Meta Ethics [ESSAY POINTS]

Question 1

What may a paragraph on ethical naturalism include?

Answer 1

• Claims there are objective, absolute moral truths that exist within the world. I.e, some actions are intrinsically moral and immoral. Ethical statements can therefore be verified empirically.
• Bentham supports naturalism in the form of hedonism, claiming it is a scientific fact that humans enjoy pleasure and dislike pain. Actions are good or bad therefore depending on the pleasure/ pain they bring.
• Hume criticises ethical naturalism, arguing it is a fallacy to jump from what is to what ought to be. We cannot make moral conclusions from empirical observations of the world around us.
• G.E Moore develops Hume’s critique, coining the term naturalistic fallacy. Uses analogy of the colour yellow. In the same way ‘yellow’ is simply a property that cannot be broken down further, goodness is simply a property that cannot be defined as naturalists attempt to do.

Question 2

What may a paragraph on intuitionism contain?

Answer 2

• Cognitive approach which claims people intuitively know what is right and wrong. Goodness cannot be defined, but rather we have an innate understanding of it.
• G.E Moore supports intuitionism, suggesting goodness is a non material property belonging to a world beyond the material which can be accessed with intuition.
• Issue: If intuitionism was correct, we should be able to all reach the same moral decision using intuition. Intuition is in reality non universal, meaning it cannot make ethical language meaningful as its meaning will vary from person to person.
• Some may respond to this by pointing out the moral values shared cross culturally.
• Pritchard argues the intuition we get depends on our understanding of moral situations which explains differences.

Question 3

What may a paragraph on emotivism contain?

Answer 3

• Emotivism claims there is no objective moral truth, and therefore ethical statements are ultimately meaningless.
• Ethical statements only convey emotions- hence emotivism.
• A.J Ayer supports emotivism. Ethical language is not verifiable, as we do not experience moral properties, and therefore only conveys emotions.
• C.L Stevenson develops emotivism, suggesting ethical statements have a descriptive and dynamic meaning behind them.
• Ayer’s emotivism is similar to ethical nihilism. They both ultimately claim that moral language is meaningless and there are no objective moral truths.
• This raises the issue of destroying moral obligation. After WW2, scholars such as Philipa Foot criticises the rejection of absolute morality due to the events of the holocaust.
• Still, this does not mean that Ayer’s theory is wrong. He is not justifying emotivism, but simply stating ethical statements have no meaning beyond the emotions they evoke.