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Meta Ethics (OCR exam board)

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Meta Ethics
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Page 1: Meta  Ethics (OCR exam board)

Meta Ethics

Page 2: Meta  Ethics (OCR exam board)

Normative vs. Meta Ethics

Meta Ethics• Explores meaning

and use of ethical language.

• What do we mean by: good, bad, right, wrong?

• E.G “What does ‘sex before marriage is wrong’ mean?”

• Where do our ethical principles come from – are we born with moral instincts or do they come from environment?

Normative Ethics• Asks what things are good and

bad.• What behaviour is right and

wrong.

• Decides how people ought to act and how they make moral choices.

• These decisions may be from a group/ culture e.g. Christian tradition or may be based on a philosophical way of thinking.

• E.G “Is sex before marriage right?”

• E.g. Natural Law, Utilitarianism, Kant

Descriptive Ethics

• Describes and compares different ways societies have answered moral questions.

• Can be called moral sociology.

• E.G “What do Christian/ Muslim traditions believe about sex before marriage?”

Page 3: Meta  Ethics (OCR exam board)

Meta Ethics

G.E. MooreH. A. Pritchard

W. D. Ross

Intuitionism

Objective

Ethical naturalism

Cognitive Non Cognitive

Subjective

PrescriptivismEmotivism

A. J. AyerC.L Stevenson R. M. Hare

F. H. Bradley

Page 4: Meta  Ethics (OCR exam board)

Cognitivist vs Non Cognitivist

Cognitive• Describe the world

(descriptive) – objectively true or false.

Non Cognitive

• Not describing the world but expressing feelings. Moral statements cannot be described as true or false = subjective

Page 5: Meta  Ethics (OCR exam board)

Ethical Naturalism

• Both of these can be proven true or false using evidence -cognitive• Factual• Verified (proven true) or falsified (proven false)• Moral issue e.g. euthanasia is right or wrong look at the evidence so I can test the

veracity (truth) of the statement. • Therefore: argue that euthanasia ends suffering of an individual = morally right.

Ethical statements Non ethical statements -

Facts about the world

Are the SAME!

E.G Hitler was the leader of the Nazis (non ethical - fact)Hitler was a bad man (ethical - fact – using evidence, consequences of actions, personal attributes)

Page 6: Meta  Ethics (OCR exam board)

F. H Bradley • Advocates Ethical Naturalism - the belief that a statement

could only be factual and have meaning if it can be verified empirically like literal statements/ propositions.

1. Ethical sentences express propositions.

2. Some such propositions are true.

3. Those propositions are made true by objective features of the world, independent of human opinion.

• Suggests that there is a link between science and morality.

• Meta-ethical statements can be defined in scientific terms. This is Naturalism (the philosophical belief that everything arises from natural properties and causes)

Page 7: Meta  Ethics (OCR exam board)

Strengths / Weaknesses Based on what is natural – everyone can experience it Nature is universal so supports argument that morals

can be universally known - fact Presents a solid guideline that ethics follow in every

situation.

Regardless of whether a situation may have evidence to support that it is right (euthanasia) it may still break the law = pointless.Right and wrong are subjective not objective – need humans to exist to determine how we should liveDo ethical/ moral situations have evidence? Which evidence do we accept/ ignore?

Page 8: Meta  Ethics (OCR exam board)

Hume’s Law: Is – Ought distinction

We can gather information about world around us through sense experience

(empiricism). We cannot move from an objective

factual statement about observations to a subjective moral one.

E.G forensic = a man is dead = verified but cannot find evidence of wrongness of

murder.Hume believed cannot move from a fact

‘X is Y’ or ‘David is dead’ to ‘Do X instead of Y’ or ‘David is dead you ought not kill.’No amount of fact ever sufficient to imply

ethical conclusion.“Is does not imply ought.”

Page 9: Meta  Ethics (OCR exam board)

Weakness: Naturalistic Fallacy• Cannot identify goodness (ethical

statement) with a natural quality – statement about the world (non ethical statement)

• To claim moral statements can be verified or falsified = commit naturalistic fallacy.

• Cannot infer from a description of how the world ‘is’ to how the world ‘ought’ to be.

• ‘Is’ are factual objective statements• ‘Ought’ are ethical statements of

value.• Cannot use facts to work out how we

ought to act. G.E.Moore

Page 10: Meta  Ethics (OCR exam board)

Intuitionism: G. E. Moore

• Did not believe human intuition was infallible (perfect).• Statements can be true/false (cognitive) • Cannot use senses to tell whether something is good but

moral intuition.

‘Principia Ethica’Ethics come from intuition.

• “We know what good is, but we cannot actually define it.”

• Goodness is indefinable: yellow. We know what is yellow and can recognise it but we cannot actually define it or describe particular qualities of it.

Page 11: Meta  Ethics (OCR exam board)

H.A. Prichard: built on Moore’s work •Developed moral thinking = clearer moral intuition.•‘ought to do’ has no definition (like yellowness) yet everyone recognises what we ought to do in a certain situation.•Distinguished between •1. “general thinking (reasoning)” used to assess the facts of a situation and •2. “moral thinking” based on an immediate intuition about the right thing to do.

W.D.Ross influenced by both Moore and Prichard.

• He believed terms like ‘right’ and ‘obligation’ were just as indefinable as ‘good.’

• What is right is always unique, depending on what is “morally suitable” for the situation a person is in.

• Never know all the facts about a situation = base our judgments about what’s right and wrong on intuitions.

Page 12: Meta  Ethics (OCR exam board)

• W.D. Ross was a deontologist - obvious that certain types of actions were right. He called these Prima Facie Duties.

1) Fidelity (promise keeping)2) Reparation – done something wrong3) Gratitude4) Justice5) Beneficence – helping others6) Self improvement7) Non maleficent – not harming others

When these duties conflict – follow what we think is right in that situation – first sight duties.

• Henry Sidgwick • Humans know r/w because of moral judgement

= self evident.• Theory that ethics is not based on any unifying

principle but on human intuition – common sense

Page 13: Meta  Ethics (OCR exam board)

Strengths/ weaknessesMoore does not explain nor prove how we know good through intuition alone and not through senses.How can we be sure our intuitions are correct?Since we cannot use sense experience how do we decide between intuitions?What happens if these intuitions conflict?Moral intuitions seem to come from social conditioning and differ between cultures – hard to see how these can be a reliable guide to objective ethical truths.J. L Mackie - He argues that morality is not just about what a person believes is intuitively right, but it is about doing something about it.

Page 14: Meta  Ethics (OCR exam board)

Emotivism• Moral = good/ bad in your opinion/ expressing an emotion.• Ideas from environment – family• Ethical statements cannot be proven true or false – non cognitive

• Statements are only meaningful if they are verifiable as analytic or synthetic statements (remember Religious Language?).

• Morality falls outside this legitimate area. “Stealing is wrong” has no factual meaning.

• .

A.J.Ayer •‘Good, bad, right, wrong’ expressing approval/ disapproval.•Ethical statements express an emotion – no factual meaning – not verified. •Logical positivism: argues that ethical statements cannot be tested using sense experience = not genuine truths but feelings

Page 15: Meta  Ethics (OCR exam board)

Boo – Hurray theory: moral statements express an emotion.

C. L. Stevenson: •Interested in how moral statements are used and what results they are intended to produce.•How people actually use moral statements in everyday conversation

“Ethical terms do not serve only to express feelings. They are

calculated also to arouse feelings and so to stimulate

action”.

Page 16: Meta  Ethics (OCR exam board)

Strengths/ Weaknesses

Allows complete freedom of action Part of being human is to express emotions especially in

moral situations Everyone can understand the theory and can apply it Everyone's opinions are equally valid.

Ethics based on attitudes, upbringing and feelings – lead Emotivism to being ‘simply subjectivism.’James Rachels points out that moral judgments appeal to reasoning not just expressions of feelings.

Page 17: Meta  Ethics (OCR exam board)

Prescriptivism• Do not state facts• Not true or false• But express our wills or wishes = imperatives

(must do’s)R.M. Hare • ‘The Language of Morals’ • Moral issues move beyond our individual

viewpoint in order to universalise a view. • Such prescriptions are moral because =

universal.• Not only good for us, but everyone else = Hare’s

universalisability.

Page 18: Meta  Ethics (OCR exam board)

• Ethical statements say what ‘ought’ to be done• “you ought to do this” means everyone should

do the same in similar situations.

• By using the word ‘good’ in an ethical way is to use it prescriptively. This really means ‘giving to charity is good so I ought to do it as well.’

• Ethical language is prescriptive

‘A good chair is one that supports your back.’ = descriptive meaning(describing the chair)

‘Giving to charity is good.’ = prescriptive meaning.

(Prescribing – recommending- a

behaviour)

Page 19: Meta  Ethics (OCR exam board)

Strengths / WeaknessesMoral judgments that are founded on prescriptions mean that there is no valid reason why we should follow one person’s prescriptions more than another's.Prescriptions can justify any moral behaviour ‘ It is right to create an Aryan race.’

Hare defends this by saying ‘put yourself in others shoes.’

Not a very successful reply when looking at modern day suicide bombers for example.


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