metaethics Flashcards

Question

critique of naturalism

Answer 1

- hume's guillotine - naturalistic fallacy - GE Moore - Aquinas - JL Mackie

Answer 2

there is a fact-value distinction or gap - naturalism moves too easily from factual statements (is) to moral statements (ought)

Answer 3

guilty of a thinking error claims if something is natural, then it must be good, but it may be wrong to equate the two. eg fox hunting is pleasant, but is it good?

Answer 4

OPEN QUESTION ARGUMENT. good is not identical to natural properties as any identity claim invites an open question eg i agree thats a female fox, but is it a vixen? = closed question i agree i like to look at it, but is it beautiful? is an open question = we suspect the 1st question they dont know what a vixen is, but the second one would suspect they dont know the meaning of beautiful. = attempting to identify morality with observable, natural properties will always result in an open question = which arises when we try to define good in terms of something that is observable.

Answer 5

aquinas makes the assumption that there is a telos for humans, which requires the existence of a god. modern philosophers such as sartre may disagree. if there is no definite purpose, there is no definite good.

Answer 6

+ there is significant moral agreement in the world eg it is wrong to kill is in every major religion and society +doesnt reduce morality down to taste / opinion, discussing killing is different to food tastes

Answer 7

- whilst it does not reduce moral discussion's significance, it sort of does as it posits that one in an argument is more correct than another as their argument is more reflective of natural, objective truths = why debate then? surely debate's significance derives from the fact that both avenues are equally adoptable

Answer 8

refute the idea that goodness is discoverable through observation we can know right / wrong through intuition. cognitivists, statements are true/false + meaningful morality is self-evident but discoverable through intuition

Answer 9

Principia Ethica

Answer 10

- doesnt define himself as an intuitionist but places importance on intuition - intrinsically good things exist for their own sake, they cannot be analysed, defined or broken down like other things in the natural world, but can be recognised. = not about proving them but seeing them - do the thing that causes more good to exist = rejects utilitarianism which argues good can be defined, measured, quantified and qualified.

Answer 11

"good is good"

Answer 12

good is a simple notion, like yellow. whilst yellow can be made up of light waves, the yellow that we perceive is yellow, in the same way we perceive good is good

Answer 13

intuition is the thing that perceives moral goodness, rather than our senses. no place for discussion about proof as methods of proof require evidence from the empirical world, intuition cannot be measured empirically

Answer 14

"how can good be defined? my answer is that it cannot be defined" - principia ethica

Answer 15

Does moral philosophy rest on mistake? = argued it is a futile quest to find arguments to determine what our moral obligations are.

Answer 16

- good exists in reality and objectively, but is indefinable - moral obligations are indefinable - when we approach a moral situation, we intuit what our moral obligation is using our moral intuition - moral intuition is akin to mathematical insight, when combined with imagination, we intuit

Answer 17

we derive a sense of obligation which is "absolutely underivative and immediate" equivalent to mathematical insight and obtained by special unique faculty of human reason. + combine with imagination, allows us to intuit how to act.

Answer 18

p1 reproduction is good = reproduction is obligatory => to justify the conclusion, you would have to presuppose what is good is obligatory essentially questioning does the fact that some state of affairs is good demonstrate that i am obligated to bring it about? as the above is not a valid deduction as it only works when you say what is good is obligatory as p0 === duty and good are seperate things. eg good = happiness doesnt mean its an obligation. to explain good + moral obligations in terms of duty is just explaining what is obligatory in terms of obligation.

Answer 19

- not all people are able to intuit moral truth to the same extent, as morals differ bcos some people have more clarity around moral intuitions.

Answer 20

the good is not natural and cannot be defined. does not identify one singular concept as the good but emphasises the prima facie duties, which are general moral principles that can guide ethical decision making - moral statements are meaningful, cognitive, real

Answer 21

fidelity, non-maleficence, justice etc

Answer 22

The right and the good and the foundation of ethics

Answer 23

clear criticism of kant about conflicting duties eg make a promise but a promise not to lie asw, what if i need to lie to keep a promise? ross argued that moral obligations/principles should **not** be taken as absolutes.

Answer 24

since moral principles were not absolute, thye were attempting to provide a list of principles from which we deduce our moral actions so proposed prima facie duties - duties that are at first appearance. = a moral obligation that binds us to follow it UNLESS there is an overriding obligation.

Answer 25

"it is more important that our theory fits the facts than it be simple"

Answer 26

takes into account clashes when faced with apparent absolute moral duties/obligations provides a solution to the issue kant faced with conflicting duties clear that morality is difficult, and moreso to find certainty in provide more clarity in waht is meant why good

Answer 27

tool intuition is vague and unscientific approach is too difficult for those to take in an absolutist position eg life//death vague in how we work out what is right action still takes a realist position

Answer 28

assumes some odd faculty of mind which is different from ordinary perception. knowledge is gained from sensory experience, but how are we able to recognise non-natural qualities? how can we know the good we perceive is not simply a creation of the mind if our senses are not attuned to non-natural properties

Answer 29

Russel argued this perception was a priori, not all a priori knowledge is mathematical and logical,

Answer 30

no way of resolving disputes in who is truly right in moral discourse. does not claim to answer what good is but assumes we can sense it, how do we do this and detemined what is good

Answer 31

Intuitionism is simply a sense of bewilderment that got up to look like a theory.

Answer 32

- there is sign moral agreement but there is sign moral disagreement. intuitionists claim these truths are self-evident, but how it self evident as muslims think it is moral to be a modest woman, but the west doesnt - unscientific and far fethed to say there is a faculty of intuition. contrasts evolutionary explanations from dawkins, and psychological from freud - if moral values are not empirical and we jsut know right and wrong, how is this different from our just feeling certain things are right or wrong (emotivism)

Answer 33

- in the 50s it was morally acceptable to be racist, widely held social darwinism yet now it is seen as extremely bad - 200 years ago, slave-owner was an acceptable station in life to perform to, yet now we would say this is bad. - muslim women expected to be modest, yet with the wave of 2nd wave feminism in the east, women no longer, seen as bad as oppression.

Answer 34

+ unlike naturlalism, takes the is/ought gap seriously and does not attempt to find moral values through observation + recognises there is moral agreement and disagreement in world + intuitionism is able to establish moral facts and est that right and wrong are not just matters of taste or opinion.

Answer 35

empiricist argues ethical naturalism manipulated a form of deductive argument to reach their meta ethical claim that goodness is a real part of the physical realm gives the is-ought gap (guillotine) and hume's fork

Answer 36

sentimentalist, non-cognitivist, unmeaningful morals excite passions and produce or prevent actions and reason is impotent in matters of morality. as reason is the slave of the passions challenges that when we see something we think is 'wrong', the wrongness comes from our sentiment, not the observaiton (is/ought)

Answer 37

reason is the "slave of the passions"

Answer 38

proposed a coutner example to undermine hume's is/ought gap names it moving from descriptive statements to evaluative statements proposes: p1 jones: i promise to pay you, smith, 5 dollars p2 jones promised to pay smith 5 dollars p3 jones placed himself under an obligation to pay smith 5 dollars p4 jones is under an obligation to pay smith a dollars p5 jones OUGHT to pay smith 5 dollars. BUT fails to refute the existence of a LOGICAL GAP between the two statements as it is only "reasonable", meaning it still infers.

Answer 39

two types of knowledge that can be obtained a priori - 2+2=4, before experience = ANALYTIC. a posteriori - matters of fact, water boils at 100^o, after experience = SYNTHETIC

Answer 40

Logical positivist - concepts originate out of logic part of Vienna circle, relativist.

Answer 41

metaphysics and common sense

Answer 42

three types of judgements - logical (analytic) factual (synthetic) moral - morals do not relate to factual statments as they cannot be verified under his verification principle, they are also not verifiable through defintiion = MEANINGLESS and not facts about the world

Answer 43

BARNES - saying abortion is good is saying hurray abortion and saying abortion is bad is saying boo abortion = reduces moral judgements to emotions / attitudes

Answer 44

linked to attitudes, not just expressing emotional responses. moral judgements contain an element that expresses an attitude relative to a fundamental belief. takes it a step further. argues there is a persuading dimension to moral statements as they are more than utterances of sentiment = AYER moral disagreements as preferences = STEVENSON moral disagreements also over different beliefs also not moral diagreements of opinion but rather what to do - people dont disagree stealing is bad but disagree over the punishment in response.

Answer 45

questions its focus on emotive meaning, arguing that the significance of moral utterances as guides for action stems not from their factual or analytical content but from their contextual relevance to people. Emotivists conflate meaning with use, failing to distinguish how statements, like “your house is on fire,” carry different demands based on context (e.g., hearing it on the news versus shouted at home), as the same emotion can have varying significance depending on the situation, THUS wrongly treats moral statements as just expressions of emotion, ignoring how their meaning changes depending on the situation, l

Answer 46

paints an unpleasant world where everyone is trying to get ahead by imposing their own views stevenson does not explain how moral views are formed in the first place

Answer 47

it is opaque, and doesnt give any guidance in explaining how to distinguish feelings and attitidues that are moral from other feelings and attitudes.

Answer 48

sets bar too high, just because i cannot prove a moral judgements, any justification becomes meaningless but there are things i cannot prove but can give reasons eg beethoven is superior to pop music, due to the harmonies, design, melody but there is no proof. ?1

Answer 49

if there is no possibility of moral or value judgements, then there are no possible moral reasons. the emotivist himself therefore, cannot even justify his moral judgements, as a relativist can say this is only justified by the ideas of a particular culture. = if no reason offered has moral validity, then any reason for a point of view cannot be condemned over another. eg a bigot cannot be challenged as no judgement is as good as another ==== destroys the possibility of rational ethical discource.

Answer 50

+ easier task on explaining different moral views as there are no facts about right/wrong + avoids naturalistic fallacy + recognises that disputes are driven by feelings rather than reaosns. echoes psychologist Daniel Goleman on emotional intelligence, he arguies emotional part of our brain kicks in before rational part

Answer 51

Generic Consistency, humans are not self-sufficient, we have needs which can only be met with the help of others. we interact with others and can only do so effectively by recognising that others should be treated the way we want ourself to be treated. ==== morals aren’t just about emotions or logical arguments—they’re about the practical reality of how we live together. Morals exist bcos we need to work with others to survive and thrive.

metaethics Flashcards

(75 cards)