Ethical and religious language

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Ethical and religious language

• Michael Lacewing
• enquiries_at_alevelphilosophy.co.uk

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Aquinas on analogy
We must extend our terms before applying them to
God. Talk of God is by analogy.
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Univocal language
Talk of God is univocal. A word is univocal if it
yields a contradiction when affirmed and denied
of the same thing

• Objection this doesnt do justice to the
  transcendence of God.

Duns Scotus
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Aquinas on analogy
We must extend our terms before applying them to
God. Talk of God is by analogy.
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Analogy of attribution

• Organisms are literally healthy (or not) food is
  healthy (or not) by analogy. Food that is healthy
  causes organisms to be healthy.
• To say God is love is to say God is the cause
  or ground of all love.
• Two problems
• Is God literally the cause of love?
• Does love apply literally to us and
  analogically to us? Or does it apply literally
  and in the first instance to God?

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Analogy of proportion
A human father loves in the way and sense
appropriate to human fathers and God loves in the
way and sense appropriate to God.

• But if we dont already know what God is, how do
  we know what it means to say that God loves in a
  way appropriate to God?

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Tillich Symbolic language
Our understanding of God takes the form of
symbols, e.g. the Way, the Truth, the Life, the
Resurrection, the Cross. Religious language tries
to express this symbolic meaning.

• Symbols partake in what they express.

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Three implications of symbolic language

• Understanding symbols and finding the words to
  express their meaning doesnt follow any obvious
  rules.
• It is not possible to give a literal statement of
  the meaning of a symbol.
• We need to be sensitive to the fact that symbols
  point beyond themselves.

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Difference and overlap

• Many theories of religious language, e.g.
  symbolic, analogical, have not been applied to
  ethical language.
• But both religious and ethical language face the
  question of whether, and in what way, they are
  meaningful.
• A common debate began with the verification
  principle.

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The Verification Principle

• Ayer in order to be meaningful, a statement must
  either be
• analytic (true or false in virtue of the
  definition of the words) or
• empirically verifiable (shown be experience to be
  true).
• Because statements about God and statements about
  values are neither analytic nor empirically
  verifiable, they are not meaningful.
• The big objection by its own standard, VP is not
  meaningful.

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The big question

• Does religious and ethical language state facts,
  describe the world?
• Do we experience morality or God? How can we
  refer to God or values?

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Expressivism

• Both types of language express personal
  commitments to a way of life and a system of
  values.
• They motivate us to act in certain ways.
• Language that motivates does not describe.
• Any fact, on its own, doesnt motivate. I need to
  care about the fact.
• Is this true? What does it show?

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Wittgenstein

• Language is always social, and expresses a shared
  form of life.
• God and moral values are not things in the
  world the language that uses these terms is not
  like empirical language.
• The nature of religious faith and moral views
  supports this.
• Yet many users think that religious or ethical
  language does state facts Cant it be both an
  expression of attitude and a description?

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Realism

• Virtues and the search for the good life
• Human situation and human nature
• Overlap
• Matters of life and death
• Psychic wholeness