtue ethicist
• Moral Evil as a ‘natural defect’
  –> there are certain norms based on self-maintenance and reproduction in each species - e.g. own has night vision
  –> Humans norm of moral behaviour - people who act immorally have a natural defect
• There are moral absolutes
  –> recognise virtues by observing how person acts in consideration of them e.g. honest person act in consideration of honesty
  –> see moral absolutes empiricists argue cannot measure
  (inspired by Aristotle)

Question 8

What do difference scholars say good means (Meta-Ethics)

Answer 8

• Natural law -Aquinas- from divine inspiration - God
• Utilitarianism - Mill + Bentham- good from pleasure
• Kant - good from sense of duty
  –> all good as natural sense, can reason whats good

Question 9

What is the Naturalist approach?

Answer 9

Cognitivism - Moral Absolutists
- Believe ethical statement are facts
- All attempt to explain moral terms (good/bad/right/wrong) in a non-moral (factual) way

• Bradley + Philippa Foot

Question 10

Criticism of Naturalist approach?

Answer 10

Hume
- is-ought fallacy
–> cant go from ‘is’ observations about humans to statements about what ‘ought’ to be
–> cant move from descriptive to prescriptive statements

G.E. Moore
- Naturalistic fallacy - trying to define intrinsic goodness
- Any quality we attempt to define as good, ask “is that property itself good” e.g. is pleasure itself good
–> open question, if question makes sense proves its not identical e.g. is goodness itself good doesn’t make sense

Question 11

Who are the main scholars of intuitionism?

Answer 11

• G.E. Moore
• H.A. Prichard
• W.D. Ross

Question 12

What does G.E. Moore say about Meta-Ethics?

Answer 12

Intuitionism
- Intrinsically good things exist for their own sake –> should do things that cause the most good to exists
- Good as indefinable

Simple Vs. Complex
- simple - yellow, Complex - horse

Naturalistc Fallacy
- attempt to define good in terms of something else e.g. pleasure
- “Good is Good, and that is the end of the matter”
- Good as simple notion

Intuition
- intuition to perceive moral goodness , not senses
- Cannot be evidence based or viewed, intution cannot be measured empirically