Metaethics%20and%20ethical%20language

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Metaethics and ethical language

• Michael Lacewing
• enquiries_at_alevelphilosophy.co.uk

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Normative and metaethics

• Normative ethics theories about what is right
  and what is good which we can use in practical
  cases
• Metaethics theories about the concepts of right
  and wrong, whether moral judgments can be
  objectively true
• Our interest today is in how moral language works

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Moores intuitionism

• The open question argument no other fact, e.g.
  greatest happiness, is the same as good
  goodness is irreducible to any other (natural)
  property
• We may meaningfully ask Is doing what makes
  people happy good?
• But Is doing what makes people happy doing what
  makes people happy? is not a genuine question.

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Objection

• They could be two different ways of thinking of
  the same thing.
• Water is H2O - is water H2O? v. is water
  water?
• Moore confuses concepts and properties - good
  is a distinct concept, but this doesnt mean it
  is a distinct property

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Moral intuition

• How do we know about good and right?
  Intuition - this is not a type of sensory mode,
  but a use of reason
• Self-evident judgment
• No other evidence or proof than its own
  plausibility
• Controversial, but difficult to do without, e.g
  when giving reasons
• Alternative coherence between judgments

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Facts and values

• Intuitionism claims there are facts about
  values
• But when we disagree about facts, we know how to
  resolve the disagreement disagreements about
  values seem very different
• There is a gap between claims about what is and
  claims about what ought to be (Hume)
• Claims about values motivate us, claims about
  facts do not

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Ayers Verification Principle

• Ayer in order to be literally 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 values are neither
  analytic nor empirically verifiable, they are not
  literally meaningful
• If I say to someone, You acted wrongly in
  stealing that moneyI am simply evincing my
  moral disapproval of it. It is as if I had said,
  You stole that money, in a peculiar tone of
  horror

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Developing emotivism

• The big objection by its own standard, VP is not
  meaningful.
• Stevenson the point about ethics stands - moral
  use of words expresses emotion or tries to arouse
  it in others, it doesnt state a fact
• Objection there can be no rational moral
  argument on this view
• There can be argument about the facts
• There can be a disagreement in attitude, i.e.
  about how to live

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Hares prescriptivism

• Moral words are not emotive, but prescriptive
• Right commands, good commends
• Good is always relative to a set of standards -
  good teacher, good chocolate
• The standard provides a descriptive meaning (not
  any chocolate can count as good)
• You can agree the example meets the standard
  without caring about the standard, i.e. you dont
  have to prescribe it

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Universalization

• You can prescribe whatever you choose, but you
  are rationally constrained by consistency - if x
  is good but y is not, there must be some relevant
  difference between them
• If I think your stealing from me is wrong, but my
  stealing from you is not, I must say what the
  difference is
• Universalization allows greater rationality - we
  can argue about relevance and consistency

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Two objections

• Emotivism and prescriptivism make values
  subjective - so couldnt we value anything we
  chose to? But this makes no sense - morality is
  not about just anything
• There is no logical constraint on what we can
  value, but because of the type of creatures we
  are, there is a factual constraint

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Two objections

• Is morality no more than taste? We think it has
  greater importance and authority
• Our moral feelings matter more than others
• We shouldnt say that there are no moral values -
  this is itself an expression of
  feeling/prescription, and one we disapprove of