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Meta-ethics Revision Summary
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A summary of the AQA A-level meta-ethics topic. Including definitions of terms, key theories, and major criticisms.
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Meta Ethics Revision DocumentWhere does morality come from?
Reason Emotions/attitudes Society
● Moral Realism argues ● Defended by ● Moral Relativism
we can discover moral non-cognitivist claims morality
facts through reason theories because we originates from
● a) Rational do not discover moral society & regulation of
investigation gives us principles through relationships
empirical evidence reason ● Principles are not
● b) Rational intuition is ● These principles are individual they are
the origin of moral expressions of how shared, but not
principles- a priori like we feel and want discovered by reason
mathematics others to act ● They evolve with a
(emotivism & society and reflect
prescriptivism) how it thinks people
should behave
Are there moral facts?
Cognitivism Non-cognitivism
● Ethical language expresses beliefs ● Ethical language expresses attitudes
● Ethical claims can be true or false or feelings (expressions of mental
● Fact stating (propositional claims) states other than beliefs)
● Aims to describe how the world is (so ● Do not describe the world so cannot
a moral claim is true if it correctly be true or false
describes the world) ● Ethical claims are non-propositional
Are there moral properties?
Moral Realism Moral Anti-realism
● Mind independent moral properties ● There are no mind independent moral
exist properties
● These properties are what make ● Anti-realism can be non-cognitivist or
moral judgements true or false (so cognitivist
they are objective)
● Moral realism is always cognitivist
, What is the nature of mind independent moral properties (according to realism ofc)?
Naturalism Non-naturalism
● Moral properties are natural properties ● Moral properties are not natural or
● They relate to the world so we can empirical they instead refer to a
identify them through sense unique kind of fact
experience and science (empirically) ● Intuitionism is Moore’s form of
● Reductive naturalism claims that non-naturalism
moral properties are the same as ● People have moral intuitions- they
properties we identify empirically (e.g. grasp ethical facts simply because
Bentham's Util. states that goodness they are self-evident
is happiness understood as pleasure) ● The open question argument states
● Non-reductive naturalism still that open questions conceivably have
understands moral properties as multiple answers whereas closed
being natural and identified questions can only have one answer.
empirically, however moral properties If naturalism were true then questions
can be realised in multiple ways and like ‘is pleasure the good?’ would be
are irreducible to other natural closed- only we can legitimately
(descriptive) properties debate this (unlike triangles having 3
sides). So moral good is indefinable-
naturalism fails
● Naturalistic fallacy claims that
naturalism makes a fundamental error
by confusing correlation with identity.
Good can correlate with natural
properties but that does not make it
identical to them. Such that yellow is
simple, ‘good’ cannot be reduced
beyond the experience of it.
How can moral realism deal with issues that arise?
Criticisms
Hume on Moral Motivation:
● Beliefs alone are not sufficient for making us act
● If they were then people with a shared belief would act the same- they do not
(smokers and non-smokers both believe that smoking is bad)
● Therefore moral judgements are not (or at least do not express) beliefs
● All versions of moral realism claim that moral judgements are beliefs, so moral
realism is false
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