The very idea

Key resources: Meta-ethics in a small nutshell (short) Meta-ethics in a small nutshell Meta-ethics in a much larger nutshell (longer) Meta-ethics in a much larger nutshell Lacewing – Moral cognitivismMoral cognitivism Lacewing – Moral truthMoral truth

What do you think? Every woman has the right to terminate her pregnancy. Abortion is murder. Education is a universal right. The Taliban policy of preventing girls from attending school was morally permissible. It is wrong to mutilate the genitals of children. Female circumcision is right for those cultures (e.g. among many groups in the Horn of Africa) where it is a long established tradition.

In addressing these questions it feels like something hangs on the answer. Disagreements seem genuine – there’s a right answer, even if it’s hard to get to. Moral disputes do not seem like arguments over the taste of Marmite.

Meta-ethics Aim to understand the nature of moral judgements – not the elucidation of a theory of what is good, right or virtuous (normative ethics). What does this involve? What are the key issues and questions?

Key issues: (1) Meaning: is the semantic function of moral discourse to state facts? (2) Metaphysics: do moral facts or properties exist? What are they? Are they reducible to some other type of property or sui generis? (3) Epistemology: can we possess moral knowledge? What can justify our moral beliefs? (4) Objectivity: can moral judgements really be correct or incorrect? In what sense, if any, is there a moral truth ‘out there’? (5) Moral psychology: what is the connection between forming a moral judgement and acting? Does making a moral judgement necessarily motivate a person to act?

A map of the positions YES – they report the facts Naturalism v. non-naturalism Do moral judgements express beliefs? YES COGNITIVISM Sometimes true? NO – they express beliefs, but they are all false Reductionism v. non-reductionist approach SUBJECTIVISM Hume Emotivism NO NON- COGNITIVISM Error theory

Moral realism: key claims A robust, full-blown realism has these commitments. (1) Meaning: moral discourse aims to report the moral facts. (2) Metaphysics: there exist moral facts (or properties) and they are distinct class of facts (N.B differences among realists on type of facts and reduction) (3) Epistemology: We possess moral knowledge, which is to have knowledge of (some of) the moral facts. (4) Objectivity: moral facts are objective or independent of any particular beliefs or thoughts we might have about them. Although N.B the notion of objective will need to be carefully specified. (5) Moral psychology: internalism v. externalism – more on this later

Realism… So…. Moral judgements as objective. There exist moral facts or properties We can possess moral knowledge. Motivations…

Motivations - truth Realism accounts for the actual nature of our moral discourse – our judgements look and function like any other declarative sentence. The existence of moral facts explains why our moral judgements are expressed in a truth-functional way. For example… The judgement that ‘hunting badgers is morally wrong’ has the grammatical form of a sentence that is capable of being true or false. It explains why some of our judgements are true.

Motivations - justification Realism explains why I am justified or not in expressing a particular moral belief or forming a moral judgement. My belief that wanton cruelty is wrong is explained by the fact that it is wrong – the belief is supported by the way things are and (as with any other belief) it has the job of reporting of how things are. …and why we can have moral knowledge – to know that p is right/wrong is to have a justified belief about the fact that p.

Justification – disagreement and progress Moral realism explains why moral disagreements are real. Just as we may dispute what the right answer is in science, so too with moral questions. If morality is objective in this way, then it makes sense of the idea of progress as well as the possibility of error. Parallel with scientific progress - things can improve morally as we come to acquire moral knowledge.