Meta Ethics AQA A Level Philosophy

Mind independant moral properties make judgements true or false

Get their validity from reality/ way the world is

There are no mind independant moral properties in the world

They are not propositional cannot be right or wrong in existence

Moral statements are not truth apt

They cannot be true or false

Cannot be classed as propositional knowledge

Must be based on something other than finding knowledge

Moral statements are truth apt

They are propositional and can be true or false

Moral statements can be known

Moral naturalism is cognitivst, claiming that moral statements have truth aptness and are propositional

Moral naturalism is realist as it claims moral properties exist according to the way the world is

E.g. Murder is wrong is true and it is also the case that murder’s wrongness exists as some feature of the world

Moral naturalism claims that moral properties can be reduced to natural properties

Realist position that moral statements can be translated into statements about some feature of the world

e.g. “moral goodness” can become “desiring pleasure”

Utilitarianism believes that the moral property of good can be reduce to pleasure and bad can be reduce to pain

The proof of hapiness principle - good is what is pleasurable, the right action is the one that maximisies pleasure

In virtue ethics the good is equated to euadaimonia which is achieved through virtue

Moral non naturalism is cognitivist moral statements have truth aptness

Moral naturalism falls into the naturalistic fallacy

Moral properties exist and are discoverable by reason intuitively by using a rational process of the mind

Realist position

Moral properties exist but “sui generis”

Moral properties are non - definable as basic simple proeprties

Goodness is like yellow

Attacks reductive property of moral statements to natural propertiess

Moral properties are unique “sui generis” - class of their own

Uses the example of good and pleasure

An open question can be answerd with yes or no

If good = pleasure then is pleasure good would not make sense as it would be like saying is pelasure pleasure, which is not an open question

First question is open ended

Goodness cannot be pleasure or be reduced down to any other natural property

As is x good will always be open ended but is x, x? can never be open ended

The statement pleasure is goodness is analagous to saying water is H2O

Water is in fact H20 but this does not mean that the question is closed, and the question still makes sense

As saying is water H20 is not the same as saying H20 H20

Therefore we can still discuss whether if goodness is pleasure , with them being the same thing in the world

All propositions can either be a matter of fact or relation if ideas

Relation of ideas are all things which are intuitively certain, analytical truths including arithmetic e.g. 5 + 5 = 10. These propsitions can be discovered purely by thinking

Matters of fact are synthetic and known empirically. e.g. that book is red, Can be actual or potential we cannot have as strong grounds of thinking are true

Moral judgements are neither matters of fact or relations of ideas. Therefore we cannot have knowledge of them at all

Moral properties cannot exist

Only two types of proposition have meaning

Those which are analyticaly true and those which are empiricaly verifiable

Ethical concepts are pseudo concepts and are unalayasable and not verifiable as knowledge

Instead they are just a branch of psychology

Verification principle is self refuting

Only propsitions with meaning are analytic or empirically verifiable

Verification principle is neither

Absurd to say discussions on things like art, ethics and religion are meaningless

[the unverifiable proposition] may be emotionally significant but it is not literally significant’

It is irrational to move between what is the case in the world to what ought to be done

E.g. Cannot say we should not eat animals as they suffer when they are killed

Nothing in these claims illustrate the wrongness of these actions

There is a gap in reasoning

This conclusion leaves a gap between how things are and the moral imperative of what we should do

Anti - realist

It is empirically the case that moral codes differ from one society to the next

e.g. some socities all people should be treated as equals in others one is superior

How could there be moral properties if moral beliefs differ from society to society

Just because there is moral disagreement between societies does not mean that there are no moral truths

Socities have also disagreed with empirical matters of fact e.g. some habe thought the earth is round while others thought the earth is flat.

However there was an objective truth and a right and wrong answer

Mere fact that socieities have disagreed over morality still leaves the posibility that their are objective moral truths some socities are just mistaken on good and bad

There are also general ethical principles held by most socieities, e.g. should not kill, steal

Other moral judgements are relative to particular circumstances e.g. stealing is wrong is true in some socieities and false in others

People hold moral judgements not because there are general principles, but because something about the act arouses their disapproval and they have “intuition it is wrong”

There is no clear way of knowing moral properties

Methods like sense percpetion or hypothetical reasoning cannot explain knowledge of reasoning

To say we know moral judgements by intuition is to say we do not know them using normal methods, doesn’t tell us how we know them by inntuition

Therefore we cannot find a connection between moral properties and natural properties

If moral truths are known they are not known empircaly or intuitively, and in a way which is fully understood.

Therefore we do not know them at all, as they are not the type of propsition we can known and moral realism is false

The error theory is anti - realist as it asserts that there are no moral properties in existence

Is also cognitivst as it asserts that moral judgements are propositional and can be true or false

There are no moral properties, so there is no state of affairs for asserting that a moral statement is true.

Ethical language rests on an error

All ethical claims are false

Murder is wrong has truth aptness but is false, in the same way murder is right is false

The position that moral statements are only emotional assertions only reflecting an emotional reaction to a particular action

Non - cognitive must be neither true or false

e.g. If is say to someone you are wrong for stealing that money because

I am not doing more than envincing my moral disapproval of it

Therefore moral language is only based on emotion and how we feel

Moral properties do not exist in reality

Anti - realist position as claims that moral properties do not exist

Non - cognitive - moral properties do not tell us this is

cannot be true or false as the property doesn't exist

One property just fits an agenda better

Prescriptivism is that we are giving advice proscrbing what should be done using our own opinion

e.g. I don’t thing you should eat animals. Not it is wrong to kill animals

Not true as they are based on moral properties but given a set of agreed standars which can be universalised