1. Meta Ethics
The Language of Ethics

2. What do you need to know? How ethical language is used
What different philosophers think is meant when people use words such as ‘good’ and ‘bad’.
Whether morality is a matter of individual feelings or of reason.
Whether there are any objective moral truths.
The different theories of meta-ethics.

3. Scholars H.A Prichard G.E. Moore W.D Ross C.L Stevenson A.J Ayer
R.M. Hare

4. Ethical theory – meta ethics
This is the discussion about the nature of ethical statements (expressions of a point of view or a statement of fact?) and whether these are useful or valid.
Meta-ethics analyses ethical language and seeks to understand the meaning of moral judgements.
Can an ethical statement have any meaning?
Abortion is murder for Catholics as they believe in the sanctity of life.
Abortion is murder

5. Normative Ethics v Meta Ethics
Deals with what things are right or wrong. They help people to understand what is right and moral and what is wrong and immoral.
They tell people what to do and what not to do.
‘This is a good gun’ – is the gun morally good?
Deals with what it means to claim that something is right or wrong.
It is like a foreign language you have to understand what the word means to understand what is being said.
‘This is a good gun’ – what do we mean by using the word good. (Is it good because it fulfils its purpose or because I approve of it?

6. Similarities & differences
Understanding words & concepts
Understanding why we use certain words
Reasons behind decisions
Differences
Meta is theoretical, normative is a guide to behaviour
Meta is more rigid than normative. There is less manoeuvrability in defining words, compared to applying ethical theories.
Meta is more philosophical

7. Do Ethical Statements have meaning?
COGNITIVISTS Moral statements describe the world . They can be worked out using the senses. E.g. ‘Murder is wrong’ is stated by observing the effects of the action. Objective (not influenced by personal feelings)
NON-COGNIVITISTS A moral statement is an expression of a feeling. They are not descriptive and cannot be described as true or false. Subjective (based on or influenced by personal feelings)

8. Meta-ethics
Cognitive
Non- cognitivist
Objective
Subjective
Realist
Anti-realist

9. Ethical Naturalism
All ethical statements are natural and can be verified. If I want to know if euthanasia is wrong, I look at the evidence and test the truthfulness of the statement. I could then argue that as it ends the suffering of an individual, it is therefore right.
G.E. Moore – moral statements cannot be identified as either true or false using evidence. This would be a NATURALISTIC FALLACY (good cannot be defined). Moving from a factual objective statement to an ethical statement of values does not work

10. Intuitionism- Cognitive
G.E. Moore
Right acts are those that produce the most good BUT goodness cannot be defined.
We cannot use our senses but we can use our moral intuition.
We recognise goodness when we see it – ‘a simple notion’.
‘We know what ‘yellow’ is and can recognise it whenever it is seen, but we cannot actually define yellow. In the same way, we know what good is but we cannot actually define it’. (Moore, Principia Ethica)

11. Intuitionism - Cognitive
H.A Prichard
No definition can be given to the word ‘ought’ however everyone can recognise when we ought to do a certain action.
Two types of thinking – reason (looks at the facts if a situation) and intuition (decides what to do).
However, due to the fact we have different morals to each other, it is not always appropriate to use intuition to prove goodness.

12. Intuitionism - Cognitive
W.D Ross
He agreed with Moore and Prichard by saying that ‘right’ and ‘obligatory’ were as indefinable as ‘good’.
He argued that certain types of actions were right – prima facie duties.
Seven prima facie duties – fidelity, reparation, gratitude, justice, helping others, self-improvement, not harming others.
If these conflict, follow the one we think is right in that situation. However, he doesn’t say how we decide this.

13. Emotivism – non cognitivist
A.J Ayer
Emotivism helps us understand moral statements.
‘ethical terms do not serve only to express feelings, They are calculated also to arouse feeling, and so to stimulate action’.
Two kinds of meaningful statements – analytic (all bachelors are unmarried men) and synthetic (the Battle of Hastings was in 1066).
Ethical statements are not verifiable – they can only be understood as a expression of feelings.
Boo/Hurrah theory

14. Emotivism – non-cognitivist
C.L Stevenson
Book – Ethics and Language (1944)
Discussed the emotive meaning of words. When making a moral judgement we are offering our opinion on it but also trying to influence others’ attitudes.
Ethical statements are therefore based on emotions but ALSO on our experience of the world and how we want it to be.
Ethical disagreements are disagreements about fundamental principles.

15. Prescriptivism – non-cognitivist
R.M Hare
Ethical language is prescriptive. An ethical statement says what ought to be done and these are moral because they are universal.
Ethical statements do not state facts and are not true or false, but are expressions of our will or wishes.
IF we use the word ‘good’ in a moral sense we are using a set of standards that apply to a person or action and we commend that person or action.
If we say someone ought to do something, we are saying that we ought to do it as well.