AS and A2 Ethics Meta-Ethics: Ethical Language Aquinas and Natural Law

AS and A2 Ethics Meta-Ethics: Ethical Language Aquinas and Natural Law
Situation Ethics Kantian Ethics Utilitarianism Applied Ethics: Euthanasia Applied Ethics: Business Ethics Conscience: Aquinas and Freud Sexual Ethics

A2 Ethical language: Content of meta-Ethics
Introduction Naturalism FH Bradley Empiricist challenges to Naturalism Philippa Foot JL Mackie Intuitionism The naturalistic fallacy and GE Moore HA Prichard WD Ross Emotivism AJ Ayer CL Stevenson Evaluating Emotivism

Introduction Absolutism and relativism are important in understanding meta-ethics. For absolutists, if something is wrong, it is always wrong. For relativists, what is right changes based on the individual, situation, culture, time and place. They are not disagreeing about what is moral. They are disagreeing about what it means to make a moral statement. Absolutism: the view that morals are fixed, unchanging truths that everyone should always follow. Relativism: the view that moral truths are not fixed and are not absolute.

Naturalism An ethical theory that holds that morals are fixed
Are morals absolute, like other facts in reality, or are they closer to opinions that can differ? An ethical theory that holds that morals are fixed Can be linked to absolutism Moral evil and goodness are absolute facts, just like any other fact of the natural world They are fixed things that do not change They are not about your point of view- they are things that are objectively true E.g. To say “everyone has human rights,” is not an opinion. It is a moral truth, part of the reality of our universe. Naturalism: ethical theories that hold that morals are part of the natural world and can be recognised or observed in some way

Naturalism: FH BRADLEY
Ethical naturalist “What is it then that I am to realise? … to know what a man is (as we have seen) you must not take him in isolation. He is one of a people, he was born in a family, he lives in a certain society, in a certain state. What he has to do depends on what his place is, what his function is, and that all comes from his station in the organism.” –Bradley, Ethical Studies, 1876

He believed that our duty is universal and concrete. It is objective with real identity and it realizes the whole person. Ethics is something that can be explained by the concrete absolute reality we observe. The particular focus is on the place we hold in society, which directs what we should do. There are conceptual links between his work and Aquinas’ Natural Law: we can look at the world and see morals from the purposes of life that we see in the world. The social order and your position are not incidental, but a structure of reality.

Theological naturalists link goodness to divine will, so anything that prevents human flourishing is wrong. Hedonic naturalists link goodness to pleasure or happiness, so anything that doesn’t bring pleasure or happiness is wrong. With both of these, goodness is justified by something else. Bradley doesn’t agree with this. Morals are observable as part of the concrete world. Question: Is it correct to interpret social order as a fixed fact? Question: What would FH Bradley say about Woody’s action?

A02 Naturalism: FH BRADLEY
The 20th century saw radical changes in many western countries: Fixed gender roles were challenged The class system was challenged Individual freedom was an increasingly popular concept. Bradley’s fixed moral social order is, therefore, highly questionable. However, social systems fixed to absolute ideas of right and wrong seem common place is much of the rest of the world. The breakdown of social order in western communities could arguably be to the breakdown of family. Naturalism keeps its absolutism by identifying the moral failures of this breakdown. Watch: Monty Python Holy Grail, How is Bradley’s argument about fixed social order challenged?

A02 Empiricist challenges to Naturalism
David Hume, a British empiricist challenged the idea that morals are absolute facts. He suggested that moral claims do not come from reason, but from sentiment. Morals excite passions and produce or prevent actions, which shows they do not come from reason. When we see something that we think is wrong, the wrongness comes from our sentiment, not our reason. Sentiment: an attitude/opinion expressed towards something.

A02 Empiricist challenges to Naturalism
Hume observed that writers on morality often move from statement of fact (is) to statements prescribing what should be done (ought). For example, rather than saying “it is wrong to lie,” people might say, “you ought not to lie.” this changes the relationship between words and ethics. Hume’s law: you cannot go from an ‘is’ to an ‘ought.’ Charles R. Pigden said, “naturalists, in short, resort to all all sorts of supposed of facts- sociological, psychological, scientific and even metaphysical or supernatural.”

Naturalism: Philippa Foot
Philippa Foot challenged Hume by suggesting that moral evil is “a kind of natural defect.” Foot is arguing that there are virtures, characteristics or behaviors that aim at some good- taken from Aristotle. She thinks that these virtues can be recognised or observed by watching how a person acts in consideration of those virtues. Therefore we can perceive moral absolutes that empiricists argue we cannot measure.

Foot draws on Aristotle’s observation that the natural world includes a good way of doing things. Life offers patterns of excellence, related to purpose and function and these can be applied to morality as well: There is a life cycle consisting on self-maintenance and reproduction. Self- maintenance and reproduction can be achieved differently in each species. From all of this, certain norms can be deduced, such as swiftness of the deer or night vision of an owl. By applying these norms to individual members of the species, members can be judged as affective or defective.

She applied her thinking to an example from Peter Kropotkin’s Memoirs of a Revolution (1971), and the tale of Mikluko-Maklay, a geographer and anthropologist sent from Russia to study the peoples of the Malayan archipelago. “He has with him a native who had entered into his service on the express condition of never being photographed. The natives, as everyone knows, consider than something is taken out of them when their likeness is taken by photography. One day when the native was fast asleep, Maklay, who was collecting anthropological materials, confessed that he was awfully tempted to photograph his native, for more so as he was a typical representative of his tribe and would never have known that he been photographed. But he remembered his agreement and refrained.”

This shows the wrongness associated with breaking a promise. It could be considered that taking the photograph would do no harm, but the trust and respect are things that matter. Humans have developed ways to live well together and have developed rules to ensure that everyone can live happily together. These rules are natural and absolute. It is easy to observe whether people follow them or not. Should the commandment be written more precisely as, for example, “you ought not to kill,” rather than, “do not kill.” does it make a difference?

A02 Naturalism: JL Mackie
Philosopher who found difficulty with absolute or natural approaches to morality. He argued that the injunction to not break promises depends on the rules of the institution having already been accepted. The rules are not hard and fast facts: they are accepted to varying degrees by all those inside the institution. The degree to which moral rules should be applied can be disputed, depending on our relationship with the people affected. Should we be more inclined to keep promises to our friends/family, than promises we make to strangers? Watch this Clip from Home Alone – Can strangers keep their promises? We use a moral tradition to solve these disputes

Naturalism: JL Mackie The degree to which moral rules should be applied can be disputed, depending on our relationship with the people affected. Should we be more inclined to keep promises to our friends/family, than promises we make to strangers? We use a moral tradition to solve these disputes about who we should more readily show concern for. Following the rules of an institution or a moral tradition is not the same as acting logically. It is acting in accordance with social expectations. As a naturalist, Mackie believed that moral rules can be observed but that they are based on tradition rather than being absolute constructs.

Naturalism: JL Mackie Identify human actions that you think could constitute natural, observable moral absolutes. For example, telling lies. Is it correct to say that there is never a time when breaking a promise is right? Can human development really be compared to the development of a tree? Are there ways that humans develop that trees do not?

Intuitionism The beginning of the work of G.E.Moore (1873-1958)
He rejected Naturalism and suggested that morals can be seen through intuition. H.A. Pritchard: attempted to define how people intuit (see or perceive) W.D. Ross rejected moral absolutes, but developed a theory to justify moral duties Intuitionism: ethical theories that hold that moral knowledge is received in a different way from science and logic

Naturalistic Fallacy and G.E. MOORE
G.E. Moore published Principia Ethica in 1903. He thought that intrinsically good things exist for their own sake. They cannot be analyzed in the physical world or broken down to understand them. Its not about proving them, but about seeing them. He thought we should do the thing causes most good to exist. Good is a simple indefinable thing to Moore. He rejected Utilitarians who argued that goodness could be defined, measured, quantified and qualified. Naturalistic Fallacy: G.E.Moore’s argument that it is a mistake to define moral terms with reference to other properties

Moore stated that attempts to define good in terms of something else was the naturalistic fallacy. E.g. to define good as the thing that brings us most pleasure, is to turn good into something else. Good cannot be broken down into constituent parts. Its already in its simplest form. “If I am asked ‘what is good?’ my answer is that good is good, and that is the end of the matter. Or if I am asked, ‘how is good to be defined?’ my answer is that it cannot be defined, and that is all I have to say about it.” – G.E. Moore, 1903. Naturalistic Fallacy: G.E.Moore’s argument that it is a mistake to define moral terms with reference to other properties

Good is a simple notion, just like yellow is a simple notion- you know it when you see it. A horse is a complex notion. It can be broken down into different qualities: a quadruped, an animal, a mammal etc. “everything is what it is and not another thing.”- G.E. Moore 1903. Moore stated that people that try to define good are looking for some physical thing they can define (or substitute) as good. This turns any moral judgement into a judgement about the physical world, and that is wrong. How does this advert support G.E Moore’s Naturalistic Fallacy? Naturalistic Fallacy: G.E.Moore’s argument that it is a mistake to define moral terms with reference to other properties

He believed intuition was the thing that perceives moral goodness, rather than our senses. He therefore rejected all discussion about proof because intuition cannot be measured empirically. Beautiful art is good in and of itself, and our awareness of this cannot be defined because its intuitive. Problems with this theory: no evidence of intuition, moral discussions can’t take place using his view, Naturalistic Fallacy: G.E.Moore’s argument that it is a mistake to define moral terms with reference to other properties

Imagine you’re at an art gallery
Imagine you’re at an art gallery. As you wander around you see a beautiful work of art: a stunning statue of a small boy bathing himself, that shows purity and innocence. Then you find out the sculptor was a pedophile. The next photograph you see is of a beautiful ballet dancer. Then you find out the photographer made sexual advances to the models and he only included the once that comply in his collection. Is a beautiful painting really good in and of itself? Do you think you can ‘evil’? Think of a photograph of a well known criminal. When you look at the image, do you see evil?

H.A. Pritchard A leading British moral philosopher in 1920s and 30s.
“Does moral philosophy rest on mistake?” In his paper he argues that it is a hopeless quest to try to find arguments that determine what our moral obligations are. Normally when we are asked why we should do this or that, our answer normally involves happiness or good. (“do the right thing because it will be best for you and will, in the end, make you happy.”) However, he argues that there’s a gap between the good thing and the idea of what things I have a duty to bring about. The course of action X might be best but why I should bring about such a course of action?

H.A. Pritchard Intuition Reasoning
There are two different types of thinking taking place Intuition Reasoning Reason collects facts, intuition determines which course to follow. For example, giving to charity. Reason finds out about the charity and where the money goes. Intuition decides to give to charity. Which charity? Should the money be used for other purposes? Intuition defines which obligation is greater. Moral obligations are not linked to the intrinsic goodness of any action.

A02 H.A. Pritchard Pritchard doesn’t distinguish how we discriminate between different options when different people have different intuitions about what is right. How we decide which option is better is not made clear. He does acknowledge that some people don’t seem to be able to perceive moral truth to the same extent as others. Those that experience doubt when making a moral decision need to think through more clearly the moral capacities. Some think Pritchard's best contribution to meta-ethics is to show the importance of many more moral words, not just “good” and “bad,”

H.A. Pritchard Are you convinced by Pritchard’s claim that our intuition about the right course of action is separate to reason? Consider something that provokes a strong moral response in you that you also feel a sense of duty about. E.g Vegetarianism Do you think our sense of duty arises from the facts of what you perceive, or is it a separate thing?

W.D. Ross He was Pritchard’s student
Set out to try and understand the sort of moral principles people might use when answering a moral question. Principles can cause conflict. For instance, to keep a promise I may have to tell a lie. Principles change from culture to culture. For example, arranged marriage. Ross argues therefore that principles should not be taken as absolute.

W.D. Ross Ross, like Moore, thought goodness cannot be defined in natural terms. Moral principles cannot be absolute. He proposed duties that are “at first appearance.” (prima facie duties) When faced with a moral problem, various duties or obligations are apparent. He identified seven foundational prima facie duties that are clearly moral. They are: Promise- keeping Reparation for harm done Gratitude Justice Beneficence (an action done for the benefit of others) Self-improvement Non-maleficence (not harming or causing least harm for most beneficial outcome)

W.D. Ross These are not absolutes, but they emphasis a personal character of duty. It is a matter of judgement when deciding how to balance these duties in a moral situation. Its not the case that one over-riding principle (like the greatest good for the greatest number) always applies. The principles are not in priority order and they don’t tell us what to do. Our intuition identifies our prima facie duties but our actual action is not self-evident.

W.D. Ross Making judgements is difficult and not without error.
We can improve our ability to make judgements through experience of previous moral decision-making. Ross developed intuitionism into an approach that took account of clashes of apparent absolutes, when a dilemma forces you to abandon one absolute or another. E.g. he provides a solution to the Kantian problem of a son who has to be honest in a murderer’s enquiry about the whereabouts of his father, because one must always be truthful. Ross discerns the need to be honest with the need to preserve life, and therefore he would place preservation over honesty. Watch BlackAdder and the French Revolution -What would Ross say?

Emotivism Intuitionists reject the naturalist claim that moral knowledge is absolute and can be seen in the facts of the world through our senses. Some would also disagree with intuitionists as well and argue that morality is no kind of fact at all: it’s all relative. The Vienna Circle in the 1920s accepted Hume’s idea that you cannot go from “is” to “ought’: from fact to moral. accepted his claim that morality was sentiment and nothing more. Intuitionists believe that morality can be identified, even if not through verifiable science, while emotivism rejects the existence of things that cannot be proved by verifiable science. Therefore they are relativists. Emotivism: ethical theories that hold that moral statements are not statements of fact but are either beliefs or emotions Vienna Circle: a group of philosophers known as logical positivists who rejected claims that moral truth can be verified as objectively true

A.J. Ayer He thought that there were three kinds of judgements: logical, factual and moral. Morals are relative only to our feelings or emotions. They tell us about the person and their emotions, not the external world. Therefore Ayer holds that there are no fixed, moral truths.

A.J. Ayer A meaningful statement about the world is one that can be verified. There are two categories of meaningful statements: Factual statements: verified by our senses. E.g. it is raining outside. Logical statements: verified analytically. E.g = 4. they are true by definition. Moral and theological judgements are not observable and not verified by definition. They are not, therefore, facts about the world. Emotivism is sometimes called the ‘hurrah/boo theory.” To say “generosity is good,” is to say, “hurrah to generosity” and to say “lying is bad,” is to say, “boo to lying.”

A.J. Ayer Ayer writes: “for in saying that a certain type of action is right or wrong, I am not making any factual statement, not even a statement about my own state of mind. I am merely expressing certain moral sentiments. And the man who is ostensibly contradicting me is merely expressing his moral sentiments. So there is plainly no sense in asking which of us in the right. For neither of us is asserting genuine proposition.” Moral arguments are expressions of feelings. Last Supper Trailer Outwitting the Liberals Outwitting the Liberals Part 2

C.L. Stevenson American philosopher 1908-1979
He developed Ayer’s thinking. Ayer classified moral statements as emotional expressions, but Stevenson linked them to attitudes. People express a moral opinion, not as an emotional response, but as an expression of an attitude or belief that they have. Moral judgements include: An element that seeks to persuade or influence others. An element of expressing an attitude relative to a fundamental belief

C.L. Stevenson Stevenson appreciated the strong roots that underline people’s disagreements more fully that Ayer. Moral language is relative to the beliefs that people hold. Ayer saw moral disagreements as arguments about preferences, Stevenson saw them as arguments about different beliefs. In fact, there were more differences of opinion about what to do, rather than arguments or genuine disagreements. For example, people rarely disagree about whether theft is right or wrong, but they may disagree about an appropriate punishment for it. Emotivism challenges the idea that the term ‘good’ represents any kind of fixed morality. Therefore its relative. What would Stevenson say about Last Supper?

Emotivism According to emotivism, which of these statements are factual judgements, which are analytical judgements and which are moral (and therefore meaningless) statements? The Pope is a holy man The squirrel is behind the tree An equilateral triangle is a three-sided polygon where all three sides are equal A virgin has not had sex Heaven is where we hope to go when we die I must have left my mobile phone under his bed You murdered my sunflower.

Evaluating Emotivism Emotivism challenges the foundations of morality.
They reject any sense that morality is beyond themselves. It cannot lead to a ’therefore…’ statement because its an interior individual perspective of the world. Those that claim morality is absolute are mistaken. Therefore, Kantian ethics and Utilitarianism are all mistaken and incorrect. While Bradley sought to incorporate morality into society, but Ayer sought to eradicate any moral grounding from the social order entirely.

Evaluating Emotivism Alistair MacIntyre is not satisfied by emotivism.
He questions ‘emotive meaning.’ He says that thing that makes moral utterances a guide to our actions is their relevance to the people around them, not about whether they are factual or descriptive. For example, to say your house is on fire means something very different if you hear the news on holiday or if you hear it shouted while you are in your home in bed. Emotivists merge meaning and use. They do not distinguish between statements that change significance when used differently.

Evaluating Emotivism Secondly, MacIntyre argues that Stevenson paints a picture of a thoroughly unpleasant world where everyone is trying to get ahead by enforcing their views on each other. He also argues that Stevenson does not explain how the moral views are formed in the first place. Thirdly, emotivism is according to MacIntyre, opaque. It does not give any help in explaining how we can distinguish the feelings and attitudes that are moral from other feelings and attitudes we might have.

Discussing Meta-ethics
Does the definition of the word ‘good’ define the study of ethics? Does ethical language have any factual basis? Is it objective, personally subjective or meaningless? Do people just know in themselves what is good, bad, right and wrong?

A01 Does the definition of the word ‘Good’ DEFINE THE STUDY OF ETHICS?
The language in moral questions and debates is not insignificant. Matters of morality inform law and policy. Moral debates are often linked to questions of people’s suffering and questions of judging and rights. Meta-ethics questions what is really meant by the word ‘good.’ When we discuss morals and use words like: good, bad, right, wrong etc., these words can mean different things to different people. E.g. Murder is wrong. The word wrong could mean it is disliked, it’s against eternal rules, or it’s not in the interest of the majority.

It could be argued that it does not matter whether or not the language used points to anything fixed or absolute, as long as there is an agreement among people about the general direction in which it points. As long as we share the idea that morality is, for example, a matter of custom, it is more important that we understand what the customs are and why they are important to people, NOT what we mean when we all use the same word, ‘good.’

It could also be argued that morality can be talked about in other ways. We can talk about it in terms of virtue, habit, practice. As Foot suggests, rather than talking about goodness. Therefore the focus should be on how to flourish as human beings, and not what is right or wrong, because we can think about other features like conscience. Pritchard offers other words like duty, obligation and right, which he uses alongside good. Ultimately though, every conversation of conscience, duty, obligation etc eventually come back to the question of defining ‘goodness.’

A02 Does ethical language have any factual basis
A02 Does ethical language have any factual basis? Is it objective, personally subjective or meaningless? Meta-ethics questions the link between our ideas about right and wrong and reality. Our attitude to morality is affected by our attitude to the kind of things morals are. Our view of what a moral is affects how it might be used. E.g. the American Declaration of Independence states that all are created equal and that these truths are self-evident. Morality is observable and identifiable in these documents.

A02 Does ethical language have any factual basis? Is it objective, personally subjective or meaningless? The idea of objective moral truth is a powerful idea. It comes with a capacity to command authority over all and provide assurances of what we should and should not do. IF moral truth is objective then it gives us confidence about how to live and the kind of laws we need. It would help to confirm the sort of responses we have when we perceive something as abhorrent, like rape, child abuse, slavery etc.- it’s not an opinion, it’s a moral fact. Moore suggested that there must be some facts behind our moral utterances. He thought that if two people made opposing moral statements, that their statements must be based on fact, otherwise they wouldn’t be disagreeing.

A02 Does ethical language have any factual basis? Is it objective, personally subjective or meaningless? However, Stevenson suggested that the two people could be disagreeing over beliefs, not facts. Morals may be down to subjective beliefs, perhaps informed by cultural differences. IF your morality is a matter of your beliefs and background, then what we mean by saying morality is true, is that it’s only true for you. IF our morals are our own individual beliefs and not universal then one of the strengths is that it is a reflection of our own personal beliefs. However, when it comes to laws, it is not clear whether or not morality has anything to do with them.

A02 Does ethical language have any factual basis? Is it objective, personally subjective or meaningless? Subjectivism celebrates personal identity and individuality, but it is not so good for groups, communities and societies. IF morality is subjective, then the only principle we can really agree on is: ‘to thine self be true.’ Perhaps we are kidding ourselves when we give morality a position of cultural importance. Perhaps our moral utterances are nothing more than emotional outbursts and have no meaning at all. Our responses are just human emotional responses in any particular moment. IF this is morality then we cannot confidently rely upon this for a justice system or for law making, and it makes cultural traditions difficult to justify.

A02 Do people just know in themselves what is good, bad, right and wrong?
How do we know what is moral? Is it instinct, a sense, a feeling, an inner process of reason, a social habit or something else? There is an experience of just knowing when something is wrong, or just ‘feeling’ injustice in a situation. We don’t need to breakdown the mental process of that We don’t need to be educated or trained in this It is something that we are born with, something that speaks to us. The problem is how we translate such an idea into rights and laws and justice. If a sense of morality is something we just have or just know then how do we make sense of those who do not have it or do not know it, or alternatively have a different moral compass?

Emotivists don’t believe we ‘just know’- rather our morals are an expression of our feelings. Some moral thoughts do indeed come from within us but they are not reliable facts. The problem with this is that we have very complex and contradictory feelings about things. Philosophers like Ross therefore think that morality is about discerning between different moral duties and working out which is the right one to follow. He also acknowledges that we don’t always get it right.

Some moral philosophers agree that moral utterances come from within us, but disagree about their status. They could be more than an individual’s expression of belief. They could actually be a reasoned reflection of the world, as Aquinas and Foot seem to suggest. In this view, information is received and processed and a moral judgement is made as a result. Two problems with this: A sense of moral injustice can often create an emotional response that is not always reasoned or collected. People don’t agree on issues of morality which suggests that logic or reasoning is not clear to everyone.

Perhaps moral knowledge is linked to human psychology, emotion, our personal histories, cultures and beliefs, our spirituality. That is not to say that these things influence our moral decisions, just that we are affected by them. This is most clear in psychology: things that happen to us go on to affect us in the future. It is also true with spirituality that people hold to a different way of knowing through links to an ultimate power, divine force and universal wisdom.

The ultimate problem with relying on an inner moral compass is that morality is fundamentally something that relates to other people. There is a social dimension to morality so there needs to be a way of agreeing a set of moral to live by. Relying on my feelings as a moral code to live by won’t be persuasive to other people. Secondly, the experiences and awareness that feed our understanding are things we feel within ourselves. So do we distinguish the moral elements from other elements of the reality we perceive?

How fair is the claim that ethical language is meaningless?
Essay questions How fair is the claim that ethical language is meaningless? ‘moral decision-making is just a matter of common sense- everyone knows right from wrong.’ Discuss.

AS and A2 Ethics Meta-Ethics: Ethical Language Aquinas and Natural Law

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